Alex knew if she lost track of El-Hashim’s whereabouts, it would be as if the woman were removed from the prison entirely.
Slowly heading back toward her building, Alex kicked at the ground, looking for a stone that had an edge to it. She was less than thirty feet from Building One’s entrance when she spotted one that would hopefully do the trick.
She stumbled and allowed herself to fall to the ground, then grabbed the stone and immediately set to work, doing her best to ignore the pain.
A shout in Ukrainian, aimed in her direction.
She peeked over her shoulder and could see a guard heading her way.
“Come on, come on,” she said under her breath, continuing to work the stone.
Another shout, only a dozen feet away.
She knew he was telling her to get up, but she couldn’t. She had to finish.
When he poked at her back with the toe of his boot, she felt two of the stitches come apart from the wound in her arm. She pulled at the cut until blood started to flow out, then groaned theatrically and rolled onto her back.
“I need the doctor,” she cried, showing her wound to the guard.
He leaned in close, let out an exasperated breath, and helped her to her feet.
“Careful it doesn’t get infected,” she said, then looked back toward her building. Rachel was standing near the door with a mischievous look on her face. One that said she had seen the whole thing, and was impressed.
With a wave, she went inside.
Wonderful. She’ll be asking me questions until my ears start to bleed.
As she was escorted across the yard to the administration building, Alex periodically glanced back at Building Two to see if the warden had reemerged, but by the time they reached the door, there had been no sign of him.
So inside they went, through the checkpoint, down the hall, and up the stairs. She had to resist the urge to try to get the guard to hurry up. She knew there were windows in the infirmary that looked out onto the yard, but until she got there, she was blind to the outside.
Cradling her arm, she moved with the guard down the second-floor hallway, and rushed into the infirmary the moment he opened the door. While the guard explained the situation to the nurse on duty, Alex got as close to the windows as she could without letting on what she was up to.
At first, she thought the yard was empty, but then she noticed movement to the left.
Ten…no, eleven people walking toward the back wall of the yard.
There was no doubt in her mind that seven of them were the warden and his six guards. The remaining four were wearing gray prison dress and had hijabs covering their heads. Unless this was some kind of elaborate decoy, El-Hashim and her people were being escorted toward the door in the far wall. The door that led to the isolation building.
This wasn’t good.
“Po-well.”
She turned and saw a youngish man in a doctor’s coat standing nearby. He wasn’t the one who had treated her before, but she remembered seeing him help someone else.
“Arm, please.”
She moved to him and held out her arm. He used a gauze pad to blot away some of the blood, and gave the wound a closer look.
“What happen?” he asked.
“I fell,” she said. She pantomimed tripping.
He looked at the wound again and didn’t seem convinced, but he didn’t ask her a second time.
“Come,” he said, as he turned toward the examination area.
Alex chanced another look out the window. The small parade was passing through the isolation-area doorway.
“Please,” the doctor said. “Come.”
As Alex followed, she realized that the guard and the reception nurse were no longer around. The doctor pointed at one of the examination tables, and, as she sat down, he pulled the curtain closed around them.
He said, “Do you not think easier to make new cut than open this one again?”
“What?” she said, surprised. His English was a hell of a lot better than it had been a moment before.
“You did this yourself, yes?”
She shook her head and said, “Why would you say that?”
“Look.” He turned her arm so they could both see the torn sutures. “If you fell as guard say, maybe one stitch break and come loose. You have two, and they are both cut. Look? You can see it.”
She didn’t glance down, and instead kept her face neutral. “I’m sorry. I don’t—”
“You are lucky I working tonight. If Dr. Timko, he report you to warden. After getting into fight today, the warden have had no choice but to punish you. Then where you be?”
“Traz?” she said, her voice low.
“Who else you think?”
“Are we safe talking like this?”
“Infirmary cameras cannot see behind curtain, and not have microphones.”
“What about the nurse? The guard? They could come back.”
“Irina is my partner. She is occupying guard while we talk.”
“Partner? You mean…you’re both Traz?”
“Why not?”
It had never occurred to her Traz would be two people. She shrugged and said, “Why are you talking to me now?”
He frowned. “I thought you come to talk to me, yes?”
“I came here so I could see what was going on in the yard.”
The frown deepened. She told him she had just witnessed the prisoner he knew as A’isha Najem — the prisoner she was interested in — being moved.
“You are sure?” he asked when she finished, suddenly concerned.
“Absolutely.”
“A moment, please.”
He ducked around the end of the curtain and left.
Once his footsteps faded away, the only sound she could hear was the click-click-click of a clock on the wall ticking off the seconds.
She knew a lot of the inmates would’ve loved to be in her position right now — alone in the infirmary. Even though there were cameras outside this curtain, plenty of escape attempts had been started from considerably more difficult locations.
The doctor returned after several minutes, his steps moving rapidly across the tiled floor. When he ducked around the curtain, she could see he looked worried.
“You are right,” he said. “They take A’isha Najem and her cellmates to isolation.”
“Do you know why?”
“The official reason is disciplinary.”
“Is there any way for me to get to her?”
“You mean go to isolation?”
“Yes.”
He looked away for a moment. “Well, I guess there is, but it’s…”
When he didn’t finish, she said, “Difficult?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve flown five thousand miles to purposely be put in a prison, and help break someone out who very likely won’t want to come with me. Define difficult?”
Alex and the doctor talked for several more minutes, then she scribbled a quick message for Cooper and Deuce, and gave it to the doctor, whose name she discovered was Teterya. The note made no mention of pulling the plug on the mission.
She wasn’t about to go through all of this for nothing.
Chapter Eighteen
The assassin spent much of the night thinking about what she had seen before the horn went off.
She had tailed the North American woman during the dinner hour, saw her enter Building Two, and followed her up to the second level. She had waited in the shadows of the doorway between the blocks, and watched the woman approach El-Hashim’s cell then pause just outside of it to listen.
That was when the assassin knew the North American woman was not one of El-Hashim’s associates.