Maya and Hollis came through the open doorway. The Harlequin glanced at Gabriel-making sure he was safe-then approached the wounded man. “You betrayed my father,” she said. “Do you know what they did to him, Shepherd? Do you know how he died?”
Shepherd’s eyes could barely focus, but he nodded slightly as if admitting his guilt could somehow save his life. Maya pushed the palms of her hands together like a nun about to pray. Then she made a quick, jabbing front kick that struck the handle of the knife and drove it deeper into his flesh.
59
Maya turned and pointed her shotgun at the tall man wearing the white lab coat.
“Don’t!” Vicki said quickly. “This is Dr. Richardson. He’s a scientist. A friend. He’s helping us get out of here.” Maya made an instant evaluation and decided that Richardson was frightened, but harmless. If he panicked in the tunnels, then she would have to deal with that problem. Gabriel was alive; that was all that mattered.
As Hollis explained how they had entered the research facility, Maya approached Shepherd’s body. She stepped into the blood that trickled in bright red lines across the concrete floor, knelt beside the dead man, and retrieved her knife. Shepherd was a traitor, but Maya didn’t feel happy about his destruction. She remembered what he had told her in the storage room of Resurrection Auto Parts. We’re the same, Maya. We both grew up with people who worshipped a lost cause.
When she returned to the group, she saw that Hollis was arguing with Gabriel. Vicki stood between the two men, as if she was trying to negotiate a compromise.
“What’s the problem?”
“Talk to Gabriel,” Hollis said. “He wants to look for his brother.”
The idea of remaining at the research facility seemed to terrify Richardson. “We’ve got to leave immediately. I’m sure the guards are looking for us.”
Maya touched Gabriel’s arm and guided him away from the others. “They’re right about this. It’s dangerous to stay here. Maybe we can return some other time.”
“You know that’s not going to happen,” Gabriel said. “And even if we did come back, Michael won’t be here. They’ll move him to another place with even more guards. This is my only chance.”
“I can’t allow you to do this.”
“You don’t control me, Maya. This is my own decision.”
Maya felt as if she and Gabriel were tied to each other like two mountain climbers on a rock wall. If one person slipped or if a ledge crumbled, both of them would fall. None of her father’s lessons had prepared her for this situation. Come up with a plan, she told herself. Risk your life. Not his.
“All right. I’ve got another idea.” She kept her voice as calm as possible. “You go with Hollis and he’ll get you out of the building. I promise to stay here and look for your brother.”
“Even if you found him, he wouldn’t trust you. Michael has always been suspicious of everyone. But he’ll listen to me. I know he will.”
Gabriel looked into her eyes and for one breath-one heartbeat-she felt a connection between them. Desperately, Maya tried to figure out the right decision, but that was impossible. This time there was no right decision, only fate.
She hurried over to Dr. Richardson and grabbed the ID card clipped to his lab coat. “Will this open any doors around here?”
“About half of them.”
“Where’s Michael? Do you know where they’re holding him?”
“He usually stays in a guarded suite of rooms in the administration center. Right now we’re on the northern edge of the research center. Administration is on the other side of the quadrangle, directly south.”
“And how do we get there?”
“Use the tunnels and stay out of the upper passageways.”
Maya pulled some shells out of her pocket and began to reload the combat shotgun. “Return to the basement level,” she told Hollis. “Get these two out through the ventilation duct while I go back with Gabriel.”
“Don’t do this,” Hollis said.
“I have no alternative.”
“Make him come with us. Drag him out of here if you have to.”
“That’s what the Tabula would do, Hollis. We don’t act that way.”
“Look, I understand why Gabriel wants to help his brother. But both of you are going to get killed.”
She pumped a round into the shotgun’s firing chamber and the snapping noise echoed through the empty parking area. Maya had never heard her father say “thank you.” Harlequins weren’t supposed to feel grateful to anyone, but she wanted to say something to the person who had fought beside her.
“Good luck, Hollis.”
“You’re the one who needs the luck. Take a quick look around and get the hell out of here.”
A FEW MINUTES later Maya and Gabriel were walking down the concrete tunnel that passed underneath the quadrangle. The air was hot and stuffy. She could hear water running through the black pipes attached to the walls.
Gabriel kept glancing at her. He looked uncomfortable, almost guilty. “I’m sorry we have to do this. I know you wanted to leave with Hollis.”
“This was my choice, Gabriel. I didn’t protect your brother when I was in Los Angeles. Now I have another chance.” She avoided his eyes and tried to sound reassuring. “We’re making an emotional decision. Not a logical one. Perhaps they won’t anticipate this.”
They reached the administration center on the other side of the quadrangle and Dr. Richardson’s ID card allowed them to go up a staircase to the lobby. Maya used the card to open the elevator and they went to the fourth floor. Both of them walked down a carpeted hallway, looking inside empty offices and conference rooms.
Maya felt odd holding a shotgun while she stared at a coffee machine and filing cabinets, a screensaver on a computer that showed angels drifting across a blue sky. She remembered her job back at the design firm in London. She had spent hours sitting in a white cubicle with a postcard of a tropical island taped to the wall. Every day at four o’clock a plump Bengali lady came around pushing a tea cart. Now that life seemed as distant as another realm.
She grabbed a wastebasket from one of the offices and they got back into the elevator. When they reached the third floor, she left the basket wedged between the elevator doors. Slowly, they began to walk down the hallway. Maya made Gabriel stay six feet behind her as she opened each new door.
The lighting panels set in the ceiling left a particular kind of shadow on the floor. At the end of the hallway, one of the shadows looked slightly darker. It could be anything, Maya thought. Maybe a dead lightbulb. As she took a step closer, the shadow began to move.
Maya turned to Gabriel and tapped a finger to her mouth. Be quiet. She pointed to a private office and motioned for him to hide behind the desk. When she returned to the corner, she looked down the hallway. Someone had left a janitor’s cart near one of the offices, but the janitor had disappeared.
She reached the end of the hallway, moved a few inches around the corner, and then jerked back when three men fired their handguns at her. Bullets cracked through the walls and made a splintery hole in an office door.
Holding the shotgun, Maya ran back down the hallway and fired at the sprinkler head in the middle of the ceiling. The fixture was split open and a fire alarm began ringing. One of the Tabula peered around the corner and fired wildly in her direction. The wall beside her seemed to explode and chunks of plaster were scattered across the carpet. When Maya fired back, the man retreated around the corner.
Water sprayed from the shattered sprinkler head as she stood in the hallway. When most people were in a dangerous situation, their vision became restricted, as if they were peering down a tunnel. Look around you, Maya told herself and glanced up at the ceiling. She raised her shotgun and fired twice at an overhead lighting panel above the janitor’s cart. The plastic grate disintegrated and a hole appeared in the plaster.