Midnight In Madrid

SEVENTY-ONE

MADRID, SEPTEMBER 19, SHORTLY AFTER MIDNIGHT

Alex’s eyes flickered open, and she thought she had her first glimpse of heaven.

She was wrong, but every bit as pleased.

At the end of the tunnel in front of her there was a light, then a stronger light. And all around her now was the sound of tapping.

Tapping, tapping, tapping, growing louder.

Then hammering. More hammering. All around her hammering!

She yelled. “I’m here! I’m here!”

There was the sound of machinery. She could feel vibrations behind her. A rescue team had knocked their way into the same tunnel. The next thing that happened startled her all the more.

Her feet. Something touched her feet. Hands. Human hands. And after that, someone had pushed a hose past her and was pumping air into the narrow passageway. Breathing became easier. An air pump was part of the machinery she heard. Up ahead of her, she could feel a drill.

A voice in English screamed. “Alex! Alex, we got you!”

“I’m here!” she yelled again. She fought back tears, tears that none could see, but which she could feel cascading down her cheeks. Ahead of her, the light became more intense as workers had broken through the basement floor of the embassy to where the explosives had been stashed and then defused by bomb experts.

Then part of the wall behind her broke away. Her legs were free. So was her upper body. Hands in heavy gloves worked their way up to her hips. The hands cleared debris from the wall.

Firemen. Rescue teams from the police. Rarely had she been so happy to feel strange male hands upon her. Stuck for hours, she was being freed within minutes, once they had located her.

A voice in English. Familiar. “Alex?”

It was Peter.

“Yes! Yes!” she gasped in response.

“They’re going to pull you backward gently. Are you okay with that?”

“I’m okay!” she yelled.

They pulled. And she slid. It was the greatest ride of her life. Ten feet, a dozen, maybe twenty as her jeans and shirt dragged and ripped. They pulled her out into the light, into the clammy underground cavern where she had entered the tunnel.

She turned over and trembled, trying to sit up. Peter knelt down and wrapped his arms around her, and as he embraced her for a moment, she sobbed almost uncontrollably.

They wrapped her in a blanket. They stood her up. Her legs were unsteady, rubbery, but they supported her. The rescue workers had unlocked some doors in the old tunnels and broken through a wall.

“How did you ever find me?” she finally asked. “How? How?”

“Your wallet,” he said.

“What?”

He made a motion to where her wallet rode in her back pocket. She pulled the wallet out and handed it to him. From it, he pulled the Swiss consular ID card that he had forced upon her the day before.

“I doctored it,” he said. “Homing device. After you disappeared once in Switzerland, I wasn’t going to let it happen again.”

She wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. So instead, she did both.

Distantly, as they evacuated her, the sound of demolition grew louder from underneath the embassy.