Phantom Instinct (9780698157132) (30 page)

H
arper stared back down the passageway. At the far end, two forms materialized, running around the corner. Men, slight and lithe, wearing all-black tactical gear, holding automatic pistols. They both fired. The shots hit the wall and the floor. She turned and ran with Aiden and Sorenstam toward the next turn, toward the leaking light and Piper's fading voice.

“Hell are those guys?” Harper said.

They were sure as shit not Travis Maddox and Eddie Azerov.

Harper careened down the corridor around mothballed equipment and fat pipe works. A shot echoed and pinged against metal. Her skin felt alive with nervous sparks. Aiden put a hand on her back and urged her onward. At the end of the corridor, Sorenstam stopped, pressed herself to the wall, and peered around the corner. Then she ran. Harper and Aiden pitched around the corner behind her.

The sparks seemed to jump from Harper's skin. She caromed off the wall, thinking,
Christ.
Five feet ahead was an open office door—the source of the leaking light.

“Piper,” she said.

Painfully, with the sound of a clinking chain, Piper crawled into view. She collapsed to a sitting position just inside the door.

Harper threw herself into the room and dropped to her knees at Piper's side.

“Girl, girl,” she said.

Piper held her right hand pressed against her chest, clutching it with her left. Blood ran down her arm from her wrist. Her blouse was soaked. Strips of fabric torn from its hem were cinched around her wrist as a makeshift tourniquet. In the dim light, they were iron red. Her face was the color of newsprint, more gray than white.

Harper put her hands on either side of Piper's face and tried to see her through her stinging eyes and pounding pulse.

“Told you,” she said.

Piper nodded, quick and fearfully. “You came.”

Piper's face was cold. Harper reached for Piper's arm, but the girl inhaled and shrank from her, a cry falling from her lips.

“Hurts. Bad.”

Harper backed off. “Just keep the pressure on. We're going to get you out of here.”

Piper clutched her right wrist with her left, pressing it against her breastbone. From the hallway, around the corner, they heard men's voices, harsh and guttural. They couldn't make out their conversation, but the men seemed to be hunting for a way to get across the gap in the floor.

Aiden said, “Not much time, Harper.”

A handcuff was locked around Piper's slender ankle. The second cuff was locked through a chain, and the chain ran to a standpipe along the wall, where it was padlocked.

Sorenstam crouched and examined the cuffs. Piper eyed her as though Sorenstam had dropped in from outer space.

“The cops are here?” Piper said.

“I am, and Detective Garrison. More are coming.” Sorenstam got her handcuff key and freed Piper.

Outside, the men in the hallway were arguing. Harper heard them throwing stuff around, trying to find something to use to bridge the gap in the floor. She caught snatches of their debate.

“Speshite.”

“Oboydite?”

“Nyet, tam net vremeni.”

Hurry. Go around? No, there's no time. They were speaking Russian.

“Who are they?” Harper said.

Piper said, “They're from Spartan Security.”

Harper and Aiden looked at her sharply, and at each other.

“Fuck,” Aiden said.

Harper said, “Let's get you up.”

She worked an arm around the girl and helped her to her feet. Piper sagged. Her legs held, but she leaned over and lowered her head to restore blood flow to her brain.

Sorenstam said, “We can't retrace our steps. Harper, if we keep going down this hallway, will we get to that second set of stairs?”

Harper tried to picture the layout of the building. “If we go down the hallway, we'll be heading for the center of the building. We should find a main corridor that runs the entire length of the basement. It'll take us to the stairs.”

Outside the room, around the corner where the floor gapped, a motor hummed to life. The hydraulic lift had been activated.

The Russians had jerry-rigged a battery to the switch, or Travis had restored power. The platform was on its way up. They wouldn't have to jump across. Once it reached floor level, they would just stroll.

Harper pulled Piper tight against her side. “We're going out the door behind Detective Sorenstam, and we're not stopping.”

Aiden ejected the clip from his weapon, checked it, and reinserted it in the butt of the gun with a hard slap. “We're going to push them back with covering fire and run down the hallway to the next junction. On my mark.”

The hydraulic lift continued to hum. In Russian, a man said, “Go—now.” They heard scuffling feet and the sound of men jumping, landing, and pulling themselves up again.

Piper straightened and looked at Harper. “I don't want to die.”

“Me neither. So we won't.”

All Piper's snark and feistiness had drained away. Harper wanted to cry.

Say something. Something ridiculous and hopeful.

“Ding-dong, motherfuckers. Your doom's here,” Harper said.

Piper stared at her with amazement. Footsteps pounded in the hallway.

Aiden spun into the doorway, aimed, and fired. One shot, two. He moved his arm ten inches right. One shot, two.

He ducked back inside the room. An instant later, return fire bellowed from the corridor.

He huffed a breath. Ducked low and rolled into the doorway, firing again.

There was a scream in the hallway, retreating.

He rolled to his feet, charged out the door, and said, “Now.”

T
hey ran into the corridor. The echo of shots reverberated. Sorenstam led, the Remington up. Harper followed, pulling Piper with her. Aiden brought up the rear, HK at shoulder height, covering the field of fire behind them.

They advanced down the corridor, into the deepening dark, following the swinging light from Sorenstam's Maglite toward the center of the building. Piper drooped against Harper. Her eyes were the size of quarters.

They reached a turn. Sorenstam approached the corner carefully, barrel of the shotgun up and flat against her chest. She stopped, leaned around, and pulled back.

“It's a wide tunnel. Looks like the main passageway through the basement.”

Aiden said, “Hostiles?”

“No sign, but there are emergency lights on.”

He edged to the corner and looked. Harper peeked over his shoulder and down the tunnel. There was enough light to see, barely.

The tunnel floor was slick concrete, wider than a two-car garage, and had a yellow line painted down its center. It was designed so forklifts and flatbed trucks could drive directly to and from the road to load and unload chemicals. It ran straight as a gun barrel more than two hundred yards to a loading ramp with a rolling door that was down and locked. Next to the door, an emergency exit sign was glowing. The way to the stairs.

The sound of men arguing behind them around the corner at the end of the hallway grew louder. They were planning their next move. Piper whimpered. Harper wanted to crawl out of her skin.

Aiden and Erika looked at the tunnel, and at Harper, and at each other.

They needed time, and cover. They didn't have it.

Piper nearly shuddered. “We can't . . . we won't make it.” Her voice was little more than a whisper. “What if we surrender?”

Erika shook her head. “Surrendering would be bad.”

“Better than getting shot,” Piper said.

“The choice isn't between surrendering and getting shot.”

Harper knew it, too: The choice was between surrendering, in which case they would be shot in the back of the head while bound and on their knees, or running for it.

Aiden seemed to both coil and grow six inches taller. Sorenstam went completely still.

“I'll cover the three of you,” she said.

Aiden said, “No.”

She turned sharply. “Shut up.”

There was no way the four of them could run down the length of the tunnel and reach the stairs before the hostiles regrouped and came charging. Two hundred yards: Harper had never covered that distance in less than thirty seconds. Piper could barely stand. Even if she and Aiden each slung one of Piper's arms over their shoulders, they wouldn't get out of this tunnel in under two minutes.

“I'll stay here and cover you,” he said. “You're faster than I am right now, Erika.”

Determination filled her eyes. “No. You have the strength to carry Piper if need be. And I'm the better shot,” she said. “You know it. And you know that's what's going to count.”

From two feet away, Harper felt the electricity crackle between them. They were no longer officially partners, but their training and history and bond had come alive and held them poised, together there.

It would take two people at a minimum to exfiltrate Piper. The girl was severely injured. Neither Harper nor Aiden could carry her by themselves, not if they were going to respond to an armed attack.

“No,” Sorenstam said. “If you stay here, Harper and I will never be able to get Piper out alive.”

He held Sorenstam's gaze. His eyes seemed to fill with a depthless despair.

“It has to be me,” Sorenstam said.

The only way for any of them to get out alive was to stop the opposition before they got into the tunnel. If men with guns got around the corner, she and Aiden and Sorenstam would have no chance. The tunnel was merciless: no equipment nor the ubiquitous barrels to hide behind. A couple of doors, but only to closets. To get to the far end of the tunnel, they would have to run, without protection, without stopping.

The only way to do that was for Sorenstam to make a stand.

“Go, and don't look back,” she said. “No matter what. I'll stop them when they come around the corner.”

She had the shotgun and her pistol. She snapped the Maglite free from the Remington's barrel and tossed it to Aiden. Harper understood: Sorenstam didn't want to give the attackers a target. She turned and jammed the butt of the weapon against one of the emergency lights high on the wall. It shattered and the tunnel dimmed.

“Erika,” Aiden said.

“On three,” she said. “One, two—”

He caught her arm. She looked at him, fierce and otherworldly.

“Three,” she said.

Hanging on to Piper, Harper and Aiden ran down the tunnel toward the bloody shadows and whispers in the far, faded dark.

H
arper ran down the tunnel, trying to sprint on the hard concrete, through dim and reddish light, toward the distant turn that would bring them to safety. Aiden pounded along, his stride ragged, a syncopated tattoo. The gun in his hand swung back and forth, flashing dully under the emergency lights. Piper hung between them.

Harper focused on the telescoping tunnel and the distant wall, now a hundred fifty yards ahead. The very air behind her felt full of sparks. It was her fear. It was her knowledge that they were coming, and that they were armed.

Aiden didn't look back. But his face was open terrain, his emotions plain even in the nightmarish light of the tunnel.

Behind them, waiting, was Erika Sorenstam. She was all that stood between them and being in the middle of an open field of fire. Harper's throat felt the width of a straw.

Sorenstam was covering them. But there was no cover for her. Only exposure.

The corridor stretched ahead. It looked like a tunnel from a locker room to the playing field at a stadium—but longer. Harper was going flat out—as flat out as she could run, half hauling an injured teenager. Aiden was barely keeping up. She realized he was running close to empty. Still, he kept going.

She'd seen Aiden exchange an aching look with Sorenstam. Harper knew: Sorenstam was doing this to save all their lives but especially that of the man she still loved. Erika was keeping Aiden alive.

She counted in her head, as Sorenstam had told her to.
Six, seven, eight, nine . . .

Ten.

Erika stepped out, away from the wall of the tunnel, and swung to face the exit from the hallway. She waited for the shrouded gunmen, the breathing shadows who lurked in the dark. Footsteps scuffed on the concrete. She held, waiting, waiting. The stock of the Remington was snugged against her right shoulder. Her left hand supported the action. The gun had warmed in her hand. It was hers, it was ready, it was ten more seconds of sight and sense and life. Her trigger finger held just short of firing.

A man rounded the corner and came into sight.

“Los Angeles County Sheriff. Drop the weapon,” she shouted.

He raised his own gun. She leveled the shotgun, leading him, and fired.

Red fire sparked from the barrel of the Remington. The recoil smacked her shoulder. The man slammed backward, hitting the wall and crashing to his knees. He toppled and fell.

She racked the action, ejected the spent shell casing, and loaded the next shell. The thunder of the shot echoed off the walls and rang in her ears. It filled her head. The smell of gunpowder filled the hallway. She heard only her heart and the ringing of the shot. She couldn't hear Aiden and Harper running down the tunnel. But they had Piper. They were going. With each heartbeat, they got farther away, got a better chance of moving out of range, got another second's blessing, another chance to rescue the girl. Another breath, another chance to live.

The man around the corner ahead in the hallway was nothing but a silhouette. A darkened form, moaning, grunting. Moving. He still had the gun in his hand.

“Sheriff. Drop the weapon,” she repeated.

Her hair fell in her face. She held the barrel of the shotgun level on the hallway. The man didn't drop his weapon.

“
Now
,”
she bellowed.

He raised it. His hand caught the light. She fired again.

The gun in the man's hand dropped and clattered to the floor. He no longer moved or moaned.

One down. One left.

She retreated around the corner into the tunnel. Her ears rang.

A shot boomed from the hallway.
Okay, then. Number two. Let's do it.

Footsteps rushed toward her, fast. She had four shells left in the Remington and her Glock in its holster, plus ten more shells and a second full clip in her pocket. She once again raised the shotgun.

And saw. Saw them coming, all of them, into the light, guns in their hands, saw a MAC-10, and an AK, and at least two carrying shotguns of their own.

For a split second, a vast and eternal breath, she considered turning to run. In her mind's eye, she saw herself spin and dash down the tunnel, could feel herself draw her semiautomatic and fire blindly behind her at them as she escaped. She pictured herself reaching Aiden and Harper and bolting themselves behind a steel door, barricading themselves, comrades in arms, a team ready to fight back. She saw it, felt it, could nearly feel Aiden's body against hers as they stood back to back, covering the entire field of fire.

For that moment, she was not alone, facing the onslaught. For that moment only.

They came around the corner. She stood in the middle of the tunnel. She leveled the shotgun and fired.

They heard it behind them: the roar of the Remington, firing again. Harper was running, breathing hard and crying at the same time. Aiden, his stride ever more ragged, hesitated.

“No,” Harper gasped.

Behind them, at the far end of the tunnel, the return fire was devastating. Shot after shot, the deep boom of another shotgun, the flat crack of pistols, the
crack-crack-crack
of a rifle firing in a three-shot burst.

Piper cried out. Aiden stumbled, and for a moment, Harper thought he had been hit. He started to look back. She grabbed his arm.

“Aiden.”

Behind them came another gunshot, this time from a pistol, and a shout from Erika. It was wild, the most fearsome and terrifying cry Harper had ever heard.

“Run,” she said.

They had to. Sorenstam was standing strong, knowing the consequences and doing it anyway. Giving Aiden and Harper every vital second they needed to survive and get Piper out. One hundred yards to the far end of the tunnel. Ninety.

Harper's heart seemed half ready to tear. She couldn't let Aiden turn around. Turn around and it would be him next, then her and Piper.

“Come on,” she said.

He looked as though he couldn't get any breath. He looked as if he wanted to put the muzzle of his own gun to his forehead and pull the trigger. Seventy yards to the turn. Sixty. Piper was fearfully quiet.

“God, run, we gotta run,” Harper said.

Then Aiden put his back into it and pumped his arms and paced her again, bolting along the tunnel. They heard return fire. They heard Erika fire her weapon again and again. The cacophony rose, concrete snapping as bullets hit it.

Forty yards. Thirty. The firing stopped. Harper kept going, knew men were coming behind them. She heard shouts, commands, sounds of voices bouncing off the concrete floor and walls.

Men's voices. More than one. Maybe more than two.

Don't look back. She pounded along. Twenty yards.

A final single shot reverberated in the tunnel. She heard the clatter of metal against concrete, as though a long gun were being kicked away from the fallen hand that had held it. Sorenstam was silent. Ten yards.

Aiden reached the corner, limping hard. He grabbed her elbow and slingshotted her and Piper around it, into a passageway that was dark and smelled of rust and chemicals.

She kept going. Realized he had stopped. He had literally hit the wall, leaning his head against the concrete. His eyes were squeezed shut, his teeth gritted.

“Aiden,” she choked. “Come on.” She pulled on his elbow.

The sound of men running in the tunnel finally got him to push away from the wall. He turned back to face the tunnel and raised his pistol.

Harper felt a sensation in the center of her forehead, like a drill. She yanked on his arm. “No.”

He was ready to charge the men head-on. Harper held tight to his arm.

“Don't. Aiden,
no
. Piper—both of us have to get her out. Come on.”

He resisted a moment longer, breathing hard. Then he nodded. “Go.”

Harper swept the Maglite along the passageway. And she saw that the emergency exit sign hadn't led them to the stairs—ahead was a fixed steel ladder, bolted to the wall, going both up to the factory floor and down to a subbasement. She aimed the flashlight at the ceiling.

The ladder was broken off a few feet overhead. They couldn't climb up.

Piper moaned, a high, desperate sound. Her legs wobbled. Harper feared that she barely had enough blood left to circulate in her system. She feared that Piper's heart was empty.

“Come on,” she said.

In the semidark, they reached the ladder. Harper leaned over and looked down.

Aiden said, “Have you ever been down to that level?”

She kept looking. “Yeah. It's all narrow tunnels and pipes and chemical storage tanks. But this isn't the only ladder. I'm sure of that.”

Piper said, “I can't.”

Harper put her hand to Piper's face. The girl's cheek was warm. “We can. Together.”

Aiden was half-shadowed under the Maglite. He looked at her and blinked, as though he was having trouble seeing her clearly in the near dark. She could see the intensity on his face, and pain. She held out a hand.

He took it. She squeezed.

“We're getting out,” she said. “We're getting out and taking Piper home.”

He pulled her close, and when he looked at her, he seemed to see her clearly, to see the path out.

“Follow me,” he said.