The Janus Reprisal

50

Russell felt weak as she worked her way back down the tunnel. She reached the dead man and took a break, breathing heavily in the face mask. Sweat ran down the sides of her face and accumulated near her chin and at the bottom of the mask. Her fever had spiked again. She supposed she should feel regret at pushing herself so hard when she was newly recovered, but she couldn’t muster any.

She listened to the exchange of gunfire with rising dread. The shots from the direction of the platform had increased substantially, which told Russell that some additional muscle had joined the attackers on the platform. She’d seen four men at least. Some more with fresh ammo and renewed purpose would be enough to overcome Smith and Howell. She needed to get to street level fast so that she could ask Klein for reinforcements. She pressed on, leaving the safety of the alcove and keeping low, crawling through the tunnel. Water saturated her shoes, and her shirt was soaked with sweat under the bulletproof vest. The tunnel seemed an endless dark path that would go on forever. The glowing signal stands gave her some minimal illumination, but it failed to show her the small holes and debris that appeared on the tracks. She rose to a crouch, tripped over a small box and gasped when her foot fell into a hole and threw her off balance. Three steps later she kicked something that flashed bits of silver as it jumped into the air and then landed. She reached it and kicked it again. It was inanimate, whatever it was. On the third encounter with it she grabbed it with her hands. She felt the spokes and nylon covering. It was an umbrella. She tossed it out of the way, against the wall.

She heard the rumbling of a train coming from behind her and panic started to rise. She tried to stay rational; she could always step into an alcove and the train would simply sail by, but the idea of being on train tracks when an actual train was in sight made her palms start to sweat. She could hear the rasping of her breath in her ears, the sound magnified in the mask’s close confinement. A quick glance back told her everything she needed to know. A train was headed into the station. The smoke bomb had cleared completely, and the subway car’s headlights and signals were lit. The train was directly in her path. She increased her pace, looking for the next alcove. She found it and jumped inside with a sense of relief.

The rumbling grew louder, and she pressed her back against the wall. The train flew by, illuminating her hiding place in regular bursts of light. The noise was loud, and she winced at the sound. It never had seemed so loud when she was waiting safely on a platform.

The last car passed and she leaned out a little to watch the taillights recede. Soon her ears readjusted and she strained to hear whether the fight continued after the train had gone, but there was no sound that she could identify. She found the silence almost more ominous than the shooting. At least while the two factions were battling it out, she could be assured that Smith and Howell were alive.

Russell pushed that thought aside. In all the years she had known Smith, he had prevailed, sometimes against steep odds. She wouldn’t bet against him now. She heaved herself to a standing position only to have her eyes lose focus; black settled over her, forcing her to lower back down. She used the wall as a support, sliding down along it to avoid falling over. When she was seated, she put her head between her knees.

Exhaustion clawed at her. Her skin was clammy, and she could feel rivulets of sweat pouring along her sides and from her hair. The mask was stuck to her cheek. She would pass out soon. She only hoped it would be after she reached the surface and spoke to Klein, but the way her body was collapsing made her realize that she might not make it out of the tunnel.

She couldn’t imagine living this long only to die of an unknown virus in a subway tunnel, but a part of her recognized the irony. She’d become a CIA officer in order to protect her country in the international arena. She’d always thought that if she died on the job, it would be in some exotic locale and at the hands of an enemy agent. Now she realized that the enemy was a virus so small she hadn’t seen it coming. For a moment she thought about all the men, women, and children who would go about their day unaware that this virus had entered their bodies and was working its way through.

Her sister Sophia had died that way. In her sickened haze Russell felt her heart constrict at the thought of Sophia. She’d been a researcher at USAMRIID and died from a deliberate stick of a deadly bacteria. Russell suspected Smith had never really gotten over the loss of Sophia. They’d been engaged to be married, and he’d never allowed a woman to get that close again. Russell remembered Nolan kissing him in the alcove and wondered if Nolan had managed to break through Smith’s reserve. She hoped so, for his sake.

The mask sputtered, and she no longer could inhale oxygen through it. She pulled it off her face. A bit of the rubber coating stuck to her cheek, and she winced when it yanked her skin before releasing. She took a breath, stood up, and vowed to continue forward. All her speculation was getting her nowhere. She needed to move.

Her legs felt heavy and her head spun as she walked, but she set her teeth together and continued. Deep-seated chills started at the base of her spine and flowed outward, the skin on her arms puckering with it. She felt waves of cold followed by heat. Her teeth started chattering, and she clenched them to stop it. She had counted alcoves during her walk in and now calculated that she had two more to go before she reached the next platform. Her foot hit yet another piece of detritus and she stumbled against the wall. As she did she leaned her cheek against the stone, relishing the chill. She pushed off and staggered ahead. The wall disappeared and the platform was there. Even better, this platform was lit.

She got to the edge, and it took all her strength to lift the Uzi and put it on the platform. When she placed both hands on the yellow treads at the edge, she found she was at least four feet lower. It was going to take some physical strength to haul her body up and over. Physical strength that she wasn’t sure she had after more than two days fighting the virus. Both her hands were in view and for the first time Russell noticed how dry and desiccated they looked in the bad fluorescent lighting. They were the hands of someone beyond dehydrated. Another chill took her, but this time she wasn’t sure if it was from her existing illness or from the mutated version placed on the rail.

A volley of shots came from the tunnel in the direction where Smith and Howell still fought. They echoed through the cavern and galvanized Russell. She took a deep breath and hauled with her arms while using her toes to inch up the wall. She made it over the edge and flopped onto the floor, panting. She rolled onto her stomach, then to a crouch and finally stood. She staggered to the stairs. As she turned a corner, she found Nolan facedown on the ground, her hands tied behind her back. Blood pooled on the ground next to her head, but Russell saw her body move as she breathed. A man stood over her, pointing a gun at the prone woman’s head. He turned around to face Russell and smiled a triumphant smile.

“Hello, Russell. Looks like I’ve managed to round up all the thieves this evening,” Harcourt said.

Russell swayed, but managed to stay upright. “You’re the thief, not me.” She wobbled as the blood once again threatened to leave her brain.

“Lie down, face-first, just like your friend here.”

Russell swayed. She wasn’t going to stay upright much longer, and she had no energy to fight Harcourt. She decided to threaten him with someone who could.

“Smith is headed this way. You’d do best to get the hell out of here before he does.”

“I’m not worried about Smith. The NYPD is on its way and will make quick work of him. Or did you forget that I have influence there?”

“Not with them all.”

“Do as I say or I’ll kill you here. One less traitor to worry about.”

Russell knew that her condition made it impossible to overcome Harcourt. The better plan was to go along and survive to fight later. She lowered to the ground next to Nolan, who didn’t move. Harcourt tied her hands with plastic handcuff strips.

“Now we go.”

“Where to?” Russell said.

“To a place where I can be rid of you.”