Page 15 of Trapped

Chapter Four

Sophia zipped around a corner.

As part of her training for the mission, she’d gone over and over the plans for this bunker. It was vast, and she knew there were places she could hide—if she could get to one.

The corridor walls were cinder block. The first door she came to was locked. The second one, too. She wanted to look over her shoulder, but that would slow her down, and the guy behind her might see her face.

She reached a door marked “Danger High Voltage.” This time, when she tried the knob, it turned. She slipped into a darkened room, listening for the hum of electrical equipment. But she heard nothing. Was this really part of the electrical plant? She couldn’t remember. But she knew that if she bumped into a transformer, she was a cooked goose.

She could feel her heart pounding as she fumbled the small flashlight out of her pocket. Switching it on, she tried to look around. But the beam could show her only a small area at one time. Most of the room was still swathed in darkness.

Behind her, out in the corridor, she thought she heard footsteps.

There was no time to plan anything tricky. All she could do was slide along the wall and press herself into the shadows—where the guy’s line of sight would be blocked when the door opened. She waited with her pulse pounding, clutching her flashlight handle. It had Mace in it. Her only weapon, because she’d drawn the line at killing anyone when she came in here.

The door opened and a powerful beam swept the room. But the man didn’t step inside and look behind the door. After long seconds, the door closed again, and she breathed a sigh of relief.

After staying put for several minutes, she pressed her ear to the barrier. When she detected nothing, she turned the knob and peered out.

Thankfully, the hallway was empty. And she didn’t hear any alarm bells. Maybe the guard hadn’t really seen her. He was just following his routine. But now she was headed in the wrong direction. And she could bump into another one of the guards coming on shift.

Forcing herself not to run, she headed back the way she’d come. When she reached the cross corridor, she turned right, then took a flight of stairs down into the lower reaches of the facility, where she passed rooms with enormous tanks for water and fuel. The storeroom she wanted was about a hundred yards from the stairway.

Stepping inside, she played her light over shelves with boxes of canned fruit, pork and beans, tomato sauce, toilet paper, soap.

She was almost home free.

Unable to stop herself from running, she sprinted to the back and squeezed behind a line of shelves, where she pressed on a panel in the wall. It slid back, revealing a hidden doorway.

After stepping through, she ducked around a rock wall and said a little prayer of thanksgiving that she’d made it out of the bunker in one piece.

She’d exited through the back door—a door she’d been told the men using the place didn’t know existed.

Out here was a natural cave, with a couple of tunnels cut through the living rock.

“Well?”

The sound of a gruff voice in the darkness made her jump. She turned to find herself facing a man wearing night vision goggles. He took them off and switched on a flashlight of his own. In the dim light she could see his wide face, close-cropped brown hair, and the Sig Sauer in his free hand.

“You’re alone?”

“Yes.”

His name was Phil Martin, and he had been her guide through the maze of underground caves that led to the back door of the bunker. He holstered the gun.

At first, she hadn’t liked working with him. He could be brusque and bossy. And sometimes it seemed like his mind was far away—in some place where it was impossible for her to follow. But she’d quickly found that he knew his job—from weaponry to spelunking to psychological motivation. And to be honest, she knew she never would have gotten this far without his help.

He’d wanted to come with her into the bunker. Because sending in two people increased the risk, she’d done it alone—and made it back.

Still, she knew she was in for an interrogation. As he led her along the corridor, she was glad of the chance to collect her thoughts. She was sure he’d want to look at her face when he asked her questions, so he escorted her down the tunnel to a place where she could see warm, artificial light. It was coming from inside a twelve-by-twelve-foot room that had been carved out of the rock. At the back was a side tunnel that led to a smaller room they were using for sanitary facilities.

As soon as they stepped inside their living space, Martin turned toward her, the way she’d known he would, and she saw that his skin was flushed.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

He dismissed the question with a brusque jerk of his arm. “I’m fine. Did you contact Baker?”

“Yes.”