The Chimera Secret

68

Ethan dropped the M1le and raised his hands, watching as Kurt advanced a pace alongside Jenkins, who still lay sprawled on the floor, gasping for breath.

‘Start talking,’ Kurt snapped at Ethan. ‘How did you get out of the store room and into the living quarters?’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Ethan replied. ‘There’s no way out of here other than the mine entrance.’

‘You expect me to believe that?’ Kurt sneered. ‘Where the hell are Duran and Mary?’

Ethan shrugged.

‘Hiding out in the tunnels, maybe,’ he said. ‘Waiting for you and your little bunch of assholes to blow yourself sky-high.’

‘We’re not assholes,’ Jenkins spluttered. ‘We didn’t want this to happen!’

Kurt ignored Jenkins and raised the pistol to point at Ethan’s head.

‘Spill it, Warner, all of it, or I’ll blow your head clean off.’

Ethan glanced down at Jenkins and saw his opportunity. If you can’t defeat the enemy by pure force or guile, then turn your enemy against himself. He let a grim smile curl from his lips.

‘Do that, and you definitely won’t be getting out of here. Probably just a few minutes until that air strike arrives, Kurt, and it looks to me like you and your team are going nowhere.’

‘Don’t waste my time!’ Kurt yelled. ‘Answer me or I’ll shoot you just for the goddamned hell of it!’

‘And doom your own men to death down here?’ Ethan challenged. ‘Seems to me you’ve lost your way, Kurt. You’re supposed to lead your men not bargain their lives away. I’m guessing that you’ve got the data from those computer servers stashed away somewhere safe, out of your men’s reach?’

Jenkins looked up at Kurt, who shook his head.

‘I wish I had,’ he said, ‘but your partner decided to cover her own ass and stole the hard drive from me.’

Ethan glanced down at Jenkins.

‘I’m guessing that this asshole killed Dana Ford?’

Jenkins nodded.

‘He sent Proctor into the tunnel. Those things killed him too.’

‘Divide and conquer,’ Kurt said with a wry, cold grin as he stepped closer to Ethan. ‘You don’t think that you can turn my own men against me, do you?’

Ethan shrugged.

‘Don’t really need to. You’ve been doing a fine job of that yourself.’

Ethan saw Jenkins look over his shoulder. The mine entrance doors behind them started shuddering as the enraged creatures outside began trying to smash their way in with brute force, the blows echoing through the lonely facility.

‘That door’s not going to hold much longer, Kurt,’ Ethan said. ‘You kill me, you’ve achieved nothing and you still can’t get out of here.’

Kurt Agry stared at Ethan for several long moments, his jaw grinding as he suppressed the latent fury seething through his veins. Then, he straightened and made his decision.

‘You’re right, Warner,’ he said. ‘I can’t kill you. But if there’s one thing I learned in Afghanistan, it’s that if you apply the right kind of pressure you can make people tell you anything.’

Kurt lowered his aim and pointed his pistol at Ethan’s right knee.

‘You shoot, Kurt,’ Ethan warned him, ‘and you can be damned sure I’ll let myself die rather than tell any of you how to get out of here.’

Kurt grinned. ‘Thought you said there was no other way out of here?’

‘Not without me there isn’t.’

Kurt sneered at Ethan. ‘Let’s find out.’

He squeezed the pistol’s trigger.

The shot crashed out, but it flew wide as Jenkins reached up and smashed Kurt’s pistol to one side. Behind the sergeant, Klein rushed up and grabbed his shoulders and arms and together they dragged the kicking, screaming man to the ground.

Jenkins hurled his weight onto Kurt’s body, then looked at Ethan in desperation.

‘How do we get out of here?!’

Ethan made a decision of his own without conscious thought.

‘The crematorium,’ he said.

Before any of them could reply he turned and sprinted back down the corridor. He dashed into the living quarters and slammed the door behind him, then dragged two of the beds across the room and pinned the door shut from the inside.

Then he jumped up onto the bed and clambered back up into the ceiling cavity, praying that he wasn’t too late.