Chaos (31 page)

The sooner I’d rescue Diane.

But speed came at a price.

I winced as sounds exploded all around us. Gasps of breath. Boots pounding on the bedrock. The occasional splash of water. Pumping arms, brushing up against clothes.

We were making noise.

Lots of noise.

I knew we needed to slow down. Caution, not haste, was the safest way to proceed. The smart action was to reach out, grab Cartwright’s shoulder, and wrench him to a halt.

But I just kept running.

Soon, the screams died away and the passageway returned to relative silence. After a few more turns, Cartwright tilted his face in my direction. “Our bunker’s just ahead and to the right. We’ll be there any minute now.”

I looked at my holster, which hung over his shoulder. “Give me my weapons.”

“No.”

Suddenly, I heard light murmuring.

Someone was close.

Very close.

Reaching out, I grabbed Cartwright’s shirt and yanked. He stumbled backward and spun into the wall. As he fell to the floor, I reached out and snagged my holster before it could hit the ground.

I reattached the holster. Cartwright groaned and lifted up his arm. His shirt was in tatters and the whole right side of his body was scraped up. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

Beverly reared up behind me. Ignoring Cartwright, I shot her a quick glance. “Did you hear that?”

As she nodded, Cartwright rose to his feet. Leaning over, he jabbed a thick finger into my chest. “Listen here, asshole…”

I didn’t have time to listen to his nonsense. Rearing back, I slammed my fist into his stomach. His eyes bulged and a wheeze escaped his lips. Then he dropped back to the ground and rolled around in agony, groaning softly.

Leaning down, I retrieved my machete from his waistband. “Keep quiet,” I whispered. “Or there’s another one of those waiting for you.”

“Why’d you –?”

“Because something’s not right. Now shut up and let me listen.” My pulse raced and my breath came out in short, quick bursts. I could barely hear myself think, let alone any nearby murmuring. I itched to move, but stayed in one place, forcing myself to listen. Irritation rose within me. One moment, my instincts told me to run while my brain urged me to stop. The next minute, my instincts led me to stand still while my brain told me to do the opposite.

Why can’t you guys get on the same page for once?

Gradually, my labored breathing began to slow and with it, my pulse. I closed my eyes. My concentration increased. My senses heightened.

I heard voices, some masculine, some feminine. But from where?

I rotated in a small circle. The walls played tricks on my ears but I felt reasonably certain the voices originated from the southwest. Tilting my head in that direction, I listened carefully.

But try as I might, I was unable to distinguish individual words. It was just one big mess. Giving up, I turned to Beverly. “Did you catch anything?”

“Just jumbled words.”

I looked at Cartwright. “Sorry about that. I couldn’t afford you making any noise.”

He glared at me.

“We’ve got voices coming from the southwest. Is that where your bunker is located?”

“Go to hell.”

“Chase might be in there.” I returned his glare. “If so, the others are already dead.”

“Then, I’m wasting my time here. I need to get to the Bell.”

“It’s nice to know you care about your friends.”

His eyes tightened. “I care about them just fine. But I made a vow to keep the Bell safe and nothing’s going to stop me from doing that.”

“Fine,” Beverly said. “But take us to your bunker first.”

Cartwright pushed himself to his feet, led us all the way down to the end of the corridor, and then opened a small door.

I looked inside, seeing a dark, four-foot tall passage.

“This leads to an air flue.” He lowered his voice. “Beach planned to use it to filter compressed air into the tunnel to propel his subway car. If you follow the path around, you’ll see a slab of metal. Pull it aside and you’ll be able to peek into the bunker without anyone noticing.”

“Thanks.”

He gave me a hard look. “We’ll meet again, Cyclone. Count on it. But for now, you’re on your own.”

I watched as he slid by Beverly and disappeared into the tube. Then, I ducked my head and entered the short, dark passage. Keeping low, I followed it around in a winding path for about a hundred feet.

Finally, I stopped in front of a small piece of metal. Dousing my flashlight, I quietly cracked it open a quarter of an inch.

I peered into the next room and saw about a dozen people milling around. It looked perfectly ordinary, similar to how we’d left it. And yet, it was totally different. The faces had changed, the weapons were fiercer, and the expressions lacked emotion.

I switched my gaze to the floor and swallowed.

Hard.

Ten bodies lay in a heap against one side of the bunker, bloodied and unmoving. Their frozen expressions told me everything I needed to know.

The Sand Demons were dead.

My gaze swept the room. It passed by the soldiers. It passed by the row of beds, which were covered in gore. Finally, I saw them.

They sat on one of the empty beds. Standish appeared to be writing something on a sketchpad. Chase held his gun, unwavering, off to the side.

I reached for my pistol. Two bullets. That’s all it would take. With two bullets I could end their lives, end my misery.

And then I saw her.

She sat on the floor with her head sagging to her chest. She appeared to be bleeding heavily from the stomach and looked near death. To make matters worse, Chase’s gun pointed directly at her chest.

Fury poured into my brain, cutting off my sense of logic. I wanted to kill Chase for what he’d done to Diane.

I wanted to kill them all.

My fingers clenched the grip of the gun but I left it in the holster. I couldn’t let my emotions get the better of me. The instant I fired my weapon, hell would rain down on us. Beverly and I would die instantly. Diane, if she didn’t perish in the crossfire, would die shortly afterward.

I glanced back at Beverly. She stood behind my shoulder, peering through the small crack afforded by the slab of metal. “Seen enough?” I mouthed.

She nodded and stepped away.

Gently, I pushed the slab back into place. Then I followed Beverly back through the flue.

Once we were out of earshot, I took a deep breath. “We need to rescue her.”

“Don’t you ever get tired of playing underdog?”

“It’s the American way.”

“I know those people. They’re some of Jack’s best soldiers. We can’t beat them, especially not with just two of us.”

“We don’t have a choice,” I replied. “She needs our help. She’s dying.”

“There’s always a choice. And right now, the smart thing is to wait for our opportunity.”

“You just want to sit here and do nothing?”

She shook her head. “We’ve got two things going for us. First, we know where to find them but they don’t know where to find us. And second, we know what they want.”

“The Bell.”

“I say we go and destroy the thing before it hurts anyone. Then, we set a trap for them. In the confusion, we’ll grab your friend and run for it.”

“How the hell are we going to do that? I thought you said we didn’t stand a chance against them.”

“We don’t. But we can’t stage an effective fight here. If I know Jack, he’s itching to find us. We might as well make sure that when he does, the advantage is ours. Because the instant he sees us, he won’t let up until he’s dead…or we are.

Chapter 53

Doubt wrapped its icy fingers around my heart as I darted through the passageway. I didn’t like leaving Diane behind. It felt wrong.

Completely, utterly wrong.

You’re doing the right thing.

I repeated that mantra over and over again in my head. Part of me knew Beverly was right. We didn’t stand a chance in a fair fight. We needed to regroup at the
Omega
and destroy the Bell. Then we could marshal our resources and strike at our enemies in an unconventional fashion.

But no matter how many times I tried to convince myself we were doing the right thing, it didn’t help. I still felt guilty.

Guilty as hell.

As I rounded the corner, I squinted. To find the
Omega
, we first needed to find Cartwright. Unfortunately, he had a lead on us. Even worse, we didn’t know how to navigate the maze of passages.

To make matters worse, once we caught up with him, there was no assurance he’d take us to the
Omega
. In many ways, that task seemed even more daunting than the first one.

I turned at a corner and hustled through a short passageway. At the next corner, I took the turn too quickly. My feet slipped and my hands reached out to brace myself.

It worked, but not enough.

My forehead slammed into the bedrock.

I saw stars. Lifting my hand, I touched my forehead. It felt sticky, gooey. Shifting my light, I studied my fingers and saw smears of fresh blood on them.

Beverly halted behind me. I swung around and faced her. “How bad is it?”

“I suppose it could be worse.” She grimaced. “But not much.”

I felt sticky liquid pouring down my face. “Damn it.”

“You reopened a cut. If you give it some time…”

“We don’t have time.”

I noticed an annoying slur in my voice. It bothered me. Destroying the Bell and rescuing Diane would prove difficult even under the best of circumstances. Losing a lot of blood might ruin our already infinitesimal chance of succeeding.

I turned away from her worried eyes. Pointing my flashlight at the ground, I quickly studied the tunnel that branched off to my left. It looked perfectly ordinary.

Twisting back to the right, I directed my beam down the tunnel and saw bits of mud and wet partial footprints on the bedrock.

I followed them. For the next ninety seconds, I led Beverly down a series of corridors, doing my best to follow the trail. But with every second, it faded.

Blood dripped into my eye. Blinking awkwardly, I swatted it away like a gnat. So far, the wound on my forehead had failed to clot. If I continued to lose blood at my current pace, I wouldn’t have to worry about passing out.

I’d be dead.

I pressed my right palm against my forehead, hoping to quell my blood loss. But my vision dimmed and I began to wonder how much longer I could keep running. Gritting my teeth, I kicked it up a notch and darted through a short, winding passage.

At the end of it, I heard a light shuffling noise. Turning the corner, I saw a silhouette in front of me. It paused for a moment. Then it spun around, pointing a shotgun in our direction.

“It’s us,” I hissed. “Don’t shoot.”

As the silhouette lowered its weapon, I jogged over. I halted next to him and bent down, breathing hard, doing my best not to vomit all over the place. I felt horrible.

After a moment, I looked up and saw Cartwright’s dark, angry eyes.

He flinched. “What the hell happened to your face?”

Lifting a hand, I signaled that I needed a few seconds. Then I stripped off my satchel and shirt. I flopped down on the bedrock, barely noticing its sharp edges. Bunching up the shirt, I pressed it hard against my forehead and began to count slowly in my head.

“Why are you here?”

I opened my mouth to respond. Immediately, a queasy feeling hit my stomach and I doubled over in pain.

“We’re looking for you,” Beverly said. “We want to help.”

“I don’t need your help.”

“You have no electricity, no third rail. As I see it, you’ve got no way of moving the
Omega
.”

“I’ll stop them.”

To my surprise, my body started to move. My knee jerked under me and then planted on the rock. My sore, scratched palms shifted, one to the wall and the other to the ground. Next thing I knew, I was standing up and struggling to put my shirt back on.

Cartwright shook his head. “You’re in no shape to go anywhere. Why don’t you just stay down like a normal person?”

My feet wobbled under my heavy body and my mind felt sluggish. But when I spoke, my voice ripped through the air like a jackhammer. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m done running.”

He turned around. In the dim glow afforded by my light, I saw uncertainty in his eyes. “My friends…?”

I shook my head. “They didn’t make it.”

“If you hadn’t followed me down here…”

“Then Chase would’ve found you anyways.” I swallowed thickly. “What’s done is done. All that matters now is destroying the Bell.”

He shook his head. “I already told you. That’s impossible.”

Beverly rolled her eyes. “So, what’s your plan? Sit on top of it with your shotgun?”

“I’ll think of something.”

“We have Hartek’s journal,” she reminded him.

He hesitated. “You realize that this isn’t going to end well.”

My gaze grew hard. “Yes it will.”

He looked closely in my eyes. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“Excuse me?”

“I can see it in your face. There’s something else going on here, something beyond the Bell.”

I took a deep breath. “Chase is holding a friend of mine hostage.”

“Your lover?”

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Beverly looking very hard in my direction. I shook my head. “Just a friend.”

“How do I know you won’t try to trade the Bell for her life?”

“Even if I wanted to do it, it wouldn’t work. He’d just kill all of us and take the Bell anyways.”

Cartwright emitted an annoyed sigh. I sensed his internal strife. Abruptly, he turned around and started walking.

I raised an eyebrow at Beverly. She shrugged in return.

I started to follow him through the corridor. We walked for a minute, passing an intriguing metal door along the way.

Suddenly, he stopped. I stepped to the side to avoid bumping into him. Then I looked over his shoulder. “Really? A dead end? When are you going to stop wasting time?”

He didn’t say a word. Instead, he bent down and felt along the bottom of the bedrock wall. His finger pressed something.