Chapter 67

67

"What happened? Where is everyone?" Mathias said as we saw him appear in the stairwell.

"They're gone," I said as I handed Colleen the phone and jogged up the stairs back onto the ground floor.

"No!" Mathias said. "Dead?"

"Yes," I said. "They all got shot in the tunnel. We barely got out alive ourselves. They were waiting for us."

"How?"

I pointed down at Colleen.

"The phone she's talking on, that's a SAT phone. Daisy had it. She must have found it on one of the dead mercenaries when we were taking their guns and tried to cut a deal."

"She betrayed us?"

I nodded.

Mathias interlaced his fingers on top of his head. He blinked rapidly. He was in total shock.

"Now they know about the tunnel?" he said. "They'll come in now. We're boxed in!"

"No," I said. "I blocked the tunnel. No way they can get in. At least not for a while."

"But we have no way out now."

"Not so fast, Mathias. Listen to me. Things are different now. We have a link outside," I said, pointing at where Colleen had just started speaking into the phone.

"Colleen is calling her law firm. They're very heavy hitters with contacts in the media. Once we put some outside pressure on those thugs out there, they're going to have to back off. They'll cut bait and get out of Dodge. Sunlight is the best disinfectant, and now with the SAT phone, we have a flashlight to make the cockroaches run."

Just then, there was a loud diesel rumble from outside. It was followed by a sharp whistle from up the stairs to the second floor behind us.

We looked up as Mario poked his head over the banister.

"Yo! Yo! Yo!" he barked. "They're on the move."

Mathias looked at me.

"But I thought you said things would get better," he said.

"They're just getting desperate," I said reassuringly. "I'm telling you, this is over."

There was another diesel rumble, another whistle.

"Come on," Mario said. "What are you waiting for? Get up here and man your battle stations. They got that freaking cherry picker moving around again."

"We're going to die," Mathias said, rubbing at his brow.

"No," I said, clapping him on the back. "People might die. But it won't be us."