Phantom Prospect

by Alex Archer

  There was a pause. “You’ll know when we tell you and not a moment before, Annja.”

  She frowned. They knew her name, as well. She wasn’t all that surprised, but it was one more thing that annoyed her. She didn’t like the other side knowing everything about her and her not knowing a damned thing.

  “Time to eat again, Annja. Enjoy it.”

  She turned as the shutter went up and the tray and a fresh bottle of water came through the opening.

  The shutter closed again. She had underestimated them. They knew that being a prisoner she’d try to make her escape during mealtimes. And they’d kept her distracted while this one was delivered.

  Annja looked at the plate of beef stew and French bread. There was a chocolate-chip cookie for dessert.

  And the water.

  Annja devoured her dinner. She was ravenous and realized that her body might be overcompensating for the stress and pressure of being held captive. She knew that there were a lot of different physiological reactions that could occur when a person was taken prisoner. Her system always seemed to demand food.

  But Annja wouldn’t let herself get duped again.

  She finished the stew and the last piece of bread, using it to mop of the bits of gravy and small pieces of beef and carrots that had been left on the plate. She chewed slowly, relishing the last bite of the meal, which, she had to admit, was pretty damned good for prison food.

  The chocolate-chip cookie had obviously been made recently and it was soft, her favorite. Annja frowned. Hello Stockholm Syndrome, she thought. I’ve been here less than a day and I’m already starting to find myself grateful to them for cooking me such nice meals.

  It wasn’t the exact definition of Stockholm Syndrome, but Annja knew that they were toying with her mind.

  Fine, she decided. Let them. The next time mealtime comes around, I will get the hell out of here and find out what is really going on.

  Heaven help them then, she thought with a smirk.

  After dinner, Annja used the pail for the first time—after she shut the light off. It was an awkward and humiliating experience, but necessity demanded it.

  She dozed for an hour or two, keeping herself partially primed to any sounds that might signal a change in procedure. She expected it, since they would know she might have figured out their initial routine by now.

  If they were going to alter things, then she wanted to be ready for it. And this time, she’d have the sword out when they came with her food.

  Still in the dark, she crawled back to the door and used her hands to explore the shutter. Even though it was locked shut, she could tell it opened to the other side of the door. That meant that the shutter could be lifted up and the meal tray slid through.

  But this time, Annja would be sliding her sword through instead.

  The trick would be to grab the hand as it came through the shutter and then use that to gain leverage.

  She frowned. But what then? She couldn’t very well hold them in place and tell them to open her door at the same time. In order to do that, she’d have to give up her control and trust that they would.

  And why the hell would they do that?

  Annja slumped over and sighed. There had to be a better way.

  She looked back at the shutter. It was large enough to accommodate the pail but not by much. Annja was slim and lithe, but she wouldn’t be able to wriggle through that opening.

  She had to make it bigger.

  Annja summoned her sword and set to work on the shutter. She expected that it would probably have been locked with just a simple bolt. But she had to be careful. If they heard any noise in her cell, she would have visitors soon enough.

  And she didn’t yet know if they could turn the lights on and off without her consent.

  She had to risk it.

  Annja braced the tip of the sword at the edge of the shutter and then stabbed at the opening. The blade striking the metal shutter produced a loud metallic clanging sound that made Annja wince.

  They had to have heard that, she thought.

  But nothing happened and no voice came over the intercom. Maybe they weren’t paying attention to her cell right now. Maybe they were preoccupied with someone else.

  Annja bent back to the door and rammed the sword blade at the shutter. She heard a clink and then the bolt snapped off and the shutter flew open.

  She dropped to her knees and peered through the shutter. The corridor outside was dimly lit with bulbs set into the stonework at intervals of maybe thirty feet. They cast long shadows and Annja couldn’t see much beyond the range of their light. As it was, her head barely fit through the opening.

  But it had been a glimpse of the outside world. And she felt stronger now that she’d managed to get something they didn’t want her to have.

  I have to get out of here now, she thought. Even if they didn’t hear her, they might get suspicious if I sleep for too long.

  She looked at the edges of the opening and saw that the stone seemed solid enough. But she figured if she could enlarge the opening perhaps by a few inches all around, she’d be able to squirm through and then get the hell out of Dodge.

  It was worth a try.

  It hadn’t been that long since her last meal. That meant the time to act was now.

  She pressed the sword’s blade on a stone edge and started almost shaving the stone away. At first, nothing happened, but once Annja used her shoulder to put more weight on the blade itself, small flecks of rock started flaking away.

  She started sweating. This was going to be a long haul.

  But Annja had little time to consider the exertion required. She kept working on the stone on all sides, using the blade to whittle away at the opening. A small pile of stone and dust started building up both within her cell and on the floor of the corridor outside.

  She sighed. It would have been so much easier if she could have somehow accessed the bolt that held her door locked. But she couldn’t reach that high and the shutter restricted any movement above based on how it had been positioned.

  No, Annja would have to finish this or die trying.

  As she cut deeper into the stone, larger chunks started coming off. She was worried that the constant chipping sound would alert her captors, but they hadn’t yet interrupted her. And Annja was determined not to give them any breaks.

  She coughed once and thought she heard something, but after a second, she resumed her work. Another large bit of stone came away in her hands and she saw that she’d actually made a bit of progress.

  Annja laid the sword down and tried to squeeze herself through the opening. She had to force one of her shoulders through first and then awkwardly bring the other one along.

  It was risky at this point because if anyone came down the corridor, she was trapped.

  But no one did.

  Annja got herself halfway out. She used her feet still in the cell to give her more leverage to push her hips through. Her butt was squeezed up against the top of the jagged opening and she was worried her pants might get caught.

  She pushed as hard as she could and fell out into the corridor.

  She was free.

  Annja reached back into the cell and grabbed her sword, pulling it out into the dim light of the corridor.

  She glanced left and right and remembered that the noises earlier had all originated from the right side.

  Time to go find out what this is all about, she thought.

  She headed off, sword in hand, to do just that.

  28

  Annja stalked down the corridor, expecting at any moment to hear an alarm go off. If her captors could control the lights and switched them on, they’d see she had escaped.

  There was also the expectation that another meal would be coming. She might well run into the person who fed her.

  What a nice surprise that will be for them, she thought.

  The corridor sloped upward at a gentle angle. Annja noticed that there seemed to be a constant stream of water
running down sections of the walls. Where the walls met the floor, small troughs had been carved to help funnel the water down and away, presumably to some sort of drainage system.

  But it made Annja wonder exactly where she might be if there was so much of it running throughout the complex. She figured she must have been in some underwater cavern.

  She tried to remember if she’d ever heard of underwater caves off the Nova Scotia coast before and couldn’t. But then again, she’d never really wondered if there were any. For all she knew, there could be vast amounts of them.

  Her sword gleamed and Annja kept moving, preferring to stay close to the walls rather than out in the middle of the corridor. She tried to keep her shadow behind her, but with each light she approached and then passed, her shadow would move.

  She stopped suddenly.

  Ahead of her she could have sworn she heard something out of rhythm with the rest of the ambient noise in the corridor.

  Annja checked her position. The corridor curved around to the right and she was in a good position to surprise anyone coming at her. The next light was about twenty feet in front of her and cast her shadow behind her body. There was nothing that could give her position away unless she did something to make noise.

  Annja stilled her breathing.

  She heard the sound again.

  There was definitely something up ahead of her. But who? Or what?

  She knelt down and risked a quick peek around the corner. She saw a shadow and ducked back. In the glimpse, she’d made out someone about six feet tall. And he was armed and walking toward her.

  He wasn’t carrying a meal tray.

  Annja waited until the very last possible second and then as the muzzle of his submachine gun came around the curve, Annja grabbed it and jerked him forward.

  The man went with the momentum and tucked himself into a roll, bringing the gun up across his body to protect it and simultaneously get a bead on Annja. Annja came cutting down at him with the blade.

  He pivoted and used the gun to deflect her stroke. Annja tried to recoil and bring the blade back up and across at his chest, but he scrambled away, coming up on his feet as the hilt of Annja’s sword bounced off his gun.

  She heard something clink on the floor, and as the man tried to bring the gun up level with her, he squeezed the trigger and frowned.

  Nothing happened.

  Annja didn’t wait for him to correct the problem. She slashed down at him. He gave up trying to fire the gun and used it to knock her blade away from him. Annja’s sword went flying across the floor. The man punched Annja in the stomach. Annja fell back gagging and retching.

  She couldn’t get any air into her lungs.

  The man was a highly trained fighter. He aimed a kick at her head and Annja barely had a second to dodge it before he caught her with another one in the lower back. Annja felt the steel toes of his boots sink into her kidneys and she grunted.

  But then she rolled back, trapping his legs and lifting to toss him onto his backside. She came up, still trying to catch her breath. He punched at her but Annja brushed his strikes away, going for a sharp knee to his groin. She caught him and he grunted, knocking his head against Annja’s upper lip. Annja felt the lip balloon into some swollen mess. She reached for her sword blade, which was still about ten feet away.

  He tackled her around the waist and then dragged her away from it. Annja scrambled to get her feet under her, looking for any purchase she could find on the damp floor of the corridor.

  She felt his hands clawing at her and then managed to get one foot under her. She drove off her other leg and fell forward as he refused to give up the fight.

  Annja turned around and raked his face with her fingernails. He winced as blood streamed. Annja kicked again and, this time, he backed off a little.

  Annja summoned her sword to her and at last wrapped her hands around the hilt. She sensed movement behind her as the man came up with his submachine gun and fumbled with it for a moment.

  Annja dived to the right as the explosion of bullets swept across the corridor, ricocheting off the stone walls.

  Annja threw the sword and heard the sudden intake of breath as it sank into the man’s stomach and pierced his vital organs.

  He coughed and spit blood across the wall.

  The shooting stopped.

  Annja’s ears rang and her head screamed in protest at the horrible noise. But she quickly drew out her sword as the man sank to his knees and then toppled forward, dead.

  A pool of blood spread out from his body and then ran into the trough on the left side, quickly mixing with the water and sliding away toward the drainage area.

  Annja wiped her brow and took quick stock of her own injuries. Her lip was a swollen mess and her kidneys hurt like hell, but she was alive.

  Apart from the sudden barrage of gunshots, there’d been little noise during the entire fight aside from the grunts and sounds of exertion. It always amazed Annja how little noise occurred in hand-to-hand combat. No one screamed or yelled or did any of the craziness that happened in martial-arts movies.

  Usually it was quick, dirty, sweaty stuff that left one person dead and the other alive, for better or for worse.

  Annja hefted her sword and used some of the water running down a nearby wall to wash the man’s blood off.

  She dragged her victim’s body behind the curve where she’d waited for him before the fight. It wouldn’t do for long, but it might keep his corpse concealed for a few minutes.

  Of course, the entire complex had probably heard the gunfire and knew something was wrong. The fact that more people hadn’t come rushing had her somewhat confused. Annja had expected instant backups to fly at her from wherever the corridor led.

  But no one had.

  She wondered if the sound had even reached them. Perhaps due to the construction of this facility, sound didn’t echo or bounce along as it might elsewhere? She didn’t know. Acoustics weren’t something she knew much about. One thing was certain. She had to reach the end of the corridor and see where she was. Annja took off again, walking up the slope toward a dim light she could see at its summit.

  It took her three more minutes of fast walking to reach it, but as she came abreast of the zenith, she started hearing more noise. She picked out loud machines that hummed and heavy industrial gear from the sound of it.

  Annja paused and sank down to her knees to get a better picture of what was going on beyond.

  Bright light greeted her, making her blink rapidly. Her eyes had been so used to the dim light that the sudden rush of illumination hurt her head. Annja looked back and blinked to further acclimate her eyes.

  What she saw amazed her.

  She was overlooking the vast expanse of a stone cavern that was filled with all manner of machinery. One of the things she thought she recognized was a huge drill that seemed to be boring right into the base of a giant stone.

  In the lower part of the cavern, Annja could see scores of people working on a variety of geological contraptions. Across from them, she saw a dock and, floating in water, she spotted several submarines and two giant sharks.

  Two of them?

  Annja frowned. Where the hell was she? And whatever she’d stumbled upon, it was obviously well financed. To get this type of machinery and gear down here, let alone employ so many people in whatever processes were ongoing, would take enormous sums of money.

  Who had that kind of financing available to them? Sheila had mentioned Henderson. Was she lying or was there really a man named Henderson who was fronting this entire operation. Surely this wasn’t just about some crucifix. They wouldn’t need resources like this just to recover a sunken relic.

  No way.

  Annja looked around and saw more armed guards on patrol overlooking various parts of the cavern. But the machinery noise was so loud, Annja wasn’t surprised that the guard she’d killed hadn’t attracted any notice. No one would have heard the gunfire from the main cavern.

  The a
rea where Annja knelt opened onto a ledge that seemed to run all the way around the cavern. It was on this catwalk of sorts that Annja spotted the other guards.

  And across from her, she could see a glass-enclosed control room. She noticed a series of monitors and computers.

  If she was going to get any answers as to what was happening here, she would have to reach that spot.

  But what had happened to Cole? Was he here? Were there other cells back where she’d been held?

  Annja wanted nothing more than to go and check, but her gut instinct told her that Cole wasn’t back there. Something inside her insisted that he was still alive, but where?

  She saw soon enough.

  A break in the machinery din caused her to look down and to the right when she thought she heard a laugh. As she did, she saw Cole strapped to a board, arms and legs akimbo.

  A guard nearby held a long wand that crackled at the end. Annja recognized the Taser and wondered why they were torturing Cole when, to her knowledge, he had no idea what was going on.

  She saw the guard touch the device to Cole’s chest and watched as Cole arched his back in agony. The voltage was not enough to kill him, but they could make him suffer for hours until he mercifully passed out or had a heart attack as his body gave up.

  I’ve got to get to him, she thought. But a quick glance around the catwalk told Annja that reaching Cole would entail her taking on half a dozen armed men who were presumably very well trained if the first guard she’d encountered was any indication.

  Those weren’t good odds for Annja.

  She leaned back and took a deep breath. Could she possibly reach the control room? That would mean she’d have to expose herself.

  She looked around and tried to figure out how people were able to get down to the lower levels. Clearly, this area led up to the catwalk, but what about going in the opposite direction? Would that lead Annja down to where Cole was?

  She had to try.

  Annja ran back the way she’d come. She wasn’t worried about running into anyone there. Her feeling was the prisoner cells were positioned so that someone could get to them from either the top level or from the bottom.