Endgame

And down he went, keeping silent in an act of utter self-discipline. His fall already betrayed his location. No need to betray anything else.

Finally, he allowed himself a breath and strained to push himself up, feeling the burn in his shoulders and triceps. His one leg had folded, so he was propped on the knee, while the other foot and leg had crashed through the floor, wedging his upper thigh deeply between two more planks. He rolled his left foot so he could sit on it and ease the pain now shooting through his thigh. He tugged. Nothing.

Some team leader. The man who’d been to Russia and back. The hero, right? He balled his hands into fists and thought of a string of epithets that would’ve had nuns fainting where they stood. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Admit the mistake and move on. There wasn’t time for self-loathing.

Resignedly, he whispered into his SVT: “I’m snagged up here.”

Hansen jerked his leg again, but now it felt as though he’d caught his leg on something, a power cord perhaps. “Shit!”

Oh, man… He’d said that much too loudly.

“Hang on. We’re almost to you,” said Ames in the subdermal.

Within a few seconds they were there, and Ames offered his hand. “No,” Hansen told him. “I’m snagged on something from below.” He looked to Gillespie. “Go down there.”

She took off toward the staircase while Ames came over to him and whispered, “What’re you doing, Benjamin? Taking the path of least resistance?”

“Oh, you’re a funny bastard.”

“Hilarious. I’m laughing so hard I’m crying as Fisher gets away.”

Hansen told him where to go, and Ames rose and took a few steps back. “No respect.”

“Okay, I see what’s happened,” said Gillespie via the subdermal. “You’re ankle is… What the hell? There’s some kind of cord tied around your foot.”

“What? What kind of cord?” he asked.

“Looks like paracord.”

Hansen shuddered. Oh, my God! Fisher had tied him to the pole. Fisher was that close!

* * *

Ames opened his mouth as the arm came around his throat, but before he could react he was being lifted from the floor and dragged backward into the darkness. He gasped, reached up to seize the arm, which was like a piece of steel pressing even harder against his throat.

He tried to breathe. Tried.

And then a moment of panic before… darkness.

“Ames? Ames?” Hansen whirled his head around as the paracord suddenly slipped off his foot.

“All right, you’re free,” said Gillespie from below.

Hansen wriggled a moment more, then finally turned his hip and his leg broke free of the wood. He rolled to his left and disengaged himself from the floor.

Gillespie rushed up the stairs, looked around, then said, “Where’s Ames?”

“I don’t know. Ames?”

They waited. He did not respond through his SVT. “See if he went up top.”

She nodded, ran off.

“Oh, man…” Hansen checked his OPSAT.

A message had come in, and the OPSAT’s ID number told Hansen the note was from Ames: SVT MALFUNCTION. INOPERABLE. MOVEMENT ON LOWER FLOORS, NORTH SIDE. INVESTIGATING.

Ames had switched the team’s comms from VOICE to VOICE AND TEXT TRANSCRIPTION in view of the SVT problem, which in and of itself was suspicious. Why he’d suddenly slipped off alone would be a discussion they’d have later — of that Hansen was certain.

“We’re already in the subbasement,” reported Valentina. “Nothing yet.”

The OPSAT transcribed her report, and Gillespie chipped in her own regarding the third floor north being clear.

“Ames, report,” Hansen ordered. “Say position. Ames, respond… ”

Nothing.

In the distance came the bend and creak of the floorboards, both from above and below, and then the pattering of boots and a slight groan from a pipe somewhere behind him.

Hansen took a step forward, directing his light toward a hatch he hadn’t seen before and a pile of fallen bricks. And just behind the pile a boot was visible. He started over there, holding his breath, and then he turned, looked down, and there he was: Ames, lying on his back, dead or unconscious. His rifle was lying beside him, but the magazine had been ejected, and the holster for his SC pistol was empty. Fisher had taken his weapon.

With a start, Hansen dropped to his knees and checked Ames’s neck for a carotid pulse. Strong and steady. Damn! Fisher was a goddamned ghost — perfectly silent.

“This is Hansen. I—”

He cut himself off as a loud crash — the crunching of rock and snapping of more floorboards under heavy weight — echoed through the foundry.

“Who was that?” cried Hansen. “Report!”

24

Valentina was jogging toward the west side of the foundry when she stopped short and looked back over her shoulder a split second after someone had crashed through the floor.

Not a heartbeat later, as the broken wood continued to crash down, a loud splash echoed up from somewhere below.

“Nathan, did you hear that?”

“Yeah, I’m coming back to you,” he said.

She and Noboru met up in the center of the ground floor, and their lights led them to where a man-sized hole had been punched through the floorboards. Pieces of wood jutted up from the crossbeams, and Valentina knocked a few out of the way and directed her flashlight below, while Noboru appeared beside her, scanning with his rifle.

The slimy black canal lay below, shouldered by smooth concrete walls rising a few feet above the murk. More important, a trail of disturbed algae, oily puddles, and bubbles wound off into the darkness.

“There he is,” cried Noboru; then he dropped to one knee and fired his first Cottonball.

Valentina brought her rifle around and launched one herself, as he fired again, then switched to live rounds, firing to Fisher’s left and right to bracket him.

“What’re you doing?” she hollered.

“He’s getting away!”

“Is your name Ames? Hold fire. Jesus, stay here. I’m going out to see if we can cut him off.”

She rose and dashed back toward the slit in the metal wall where they had first entered.

* * *

Noboru had already decided that if he could anesthetize Fisher, he would; but if he had to, he’d fire to wound him. There was only so much you could do with Cottonballs, Sticky Shockers, ring airfoil or CS gas grenades, and wall-mine stunners — especially when your prey had intimate knowledge of each and every one of those less-than- lethal weapons.

Admittedly, he hadn’t been able to clearly see Fisher in the water, but he’d rather shoot first and apologize later. That was, perhaps, the only thing he and Ames would agree upon. It was readily apparent that taking Fisher alive would be like capturing a tiger with your bare hands — and that wouldn’t be fun for you or the tiger.

Fisher wasn’t going to double back. Noboru felt certain of that, but he had to remain on overwatch just in case. Valentina had just taken him out of the pursuit. He could ignore her, but, then again, he thought that, maybe,