Alex rolled with it, popping onto her hands and knees, then rapidly to her feet. Frida was already up, looking like she was about to run. Fortunately, Alex had ended up between her and El-Hashim.
“So you were faking it all the time, huh?” Alex said.
Frida snickered. “And you weren’t?”
“The fights? The injuries?”
“It’s not hard to get into a fight in a prison. Of course, I couldn’t always rely on others. Sometimes I had to inflict a little of my own pain.”
Through the indirect light of the flashlight beam, Alex could see Frida smile. The woman’s gaze flicked down the tunnel in the direction El-Hashim had gone, then back at her.
“That’s right,” Alex said. “You’re not getting to her unless you get through me.”
“Good,” Frida told her. “I wouldn’t want it any other way.”
She charged again. No yell this time, no scream.
Only focused anger in her eyes.
Cooper ran as fast as he could through the wet tunnel. He could hear splashes ahead, and what sounded like shouts and grunts. It all added up to one thing in his mind — a fight.
It was only a few more seconds before he realized there was something odd about the sounds. The big splashes and fighting noises seemed to be originating from a fixed point, but there were other splashes, rhythmic—splash-splash, splash-splash—coming closer and closer.
Someone was headed his way. If the tunnel didn’t have a slight bend, he was sure he would have seen them by now.
He stopped and raised his gun, filling the tunnel ahead with the beam of his light.
There were no breaks in the pace of the splashes, and now that they were right around the corner, he could hear heavy breathing, too.
Instead of continuing, however, the splashes came to an abrupt stop, just out of sight.
“Who’s there?” Cooper called out.
When no one responded, he took a few steps forward, his gun ready.
“I said, who’s there?”
Still nothing.
Instead of walking forward this time, he ran, hoping to surprise whoever it was. As soon as his flashlight beam fell on the woman around the curve, she turned and started to go the other way.
“Stop!” he ordered. “I’m armed.”
For half a second, he thought maybe she didn’t speak English, but then she halted. He approached her, stopping just outside of arm’s reach.
“Turn around.”
Slowly, she did as asked.
She was blonde, wearing a black shirt and pants. Maybe not quite middle-aged, but working on it.
“Who are you?” he asked.
She hesitated, then said in a heavy French accent, “Marie.”
“What are you doing here?”
“That is not business of you.”
Though he knew he’d never met her before, there was something familiar about her.
“Did you come with Alex?”
“Alex?”
Her answer was a tad too quick for his liking. There was also something in her eyes, a forced innocence.
Her eyes.
They were brown, which didn’t exactly go with her hair — assuming her hair was naturally blonde.
Still, it was her eyes that were familiar. Why?
Another shout from down the tunnel broke into his thoughts.
Alex. She had to be involved with whatever was going on down there.
He grabbed the woman’s arm.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“You’re coming with me.”
Whoever she was, he wasn’t about to let her get past him until he found out. But Alex came first.
Pulling her after him, he headed toward the fight.
“Please,” she said. “My leg. I cannot go so fast.”
“You were doing all right a minute ago. Pick it up.”
There was a small S curve in the tunnel. When they came out of it, there was a light about sixty feet away, low and focused on the wall. He could still hear the fight, but couldn’t see anyone.
Then suddenly two shadows danced into the beam. They struggled with each other, twisting and turning, pulling and punching.
“Alex!” he called out.
The fighters, both women, paused and looked toward him.
“Cooper?”
Alex’s voice. But he wasn’t sure which one it had come from, their silhouettes far from distinct.
Before he could answer her, the fight resumed.
He let go of the blonde woman. “Don’t move,” he told her, and raised his gun.
Because he couldn’t tell who was who, there was no way he could shoot Alex’s opponent, but he might be able to stop them for longer than a second.
Aiming the barrel in the direction he’d just come, he pulled the trigger.
The boom was deafening in the confines of the tunnel.
As he’d hoped, the fight ceased again, the women pulling apart.
He aimed the gun back toward them, making sure it could be seen in his flashlight beam.
“You don’t want to make me do that again,” he shouted. “Alex, over here.”
“Two seconds,” she said.
A fist suddenly flew out from the woman on the left. The sound of flesh smacking flesh was loud even at this distance, as the punch connected with the other woman’s cheek. The woman on the right fell against the wall.
“Okay, I’m done,” Alex said, and began walking toward Cooper and the blonde. She was about halfway to them when Cooper was able to make out the features of Alex’s face.
“Looks like prison treated you well,” he said.
“Regular holiday,” she told him. “I see you found my friend.”
“So she was with you. El-Hashim?”
“One and the same.”
He hadn’t figured the terrorist money launderer for a blonde, but it looked like he — and a lot of other people — had been wrong.
“She told me her name was Marie.”
Alex stopped a few feet away, and gave Cooper a relieved smiled. “She woo you with French?”
“French accent, anyway.”
“She doesn’t have a French accent.”
“Figures.” He jutted his chin down the tunnel past Alex. “What about that one?”
“She doesn’t have a French accent, either.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
Alex glanced over her shoulder. “She was sent in to eliminate your arm candy there.”
In the distance, the woman Alex had punched began rising back to her feet.
“Give me,” Alex said, gesturing to Cooper’s pistol.
“I’m not sure that’s such a—”
He could have put up a fight, but when she grabbed the gun, he let her take it.
As she swung around and pointed the Beretta down the tunnel, the other woman pushed off the wall and ran in the opposite direction, into the darkness.
Swearing under her breath, Alex fired a shot down the tunnel as she started running after her.
“Alex, stop!” Cooper yelled. “Let her go. There’s no time.”
It was as if she hadn’t even heard him.
“The alarm went off at the prison,” Cooper went on. “We have to get out of here now!”
Holding on to El-Hashim, he turned and headed toward the exit of the tunnel. A few seconds later he heard Alex run up alongside him.
“The alarms?” she said. “When did they start?”
“Five, ten minutes ago.”
She glanced back in the direction the other woman had disappeared. “Dammit.” She turned back and moved around to the other side of El-Hashim. “It’ll be faster if we carry her.”
Without another word, they lifted El-Hashim into the air, and ran.
Chapter Forty
Instead of joining the others on the search of the administration building, the young guard was ordered to show his supervisor the basement room where he’d found the elevator.