The Balkan Escape (Short Story)_ A Cassi - Steve Berry [3]
She lifted one of the stones and tested its weight.
Plenty heavy.
“What do you do?” Varga said. “Throw rock at me?”
She stole one last look around and grabbed her bearings. “That would be stupid. But—”
She whirled the rock at the light bar.
It slammed into the center of the panel, the bulbs erupting in a frenzy of blue-white sparks. The chamber plunged into blackness and she ducked behind the altar. Using the faint light from bulbs beyond the three exits as beacons, she shifted her position, rushing the fifteen paces across the blackness toward the opening. She had no idea where it led, but anything was better than here.
The men were screaming Russian at one another.
She kept on course and hoped she did not slam into any of her captors or rock.
She found the tunnel and plunged forward.
Two shots rang out from behind.
Far more darkness loomed here than light, the bulbs fewer and farther apart. She slowed her pace. Her boots caught on loose gravel, and she kept one arm extended, groping the air ahead.
She came to a place where the tunnel drew to the right. A light appeared behind her as she angled around. Flashlights were headed her way. She kept moving, one arm out front, the other tracing the tunnel wall.
One moment she was walking on firm earth, the next she was falling.
Her stomach folded up into her throat.
For a few seconds she was weightless.
Then she slammed into hard ground and consciousness slipped away.
She opened her eyes, but a cascade of water forced her lids shut. The cold liquid rushed over her with the force of a waterfall. She pushed herself up from a rocky floor, swiping wet eyes with her sleeve. Darkness surrounded her save for a hole in the ceiling ten meters above. Her vision was blurry but slowly revealed Varga and Sokolov, each holding a flashlight, staring down at her through the opening.
“I thought water might help,” Varga called down.
Her legs were sore, and the small of her back ached, but nothing seemed broken. Her hair and clothes were soaked and a chill began to work its way toward her skin.
“Good you find hole,” Varga said. “Save me trouble of dumping you here. Let it not be said that I not a fair man.” He tossed down his flashlight, which she caught. “At least you won’t be in dark. As long as batteries work.”
Then Varga disappeared, apparently walking off.
Only Sokolov’s face remained.
“Go left,” he whispered.
Then he, too, vanished.
The light from above receded and darkness overtook her.
She switched on the flashlight and walked to the right, specifically ignoring Sokolov’s instruction.
The walls were bone-dry, and the path ahead angled. Turning the corner, she spotted something on the floor, a red glow rhythmically pulsating, like a tiny searchlight. As she stepped close, her light revealed a digital timer attached to a thick bundle of pink material.
Numbers were clicking down.
Recognition was instant.
A bomb.
The timer at 15 seconds.
14. 13. 12.
She raced in the opposite direction, leaping forward just as the plastique exploded.
The impact shook the mountain and sent rock crumbling in an avalanche that quickly consumed the tunnel behind her. As the ceiling collapsed she scrambled to her feet and bolted away, the opening Varga and Sokolov had filled a few moments ago gone.
She dashed to another corner.
The tunnel walls behind her were imploding, rock pounding rock, dust rising in a dense storm, the air rapidly being replaced by a suffocating pall. She stared ahead and saw the tunnel end ten meters away. Even worse, another red glow pulsated at the base of a stone barricade. She ran forward and the light revealed another digital timer attached to another bundle of explosive, this clock at thirty seconds.
Go left?
Sokolov’s idea of help?
The first explosion had annihilated the tunnel behind