But…
Voices and footsteps echo, nearer.
"Itwasthem," Pugli says. "Tricky bastard. You heard them and were covering, weren't you?" A soft laugh. "No matter. All part of the plan, just a little sooner than expected."
The door slams open and beams of light sweep the space, land on me.
"Roberto Pugli,” Solomon shouts at the front. "Hands up!"
He's standing behind me, not on the pedestal, which is just wide enough for the chair to rest upon. The knife is gone, replaced by that little Walther. "Ah-ah-ah, not another step, not another word." He gestures up. "You have a few moments at most."
I see the plan, and it is nefarious indeed. The press will crush me in another minute or two—it's descending slowly but inexorably closer to my skull. The generator powering it is behind us, so they can't just shoot it and stop the power. If they don't comply, I die. And they have a hard time limit to comply, or I die. And I assume the demand will be to trade Nico for me.
Devious bastard.
I see Inez putting it all together, too.
I see her dark eyes shining with worry, fear, fury. Behind her, the whole crew; lost in shadows.
"Lash." Pugli gestures with the barrel. "Gun on the ground, walk to me. Hands on your head."
Nico complies, eyes hard and glittering. When he's close enough, Pugli crabwalks toward him, grabs him by the arm, and yanks him backward so his back is to Pugli's front, shoving the gun against the back of his head.
"Finally, I have you." Pugli is triumphant. "Finally, you die."
A gun goes off.
18
THE HALLWAY OF HORRORS
BRYS
Nico leaps to his feet, as does Silas. "Report!" Nico shouts. "What is happening?"
He listens, head ducked, eyes unfocused, and then snarls, yanking the earpiece out. "Comms are down. They cannot penetrate the facility.” He’s in motion, scrambling over the ridge
Silas grabs Nico's arm and pulls him back. "We're overwatch, Nico."
The glare Nico gives Silas could strip paint. "Heis in there. Right now. Jakob is in there. Our people are in there. We do not know the situation within—the six I saw could have been a decoy to a much larger party."
"We'd hear gunfire, though.” Silas looks at the huge building, squatting in the distance like a beetle's carcass.
"Silas….” Nico shoulders his rifle with a sigh and a shake of his head, then tosses it to the ground and draws his pistol. "Stay if you wish and provide overwatch for no one. Pugli dies this day."
Before Silas can answer, Nico is jogging up the incline. By the time I reach the crest, he's flat out running down the hill toward the facility.
Silas sighs. "Fuck." He glances at me. "I don't like this."
"Who does?" I ask. "I'm not waiting around up here. I'll go nuts."
Silas and I follow Nico down the hill and through the grass—carefully following the trails left behind by the passage of the others through the minefield.
We reach the two-story sliding doors and enter: three bodies lie motionless in spreading pools of already-cooling blood. Silas flicks a switch on the barrel of his gun, and a beam of light engages from under the barrel. "Stay behind me."
"Yes, sir," I answer. "I am one hundred percent a-okay with you taking the lead."
He sweeps the massive space—roughly the dimensions of a football field, with a roof soaring at least three stories overhead. I can't even begin to guess what this place used to be.
