Her instincts about Powell had proven to be correct. And her decision to keep close tabs on the woman had led her to the exact place she needed to be, at the exact moment she needed to be there.
She had assumed there was some sort of escape plan in the works, and listening at her cell door as the doctor and Powell spoke had confirmed this.
The assassin had waited until she was sure everyone was gone, then had pushed the button to call for help. And while she often got a kick out of scaring the crap out of people, sometimes even hurting them — slowly — in the process, she knew tonight was not the night to indulge her baser desires. Prolonging the nurse’s terror would only keep the assassin from the task at hand.
And time was of the essence.
After telling the nurse to find a flashlight, she followed her down a hallway into the storage room, and immediately became suspicious. “This is the way?”
“The tunnel starts in one of the basements.”
“So why are we in here?”
The nurse gestured to a set of double doors at the rear of the room. “Elevator for supplies,” she said, looking even more frightened than before. “It will take you to the proper basement. But…but it can only be operated if there is a person at each end.”
The assassin nodded, then went to the doors and tried them.
Locked.
“Why won’t they open?”
“The elevator car must not be here,” the nurse said. “They remain locked if it’s on another floor. For safety.”
The assassin examined the doors for several seconds before turning again to the nurse. “And once you get to the bottom, where is the tunnel entrance?”
“I’m not sure. I’ve never been down there. Symon…Dr. Teterya said it’s in one of the rooms close by. That’s all I know.”
“You’ve never seen it?”
“No.”
Disappointing, the assassin thought, but not the end of the world.
Smiling again, she thanked the nurse, and for a moment the poor girl looked relieved. The assassin let her hold on to that feeling for a few seconds, then reached out and snapped her neck.
Never one to disrespect the dead, she gently laid the nurse on the floor, out of the way.
Then she returned her attention to the elevator doors.
Chapter Thirty-Two
It took them a couple minutes — and more than a few grunts and groans — to finally pull the grated cover free and drop it to the stone floor.
Alex retrieved her flashlight, flicked it on, and shone it through the hole they’d just uncovered.
The opening was a cement cylinder about three feet long, stopping where the roof of the tunnel began. As she’d been warned, it was a leg-breaking drop down to a damp floor. The tunnel walls seemed to be oozing water. The passageway was so old and decrepit it was leaking groundwater.
Badly.
There was no missing the smell, either — dank and tinged with rot.
The cable the doctor had mentioned was embedded in the cylinder about half a foot up from the bottom. What it had been used for, there was no telling, but Alex did notice three other evenly spaced points around the tube where other cables had most likely been anchored.
She pulled herself back up, and stuffed the flashlight into her pocket. “I’ll go first,” she said, looking at El-Hashim. “Wait until I’m down, then you start. The trickiest part will be shimmying down the tube. Take it as slow as you need to, and make sure you have a good grip on the cable before you commit yourself. When you reach the end, I’ll be there to help you.”
El-Hashim peered into the hole. She looked as if she were unsure she could actually do this, but she said nothing.
Alex turned to Teterya. “Thank you, Doctor. After you help her into the hole, your job is done.”
She held out her hand for him to shake. He hesitated, then took it.
“You are welcome. Please not to come back.”
Alex grinned. “I promise.”
Alex swung her legs into the opening and moved down, bracing herself against the cement. Reaching the cable, she grabbed on, then carefully relaxed the tension that was holding her body in the tube. As her legs dropped down she swung a bit from side to side, so she hooked a foot around the end of the cable to arrest the movement.
Hand over hand she lowered herself until she was just a few feet from the end of the line. She peeked down to get a glimpse of the tunnel floor, but without the use of the flashlight, all she saw was black. Hoping there was no stone beneath her that might trip her up, she bent her knees in anticipation of absorbing the shock, and let go.
Barely a second passed before her feet touched the ground. She started to fall to the side, but a quick hand to the stone floor helped her maintain her balance.
She pulled out her flashlight, turned it on, and looked up at the hole in the ceiling. “All right. Come on down.”
She could see only shadowy movement as El-Hashim entered the tube, but could clearly hear the woman’s nervous breathing. At one point, a short cry of surprise echoed through the chamber, and Alex was sure El-Hashim would come crashing down on her. But whatever had prompted the noise, El-Hashim seemed to have gotten things under control, and was soon lowering herself down the cable.
“Just a bit more,” Alex said, “and I can grab your feet.”
“There’s not much cable left.”
“It’s okay. You can go all the way to the end of it if you need to.”
“I’m not sure. I don’t want to—”
“Don’t worry. Just a few more inches.”
The surprised cry again, this time lasting as long as it took for El-Hashim to fall through the air and land in Alex’s not quite ready arms.
Alex staggered back a step, before slipping on the wet stone and falling to the ground. The flashlight skittered away, its beam spinning around a few times then settling on an unhelpful view down the tunnel.
“Are you okay?” Alex asked.
El-Hashim’s hips lay across Alex’s stomach, while her shoulders and head were tipped back against the floor of the tunnel. She groaned, then twisted as she tried to push herself up. “I think so.”
Alex scooted out from under her and climbed to her feet. She could feel the aches from the spots that she was sure would bruise later, but the pain in her shoulder, which had taken the brunt of El-Hashim’s fall, was the worst. She moved it around, trying to stretch it out, and hoped that nothing was torn inside.
When this job was over, she was going to need a month’s stay in the VA hospital to recover.
She reclaimed the flashlight, and turned back to El-Hashim, pleased to see the woman had risen to her feet again.
“Ready?” Alex asked.
“Yes. Please, let’s go.”
Alex consulted the hand-drawn map again, and started down the tunnel.
When doctor Teterya heard the crash, he looked down the hole, but could only see the beam of the woman’s flashlight along an empty patch of the tunnel floor. He was about to call out to them when he heard them speak.
They were all right. Of course, if they weren’t, what would he have done? He certainly wouldn’t have crawled down the cable. There would have been no way for him to get back.
No, the moment they descended into the tunnel, they were out of his hands.
Thank. God.
Never again would he agree to something like this.
He stood up. There was still much to do. The infirmary needed to look like a violent escape had occurred, then he and Irina would take sedatives so they could later be found unconscious. A bruise or two wouldn’t hurt, either, though he wasn’t looking forward to that part.
But first he had to get the damn cover back over the hole.