Still nauseated at the smell of raw sewage, Téya low-crawled through the tunnel on her belly, using her elbows to advance. Behind her, she heard the soft splashes of Nesim. He’d been surprisingly agile in the climb and stealthy now. She’d underestimated him on the plane, she guessed. He didn’t look like the type of guy who could make a climb like that.
Another twenty minutes or so in, following the pattern she’d randomly chosen—left, left, left, right, left. It’d matched the cadence of the ROTC program she’d been in, that her stepfather, Georg, had demanded she do. As a child under his roof, she had no choice. It’d made her mother happy that she didn’t argue. It made Téya happy that she learned to shoot weapons and, once she’d climbed up in rank, got to boss the other cadets around. That was enough for her.
As she banked left for the last time, she slowed. It was dark. Very dark. She should’ve expected this.
A soft tap came to her leg.
She glanced over her shoulder. “Dead end,” she whispered. “They barricaded it.”
Nesim waved her back. They renegotiated the last passage and went right instead of left. As they moved along, this time with Nesim in the lead because of the narrow space and having backed out, light trickled into the tunnel. They came to an air vent. Blades of a fan whirred rapidly, daring them to put their fingers in and get them chopped off.
Tugging a small pack she hadn’t noticed before from his back, Nesim produced a small torch. He burned through the heavy bolts that held the fan vent on. Téya’s gut churned at the thought of having to stop that fan. What if it burned out the motor and set off an alarm? What if it slipped while one of them was climbing through?
Like a pro, Nesim freed the vent cover. Once he’d done that, he reached toward the motor at the center, avoiding the blades completely. With a few deft moves he had stopped the fan.
“Not your first rodeo, huh?” Téya said. She hated that she felt impressed. They were forcing her here. Why?
Bracing the fan blades so they didn’t move, Nesim hauled his legs out from under his body and sat. He nodded to the interior vent. “Hold it.” Using both booted feet, he shoved hard.
Téya pitched forward. The vent came loose, and she nearly fell into the room, but Nesim caught her by the waist. He slowly lowered her into the room. She let the encasing rest against the vinyl floor, then pressed both palms to the side and did a sort of cartwheel to her feet. Nesim was at her side.
Metal lockers lined the wall, a few plastic-encased steel benches straddled drain holes. Half walls encircled a center tiled area. Showers.
“You’re entering what, according to our schematics, is the locker room.”
“Outdated,” Téya muttered.
“What?” Nesim asked.
“My memories are outdated,” she said, covering her mistake. “This used to be a laundry room.”
Nesim rushed to the lockers and dug through them. He produced a green jumpsuit and held it out to her, motioning to the showers.
“No,” she hissed. “We have to find Majid, right?”
But he was already going through other lockers. “We reek. They’ll smell us a mile away.” He bent over a lower locker, yanked something out, then straightened. A blue jumpsuit. “Go,” he said again, heading in the opposite direction.
This was all kinds of wrong. But she did stink. And they were probably tracking muck—she glanced at her brown footprints on the floor. Yep.
She stripped, showered, and donned the suit, grateful her undergarments weren’t soaked. But they were damp enough to have some of the smell. As were her socks and boots. When she stepped around the corner, dressed, she found Nesim walking toward her. He had a gun. Aimed it at her.
Téya froze. “You wanted me clean before you killed me?”
With an apologetic shrug, he said, “Sorry.” And fired.