CHAPTER 17
Cotton hustled down the stairs. At ground level, outside, he caught better sight of the man he’d seen skulking around from upstairs.
Dark-haired, sporting a beard with shaggy locks, the face pocked and swarthy, wearing a poncho soaked from the rain.
The guy was beneath the archway, opening the gate, the hinges squealing from resistance but yielding.
The man then shed the wet poncho and disappeared into the portal, descending the stairs underground.
He hesitated before following.
Was it foolish? Probably. But he received his fears from his mother and his audacity from his father, and never had the former consumed the latter.
He was here to investigate. To do whatever was needed to get answers.
That’s what field officers did. He’d also learned that in every mission there were moments when the only course available was blind risk.
Where you placed your trust in something that might otherwise be regarded as foolish and hoped for the best.
He’d once lived for those moments.
And still did, to some extent.
He crossed the breezeway, opened the gate, and descended one metal riser at a time, the air progressively becoming close and stale, like it had been breathed to exhaustion.
A sense of trepidation dug deep into the pit of his stomach.
A familiar uncomfortable urge started to sweep through him, one he knew might surface.
His Achilles’ heel.
He carried no love for enclosed spaces. In fact, he hated them. A flaw from his mother who likewise was severely claustrophobic. His father had been the polar opposite, a submariner in the navy who spent years underwater. So he liked to think there was a balance inside him.
He reached the bottom and faced the semi-darkness surrounding him.
A heavy iron-bound door hung open, supported by two buttresses.
A rumble of water echoed off walls hewn from the rock, the floor damp and gritty.
A sickly smell of decay lay heavy in the air.
He was standing in some sort of subterranean spillway, the bleak place dimly lit by meager bulbs within metal cages that cast a jaundiced glow across the moving water.
The ceiling was only a few feet above his head.
Rainwater rushed down from drains above and filled a center canal that ran quickly away, most likely out to sea.
Apparently this was some sort of common construction that reduced the chance of flooding.
He wondered how long this system had been in place.
A long time, he concluded. A narrow ledge stretched before him down one side of the canal.
No sign of anyone. The waterfalls raining down drowned out all other sounds.
He heard a rustling noise ahead. Then he saw a light.
Off in the darkness. On for a moment, then off again.
He moved toward it.
After about a hundred steps the floor began to angle downward.
The ceiling became lower, barely leaving room to walk erect.
A cold sweat formed in the hollow of his back.
It wasn’t enclosed spaces that got to him.
It was tight enclosed spaces that always triggered panic.
He wanted to flee back up to ground level, but he knew he had to check this out.
Suck it up. Keep going.
He came to a crossing where a second tunnel with another spillway shot off at right angles, its water moving even faster.
The shadows here were long, blurring into one another like a growing stain.
He was watching for the slightest movement, sound, or feeling, his primal senses honed.
The tunnel to his left hit a dead end about fifty feet away where more water drained down.
To his right the path kept going. He left the main shaft, turned the corner, and brushed all the disturbing thoughts from his brain.
He passed several other connecting tunnels.
A cold calm settled over his nerves.
His claustrophobia eased, but his fears seemed unrelieved.
Suddenly, the darkness moved and a form sprang from the shadows, a knife momentarily casting a sharp glint in the weak beams of light.
Long, wide, serrated.
He’d been expecting something, so he was ready, keeping agile on the balls of his feet, the knife sweeping in a circular motion of readiness.
He resisted the impulse to back away. Bad move. Never give your opponent more room to maneuver.
Instead, close in. Attack.
He brought his right elbow up and jabbed at the throat with a sharp blast. In the same motion he caught the knife arm in a tight grip and brought it over his hip, twisting and flipping the guy in a somersault.
The man pounded the floor and the knife clattered away.
The guy sprang back to his feet and swung a fist but the punch missed.
Cotton threw his whole weight at his assailant, using his shoulder as a ram, taking them both down to the wet floor.
They rolled.
The man jolted Cotton with a left-hand blow to the side of the head that momentarily stunned him, allowing a few seconds for the knife to be found and the man to climb atop him, forcing the blade down toward his throat.
Cotton fought hard to keep the tip away, pushing back.
It came within an inch of his neck and kept edging lower.
He swung his whole body and vaulted the guy off him.
Blood pounded in his head. His pulse leaped through his body.
His opponent came to his feet.
The same bearded face from upstairs.
Cotton heaved forward, spun on his spine, and clipped the man’s legs out from under him, sending the guy pounding back to the wet stone. He readied himself for a final punch.
A shot rang out. Loud. Echoing.
A bullet pinged off the rock wall.
They had company.
He stayed low and crawled forward, taking refuge inside another tunnel that opened off the main shaft. He was unarmed. Guns were illegal in Sweden. Of course, as an intelligence operative, here with the government’s blessing, he could certainly carry a weapon. But he hadn’t requested one.
Big mistake.
He stayed on the floor and carefully peered around the corner where the two tunnels joined. The guy with the knife was gone. But not the danger of a gun off somewhere in the dark. The sound of rushing water screamed in his ears.
“Malone,” a male voice called out.
Interesting his name was known. “I’m here.”
“Come to me.”
“No way.”
“Mr. Malone, I need your help.”
A new voice. Older. Weaker. Fear lacing the tone.
“Who are you?” Cotton called out.
“They took me from my apartment.”
He slowly rose to his feet.
A light came on about fifty feet away. An image took shape and dimension, then meaning.
The man who’d attacked him was holding a cell phone with a light.
The uneven wash caught the face of another man standing behind an older, third man, a gun to his captive’s head.
The older face was the color of bone, sallow, bloodless with an expression of fear and panic stamped into the features.
Cotton stayed in the semi-blackness and shifted position, easing into another of the tunnel entrances, out of the line of fire.
“Help me,” the older man said, with a plea in his voice.
“Who are you?”
“Lars Olsson. These men took me.”
Which meant he’d been led here by a fake Lars above.
His surprise turned to consternation.
He risked another peek around the corner. Too far away to rush them. He’d be shot long before he got there. Nothing lay around him that he could use as a weapon.
“Let the old guy go,” he called back. “This is between you and me.”
“Okay, I’ll let him go.”
And the old man was shoved off the ledge and into the black of the center canal.
The body hit the water with a splash.
Three rounds came his way.