The Shadowmen

Earlier

McGarvey, his Walther PPK in hand, groped his way silently in the absolute darkness of the tunnel beneath the Castelo de Oro northeast of Lisbon. He hesitated at the doorway, his left hand brushing the wet stone wall as he listened for a sound, any sound ahead. He could hear water dripping somewhere, and in the background, he heard an extremely faint hissing noise.

“Maria?” he called softly.

Kurshin laughed, but it was almost impossible to tell how far away he was or even his direction. Sounds were distorted in the narrow tunnel.

Mac had to fight down the urge to get out immediately. He was caught deep underground in a crypt. The realm of the dead, not the living.

“Is she with you?” he called.

“She’s here, McGarvey,” Kurshin said. His voice sounded odd, somehow disjointed.

“Let her go, Arkasha. This is between you and me now.”

“She’ll die here with you,” Kurshin said, and he laughed again. It sounded as if he were unhinged.

“What’s the point? Baranov is dead; Didenko has been arrested. There’s nowhere for you to go.”

“Exactly.”

“No one is looking for you” McGarvey said. He moved into a position around the steel gate from where he could extend his gun into the tunnel.

“That doesn’t matter.”

“Even if you manage to kill us and get out of here, then what?” McGarvey said.

“Once you’re dead, nothing will matter.”

“How long before you crack? How long before you can’t stand the lack of purpose? How long before you put the muzzle of your gun into your mouth and pull the trigger?”

Kurshin fired three times, the bullets ricocheting off the stone walls and ceiling in long, ragged sparks.

Mac fired twice, adjusting his pattern right to left against the possibility the man had moved the instant he had fired.

Kurshin fired back, and this time the bullet smacked into the stone wall an inch from Mac’s face, stone chips nicking his cheek.

The Russian was shooting a Makarov or possibly a TK. Nine shots if he had started with a full magazine.

“You won’t get out of here alive,” McGarvey called softly. He dropped down and crawled into the tunnel, flattening himself against the far wall a few feet past the gate.

Kurshin fired twice more, both shots high and to the left.

McGarvey jumped up, fired once to the left of the muzzle flashes, once to the right, and once directly at them, and he dropped down again.

Kurshin cried out and fired three more times. A moment later, something metallic clattered to the floor just ahead. The empty magazine. Kurshin was reloading.

McGarvey fired once from where he was crouched and a second time as he got to his feet. He charged blindly down the tunnel, slamming into the Russian in less than ten feet.

Both of them crashed backward off the rock wall and down onto the wet floor, blood spurting over Mac’s face. His right shoulder smashed into the stone, his hand went numb, and his pistol slipped out of his grip.

He held Kurshin’s gun hand off with his left and with his right dug into the Russian’s neck, trying with everything in his power to rip out the man’s throat.

The beam of a flashlight suddenly illuminated the tunnel. “Kirk!” Maria screamed from behind.

McGarvey lifted Kurshin’s head from the floor and smashed it back down. He pulled it up again and again, and all the while Maria screamed something.

As the life faded from Kurshin’s eye, the man’s trigger finger jerked reflexively. His pistol fired, sending a long, jagged spark down the tunnel.

From the darkness beyond Maria, the spark blossomed into a huge fireball that raced below a punctured gas line directly toward them.

McGarvey reached Maria, pulling her onto the floor and shielding her with his body as the fireball reached them. The heat was so intense for a moment that it began to melt the back of his jacket and scorch the hair on his head.

A huge explosion from somewhere far above them shattered everything, and the ceiling began to come down, pieces of the concrete slamming into Mac’s head. Water fell in cascades.

Not like this. The single thought crystallized in Mac’s head. After everything, all the close calls, all the near misses, he wasn’t going to die like this, buried in a tunnel.

He rolled off Maria and stumbled to his feet. Water was flowing from a dozen different breaches along the walls and ceiling, but there was still light from as many gas flames.

“We need to get out of here!” he shouted, hauling Maria to her feet.

She collapsed against him. “I can’t!” she cried. “My leg!”

McGarvey lifted her off her feet and slung her over his shoulder, the effort after all he’d been through nearly causing him to black out.

Water rose over his knees by the time he had slogged just ten feet. The flames were dying out now, and it would only be a matter of seconds before they were in total darkness.

For the first time in his life, McGarvey tasted panic at the back of his throat. Maria was crying something, but he couldn’t make out her words. There was nothing left for him but to continue. If he was going to die here, he would die, but he would be moving when the end came.

The last of the light faded as the water came up to his chest. The tunnel ceiling was higher here, so he could stand up a little taller. But it was too late.

He stumbled on something and fell forward. For just a moment, he thought that he was seeing lights. But that had to be impossible.

Maria was gone, and hands were on his arms, dragging him upward, his feet and legs bumping up the stairs.

“McGarvey!” someone shouted. “McGarvey!”

Then nothing.