Tom struggled up, hearing the discharge before he could break into a sprint. He saw the Browning fall from Karen’s hand. Then another shot rang out. Her body collapsed to the ground, an agonized expression creasing her face.
“Jesus, no,” he said. “Karen!”
As he was about to run to her, Tom heard Lester hammering down the corridor behind him, emptying half a clip as he did so. He glanced over his shoulder, almost involuntarily, just as Lester put a round in the head of the man in the alcove. His near-suicidal charge had been successful only because the man had risked ducking out rather than blind firing, conscious, perhaps, that if he missed he would be vulnerable. They had both acted recklessly, and Lester was lucky to be alive.
Tom turned and glimpsed a shaven-headed man disappearing down the stone steps to the basement. The last man. He saw Karen lying on the rug, her body twitching in spasms. He ran towards her, jumping over the body of the man he’d secured earlier. As he got to her, he bent down. Her eyelids were fluttering, her camo windbreaker soaked with blood around the two scorched entry holes.
“Go on,” she said, blood oozing from her already blue-tinged lips. “Find her.” Her breath was laboured, her voice a murmur.
“Karen, hold on. Just hold on,” he said, cradling her head. Her eyes closed, a ghostly moan emerging from her mouth. Then she went limp. He put his hand to her nose, felt nothing. Tears welled in his eyes.
“She’s dead,” he said, hearing Lester come up behind him.
“We gotta move, Tom,” Lester said, putting his hand on Tom’s shoulder. “We gotta move now.”
“He went down the steps. That’s where she is, in the basement.”
“C’mon, Tom. We gotta finish this.”
Recalling Karen’s words to him at the airfield, Tom took off his jacket and placed it over her neck and face. He slumped down afterwards, the impact of the shock of her death making him lose focus. He held her flaccid hand, willing her to somehow open her eyes.
“The secretary,” Lester said, dragging Tom up. “He’s gone to kill the secretary.”
Tom shook his head, took a deep breath and stared blankly at his friend.
“C’mon, Tom. We gotta move,” Lester said, grabbing Tom’s forearms and shaking them like a pair of maracas.
Running down the stone staircase with Lester, Tom felt as if his head were about to explode, as if he had come to the limits of his physical and mental self. It was all he could do to stop himself from passing out. But he had to go on. To find her. To fulfil his promise to her. He hadn’t had the opportunity to save his mother, although he would’ve gladly died in the process. If he knew anything at all now, it was that he had to go on. To take revenge on the man who’d killed Karen, too.
As they got to the foot of the steps the corridor went left and right. Tom and Lester hugged the opposite supports beneath a large stone lintel.
“We’ll split up,” Tom said, his head still buzzing.
“I’ll go right.”
Tom watched Lester run down the corridor, drops of blood leaving a scattered trail from the entry wound. Looking left, he saw the dim corridor, a few lights affixed to the low ceiling in wire cradles. The gas pipes were exposed against the off-white walls, the floor grey-slate slabs, uneven and cracked with age. As he got halfway down he saw three rooms to the right, another corridor leading off to the left. Uncertain of how to proceed, he crouched down. The chain of events that had led him here were a wake-up call. Many people from Pakistan to the States had been involved in the secretary’s abduction. Some were dead or captured. The rest would follow, he told himself.
Hearing footsteps behind him, he glanced around, seeing Lester jogging back along the corridor, shaking his head. Five seconds later, his friend knelt down beside him, breathing heavily and grimacing as he tightened the makeshift tourniquet with his good hand.
“A dead end,” he said. “A windowless, granite wall.”
“You check the corridor off left. I’ll check the rooms,” Tom said.
With that, the middle door swung open slowly.
“That’s spooky shit,” Lester said.
“No, that’s flesh and blood that wants us to walk into somethin’.”
Tom sighed. He figured she had to be in the room. There was no other reason for the man who had shot Karen to come down here. Nowhere else for the secretary to go, either.
“What now?” Lester asked.
Before Tom had a chance to answer, a voice called out.
“You got ten seconds. Then I’ll blow her face off.”
“An English accent. The guy the Frenchy called Proctor. He’ll know we won’t go in shooting,” Lester said.
“I gotta go,” Tom said, standing up.
“We come this far. I say we go together.”
“You’ve done a suicide run already, old friend.”
“He killed Karen. Your blood is up. That means you ain’t thinking straight,” Lester said.
Tom figured he was right. They got up together and walked side by side down the corridor towards the open door.