Page 41 of The Ghost

Theo was holed up opposite, snaking his hand around to fire at the oncoming force. I joined him in the effort, and together, the two of us managed to hold off the enemy until the elevator doors shut us in.

“They’re not going to let us get very far,” I announced.

“Go down,” Theo instructed. “They’ll expect us to go up.”

“No,” I said, pushing the button for the floor right above. “We have to reach the surface.”

“We should head for the hangar,” he suggested.

“What about Lukas?” I demanded.

“We’ll meet up with him as soon as we get away,” Theo said.

It was frustrating to be on two different sides of the same team. I could see things clearly, or so I thought. But then again, Theo had just as much experience as I did. We were operating in the dark with practically no intel about how far the bad guys had come and where they were located inside the base.

Had they taken over the command center? Were our people staged somewhere else, holding them off? Were they in the hangar bay, or had they gone straight to Med Lab to get the implants? We didn’t know, and so that made it very hard to plot our next move.

“They’ll expect us to go up!” Theo shouted.

“We have to reconnect with Lukas!” I shot back.

The elevator ground to a halt before we got any further. I glanced up at the ceiling, knowing that was the only way out. Theo was right there with me, crouching to give me a leg up before I even had to ask.

I stepped onto his interlaced palms, lifting off the ground and driving toward the ceiling. There was a grate that popped off, allowing me to climb up onto the roof. I wrapped my legs around the cables and draped my torso back into the car to help Theo up. He pushed off the floor, using his momentum to carry him most of the way. I only had to bear his weight for a second before he was right there beside me.

I thought I heard the door being split, the enemy below tearing it open like a tin can. Theo pointed up, and I agreed with a nod. I grabbed hold of the cables, hauling myself upward before time ran out.

Theo followed close behind. Together, we made quick work of the climb, reaching the next floor before the bad guys managed to catch us. I was trapped in the middle of the shaft, unable to reach the door. And the sides were sealed shut, designed to withstand a decent amount of pressure.

I kept going, not wanting to risk the time it would take to consider our options. We were lucky if we had a few seconds before New Dawn breached the car below and began firing up at us. I held on tight, wishing I had gloves. Sweat was beginning to form on my palms and my forehead, a dangerous addition to our current situation.

Just as I was about to continue on to the next floor, I caught sight of a thin slit of light coming from the doors beside me. There was no time to discover whether it was a friend or a foe who was peeling it open.

I pulled my gun out, holding on to the cable with just one hand. Theo mimicked me from below, and we had less than a second to decide whether to open fire. If the doors opened and it was New Dawn on the other side, we would be dangling in the middle of a shooting range. But if it was Dark Sparrow who was trying to rescue us, we risked killing a friend if we opened fire too quickly.

“Sunrise!” Theo shouted.

I glanced down at him, wondering where he’d heard that phrase and whether it would help us out of our dilemma. There was an answering call from the other side, something that must have identified the culprit as New Dawn.

Theo answered with a squeeze of the trigger, alerting me to do the same. The cable shook in my hand, wobbling under the recoil. I heard shouting and saw a body fall past us. Wasting no time, I swung myself up onto the floor, sailing through the open door into the midst of another firefight.

I had no time to get my bearings. Covering Theo as he leapt to my side, I fired at everyone who took a shot at me. One corpse after another piled up around us, proving that we were well matched against a troop of New Dawn soldiers.

I spotted another contingent of strangers rushing toward us and grabbed Theo by the sleeve. Tugging him toward the right, I pulled him down the hall before reinforcements could reach us.

Bursting into an all-out sprint, we reached another branch of the hallway and slid around the corner. We were lost. Neither Theo nor I knew where we were going. There was another elevator, one that went directly to the command center. But I didn’t know how to reach it.

I cursed myself for not doing a more thorough job of reconnaissance while I’d had a chance. I’d been there for days and hadn’t been proactive about learning my way around. I was a woman who wouldn’t take her shoes off until she’d looked in every closet of every safehouse I’d ever been in. How had I been so stupid as to not learn the ins and outs of a place that could become such a death trap?

We turned another corner and ran into a group of Dark Sparrow soldiers. We could tell because they were wearing the insignias. I put my hands up, not wanting to fire on friendlies. They waved us close, and we advanced as a group, searching for more enemy troops.

“Where’s Lukas?” I demanded, hoping that someone was equipped with a communication device.

“Call him,” Theo suggested.

It slipped my mind that we had ordinary cell phones on us. There had been no time to make a call, but for the moment, we had some cover. I dialed up but got only a busy signal. I wasn’t surprised. Of course, Lukas was on the phone with someone else. Possibly the CIA or MI6, or any one of a number of other intelligence organizations that might be interested in our fight.

“Central command.” One of the Dark Sparrow operatives waved a radio at us.