arm and crushed Cutter’s windpipe and spine.
Grant pulled his arm out from under Cutter, then removed the knife embedded in his left shoulder. He felt some blood spill out, but it didn’t come in a torrent. No arteries had been hit.
He heard Cutter’s wheezing in the darkness and knew the man had only seconds to live.
“Feel the burn, asshole,” Grant said.
A hiss escaped Cutter’s throat, and then he was silent.
Grant stood, cradling his left arm, picked up the flashlight, and staggered to the nearest ramp to see if he could get to Dilara in time.
Petrova threw Dilara off her, and Dilara sprang to her feet, not sure what to do next. The defensive techniques she would have learned had been enough to hold off a mugger, but this woman seemed like a trained fighter.
Petrova clicked her flashlight and focused it right in Dilara’s face, blinding her. Dilara moved backwards into the weapons room and grabbed one of the swords piled on the floor. She thrust it at the flashlight, knocking it aside still lit.
With a nimble move, Petrova somersaulted to grab a sword for herself. She stood and waved it back and forth gracefully, assuming a practiced stance.
“So swords are your choice,” she said. “Fine. It’s one of my favorites.”
Dilara had never used a sword before, so this fight would be over quick if she didn’t think of something else. Petrova raced at her, swinging the sword down. Reflexively, Dilara raised hers above her head to block the blow. Petrova’s sword glanced off to the side, but Dilara’s grip wasn’t in the right place, and her sword went flying, knocking over the urn with the purple symbol, scattering arrows on the floor.
“I should have stayed and poisoned you at LAX when I had the chance,” Petrova said.
Poison! That’s why Dilara recognized the symbol on the urn. It wasn’t a praying figure. It was a flower, the blossom of the monkshood plant. The arrows must have been dipped in a poison extracted from the monkshood flower, and the urn was marked to make the lethal arrows distinctive.
Dilara grabbed a handful of the arrows and began flinging them at Petrova, who was able to knock them aside. While Petrova was recovering from the fusillade, Dilara took the last arrow and charged. She stabbed the point into Petrova’s leg before Petrova was able to react. Petrova slashed with her sword, slicing a gash into Dilara’s arm and sending her reeling against the wall.
With a smile, Petrova pulled out the arrow. “Is that all you can do? You, my dear, are obviously an amateur.”
Dilara pulled a spear from the wall and held it in front of her. She made a few thrusts but Petrova neatly sidestepped them.
“Pathetic,” Petrova said and swung her sword at the spear.
Dilara was able to hold on to the spear, but the sword was quickly cutting it to pieces. When the spear was down to three feet long, Petrova swung her leg in a roundhouse kick, connecting with Dilara’s torso. She dropped to the floor, gasping for breath, and her helmet rolled away.
Petrova swaggered over and put a knee on Dilara’s chest. She raised the sword, pointing at Dilara’s neck for a killing blow, but she froze. Her hand moved jerkily to her throat, and the sword started quivering. Petrova’s hand went limp, and the sword fell. Dilara wrenched her head to the side. The sword landed so close to her neck, she felt it nick her skin. It clanged to the floor.
With a violent spasm, Petrova tipped over. She lay on the floor, twitching. Her mouth moved, but no words came out.
Dilara rose and put her hand to her neck. She pulled it away to find some blood on her palm, but not much.
Footsteps pounded behind her, and Dilara plucked the sword off the floor. She turned to see Grant coming towards her. In the dimness, she could see liquid shining on his left arm. Blood.
“My God!” she said. “Are you all right?”
“I was about to ask you the same thing.” He looked at Petrova wracked with tremors on the floor. “What happened to her?”
“Poisoned-tipped arrow. Remember the monkshood plant outside? Amazingly potent. Even after 6000 years, it’s still one of the deadliest poisons known to man. No antidote.”
She looked dispassionately at Petrova, whose eyes shined with the fear of death. “Now you know what Sam Watson went through.”
As if in response, Petrova’s body arched up. She crashed back to the floor and went limp.
“Cutter?” Dilara asked.
“He arrived in Hell a few minutes before this one.” Grant grabbed Dilara’s helmet and put it on. “Come on. This isn’t over. Garrett is still out there.”
“And Tyler, too,” she said, but she realized her tone wasn’t as sure as she wanted it to be.
“Let’s hope,” Grant said.
SEVENTY
Grant found Dilara’s pistol and retrieved his own helmet, which had been blasted by Petrova. The light still worked, but the 3-D mapping computer and infrared sensor were shot to pieces, so he turned off the helmet light and put it on Dilara’s head. No reason to walk around like a bright target. Grant turned off the handheld flashlight, guiding himself and Dilara to the edge of the third floor walkway. He switched on the infrared sensor of Dilara’s helmet, which he now wore. Their position gave him an expansive view of the Ark.
Immediately, he saw two figures on the cavern floor. One had a flashlight and was moving it back and forth, searching for the other man, who was 60 feet ahead of the flashlight, almost directly below Grant. He had his arm raised above him and walked with a limp.
One of them was Tyler, but which one? The infrared goggles didn’t have the resolution to identify them, and Tyler and Garrett were about the same size. If Grant yelled out, he’d give away their position.
He looked back at the figure who had his arm still above his head. Then he understood why. It was Tyler. He was signing, careful to exaggerate the motions. If his arm were in front of his body, Grant would never have seen his hand motion, but against the cool cave wall, he could see what Tyler was spelling out.
The stone door in the cave. That’s how they were getting out.
Grant signed back, but Tyler just kept blindly repeating the same message.
Grant whispered into Dilara’s ear. “We’re leaving.”
“What about Tyler?” she whispered back.
“I see him. He’s in trouble. Let’s get him.”
Grant took her hand and led her down the ramp, the 3-D mapping system showing the way.
Locke knew he must have come 200 feet so far. A light snapped off on the third level. He had no way of knowing who it was. He just had to keep going.
Garrett’s flashlight was still three rooms away, but it was forcing him to keep moving.
Locke felt a change in the air. Subtle, but it was there. Someone was coming. He tensed, but if his attacker was wearing night-vision goggles, Locke wouldn’t be able to do much more than put up token resistance.
He sniffed and caught a familiar scent. It was Dilara’s shampoo. The aroma was still in his nose from their shower and night together.
Locke felt a vise grip his arm. He reached out and touched Grant’s massive shoulder, which flinched backward. The stickiness on Locke’s hand told him why. Blood. Grant was injured. But they’d gotten his message.
His faulty helmet was removed, and a different helmet was placed on his head. The infrared system worked on this helmet. Locke saw the fiery images of Grant and Dilara in front of him, both of them wearing hardhats.
