Dyatlov stepped around the dead and dying and tried to ignore the moans of agony. As he passed by he again noted the robed figure slumped down in a sitting position against the wall. The person’s demon-mask had fallen away, and he saw the face underneath was that of a young woman, perhaps only a teenager, with short hair and a deathly-white face.
Dyatlov shrugged inwardly. This was no time for introspection. They had a job to do.
Carefully he and his two team-members stepped through the wood panel.
On the other side, a set of stone steps led downwards. Part way down was a small landing, and a turn, before they continued to the basement level.
Leading the way, Dyatlov slowly descended, his breath coming in harsh gasps and his heart pounding in his chest. He reached the landing and was about to continue when a sudden burst of automatic fire opened up on them from below, shattering the wall just inches from his head. Chips of plaster and brick flew into his face, stinging his cheek. He flinched back, and his heels jammed back against the step behind him, and he went down on his backside, a fucking sitting duck he thought. But one of his colleagues, named Dirk he remembered, fired two quick shots, and Dyatlov saw another robed figure slump to the floor at the bottom.
While he was picking himself up Dirk dashed down into the shadows, and then reappeared seconds later.
“Clear!” he shouted.
Dyatlov joined him with the third team-member. “Thanks,” he mumbled quietly.
The three of them stepped through another open door, this one disguised to look like a brick wall, and stopped. They were at the end of yet another passage. To their left part of the ceiling had come down, spilling wooden joists onto the floor. Beyond this was a curtained partition. Immediately to their right, a heavy iron door, partially ajar. Dyatlov lifted two fingers and pointed left. He went through the iron door on his own.
Several burning torches laying on the stone floor flared brightly through his night-vision goggles, nearly blinding him, so he lifted them up onto his forehead and blinked rapidly to clear his sight. Arranged in a circle were about a dozen chairs, and he saw the corpse seated in one, its slumped posture giving it an obscene appearance. Dyatlov stepped forward for a closer look, and saw just how old it was, the bones and skull and ragged garments looking all dry and dusty.
The room was small. In one wall, several feet above the surface of the floor, was a tiny square opening, like the mouth of a tunnel. Other than the old corpse the place was unoccupied, and Dyatlov was about to turn away and re-join his men when the sound of splashing water reached his ears, above the din of battle overhead.
He turned back, and then noticed the circular pit in the floor, which he now saw was filling with water.
Crouching forward for a better view, he was shocked to see a man chained up beneath the surface, kicking and grappling with his bonds, and by the looks of it, about to breathe his last gasp. He was further dismayed when he recognized the person.
“Holy fucking Christ!” he blurted out.
What the heck was Van Dijk doing here? And more to the point, was he too late to get him out?
Dyatlov leaped down into the hole and rammed his hand into the water to grab the Inspector by the front of his jacket, then heaved upwards. Which was silly. The policeman wasn’t going anywhere tied up like this. So he looked around in desperation, his eyes quickly falling on the metal plate near his shoes. Slipping his finger through the ring, he again heaved upwards, and lifted the heavy plate clear, and the water immediately started to drain away, the level dropping quickly. Van Dijk’s face came clear as the pit emptied, and he was coughing and puking up water, and looking very blue as he inhaled huge mouthfuls of air.
“This is no time to be having a bath Van Dijk. Stay there, I’ll find something to break those chains.” He grinned from ear to ear, looking like a madman no doubt.
“I’m not going anywhere Dyatlov.”
Racing out into the passage, the assault leader rooted about amidst the wreckage from the collapsed ceiling and came up with a short length of iron pipe. Rushing back through the doorway he used it to twist and turn at the manacles locked around Van Dijk’s wrists and ankles, eventually snapping them open. He helped the Inspector out of the pit. He stood there dripping wet, but at least he looked to have recovered his breathing and his strength.
“You took your damn time getting here,” he said as he straightened up.
“You should thank Adolf. He was the one who finally found out about them using this place.”
Somewhere above them the firefight seemed to be intensifying, the building shaking again as more explosive blasts rumbled the walls.
Pieter nodded at the ceiling. “How are we doing?”
“It’s a fucking nightmare. This place is like a fucking maze.” As he answered, he flicked a switch and spoke into his comms mike. “Black Team, Red here. Give me a fucking update.”
He listened to the response in his ear-piece, leaving Pieter waiting.
“Ok, we’re clear down here… I think. Hold them at the top, we’ll link up.” He turned back to Pieter. “It’s a warzone up there, worse than yesterday. But it looks like we have the final few pinned down and cornered right at the top.” He reached into his body armour and pulled out a handgun, then offered it to Pieter, along with a couple of spare clips. “We could do with all the help we can get.”
Pieter took the proffered weapon. Before they moved out he pointed at the tiny tunnel entrance behind them. “You might want to leave someone covering that. It’s a way
