Phantom Prospect - Alex Archer [73]
It took her three more minutes of fast walking to reach it, but as she came abreast of the zenith, she started hearing more noise. She picked out loud machines that hummed and heavy industrial gear from the sound of it.
Annja paused and sank down to her knees to get a better picture of what was going on beyond.
Bright light greeted her, making her blink rapidly. Her eyes had been so used to the dim light that the sudden rush of illumination hurt her head. Annja looked back and blinked to further acclimate her eyes.
What she saw amazed her.
She was overlooking the vast expanse of a stone cavern that was filled with all manner of machinery. One of the things she thought she recognized was a huge drill that seemed to be boring right into the base of a giant stone.
In the lower part of the cavern, Annja could see scores of people working on a variety of geological contraptions. Across from them, she saw a dock and, floating in water, she spotted several submarines and two giant sharks.
Two of them?
Annja frowned. Where the hell was she? And whatever she’d stumbled upon, it was obviously well financed. To get this type of machinery and gear down here, let alone employ so many people in whatever processes were ongoing, would take enormous sums of money.
Who had that kind of financing available to them? Sheila had mentioned Henderson. Was she lying or was there really a man named Henderson who was fronting this entire operation. Surely this wasn’t just about some crucifix. They wouldn’t need resources like this just to recover a sunken relic.
No way.
Annja looked around and saw more armed guards on patrol overlooking various parts of the cavern. But the machinery noise was so loud, Annja wasn’t surprised that the guard she’d killed hadn’t attracted any notice. No one would have heard the gunfire from the main cavern.
The area where Annja knelt opened onto a ledge that seemed to run all the way around the cavern. It was on this catwalk of sorts that Annja spotted the other guards.
And across from her, she could see a glass-enclosed control room. She noticed a series of monitors and computers.
If she was going to get any answers as to what was happening here, she would have to reach that spot.
But what had happened to Cole? Was he here? Were there other cells back where she’d been held?
Annja wanted nothing more than to go and check, but her gut instinct told her that Cole wasn’t back there. Something inside her insisted that he was still alive, but where?
She saw soon enough.
A break in the machinery din caused her to look down and to the right when she thought she heard a laugh. As she did, she saw Cole strapped to a board, arms and legs akimbo.
A guard nearby held a long wand that crackled at the end. Annja recognized the Taser and wondered why they were torturing Cole when, to her knowledge, he had no idea what was going on.
She saw the guard touch the device to Cole’s chest and watched as Cole arched his back in agony. The voltage was not enough to kill him, but they could make him suffer for hours until he mercifully passed out or had a heart attack as his body gave up.
I’ve got to get to him, she thought. But a quick glance around the catwalk told Annja that reaching Cole would entail her taking on half a dozen armed men who were presumably very well trained if the first guard she’d encountered was any indication.
Those weren’t good odds for Annja.
She leaned back and took a deep breath. Could she possibly reach the control room? That would mean she’d have to expose herself.
She looked around and tried to figure out how people were able to get down to the lower levels. Clearly, this area led up to the catwalk, but what about going in the opposite direction? Would that lead Annja down to where Cole was?
She had to try.
Annja ran back the way she’d come. She wasn’t worried about running into anyone there. Her feeling was the prisoner cells were positioned so that someone could get to them from either the top level or from the bottom.
Annja ran past her cell,