They reached the wall and the pipe opened out into a space large enough to stand in. The wall was made of breeze blocks and totally blocked them from going any further.
“This is Act Two for the C4,” Hawke said.
Devlin ran his hand over the wall. “Are we sure we know what’s behind it? For all we know the entire PLA could be waiting for us!”
Scarlet smiled at him. “Not scared, are you?”
“Just sayin’.”
She got right up in his face. “Hey Danny, what’s big, brown, seriously unpleasant and behind this wall?”
“I don’t think I want to know,” Devlin said.
Scarlet fixed two deadly serious eyes on the Irishman. “Humpty’s Dump.”
He burst out laughing. “Oh, man… you’ve got one fucking great sense of humor, Cairo Sloane.”
“Just ask her boyfriends,” Hawke mumbled. “The line of broken men stretches around the equator.”
Scarlet regarded him with contempt. “That kind of talk’s not pretty, Josiah. Especially considering you’re in that line.”
“Ouch,” Devlin said.
Reaper laughed and handed Hawke his bag. “This has to hurt, non?”
Hawke said nothing. He pulled another quantity of C4 from the bag and placed it on the wall’s weakest sections. “All right, get back down the tunnel.”
Pig pushed the nose of the pliers deep under the fingernail on Lexi’s left forefinger and squeezed down on the handles until the grip was solid and unbreakable. He had already torn out her thumbnail and she had passed out in agony. After a long wait for her to regain consciousness she had finally woken and he was keen to do more damage. He turned and nodded at Zhou. “Ready.”
“This is your last chance, Agent Dragonfly. You have already lost one nail. Why suffer more than you have to?”
“I had my last chance a long time ago.”
“I am impressed by your courage. I would expect nothing less from someone with your training and experience. However, you must realize there is a fine line between courage and stupidity.”
“Not such a fine line in your case.”
“When I give Pig the sign — a simple nod of my head — he will tear out another fingernail, the one he is now gripping with the pliers. As with your thumb, he will do it slowly. It will not break off, but he will instead extract the entire nail including the matrix. As you now know, this is more pain than most people can possibly imagine. After another extraction you will be screaming and pleading for mercy and yet there are eighteen more nails on your body. I want you to think very carefully before answering my next question.”
“You sure do talk a lot, Zhou.”
The man in the black suit kept his calm. He knew what she was doing and it wasn’t going to work on him. “I want to know how much information has been lost to the enemy. When did you defect to the other side? When did you step over into the ECHO camp?”
“You will never know.”
Zhou nodded at Pig without warning and the Zodiac assassin pulled the nail from her finger. Unlike the thumbnail, it did not come easy at first and he was forced to dig the pliers in harder, pushing the pointed ends beneath the nail.
Lexi screamed so hard she went hoarse. She had promised herself she would show no weakness, but when the pain came all over again, it came even harder than before. It felt like someone was pushing the nail in, not pulling it out. She’d had the same sensation when a dentist extracted a tooth in her childhood, only this was a thousand times worse. She had passed out early on with the thumbnail, but this time she was wide awake.
Eventually, whatever was causing the resistance gave way and Pig wrenched the nail from her finger. Blood spurted out behind it and sprayed up his shirt and face, but his only response was a low, sick laugh as he watched her struggle and squeal.
She felt her heart thumping and pain streaked from her pulsing, burning hand to her head.
Zhou stepped forward, hands in pockets and voice soft and calm.
“When did you cross over to the other side, Agent Dragonfly?”
The rage rose inside her like a tsunami. “Go… to…hell, Zhou!”
Zhou gave a weary sigh, glanced at his watch and indicated to Pig. “Move on to the next nail.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
They moved out of range of the wall and Hawke detonated the explosives. In the enclosed space the explosion was much fiercer and quickly filled the tunnel with heat and smoke. For a moment, it seemed that it would never clear, but the draft blowing down the utility corridor behind them sucked the smoke away and they were good to go.
They moved forward, Devlin still laughing.
“What’s so funny?” Reaper asked.
“Sorry, still thinking about a talking egg taking a shit on that wall.”
To Hawke’s relief, the next section was also precisely as Alex had described from the schematics and they were able to step over the destroyed wall and climb up inside the access tunnel without any problem. As expected, they soon reached the final hurdle.
“I see the manhole up ahead,” Hawke said, wiping the sweat and grime from his face.
“Hopefully it should move out of place. We’re directly inside the compound now and blowing it will make more noise than a Chinese New Year.”
“No one’s blowing my manhole,” Devlin said with a chuckle.
Scarlet looked at him with sympathy. “Oh, Danny. Really?”
He shrugged. “I just throw ’em out there.”
Hawke carefully raised the heavy cast-iron manhole plate an inch or so and scanned to see if the coast was clear. “We’re good to go,” he said. “Bang smack in the middle of the courtyard just as we thought.”
Leaving their packs behind, they climbed up out of the sewage pipe in silence and after replacing the cover they crossed the courtyard in the darkness of the night and slammed their bodies up against a wall. In the safety of the shadows, Hawke spied the route they needed to take to get inside the Torture House.
Hawke heard the faint sound of men talking somewhere above. Looking into the courtyard he saw the shadows of the roof in the strong moonlight. He could clearly make out the shadows of two men up there. “Two guards on the roof,” he whispered. “At least.”
He scanned the courtyard and saw several guards’ rifles stacked in tidy tripods in the corner. “Looks like they’re ready for trouble.”
“I think they’re always ready for trouble in a place like this,” Devlin said.
When the two men were out of sight, they silently crossed the courtyard and reached the door they were looking for. It was beneath the corner of a classic Chinese gabled roof and shaded from the bright moonlight by a veranda.
Through the door now and inside to find a man behind a desk. He looked up with confusion, eyes wide. Hitting an alarm, he reached for a pistol on his desk but it was too late.
Hawke smashed a hefty punch into the man’s jaw, twisting his head around on his neck and knocking him over onto the floor. Kicking the man out of his way, he blinked in the bright light. Where was the door leading to the cells?
He saw it on the other side of the room, partially obscured by a large curtain, but another man entered the room and lunged at him. Hawke managed to land a haymaker on his temple, but the man rolled with the blow and fired one back at him, driving a tight, bony fist into the side of Hawke’s face.
His head was knocked to the side and his vision started to slip out of focus. Stars swam all over the room and through those stars he saw the man completing a three-sixty twist and bringing his fist around for another attack. He watched as the man rotated at his waist and fired the second punch, but the stars had gone and he ducked just in time to miss the impact.