After checking on the elevator, Hansen and Noboru linked up with Valentina and Gillespie on the first level. The entire facility seemed to tremble under the weight of the flooding lake. Pipes screeched as they were bent like taffy in all directions, and most of the lower ramp had been swept away to crash into the walls.
They came rushing into the utility room, where their rope still hung down through the air shaft. Hansen could already hear the water rushing up toward them. He tried to call Fisher again. Nothing. Noboru went up the rope first, followed by Valentina. Together they would help pull Gillespie up. Hansen remained there, pacing like a fool, calling Fisher over and over until finally…
“Ben, where are you?”
“First level. Bad guys are either gone or dead. Elevator’s out of commission. We’re getting out the way we came in.”
“Good.” Fisher said something else, but the transmission was garbled. Hansen waited, then:
“Leave the rope for me.”
“Roger.”
From the sound of it, Fisher had no intention of coming up to meet them, and the ‘leave the rope’ line was just BS. He either had his own plan of escape or had already realized that it was too late for him.
Hansen glanced up the shaft, saw that Gillespie was almost at the top. In a minute they’d drop the rope to him. He took a deep breath and heard the footfalls a moment before the man appeared, brandishing his AK- 47.
He was one of Zahm’s guards, a heavily tattooed Brit clever enough to escape, and he trained his rifle on Hansen even as Hansen did likewise.
“We can both get out, mate,” he said, his face covered in stubble, his teeth yellow. “No need for a shooting contest.”
“Here comes the rope!” cried Noboru.
“Hold up!” shouted Hansen.
“What’re you doing?” asked the guard, his glance flicking up toward the shaft.
There were moments, Hansen knew, where muscle memory and reflex took over, where all the calculations in the world wouldn’t help you. You just reacted, barely conscious of the effort, based on the instinct to survive.
Hansen shot the guard.
Three rounds punched into his chest. Just like that. No forethought. No afterthought. Just noise. And death.
The guy fell back before he could get off a shot, and as he hit the floor, a wall of water came blasting through the corridor, sweeping him away and sending Hansen crashing into the wall behind him.
“Throw down the rope!” he screamed. “Throw down the—”
Another wave took him under, and the water was so cold that for a moment he swore his heart skipped a beat. Frantically he kicked up, tried to find the surface, but his head banged hard into something metal, and there was only white foam before his eyes, nothing to focus on. He reached out, trying to find the rope, groping frantically like a man with an anchor tied to his waist.
He was beginning to lose his breath.
And a bitter resignation took hold. After everything, he would now drown in an air shaft because some asshole guard had decided not to play nice and die when he should have. Where were Dad’s aliens now? Hansen could sure use an alien abduction at the moment.
He reached out one last time, and something brushed against his outer forearm. The rope. He rolled, kicked hard, and took hold, now advancing hand over hand, pulling himself against the current until his hand felt dry, and then, in the next instant his head popped above the bubbling water.
The gush of water resounded. He was in the air shaft, being carried up. He sucked in a huge breath as, above, Valentina and Noboru screamed, asking if he was all right.
Sure, he was fine. Couldn’t be better. And how are you?
He took one more breath and cried, “Pull me up!” And the water once more rose over his head before he could climb any higher. The rope began moving through his hands. He tightened his grip as they hoisted him up.
Not two minutes after Hansen cleared the air shaft, he watched as Gillespie rushed back to it. “He’s not coming, is he?” she said, watching as the water streamed out of the air vent.
“Tell you what. You stay here and wait,” said Hansen, still shivering and blinking hard. He looked at Noboru and Valentina. “Perimeter search. Maybe he found another way out.”
Valentina looked grim, Noboru grimmer.
“Let’s get this done quickly. This entire area is growing unstable.”
Hansen thought about his rise up the air shaft and decided to hit the meadow hut first. And when he did, he almost laughed. There was Fisher, lying on his side, soaked to the bone, having dug his way out of the hut by exploiting the weakened grout between the cinder blocks.
“You should’ve come with us,” Hansen said, dumbfounded and grinning.
Fisher rubbed his sore eyes and shuddered. “Didn’t want to slow you down.”
Hansen looked at the hut, the water still pouring from the hole in the cinder blocks. “Nice exit.”
“I’m usually a little more discreet.”
Hansen grinned. “Gotta move now. Sinkholes opening up all over the place… ”
Kovac burst through the door and marched up to Grim, who was seated behind one of the computer terminals. She didn’t look back at him. Not yet. He panted in anger.
“What the hell’s going on here?”
Slowly, she turned around, then glanced past him to Moreau, who was standing in the shadows with a security team.
“It’s the end of the world,” she said. “Your world.”
He snorted. “You’re done, Grim. Done. Do you hear me?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Mr. Kovac,” called Moreau. “If you’ll come with us…”
“What’s this?”
Grim narrowed her gaze on him. “This is you going bye-bye. Say bye-bye… ”
He began to hyperventilate. “You have no idea what you’re doing.”
“I’m curious. Why’d you do it? Not just for the money…”
“I don’t owe you anything but a pink slip.”
She dismissed him with a wave. “Marty, get this scumbag out of my sight.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Kovac cursed at Moreau, who looked at Grim. She nodded.
And Moreau took Kovac by the back of the neck and led him out of the room, saying, “Mr. Kovac, are you familiar with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ? Are you familiar with the stories of torture in the Bible? Are you familiar with the barbaric means men once used to extract information from each other?”
“You can’t torture me! That’s illegal!”
Moreau cackled like a hyena. The door closed after them. Grim took a deep breath. It was over. Or just beginning.
Fisher looked much better than the last time Hansen had seen him, three months before. He was refreshed, well groomed, and deeply tanned. The veteran Splinter Cell had stayed in Washington only long enough to have surgery on his ankle and attend three days of intense debriefing. Then he’d vanished off the face of the earth. Or at least that was how Hansen’s dad would have put it. Apparently, Fisher had gotten a one-year lease on Zahm’s old place and was taking time off to relax and enjoy the villa, the mojitos, life… Would his name ever be cleared? No one knew. Not yet, anyway…
Fisher, Grim, and Hansen were now sitting under an umbrella overlooking the pristine waters, and Hansen
