All Dimitri heard was the inside of his head steadily telling him to finish the bastard.
Pierce shoved back, letting out a series of shouts that sounded more like desperate pleas. The screwdriver angled lower toward the chest. Dimitri was driving for the heart, the soft spot between the rib cage and sternum. The angle of the drive put Pierce in an unwinnable position. His arms were going weak.
The end of the screwdriver penetrated through the fabric lining of Pierce’s flak vest. Dimitri twisted the screwdriver deep into the man’s chest cavity and through the top portion of his left lung. Pierce kicked his legs out wildly as Dimitri drove the screwdriver through to the other side of the lung’s lining, which began filling with blood.
Pierce’s body went into a frenzy, choking and seizing as the last bit of life left.
Hanna stepped back, moved across the room and past the body, and found a safe corner away from the carnage. Dimitri relinquished his grip as Pierce expired into stillness. Dimitri fell back, almost in shock at himself. He looked down at his bloody hands, slowly coming to terms that he had just taken another man’s life. It was self-defense, he thought.
Hanna slid down the bumpy tiled wall to the floor. Her legs were wobbly, and she couldn’t stand. Her breath was short with panic. She fought the urge to vomit. The adrenaline seemed to be dissipating, and the reality of the moment began to settle in. Dimitri looked back at the dead Pierce before him. He had never killed a man before. This was the second time he had seen someone die before his eyes. His brother had died just a few years prior. He had sat by his side as he took his last breaths in hospice. Dimitri wasn’t much of a religious person, but he felt a duality of spirituality. If there was a time to find God, now would have been his time. He sank back into the adjacent wall to Hanna. He reflected on his life and his mistakes.
Hanna’s breathing sounded loud across the small laboratory. She was still in utter shock over what had just happened. Dimitri seemed quiet. She wasn’t sure what to make of his silence. Is he going to kill me next?
“Why? Why would you do that?” she asked.
Dimitri said nothing. He was still trapped in his moment of realization.
“Why would you do something like that? You didn’t have to kill him,” she continued.
His absence from the reality of the moment seemed to anger her the most.
“Why, Dimitri?” she shouted out.
“Why what?” he burst out, silencing her. “I had no choice!”
Hanna hung on his reply, trying to see if it had any context in reality. He could have let him go. She agonized over this.
A somber silence took over the laboratory for several minutes as the heart rates started to settle back to a sensible pace. However, neither of them knew what to say. The ghost of the dead Pierce still lingered. There wasn’t a good way to move on from this moment.
Dimitri was the first to break the silence. He kept his head down. His words were in the present; his mind was years away. “My brother and I used to go to this lake near our farm when we were children. Been to that lake a thousand times. This one day during the winter, the lake had frozen solid. He wanted to cross it. I was too afraid,” Dimitri recalled.
Hanna watched as he relived the moment in his head. She struggled to find a comparison. She sat quietly and allowed Dimitri to get to his point.
“I remember the sound of the ice cracking underneath my brother’s feet. He slipped underneath the ice. I could hear him screaming, but I was so afraid. I just stood there. Did nothing. My father came racing out, dashed across the ice, and pulled my brother out. His lungs were filled with frozen water. He didn’t die that day, but I did. His health was never the same after that. He was sick his entire life, and it was my fault.”
“I know where I was this morning,” she replied. “I was driving my daughter, Emily, to her father’s house.”
Dimitri finally removed his eyes from the man he had just killed and looked over toward Hanna, who was sitting across the room from him. There was a moment of empathy on both sides.
“I was a horrible wife and mother. I was never around. I put my career first,” said Hanna. “I just wish I could hold my baby one more time. I don’t think I’ll have that chance now.”
Dimitri looked back toward the body. The screwdriver was still protruding from Pierce’s chest.
“I can get that elevator open. I can get you to the tunnels. There are breakaway shafts you can use to get outside of the mined parameter of the base. They go out about a kilometer under the desert floor and up a few stories. It will take you back to the north side of the base.”
Hanna knew exactly what Dimitri was talking about. Originally used as escape and evacuation tunnels in case the Russians attacked during the Cold War, the breakaway shafts were thought to be sealed up toward the end of Ronald Reagan’s presidency.
Dimitri leaned forward and pulled the screwdriver from Pierce’s chest. He glanced back to Hanna as the sound of ripping flesh dissipated.
“Grab whatever tools you can. We’re not coming back here.”
Hanna glanced upward to the wrench. It was still lying on the countertop above her head. It was heavy, but it could make a good weapon.
PART THREE
The Digs
CHAPTER 14
Two outlines scuttled out from a doorway and slowly crept toward the ambient light that was barely on in front of them. Hanna and Dimitri struggled down the hallway, slowly making their way back to the elevator. A buzzing sound came from the overhead fluorescents. They had been on for years but somehow managed to hang on for a few more moments, lighting the space with a dim flicker that only seemed to accentuate the hallway’s never-ending creepiness.
Those lights last forever, she thought. She was thankful they did.
A layer of dust hung in the room without a place to go. It was a remnant of Russell’s escape earlier on. There was no airflow, and it felt as if they were going deeper into the abyss. Dimitri fell to his knee. He was really starting to dip in strength. His body was soaked with sweat. His face was bluish and pale but felt hot like fire. He broke his fall on a wooden crate that was stacked with withering cardboard boxes. There were extra lighting tubes for the ceiling, but only a few were left.
Hanna attempted to help Dimitri’s heavy body from the floor. However, gravity did not want to cooperate. On the first attempt, the man slid right through Hanna’s skinny arms and back to the dusty floor. She moved behind him and lifted him back up from behind. The duo slid across the floor for a few minutes before Dimitri was able to stabilize and stand upright. The effort took its toll on Hanna. She leaned down to catch her breath.
A heavy door swung open. Hanna and Dimitri exited into another dark, cavernous space. It felt familiar. It was an area Hanna had been before. This was where they had left her last time. She knew the layout better than Dimitri did, and she slowly pushed ahead of him.
Only the two separate flashlights they wielded illuminated the space. Dimitri still wore his head lamp. He needed his hands free. With his condition quickly deteriorating, he lumbered through the space, grabbing hold of and leaning against anything he could find for support.
Hanna stepped through the room and shone her flashlight to the floor. What the hell is that? There was a puddle of fresh blood. Maybe it was Russell’s or Gail’s. She couldn’t help but feel the guilt of knowing more than they did and withholding so much. Maybe I could have told them earlier.
She grabbed Dimitri’s arm and helped him take a seat on a three-foot-tall concrete traffic wall that was used to protect a large water filtration tank. He sighed for a moment, wiping the sweat and grit from his face. His pale skin was hard to ignore, and it seemed to glow in the darkness. He laughed, coughed heavily, and looked out toward something with irony. A few feet away was yet another hallway, which led to the freight elevator. It never ends.