use it. If it took more than pulling the trigger, she’d be toast.
As she ran, her lungs burned, making it hard to swallow. Her throat was parched. And whenever she heard footsteps running toward her, she ducked around a corner or squeezed behind fallen debris. But she knew her luck wouldn’t hold.
Gripping the keys in her hand, she realized why she’d taken them. She might not have known the other girls’ names, but she wouldn’t leave them behind—not if she had a chance to make a difference. She wasn’t able to help Britney, but for the sake of the others, she had to try.
“Please…get me out.” A small voice came from the other side of the door. Nikki felt tears welling in her eyes—tears of frustration and fear.
“Shhh. I’m trying,” she whispered back, shoving another key into the lock.
This time the key worked. When she opened the door, a little girl reached for her, clutching her in an embrace, her body shaking. She couldn’t have been more than eleven years old, a scrawny little thing with blond hair, big brown eyes, and freckles across the bridge of her nose. All Nikki wanted to do was hold her. She needed someone to do that for her too, but neither of them had time.
“We’ve gotta go—get the others.” Before she left the room, she had to ask. “What’s your name?”
“Shelby.”
“I’m getting you out of here, Shelby. No matter what happens, you stick with me.” She took the girl’s hand and squeezed it. Her fingers felt so small and fragile.
Nikki had used the words that Jessica Beckett had said to her, a memory from a lifetime ago in Chicago. And Jessica had also taught her a move or two that had helped her take out the guard in the operating room. She wasn’t sure she’d ever see the woman again, but remembering her now had given her strength.
The key to Shelby’s lock worked on the other cell doors. She found six girls in all. And now she had to find a way out, back to the elevator, but had no idea where to turn. She huddled the girls together and squatted near the floor around a corner. They stared at her, waiting for words of wisdom she didn’t think she had. Hell, she was just a kid herself. But for their sakes, she had to be more.
“It’s important we stay quiet,” she whispered. “No matter what you see or hear, no one cries or makes a sound.” Forcing a smile, she reached out and stroked the cheek of Shelby, the youngest, until the girl grinned back. “We stick together, no matter what. And hold each other’s hands. Does anyone remember where the elevator is?”
“I think it’s down this way.” An older girl, named Bethany, pointed down the hall behind them. “At the end of that hall, we make a right…I think.”
Nikki didn’t like that Bethany wasn’t sure, but some of the others nodded. Once they had a plan, they had to move. She felt the weight of the gun in her hand but hoped she wouldn’t have to use it.
“Okay, that’s it, then. When I say so, we’ll move out. And stay behind me.” She forced another smile, then crept to the corner and looked both ways. “Let’s go.”
The alarm was still flashing, but she hadn’t heard footsteps in a while. She prayed the men had gone, but didn’t feel luck was on her side. Holding onto Shelby’s hand, she crept down the hallway, her gaze shifting in front and behind them as they walked single file. But when she got to the end of the corridor, nearly to the corner where they needed to turn, she heard a noise that echoed off the walls. With the sound repeating, she had no idea how many were coming.
“Oh my God. Not now.”
She considered making a run for the corner, but the footsteps were coming in their direction, closing the gap between them. She’d never make it with six girls. She let go of Shelby’s hand, shoved the gun into the waistband of her pants and reached for the keys she’d taken off the guard as she raced to the nearest cell. They’d hide until they could move again.
Nikki fumbled the keys in her hands, but remembered the door was already open. The lock could only be secured from the hallway. Once they got inside, the door would be open to whoever walked in. But she didn’t have time to think about that, not with the footsteps getting louder. She rushed the girls inside, keeping them as quiet as possible. At the last instant, she did remember to flip the light switch on the outside wall of the cell. When the room went black, the girls gasped. She didn’t blame them for being afraid. Hell, she was too.
“Get to this wall and press against it,” she whispered.
She picked the best spot in the room for the girls to hide. She didn’t want a guard to look in the portal and see them. If someone hit the light switch, she wanted them to see only an empty room.
“Remember, not a sound,” she whispered.
She waited until they were all behind her, hugging the wall, before she gripped her weapon and pointed it at the door. In her mind, she pictured herself pulling the trigger like in the movies. Because if someone walked through that door, that’s what she’d have to do—without hesitation.
She wracked her brain trying to recall what little she knew about guns. If the weapon she held in her hand had a safety lock, she’d have no way of knowing what it would look like or how it worked. That scared her bad enough, but what if she fired and missed and the guard fired back? She grimaced with the thought and pushed it out of her head, except to make up her mind that when the time came, she’d step into the center of the room, away from the girls. She didn’t want them caught in her cross fire.
In the dark, Nikki felt Shelby reaching for her. The girl’s touch reminded her why she had taken a stand. Yet as much as the gesture meant to her, she had to stay focused. It took both hands for her to hold the weapon as badly as she was shaking. For the sake of Shelby and the others, she prayed for the strength to pull the trigger, a strange prayer. She felt the weight of the gun and the sweat on her palms. And her eyes blurred with stinging tears. That’s when she saw it.
At the base of the door she caught movement, a subtle brush of a shadow backlit by the faint pulse of the red flashing alarm. The shadow of a man stretched farther into the room, like unwanted fingers. Someone stood outside. She held her breath and aimed the weapon higher.
The next person through that door—she would shoot to kill.
CHAPTER 31
Outside the perimeter of the compound, some two kilometers from the old radar site, the men waited for Petrovin to show up in the two choppers that would take them to safety and a new location. Both pilots had started their aircraft, but in the one nearest the escape tunnel, tension had grown to a fevered pitch.
“Where is he?” one man asked. His eyes darted to the other faces in the dark.
Another man looked at his watch.
“Twenty minutes is long gone.” A security guard clenched his jaw and heaved a sigh in frustration. “He would leave any of us. He said so himself.”
As soon as the man said it, the others stared at him. They’d been thinking the same thing, but it was as if Petrovin himself would overhear and heads would soon roll.
“What?” The man shrugged. “We have no idea what is going on in there. And he is the only one who controls the detonation. All I’m saying is that it’s risky for us to sit here, not knowing, that’s all.”
“If we take off and he’s left behind, he would find each of us. You know how he is.” The co-pilot turned his head and spoke loud enough for them to hear, punctuating his commentary with curses under his breath.
A few minutes went by, without a sound coming from anyone, but the tension could be cut with a knife. From time to time the men gaped over their shoulders and stared at the tunnel in hopes Petrovin would emerge and the waiting and uncertainty would be over. If he did show, they could forget what had been said and keep each other’s secrets. But the Russian never came.
Without a word, the pilot took matters into his own hands and gave the thumbs-up to his counterpart across the makeshift tarmac. As the man made final preparations to leave, not another word was said. The helicopter lifted off the ground, hovered for an instant as the pilot gave the tunnel one last look, then flew into the night
