Suddenly a wave of darkness overcame his vision and he lost his balance. He blinked several times but didn’t recover the sense. The blackness was outside of his body, something was covering his visor and he was being led, more like dragged along the street. He struggled against his silent captor, reaching out his only free hand to push against this new enemy, one of its arms wrapped around his shoulders and squeezed like a vice. It was a thick slippery body, massive in stature with flesh as hard as metal. Armored? No, just someone who was impressively strong and covered in a tarpaulin suit. But just as he had assessed that the body was human and not one of the Nationalists, he was released. His visor was uncovered but only as he was being pushed down a short vertical shaft. The same imposing black hooded figure from the rooftop was towering over him and receding as Sergio fell to a soft landing on top of a pile of moss at the bottom of a wide pipe. The Vintorez was thrown down after him and he caught it before it tumbled into the shallow water.
The hooded figure drew in a hoarse breath and then growled deeply.
“Stay to the left.”
And then what small bit of light from the sky was blotted out by the steel manhole cover.
Sergio scrambled to his feet and tried to climb up the ladder towards this mysterious person but the grate was sealed with a clang and he remembered Marco’s plea. He couldn’t ignore such help from this unknown Hunter either, and hopefully this inexplicable benefactor knew what they were talking about and where they were sending him. Sergio switched on his headlamp, illuminating the grimy drainage system in all its disparity. ‘Stay to the left,’ the hooded man had said, and Sergio looked in that direction and then the opposite one. Which left, his left? Where would this pipe lead? He cautiously limped along to his left and found that the passage soon broke off and dropped down into a vast cistern so he shuffled quickly in the other direction. He wanted to take off his helmet but not before he was out of this infested tangle of pipes. In the other direction the sewer curved around into a different configuration, offering a crossroads to choose from. ‘This left?’ he thought to himself, shining the light and pointing the Vintorez in all the other directions. As if on cue a shrill howl echoed from down the right side pipe and that was enough confirmation for Sergio. So this Hunter had known exactly where this tunnel led to and from, and Sergio could only hope it would deposit him into neutral territory. He had to get back to Vera and tell him everything that had happened. They had to formulate a plan to rescue Marco from the Nationalists as soon as possible.