“Yeah, well not quick enough. You saw how fast that piece of work came at us.”
“We keep going the way he came at us maybe we can find Sveta and Zoe.”
“He probably already ate them. But it’s better than going the way he went.”
He probably already ate them.
Hauck tried to go faster.
It bothered Hauck that in spite of what just happened, the tunnel wasn’t much different than before the beast ran them over. The water was still filthy. It was still dark. It was silent. And they still seemed like they’d never get there. Except for his headache, it was like it had never happened.
The only thing different was this time the Instructor was in the lead and the monster was behind them.
Age before beauty doesn’t cover this, he thought.
Up ahead, the Instructor stopped at a bend in the tunnel and thrust one palm toward Hauck like a crossing guard.
“Did you hear something?” Hauck whispered into his microphone.
“No. We got light up ahead, rock star style. You stay here, I’ll check it out.”
The Instructor disappeared around the bend and Hauck realized that he was alone in the tunnel where they had just seen the beast.
“I’m coming up behind you,” he said.
“Come on up, Dorothy” said the Instructor. “We ain’t in Kansas anymore but I think we found Disneyworld.”
Chapter Thirty-one
Up again or back down?
Up high she could see what was happening. But the ladder didn’t lead to an exit. It stopped where the piping dog-legged across the room.
Sveta opted to keep climbing down. So far she’d seen only a handful of men on the floor of the laboratory complex. More were likely upstairs, but unless she could find an air vent before she got to the far side, she would just have to take her chances. She had a duffel full of firepower with her, and, after all that shooting, they might be low on bullets.
By the time she made it to ground level, she heard voices coming from the other side. The difference between gangsters and military trained operatives, she thought, was that criminals always started arguing soonest and loudest. At least she would know where they were.
One thing she didn’t have was a compass, and she doubted if she did have one that it would work because of all the electromagnetism. But she knew the rough layout of the place, even without knowing the actual north, south, east and west of it.
On a straight line between her and the stairs she had come down with Drogol and Zoe was the platform where the Tesla tube used to be. That was about half way. Roughly. The area between the long row of stairs and platform held what was left of Mishka’s men gathering. She could still hear them arguing with each other like vicious children. Which was what they were. Vicious children with guns.
Best to avoid them if she possibly could.
To her left as she faced the platform was the side where the beast had run at and burst through a section of the wall. She could follow along the edges of that wall until it curved in toward where the long stairs came down. If Mishka’s men didn’t guard the stairs or left only a single man, she would have her chance. However, she might meet the beast coming back through the tunnel.
The opposite wall to that was unknown territory. If where she came down the stairs originally was north, just for sake of calling it something, then the remaining wall of the complex would be east. That wall seemed the safest. With any luck, she might stumble on the ventilation system and not have to shoot it out for the stairs.
It worked in her favor that the light throughout the technology maze was less. The beast had knocked over towers and globes that lit the place with golden light. There were fewer power beams shooting overhead in their wireless grid. Sveta now had shadows to use as camouflage. She would be less of a target. This was the way that she loved to work. No night vision. No nano-cams. No microphones or wrist screens. No partners. She was on her own.
What is all this stuff? she wondered.
The complex really was like a giant science museum, but without signs explaining what each piece of equipment did. If she knew what some it did, she might be able to use it get out, but that wasn’t going to happen in the next few minutes. So no matter how wonderful or powerful these things were or whatever fantastic things they could do, to her they were only ground cover and bullet shields.
She heard only outbursts between the men near the long stairs, but she could no longer see them and moved carefully because she was not certain how many of them were left. Three to five seemed like the best guess. Leave two at the stairs, send the other three out hunting. A good way to do it, except for the monster that had killed their friends. No, Sveta was banking on them all staying near the stairs, however many of them there were. They’d be afraid to leave, but more afraid to stay. She could use that against them if she could just figure out how.
It took her a while to navigate her way over to the far wall. Once along the way she had almost fallen into a fifteen foot pit filled with a phosphorescent liquid that glowed and crackled with lightning-like charges throughout its depths. She grabbed onto a ceramic insulated copper rod to keep herself from falling in, and as she hung there for a moment, she thought that she was looking into a well of liquid lightning.
As she pulled herself back, she heard a faint scraping sound.
Shit.
With a deft, silent movement, she angled off, listening for another sound that would help her place her enemy. After moving ten feet or so, keeping behind a massive set of horizontal silver tubes resting on a skid, she heard what she was looking for. Now the question was go toward or away from whoever it was. The sooner she engaged, the faster her enemy could mount an organized response.
Move away.
As she was stepping over a rubberized black cable thick as a fallen tree trunk, she heard a pained whimper from the same direction. Probably injured. Maybe going to die. So what? Either way it didn’t help her get to the stairs. There was nothing she could do for the animal. Besides, no wolf was ever truly tame. If she went to check on it, it would probably attack her. They were Drogol’s pets, not hers.
Couldn’t do it though.
No good reason.
Just couldn’t do it.
Her sound suppressor was on her nine millimeter, so if it looked like the wolf was going to go berserk on her, she’d just shoot it. Best thing for them both.
She turned the corner of a gray motor control panel and there it was, lying on its side, panting like it was out of breath, looking up at her. One wolf looked like another, but she thought this animal looked very much like one of the two Drogol had shooed away. It was a magnificent animal, maybe three feet long and heavy-shouldered. Beautiful, expressive face. Maybe a hundred and fifty pounds. Sharp, long incisors.
The air was rich with the now familiar smell of wet fur and blood.
“You aren’t going to make any noise, are you?” she whispered.
The wolf, of course, said nothing.
“What’s wrong with you, big boy? Uh-oh. Can I see that paw?”
She moved closer and the wolf did nothing but continue to pant and stare at her with its hypnotic yellow eyes.
“Remember me? I’m the one was with Drogol, the big guy with the wild hair and the messed up beard. Thinks he’s Rasputin and talks about everything but what you ask him about. I came down here with him so I’m your friend, okay? I’m not going to hurt you.”
She knew what she was doing was stupid, but for some reason kept doing it anyway.
There was a piece of copper wire sticking straight up and through the animal’s paw. It couldn’t walk. If the wire wasn’t removed, the animal would eventually die. If she pulled the wire out and wrapped the wolf’s paw, then it would have a chance.
This is a really, really, stupid idea, she thought.
Wolves were intelligent, she knew. They had bigger brains than dogs. But they weren’t domesticated. She dropped her duffel and then lowered herself to sit
on the ground facing the wolf anyway. Her pistol dangled losing from her left hand while with her right she reached out very slowly to pet the animal. If it moved, she was going to have to shoot it. Maybe she should shoot it and get it over with.
But the wolf did nothing except lay there panting. After a tense moment, it allowed her to scratch behind its ears and talk softly to it. She moved back a bit to see what she could do. Maybe push it part way through, then pull it the rest of the way and try not to get her hand bitten off.
“Lay still, big dog. This will hurt a lot, but you can walk later and stay alive. And tell your other furry friends to leave me alone. Okay, you ready for this?”
As Sveta leaned forward, she slowly reached for the animal’s paw. When her fingertips touched it, its eyes suddenly widened and its lips pulled back in a throaty snarl.
A fast, easy trigger pull, and she’d shot the wolf in the head below its right eye. She stared at the blood and pieces of protruding bone.
One second we’re alive, she thought, and the next we’re dead.
“You should have listened to the wolf, woman,” said a raspy voice behind her. “Now drop the gun and turn around very slowly.”
*****
One man, alone. That’s all that’s behind me, she thought, and he’s standing too close.
Sveta put the pistol down on top of the wolf so the man behind her could see what was happening. Her other hand was blocked from his view, and she was in a squatting position, close enough to her ankle to pull free her knife. With a flick of her pistol hand she sent the handgun sliding off the wolf and onto the floor. Nothing threatening, just a millisecond distraction to allow her to spin and jam the knife into his abdomen.
And that’s what Sveta did. Driving it furiously through his abdominal muscles and into his intestines, she sawed straight upward. The sheer shock and terror of this action paralyzed his nervous system. He did not pull the trigger on his weapon, he did not pass go. The blood came out in a rush but she kept the serrated edge cutting up still further. She smelled his urine and her arm was soaked with his blood. She hooked the back of his knee with her free hand and pulled to topple him.
Sveta took the knife out. She thought what a wonderful invention the blood groove was. Without that groove, the body’s suction sometimes held on to the blade longer than field operatives liked. She wiped as much blood from the knife as she could on his pant legs, then slid it back into its sheath.
There was not much of use on his body.
She’d hoped for a communication link so she could hear what they were saying, but Mishka’s thugs weren’t all that high tech, it seemed. Big on guns, not so big on communications. Blast everything on sight and talk about it later. But she had all the weaponry she needed in her bag. After a moment’s reflection, she scotched that thought and took his pistol and ammunition. It was a good thing, really, that he wasn’t connected with a communication link. If he was and he didn’t respond on time, the others would know that something was up.
A last look at the dead wolf and she started out again.
Twenty minutes later she was moving along the wall toward her objective.
*****
Still difficult to tell how many of Mishka’s men were left.
Sticking her head around a steam boiler to take a look could reveal that she was still alive. Worse, it could get her shot right on the spot. She had to be more careful about this. The intermittent noise from light globes discharging and pressure relief valves releasing jolts of steam made it hard to hear sometimes. No way the man she’d ripped open would’ve been able to come at her without her hearing something normally.
Sometimes the underground equipment was completely quiet, and she could hear fragments of the men’s conversations. Talk like: “I see that thing again I’m going to blow it the fuck apart.”
Then the lucky break.
She came upon a giant brass and glass gauge the size of the Winchester Cathedral clock. It stood at a ninety degree angle between her and the bottom area of the stairs where Mishka’s men congregated. She dropped down to her knees again to see if she could catch their reflection in the glass, which, although not polished after so many years of neglect underground, might still allow her to see exactly how many men there were.
There was a metal cabinet knocked over on the floor ahead, and if she pulled herself along on her belly, she could stay prone and keep behind it. Spotters looked for intruders at eye level. It was a natural human tendency. Sveta removed anything that could scrape against the brick floor, and then began pulling herself along.
It was a painful way to move, mostly because of her overwhelming fear of being shot in the back while she inched along the bricks. To occupy her mind, she remembered slithering through the mud in basic training while live rounds whistled over her. While she remembered, she keened her ears to anything that would tell her she’d been seen. By the time she made it to the metal cabinet, sweat beaded along her back and she felt as if she’d run five miles with a sixty pound pack strapped to her.
She risked a glance up at the huge gauge and saw three men smoking cigarettes, their automatic weapons slung carelessly from their shoulders. None of them had either hand near the trigger guard. Idiots. Amateurs. Good targets.
Three men out in the open.
Three clean shots.
Easy enough.
She rested for a moment, and slowed her breathing. They’d have to be dropped before they could get off a shot or anyone upstairs, if there was anyone upstairs, would hear the shots. But Sveta didn’t think there was anyone upstairs, because no one had come running down for support when the beast attacked. They could be outside, though, on the streets. Still, more men should have come down. They’d been here a long time.
She waited and risked another glance up at the gauge. It would have to be done soon, because if she could see their reflection, they just might be able to see hers. Another calming breath and she moved smoothly to a crouch and rested her pistol on the cabinet.
That was when it went wrong.
Something inside the cabinet started pounding and then shouting.
“Is anyone out there? Anyone? I’m locked inside and can’t get out.”
It was just loud enough that the men started. They were in motion toward the sound and they saw her instantly.
Sveta began firing.
The first man went down with a headshot. She took out the second the same way. Couldn’t risk a body shot in case they were wearing protective armor.
She clipped the third man’s ear. He screamed and reached for the side of his head. Sveta was up and running toward him. His AK swung crazily at his side while he tried to staunch the blood.
His eyes widened when he saw her, and he pulled his hands away from his head reaching for his weapon.
Her next bullet caught him in the side of the throat and he dropped, but still writhed on the floor. He’d rolled over and was on his stomach squirming; now pressing his hand to the side of his neck.
Sveta moved to his side and finished him off with a shot to the back of his head. Blood pooled out beneath him and she took a deep breath.
That son of a bitch in the cabinet. His fault the way it went down. And she thought she knew the voice.
After snapping another magazine into her pistol, she went back to the cabinet and kicked it so hard she felt shock all the way up to her hip.
“Hey, Mishka, is that you in there?” she yelled.
“Who … who … Sveta, is that you?”
“It’s me.”
“Get me out of here. I locked myself in. There’s no latch in here to open it from the inside.”
“Are you sure you can’t get out?” she said.
“Yes I’m sure. Do you think I’d still be here if I could get out?”
“Is air getting inside?”
“Maybe. I don’t know,” he said. “I’m still alive so I guess there is. But I’ve been knocked out since that monster shoved this thing over. I hit my head and I
think it’s bleeding.”
“I can hear you so that means there must be some air getting through. Can’t you find any way at all to get out, cousin?”
“No, I told you I’m completely sealed in.”
“Good,” she said, and started walking back toward the stairs.
Then the breath exploded out of her lungs as someone slammed into her back and flattened her. Her face hit the bricks and she saw lights. She felt her nose flatten and fill with blood.
She heard someone scream, “Bitch,” and felt a pair of knees press against her back.
Something hard pushed against her skull and then the weight fell away from her. Confused, she tried to clear her head, but her body reacted first, her hands reached under her chest and pressed upward to get her to her knees.
A severed head rolled in front of her and she blinked.
“He was right,” she heard a gravelly voice say. “It’s a pretty good sword. I like it.”
Chapter Thirty-two
Sveta wiped blood away from her nose with the back of her hand and got to her feet.
She saw two men, both dressed in black like field operatives, one tall and good looking with dark hair and a hard, careful face and the other a short, extraordinarily muscled older man with smooth skin and deep set eyes.
“Who are you?” she asked.
Her eyes looked for the pistol she had dropped as she spoke and she took a step toward where it fell.
“Uh-uh,” said the older man with a smile, and, with a quick movement he used the tip of his sword to slide the pistol to his feet.
“Hauck sent us,” said the taller man.
Her face went dark.
“To save you,” said the man quickly.
“You lie,” said Sveta. “I turned on him. Hauck wants me dead.”
The taller man looked uncomfortable.
“If he wanted you dead, you’d already be dead,” he said. “The fact that you’re alive says we were here to help.”
“Shove your finger up right under your nose and push,” said the shorter man. “It’ll stop the bleeding.”
Tainted Blood Page 24
