Page 83 of Clive Cussler Desolation Code

With that she lunged toward Vaughn, diving under a baton swung by his bald protector and launching herself into his legs. She brought him to the ground, climbed on top of him, and raised her arm to throat punch him with all her strength.

The bald man caught her arm in the backswing and kept her from carrying out the assault. With a violent pull, he threw her off and tossed her to the floor. She lunged for him this time, reaching for the pistol he carried on his belt, but he knocked her aside with a backhand that left her face stinging and bruised.

She hoped he would pull the gun and shoot her, but he merely stepped back and gave her a better view of the screen as the drill surged toward Paul’s skull once more.

She turned and took off running, racing for the stairs. Charging up them so rapidly, she lost her balance near the top and tumbled forward, smashing her shin again and sprawling out across the landing.

Flooded with adrenaline and feeling no pain, she jumped to her feet and sprinted into the darkness of the corridor.

It wasn’t the cowardly act that it seemed. She knew they wouldn’t waste their leverage by drilling into Paul’s head without her there to coerce information from. They would stop the process and save it for later, starting the entire gruesome show all over again. Her only hope to avoid that was some form of escape.

She ran with abandon, racing down the corridors, which alternated between the black anodized steel and the plexiglass protecting the cooled computer rooms. There was nothing to suggest a direction. Nothing she could use as a landmark. It was all the same.

Stopping in front of one glass panel, she tried to smash it with her fists, and then used her head, the hardest surface on the human body. It did nothing but knock her backward.

The sound of footsteps coming after her put fear into her heart. She gave up trying to smash the glass and took off running again.

Coming to an intersection, she barely slowed. Left, right, or straight? It didn’t really matter.

She burst to the left, rushed across a series of grates that allowed air up from below, the way they did for the subway systems in big cities.Hot air rising.Perhaps it led to an escape hatch somewhere up above.

She looked for a ladder but found nothing that led up. She ran to the next intersection, turned right, and slammed into another plexiglass wall. With no way around it she doubled back, only to crash into another wall made of the clear but impenetrable plastic.

The sudden appearance of the second wall surprised her. It must have dropped into place behind her after she passed by. She was trapped like an insect under a drinking glass. She threw her entire weight against the panel, but it wouldn’t budge.

“Where do you think you’re going?” the computer voice asked.

“Away from you!” Gamay shouted defiantly.

“As I told you, there is no path that leads away from me.”

She wanted to swear at the computer, to call it all kinds of names. The act of the powerless.

She looked through the glass panel. The men were coming for her. They had dogs with them, snarling animals that looked like a cross between wolves and German shepherds. In the dim light their eyes seemed to glow red like hounds from some hellscape.

Gamay backed away in fear. Only then did she notice the reflection in the clear plastic. She spun around to see a waif-like woman standing in the space behind her. The tiny woman had smooth black hair and wore tattered gray robes. She held a finger to her lips in a shushing gesture. To Gamay’s surprise she could see mist, tree vines, and dark, earthy soil behind the woman.The outside.

“You don’t belong here,” the figure said. “You’ll get lost if you stay.”

Gamay ignored her and lunged for the freedom beyond this hidden door, banging into a glass panel once again like a bird in mid-flight.

“Open it!” she demanded. “Let me out!”

The fairy woman did not reply. Instead she reached through the glass and touched Gamay’s forehead with her fingers.

A spark exploded in Gamay’s mind, brighter than fireworks in the dark. She fell backward into the darkness, stunned and disoriented. She dropped for what seemed like seconds and then slammed against the metal grating of the floor.

Aching from the impact, she reached out and brushed the wall with her hand. She felt the smooth, anodized steel and then the cold protrusion of the pipe that had gouged her leg. She opened her eyes and saw the single penlight up above, pointing down in solitude and illuminating her cell.

How am I here?She’d run in the opposite direction. Zigzaggedthrough a maze. Even if she’d fallen through a trapdoor, it would have been almost impossible for her to end up back in her cell.

She wondered if she’d never left the room, if she’d imagined or hallucinated the entire experience. That would explain the sudden transparent walls, the strange layout of the tunnels, and the appearance of the diminutive woman.

She tried to raise her head, but could not lift it. She tried to bring her legs up to her chest, but found they were anchored to the floor as if held in place by magnets. Her left arm was pinned as well. Only her right arm remained free.

She reached for the wall and found the pipe she’d tripped on earlier. It was cold and roughly welded and covered with a hint of condensation. She gripped it intensely, as if holding on to reality itself.

And then, without any warning, the pipe dissolved in her grasp, vanishing like sand in the undertow of a retreating wave. Her hand fell to the floor, smacking the surface and refusing to move again.

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