Poe

Chapter Thirty-Eight

As they continued down the tunnel, Alex tried to figure out how to get El-Hashim to talk, short of beating the crap out of her. As much as she would have liked to give in to her more primal nature, Alex knew El-Hashim was having a hard enough time navigating the tunnels without the complication of black eyes and a broken rib or two. Besides, she wasn’t keen on beating up the defenseless, no matter how repugnant they were.

She needed an alternate strategy. Something along the lines of…

…fear.

Ahead, another fork in the tunnel appeared. She studied the map for a moment, and pointed toward the left passageway, which, according to Teterya’s map, was a false tunnel.

“This way,” she said.

The plan she’d thought up was simple. When they reached the dead end, Alex would leave El-Hashim there with a quick word and the sound of retreating footsteps. Left alone with no map, no light, and the potential of being lost in the labyrinth for God knew how long, the poor woman would realize the advantages of cooperation.

Would it be enough to get her to open up?

It was worth a try.

There was a sharp bend to the tunnel for the first several yards, before it eased into a relatively straighter path. Alex thought she could just make out the dead end at the far reach of her flashlight beam.

Just a little closer now.

She was going over what she’d say, trying to get the words exactly right, when she heard a low noise behind her and started to turn. Her head had only moved a couple inches when something smacked into the side of her skull.

At first there was no pain, only confusion, as she staggered to the left, the flashlight slipping from her hand. Then the whole side of her head began to scream.

She put a hand over the spot and felt something sticky and wet. Blood, she realized. How…?

Something grabbed her shoulder and twisted her around. She could see the outline of a person only a couple feet away, but whether it was the darkness or blurred vision, she couldn’t make out any details.

She could, however, see a hand flashing toward her face. She ducked, not in time to completely clear the blow, but enough that it glanced off the top of her skull.

Without missing a beat, she swung out with her left as her training with Emerick kicked in, and followed with an upper cut from her blood-covered right.

Both blows found their targets.

There was a yell, loud and angry — definitely not El-Hashim.

Alex stepped backward, knowing her attacker was about to make another assault. The move would have been a good one if not for the slippery stone that her foot first found, then quickly lost.

Alex twisted sideways as she tried to keep her balance, but there was no way to avoid the fall. She hit the wet ground with an oomph, but before she could even move, a foot connected with her gut. A second later she heard splashes of someone running away.

Alex fought through the pain and pushed herself to her feet. She looked around for the light of her flashlight, but all she could see was dark.

Had the water shorted it?

“El-Hashim,” she said. “Where are you?”

No response. The only thing she could hear now was her own breathing. She was completely alone without a light.

The steps had gone…that way.

Her head throbbing, she turned to her right. She could still hear the steps faintly in the distance. She moved within arm’s length of the wall so she could touch it with her fingertips, and began to run.

The assassin knew her target wouldn’t get far.

It wasn’t a complete surprise to her when El-Hashim snatched up Powell’s flashlight and made a run for it. The woman was no idiot, and saving her own skin would be the only thing that mattered to her.

But running wouldn’t do her much good. Hers was a world of clandestine meetings and backroom deals, not fleeing for her life from someone whose sole purpose — for the moment, at least — was to take it.

Unfortunately, the assassin hadn’t had time to completely finish off Powell before El-Hashim took off. After choosing to neutralize whom she considered the more dangerous of the two, she was now paying the price by having to abandon the job halfway through.

A gun would have been nice, but, sadly, prisoners don’t get to have firearms.

She’d been right about Powell. The woman definitely had had some training. The sting along the assassin’s rib cage was proof enough of that. She couldn’t remember the last time anyone had been able to lay a hand on her.

As she ran through the tunnel, she didn’t bother masking the beam from her own flashlight. El-Hashim already knew she was coming.

She could hear the woman ahead of her, both the splashes of her feet and the desperation of her breath.

A few seconds later, there was a gasp, then the rate of the splashes increased, and she knew that El-Hashim must have looked back and seen the light reflecting off the curved tunnel walls.

The assassin had a brief moment of surprise when the tunnel straightened again. She had expected to see El-Hashim’s light, but the passageway ahead was completely dark.

She could still hear the footsteps, however, and the breathing — off to her left.

A dozen feet farther on, she figured out what had happened. El-Hashim had reached the fork in the tunnels and had taken the correct one this time.

Sure enough, when the assassin took the turn, the other light came into view less than fifteen yards ahead.

The assassin picked up her speed.

Time to finish this.

Alex saw a brief flash of light reflecting off the tunnel wall, then it was gone.

As she ran, she tried to figure out who her attacker had been.

If it had been a guard, the person would have been armed, and a quick gunshot would have taken care of things. But there had been none. The attacker was a woman, she knew that much. The yell had confirmed that. But the brutality of the attack suggested it wasn’t just any woman.

The assassin. It had to be.

Her head pounding mercilessly, Alex reached out and again felt the wall with her fingers, tracing the curve until it came to a stop, indicating she was approaching the fork again. Since there were no lights in front of her, she figured they must have gone down the other tunnel, in the direction of the exit.

Switching to the opposite wall, she slowed her pace until she reached the corner, and carefully made her way around it.

Sure enough, up ahead were two lights. The closest, about fifty feet away, would belong to the attacker. The other, not more than thirty or forty farther on, would be El-Hashim.

Alex took another step, and nearly stumbled when her foot landed on a loose rock. Recovering, she started to step over it, but stopped, leaned down, and picked it up. It was heavy and solid and a little larger than palm size — but manageable. Probably around the same size as the stone the assassin had used on her.

Well. Two can play at that game.