He positioned himself so that he could pull it into place without lifting it, grabbed the edge, and started to give it a yank.
There was no trapdoor in the top of the elevator car.
Getting to it had not been a problem. The doors above were old and had been easy enough to pry open. A pair of rags the assassin had found, and tied around her hands, had allowed her to grab hold of the cable and slide down to the top of the car with little risk of injury.
The assassin had then crouched down, put her ear to the wood, and listened.
Silence.
Which was a good thing. It meant the car itself and the room beyond it was empty.
Unfortunately, the absence of a trapdoor made getting into that room a bit complicated.
Not that she minded. This was all part of the hunt. The part she so loved.
It took her less than thirty seconds to find a way in.
There was, she noticed, a gap on either side of the elevator car that would allow her to access the braking tracks. Untying the rags from her hands, she was able to use them to hook the elevator stops and pull the release.
As she had hoped, there was enough play in the cable that the car dropped half an inch. This was just enough to expose the top of the basement opening, the gap the perfect size for her to slip her fingertips through. Setting her feet firmly against the top of the car, she grabbed the lip of the opening and pulled upward, putting all of her strength into it.
The ancient cable groaned as it stuttered a few more inches down. She kept this up until she heard the next set of stop latches engage.
Using the same technique as before, she released them, then started pulling again. It didn’t take her long before the gap was wide enough for her to slip through.
The assassin smiled, feeling quite proud of herself. She took a quick look around, and spotted the tracks on the dusty floor, leading to the doorway. She was happy to see they continued into the hallway beyond, too.
Though there were several doorways along the corridor, light was only spilling out of one. The footsteps, however, didn’t go all the way to the light, instead stopping a doorway short.
The assassin listened at the closed door. More silence. As she was about to open it, she heard a noise from the next room down, the lit one.
She contemplated what to do for a moment, but knew she needed to make sure she left no potential problems behind her. So she abruptly changed course and continued down the hallway.
The light was actually coming through a window in the door. On the other side was a hallway with several more doors along it — a hallway that looked as if it saw far more traffic than the one she was in.
The source of the noise, she discovered, was a guard walking away from her down the hall.
The assassin gently took hold of the handle and tried to turn it. Locked. Just as she suspected. The part of the basement she was currently in was likely little used and mostly forgotten.
Good, then. Nothing to worry about.
She returned to the other door, and turned the knob. Within the first few inches of movement, it squeaked. She paused, listening again, but there was no noise indicating that someone had heard her on the other side. She continued pushing the door open, glad that the squeak didn’t return, and found herself in a dark corridor, save for some light spilling out of a doorway further back.
Choosing each step with care, the assassin moved quietly down the corridor. It turned out the light wasn’t coming out of a doorway so much as an arched opening in the wall that led into a wide room.
At the far end, on his hands and knees, looking at the floor, was the doctor.
No. Not looking at the floor.
Looking through it.
The tunnel entrance, she guessed. That would explain the absence of Powell and El-Hashim.
The doctor suddenly leaned further down, as if straining to see something. After several moments, he put a hand to his mouth. The assassin thought he was going to say something, but he sat back, his hand falling away.
Then she heard a voice. Faint, coming from…below the man.
Definitely the tunnel.
Dr. Teterya repositioned himself, and grabbed on to a grated metal plate sitting nearby. There was no question what he was about to do.
Before he could proceed, however, the assassin stepped into the room and said, “That actually won’t be necessary.”
One of the doctor’s hands slipped from the cover as he twisted around in surprise, throwing him off balance. He fell backward, and managed to miss tumbling through the hole only by inches.
The assassin was on him before he had the chance to get back on his feet.
“What…what are you doing down here?” he asked.
She smiled. “What does it look like I’m doing? I’m following you.”
His confusion lasted several more seconds, then his eyes widened in understanding. “It’s you, isn’t it?”
“Me, what?”
“You. You’re the one…you’re the one who—”
To answer his question, the assassin reached forward and dispatched him with the quick, deadly efficiency that had made her reputation.
After appropriating his flashlight, she took a look into the hole.
It was quiet down there, no sense of movement. She shone the light and moved it around. She could see that an area on the wet ground directly below had been disturbed very recently, the slowly advancing water already starting to reclaim it.
Someone had fallen, she thought.
Good. Maybe that’ll slow their progress.
The assassin climbed into the hole and used the cable to descend into the tunnel. Once her feet were firmly on the stone floor, she masked most of the light with her hand, paused, and listened.
Footsteps. Echoing back.
Coming from…
…the left.
Chapter Thirty-Three
“Building Three secure,” Danya said into his radio.
There was a hiss of static, then Plachkov, manning the desk at the prison control center, repeated in a bored monotone, “Building Three secure.”
“Moving to Building Two,” Danya said.
“Moving to Building Two.”
Danya Sosna had long ago stopped rolling his eyes when his messages were repeated back to him, and hardly even noticed it anymore. It was, after all, procedure. But tonight the practice grated on his nerves, like almost everything else.
Because tonight he wasn’t supposed to be here.
This was Danya’s night off. The one night every week he could spend in his beloved Ivanna’s bed and eat her wonderful dinners, two finely tuned skills that had always kept him coming back for more.
But instead of lying in Ivanna’s arms with a belly full of expertly prepared chee-börek, Danya was stuck here in this prison, forced to work another man’s shift.
This was all Vanko’s fault. Vanko, who, at the best of times, was a terrible card player and lovestruck fool. Vanko, who, for reasons unknown to anyone here, had decided not to report for duty tonight, and could not be found in his sleeping quarters.
Danya himself had tried calling the man, but the stupid fool hadn’t answered.
Where had he gotten to?
Danya could only guess. Saw him drunk and sprawled out on a mattress with some local whore, undoubtedly imagining that she was the object of his obsession, the lovely nurse Irina.
Danya hoped he was enjoying himself, because the money he had used to hire such companionship would soon be very hard to come by.
It wasn’t likely that Vanko would have a job after this.
Cursing the man’s name as he checked Building Two, Danya called it in, did the same for Building One, then made his way to Administration. He briefly chatted with the guards at the security point, airing his complaints about Vanko, before heading inside to check and double-check the doors and windows, as he had so many times before.