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Selena looked at her watch again. It had been thirty-four minutes since she'd heard from Nick, four minutes past his deadline.
Nick was in trouble, she could feel it. She could do what he'd said, leave and call Harker, but it would take too long for any kind of backup to come. By then he could be dead. There was only one thing to do.
She called Harker.
"Yes, Selena."
"They're in the house but something's wrong. You need to send backup. I'm going in after them."
"Selena..."
Selena broke the connection.
"Damn," Elizabeth said. She called Hood.
Keeping an eye on the house, Selena opened the back door of the Suburban. On the floor was a box containing extra magazines for the MP7s and a half dozen fragmentation grenades. She put four magazines in one of her jacket pockets and four of the grenades in the other. She closed the car door, brought her weapon up, and moved to the house entrance.
The door to the house was still open. She took a quick look inside. There was no one visible. She could see marks on the floor where bullets had ricocheted away. There were bodies on the stairs, one on the floor, but none of them were her friends. Bullet holes marked the wall around open doors on the left. Bits of marble were scattered across the floor.
Selena ran across the open space to the foot of the stairs. She could feel the twins inside her. It wasn't as easy to run as it had been a few months ago, but she could still move quickly.
To the right of the stairs was an open door. Through it, she could see the closed door of an elevator.
Has to be where Nick went.
On the other side of the stairs was another door, this one closed. She moved to it, tried the handle, and pushed it open. It opened onto a hall heading toward the back of the house. To the right, stairs led down to whatever lay below. A single bulb in an iron cage jutted from the stairwell wall, lighting the area with a yellow glow. A large number "1" was painted on a yellow concrete wall. Steps poured from gray concrete led down to a landing and disappeared from view.
She started down the stairs, reached the first landing, and kept going. At the next landing, the wall was marked with a "2." A caged bulb identical to the one at the head of the stairs lit the area. There was a metal door in the wall. She tried it. It was locked.
Selena continued down. There was no door at the landing marked "3," only the yellow walls. The air became cooler as she descended. She kept passing numbers painted on the wall. She was beginning to wonder how far down the steps went, when she reached the bottom. The number on the wall read "20." There was a door, the first one she'd seen since the second landing.
She tried the handle. It moved. With great care she cracked the door open. She couldn't see anyone. She stepped through the door into a dimly lit room filled with the hum of machinery.
Selena thought about something built twenty stories below ground level. It had to be a shelter to keep its inhabitants safe from bombs and radiation. This must be the room for mechanical systems that kept the shelter functional.
She crossed the room to another door. It led to a room stacked high with canned and dried foods, emergency supplies. She walked past the stacks to a door on the other side of the room and eased it open. It led to a hall about forty feet long. Four doors made of metal lined the hall, two on each side. Each had a viewing slot. A door at the far end was closed.
Those look like cells, she thought.
Then she noticed a camera at the other end of the hall.
Shit.
She stopped at the first door, pulled back the viewing slot, and saw Ronnie sitting on a stone ledge. He looked bored and angry.
"Ronnie," she said.
"Selena? Can you get me out of here?"
The door was held closed by a steel bar. She swung it up out of the way and pulled the door open.
"Man, am I glad to see you."
"Where are Nick and Lamont?"
Ronnie looked around. "Probably in these other cells."
Selena went to the next door down, looked in and saw Nick.
"Nick. Wait."
She lifted the bar and opened the door.
"You were supposed to leave," Nick said.
He came out and hugged her.
Ronnie found Lamont in the cell across from Nick and let him out.
Selena pointed. "There's a camera. They'll know you're free."
"Give me your weapon," Nick said. "What else have you got?"
"Grenades."
She took the grenades out of her pocket and gave two each to Ronnie and Lamont. She took out her pistol.
"And this."
"Let's go find Mister Nicklaus," Nick said.