Phantom Prospect - Alex Archer [78]
“All right.”
Annja took a breath. “Isn’t this fun?”
“I prefer diving with sharks.”
Annja nodded. “Welcome to my world.”
“Is it really like this?”
Annja thought about it for a second as another volley of bullets echoed off the corridor walls. She looked back at Cole. “With an almost startling regularity.”
“Wow.”
Annja squatted and prepared herself. She took a few deep breaths to fully oxygenate her blood and then nodded at Cole. “Here we go.” She looked back at him. “Make sure you don’t shoot me in the back.”
She ran out from around the bend and screamed as she ran straight at the stacked crates, her sword held up in front of her.
Please, she thought, just let me close the gap in time for Cole to take them out.
As she’d predicted, the guards stopped short when they saw her and froze for a moment. Annja heard sporadic gunfire from behind her.
The guard closest to her took two rounds in his throat and toppled backward with a bloody gurgle. A bright spout of crimson erupted from the base of his neck.
That’s one, Annja thought.
The second guard took a close stitch of bullets across his chest and slid sideways with the force of the impact, streaking red across the wooden crate.
Two.
The third guard brought his gun up on Annja but then took a single well-placed shot in the shoulder that spun him around just as he squeezed the trigger. His gun went off and stitched one his fellow guards.
Annja kept running. Three and four.
A single shot came at her as she dived forward, twisting her body out of the bullet’s path. She reached the crates and scrambled over them, coming down on the other side and finding herself within striking range of the next guard.
She backstroked and cut him down with a quick slash across his abdomen. He clutched at his stomach and fell. Annja kept moving and slashed another guard who was trying to draw his pistol and shoot her in the close confines of the space.
Annja cleaved him with a single stroke.
She whirled and caught the final guard with a slash that barely creased his throat over his voice box. The bright red smile that she scored across his neck melted in a bubbling fountain of blood and he clutched at his neck as he fell.
Annja leaned against one of the crates and took a deep breath. She heard footsteps and brought her sword up just in time to see Cole come running toward her.
“They all dead?”
She nodded. “Nice shooting there, pal.”
“Glad it worked out.” He shook his head. “I’ve never seen anyone move like you did. I thought you were dead. I heard that one shot and then you just, I don’t know…moved at the perfect moment.”
Annja shrugged. “Like I said, the sword does some amazing things.”
“That wasn’t the sword,” Cole said. “That was you.”
“We can debate it later,” Annja said. “For now, let’s get the hell out of here.”
Cole looked at the lower level. And Annja noticed that there weren’t any workers down there. The roar of machines continued unabated, but there seemed to be no one else around.
Annja frowned. “This place was crawling with people just a little while ago.”
“I know,” Cole said. “What do you suppose happened?”
“Well, we did.” Annja glanced up at the catwalk but she couldn’t see if there were any guards there. “They probably sounded some type of alarm that we didn’t hear. They got everyone out of here so they could take us on without risk to the workers.”
Cole pointed across the way at the dock. “There are the subs.”
“Yeah,” Annja said. “And you notice how there doesn’t seem to be anything in our way?”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s wide-open. No guards, no real obstacles. Just a nice easy walk in the park for us.”
Cole frowned. “I take it that means something?”
“Yeah, it means they’re planning to ambush us somehow. It’s a trap. And I hate traps.”
Cole sighed. “What choice do we have? We have to get out of here. And we still don’t even know what’s going on.”
Annja nodded. “All good points.” She craned her neck and searched the catwalk. She couldn’t see anyone up there. Even the windows on the control room had