The Shadow Project

The tall guy took out his pistol and aimed it down the corridor. O’Connor just stood there, swaying on his feet as though he was either resigned to a bullet in the head or he was just too crazed to understand what was happening.

Irina pushed the pistol aside. ‘Let me.’ Drawing the knife from her sheath, she began walking towards O’Connor.

The migraine in her temples was thumping violently, but she blinked the pain away. She had a job to finish. Pelham had told her that when this was all over, the child and his father had to be eliminated. And Irina Dragojevic always honoured her contracts.

Her lips twisted into a thin smile as she approached him. He lowered his gaze down to the knife in her hand. She made no attempt to hide it. Better like this, when they knew it was coming.

‘I know you,’ he said. His voice was cracked with emotion and fatigue, barely audible over the growing sound that was shaking the ground under their feet.

She raised the knife. The flickering lamplight shimmered down the blade. She took another step closer to him.

‘You’re the bitch who hurt my child,’ he said more loudly.

‘That’s right. And now this is for you,’ she told him.

‘And this is for you.’ His bloody hand went to his pocket, and before she could react he’d drawn a gun. He pointed it at her and his face contorted as he squeezed the trigger.

Nothing happened. He tried again. Nothing.

Despite the pain exploding viciously through her skull, Irina began to laugh. Behind her, the tall man raised his gun and fired a single shot that blew O’Connor off his feet.

Adam felt the bullet tear through his shoulder and spin his body round. He hit the floor on his belly, gasping. The woman was howling with laughter as he scrabbled for his fallen pistol. His fingers closed numbly over its grip.

His vision faltered. The lever. The lever by his thumb. He pressed it, and it clicked upwards. He could sense her walking up to him, standing over him. The knife was coming. He was going to feel the cold steel any second now, carving into his flesh.

No. He mustn’t give up.

For Rory.

He rolled over on his back and with all the strength he could muster he punched the gun out with both hands. Felt the smooth face of the trigger under his finger and squeezed it once, twice, three times, as fast as he could. The searing blast of the gun exploded in his ears.

The woman called Irina was standing right over him when he shot her. The first bullet took her under the chin and blew away half her face. The second blasted into her chest, and the third went through her hand.

The woman’s tall companion let out a cry of rage as she went down. Adam fired at him, but even as the pistol went off in his hand, he knew the pain and dizziness had made him miss. Before he could get off another shot, the tall man had come running towards him and lashed out with his foot and kicked the gun out of his fingers. Adam tried to scramble away, but his strength was quickly failing him.

The tall man squatted down on his haunches in the blood and picked up the woman’s knife. ‘Now you’re going to die bad,’ he said.

Adam gasped as he saw the blade plunge towards him. Then, in the next instant, he heard the shot and he was spluttering the tall man’s blood out of his mouth.

Chapter Sixty-Six

Ben lowered the smoking pistol as the tall man crumpled to the floor with a bullet in his skull. Rory went running up the corridor, screaming for his father. Adam O’Connor’s eyes opened wide in his bloodied face, and he let out a cry as his son flew into his arms. Rory hugged him, then saw the blood-soaked trouser leg and the pool of it on the floor under him, the ragged bullet wound in his shoulder. ‘Oh, God, you’re hurt!’

‘I’m fine,’ Adam sobbed. ‘Now I’m just fine.’ He held the boy tight in his arms, rocking him, tears cutting white lines through the blood on his face.

‘I don’t want to interrupt a happy family reunion,’ Ben said as he and Jeff ran up to them. ‘But we need to get out of here fast.’ He had to raise his voice to be heard over the terrible noise. He and Jeff picked up the wounded man and supported him as they made their way through the passages. The noise kept building and building, driving them mad with its intensity.

‘Need to find the main lift shaft,’ Jeff shouted. ‘Maybe it’ll lead down to the exit we found.’

Ben shook his head. ‘That only leads straight down to the vault,’ he yelled back. ‘We need to use the service lift we came up on.’

‘Jesus. This whole place feels like it’s going to blow apart.’

‘The machine,’ Adam muttered. ‘It’s out of control.’ His head lolled sideways and his body went limp in Ben and Jeff’s arms.

‘Dad!’ Rory screamed.

‘He’s just fainted, don’t worry,’ Ben reassured him. Adam’s body was a dead weight as they carried him back the way they’d come. By the time they reached the service lift, the floor was trembling like an earthquake under their feet.

Just as Ben and Jeff were hauling the unconscious scientist on board the crude wooden platform, a massive shock seemed to ripple through the whole facility. It felt like an explosion, but with no blast – like a devastating pulse of pure energy capable of destroying everything around it. As the walls shook and the air seemed to thrum, the thick steel cables holding up the lift platform began to vibrate and buzz like plucked guitar strings. The platform began to judder.

Ben’s eyes met Jeff’s for a fraction of a second. They were both thinking the same thing. Get off this thing now!

They leapt off the platform, dragging Adam’s slumped body with them as Rory watched in horror. At the same instant, the vibrating cables began to fray dramatically, and then parted with a lashing crack. The platform tumbled down the shaft, taking bits of masonry with it. Jeff lost his balance and almost went down with them, but Ben grabbed his webbing belt and hauled him away from the crumbling edge.

‘There’s no other way out of here,’ Jeff yelled, pointing down the empty shaft. ‘We’re trapped.’

Ben’s mind raced, fighting the rising tide of dizziness that was beginning to overcome him. He felt a tug on his sleeve and turned to see Rory standing there gesticulating back down the corridor. ‘I know a way,’ the boy shouted.

‘What way?’

‘Trust me. I found it.’

There was no choice but to follow the kid. Ben and Jeff manhandled the unconscious scientist as his son led them at a run back towards the stairway where they’d found him.

The moment they started down the metal steps, Ben knew they weren’t going to get out in time. The stairway was rocking and swaying dangerously as they clattered down it. Struts and rails were cracking and breaking off, falling down around them. A guillotine blade of sheet metal crashed down, narrowly missing them and tearing away a section of framework. The whole construction lurched sideways and began to topple slowly over.

Seconds after the four of them had reached the bottom, the stairway fell apart. Debris rained down, burying Ivan’s body where it lay on the cavern floor. They ran. Adam was beginning to come round as Ben and Jeff hauled him along.

‘This way!’ Rory was yelling. ‘Here! This is it!’

Ben looked where the boy was frantically pointing. ‘Where does it lead?’

‘Some kind of air vent. Like a big pipe. It goes all the way through to the outside.’

Ben looked hard into Rory’s eyes, blinking to focus his vision. ‘You’re sure? You’ve been in?’