hanging on to it stubbornly. Reilly was looking to land a third punch when he got something he hadn’t counted on: a knee to the kidneys, quickly followed by a battering ram of an uppercut straight to his chin. The first impact winded him, and the second rattled his brain and caused him to lose his grip for a moment—which was just enough for the Iranian to shove him off with a scream of rage.
The gun was still in the man’s hand.
Reilly dove and rolled over himself just as the bullets drilled into the ground around him. Shards of tufa splintered off and cut into him as he yanked out his own gun and loosed off several rounds of his own, but none of them seemed to connect. His ears ringing from the deafening gunfire, he thought he heard his opponent scampering out of the chamber and he chased him out with a couple of rounds, but he didn’t hear the telltale sound of a round punching through human skin and bone and the accompanying outburst of pain.
Worse, the Iranian was now heading toward Tess.
Reilly found the cabling and felt his way forward, moving frantically now, one hand on the wiring, the other clutching the gun tightly, his ears attuned to make sure the Iranian hadn’t stopped and wasn’t about to ambush him.
He stopped at the mouth of another tunnel. “I wouldn’t go out there if I were you,” he shouted into the darkness, hoping to get a handle of the man’s position and to distract him from finding Tess. “The Jandarma should be all over this canyon by now and they’re not going to let you walk out of here alive.” He waited for an answer, then added, “If you want to live, your best bet’s walking out with me. The things you know can be of great value to us.”
Nothing.
He crept through the tunnel, through another cavern, and up to the entrance of another passageway. “You want to die, asshole? Is that it?”
Still nothing. The Iranian wasn’t a lightweight. But then, Reilly had known that already.
He pressed ahead, through a curving stairwell and across another chamber, and was about to go up what felt like a tight tunnel when he heard her.
“Over here,” Tess whispered, from his right.
She reached out and pulled him to her.
“He pass you?”
“Yes,” she replied. “When you were calling out to him. He stopped to listen to you, but didn’t see me.”
“Any idea where we are?”
“No. But we’ve come up a bit. I’d guess we’re maybe a couple of levels underground?”
“There’s no point trying to get him in here. It’s too dangerous,” he said. “We’ve got to get out of here.”
“We need to get this belt off me first,” she told him. “There’s no signal in here. I can’t go go back outside, not while I’m wearing it.”
Reilly’s insides knotted. “How’s it locked into place?”
“There’s a padlock. On the back.” She took his hand and guided it around her back.
He felt it. It seemed heavy and solid. He gave it a tug to test it, more out of frustration than with any expectation that it would give. “Can you turn it around so the padlock’s on your side?”
“Sure, it’s not on that tight. Why?”
“I can try to shoot the padlock off. But I need light.”
Tess exhaled heavily. “You sure?”
“If you stand right up against the corner of the opening of the tunnel, I’ll angle the shot away from you and into the tunnel. Even if it bounces off the metal, it’s not going to hit you.”
“You sure?” she repeated. She didn’t sound convinced.
“I want it off you,” Reilly insisted. “Trust me. But I’ll need you to flick the light on. Just for a second. On and off, that’s all. Okay?”
He’d rarely, if ever, heard her scared. Hadn’t really known her to fear much.
She was scared now.
He helped her position herself right against the edge of the opening into the next tunnel. She tilted her waist out as much as she could and tucked her arms behind her back, out of view. Reilly held the padlock out so it was peeking out from the corner of the doorway. He brought the barrel of his gun right up against its body, pushing it even farther away from Tess.
“Ready?” he asked.
“You ever done this before?”
“Not really.”
She shrugged. “Not the answer I was hoping for.”
“On three. One. Two.”
She flicked the light on at three and Reilly pulled the trigger. The padlock exploded with an ear-splitting crack and a flurry of sparks—and just then, several rounds punched the tufa around them.
“Back,” Reilly hollered, pulling Tess away from the tunnel opening as rock sharpnel flew wildly around them.
Then he heard it—the dead snap of the handgun’s slide locking back after it had belched out its last round.
“He’s out of ammo,” Reilly yelled as he pulled the belt off Tess and flung it into a far corner, then grabbed the flashlight and charged out after him. “Come on.”
He raked the beam ahead of him and spotted the Iranian ducking out of the tunnel and crossing another cavernous room.
He chased after him, his legs flying now, closing in on his prey, the taste of the imminent catch coursing through him.
ZAHED GROUND HIS TEETH as he hurtled through the honeycomb.
He cursed the American woman—cursed her for luring him down here, cursed her for taking his rucksack, cursed her for leaving him out of ammo.
It was time to cut his losses and get the hell out, assuming he’d be able to. He didn’t know what was waiting for him aboveground. He knew Reilly had to be bluffing about there being any troops there, but he couldn’t be sure of that. Even though the canyon hadn’t been swarming with tourists, someone was bound to have heard their earlier gunfight. They might have called the cops. The area could soon be seriously hostile, and slipping away from it wouldn’t be easy, given the limited number of ways in and out of the canyon.
He had to make it out first.
He stormed through a large communal room and dove into a sweeping passageway, the chasing light flickering in and out of view. It was helping him, bouncing off the walls, lighting up passages, giving him glimpses of clarity, but as long as it was there, he was the deer in the headlights. He had to get out of its range. He was moving frantically, as fast as he could, and didn’t know where he was going. It didn’t matter right now. All he could do was follow the cabling, hoping it led back to the entrance.
He could hear Reilly keeping pace, not far behind. He needed to lose him. He glimpsed a narrow stairwell and took the stairs, two at a time. They led both left and right. He chose right and hunched through the passageway, moving quieter now, hoping to confuse his pursuer and buy himself some time.
He had to do something. Delay him somehow.
And then he saw it.
At the mouth of the tight tunnel. A rounded edge, sticking out from the side of its wall. He’d spotted it on the way in.
It was a millstone-like trapdoor. A circular, one-ton piece of rock, with a diameter of around four feet. It was designed to keep invaders out and could be rolled into place quickly just by releasing a couple of timber wedges that held it back.
“Freeze, asshole.”
Zahed turned.
Reilly was there, at the other end of the tunnel. The American had both gun and flashlight aimed at him, the beam making him squint.
He glimpsed Tess appearing behind the agent. His eyes looked for her belt, but it didn’t seem to be there,
