Escape (17 page)

Gaia was the first to burst onto the floor. Sam
followed close behind. “Hello?” Gaia called out as her echo traveled down each and every hallway.

“What are you doing?” Sam whispered urgently, grabbing her by the shoulders. “There could still be guards around any one of those corners.”

“Bull,” she said, pricking up her ears for the man's call again. “This place is dead. It's as dead as Loki.” She finally picked up the sound of the man's voice and began a series of careful twists and turns down the endless halls.

“Can you hear me?” she called out. “We're here to help you. . . .”

“Here!”
the desperate voice croaked. “I'm in
here!”

Gaia turned behind her and realized that the voice was coming from down the hall. “Just hold on,” Sam called to him.

Gaia could see the increasing determination in Sam's eyes. This wasn't just a chance to free some stranger from an abandoned prison. Sam had found himself a brother of sorts behind that door. Sam ran down the hall and turned the corner. “Here it is—N 37. The door's open!” he called out triumphantly.

“Door's open?” Gaia asked.

There was no response.

“
Sam
?” She hollered much louder this time.

All she could hear was a
thick and ugly silence.

Virtual Walking Database

GAIA WHIPPED AROUND THE CORNER
to N 37, hammer cocked behind her shoulder, and kicked open the door, coming down squarely on both feet in a crouched position. And then she froze solid in her tracks. She was more thankful than she had ever been to feel no fear.

Because she was standing before a three-man firing squad.

Three men in black jumpsuits and black combat boots were standing in front of an abandoned prisoner's bed. The man in the center was holding Sam against his chest, with his black-gloved hand pressed firmly against Sam's mouth. His right hand was holding a semiautomatic machine gun about two inches from Gaia's head. He was flanked by two other goons, both of them with their guns stabilized on their shoulders, aiming from
only inches away.

The thug on the right looked up from his gun sight and examined Gaia's face. His eyes grew wider the longer he looked. “Is that
her
?” he asked, sounding just as thick as he looked.

The man holding Sam began to nod and smile. “Oh, that's her.” He grinned. “That's her.”

Gaia had never really stopped to consider just how familiar all of Loki's thugs must be with her face.
They'd all been after her for so long, she wondered if these idiots had even gotten the memo that their boss was brain-dead and that this particular war was over. It had been over for days now. Most of his men had obviously gotten the picture, but these freaks. . . they really put the
psycho
in
psycho loyalist.

So Sam's fears had been right. There were a few of them roaming the compound like robots that someone had forgotten to turn off. That's what Gaia got for having no fears—a
three-gun wake-up call.

They obviously hadn't abandoned their posts in days. There was not an ounce of sanity in their eyes. They were like those libertarian hillbillies, who thought the best thing they could do for their country was to march around on their crumbling porches, just loading and reloading their shotguns. It almost seemed worth it to Gaia to put these poor bastards out of their misery. But three on one with Sam and the man as their hostages? Not to mention the fact that deranged psycho-loyalist lunatics tended to be trigger-happy. Maybe she could talk some sense into them. . . .

“Okay, look. . . ,” she began.

“Let's just kill her and bring Loki the body,” one of them said.

“Good idea,” another agreed.

Okay, talking sense was out. Action was the only choice, given their very clear and simple plan. She saw
their fingers pulling down on their triggers and her plan became equally clear. There was only one way to free Sam and the man and take all the guns out of the picture in one move. She tightened her hands around her hammer, and she swung away.

Gaia's hammer knocked against the barrels of their guns in quick one-two-three succession. She smacked all three weapons into the corner simultaneously as the bullet spray clanged along the metal-reinforced walls. The deafening sound of rapid machine gun fire filled the room, reverberating off every shining key and dark corner.

The thug on the right let out a loud growl as he leapt toward Gaia. He slammed her up against the door as the hammer fell from her hands. He ripped a hunting knife from his belt and pushed forward to plunge it into her stomach, but Gaia grabbed onto his wrist and drove his arm to her side. She shoved her knee straight into his groin and then flipped his entire frame over her head, cracking his spine back as he collided with the door. One down.

She saw the glint of the gun out of the corner of her eye. “Sam, get down!” she ordered. “Down!”

Sam ducked and flattened himself on the ground as the thickest goon fired off the gun he'd retrieved from the corner. The only advantage to dealing with someone who had gone off the deep end:
no aim.
He was just firing off round after round, hoping he would hit something. Hoping he would hit everything.

Gaia leapt to the far corner of the room, landing in a fast roll that nearly threw her against the wall. But she pushed her hands out against the wall and bounced back under the only table in the room—a fold-out card table. It wasn't exactly bulletproof, but it was sure as hell easy to throw.

She shot up from the ground and hurled the table at the
trigger-happy maniac
like a rocket. It connected with his gun first, redirecting his gunfire up toward the ceiling and then knocking him to the ground.

Gaia took to the air again, landed by the sledgehammer, and snatched it from the floor. She ran at the goon as he threw off the table and aimed his gun again. She could feel the third psycho running at her from behind. It seemed Loki hadn't done a very good job of combat training.

Never sandwich a target, you idiots. Never sandwich a target.

Gaia waited till the absolute last second. . . and then she dropped. She dropped flat to the floor as the gunfire flew over her head, riddling the man behind her with bullets, forcing back his oversized frame until he tripped and landed in a lifeless heap at the foot of the abandoned prisoner's bed.

The second the gun-toting goon had emptied his mag, Gaia pushed back up to her feet, wielding the sledgehammer with the same craft and discipline as she would a samurai sword.

She charged at the thug's wide psychotic eyes, knowing that mercy was no longer an option. Whoever he might have been at some point in his life, he'd now been reduced to nothing more than a rabid animal, with no intention of stopping until he'd murdered everyone left in that room. And he'd left Gaia with no choice. He dug back down for another gun, but he would never reach it.

Gaia swung the hammer with full force. It struck his chin with a surprisingly blunt thud and drove his entire body back into the corner. He smacked up against the metal wall and then slid slowly down into absolute stillness. He was down but not out. She could still see his diaphragm moving in the slow rhythm of unconscious breathing. But he wouldn't be conscious anytime soon. That was for sure.

Silence filled the room.

Gaia let the hammer hang down at her side as she turned slowly back to Sam on the floor. “Are you okay?” she asked, beginning to feel faint.

Sam looked around at the inert bodies and then back up to Gaia. “I'm—I'm fine,” he stammered. He was obviously still a little spooked. He'd seen Gaia fight before, but perhaps not quite like this. “You just. . . how did you. . . ?”

“I just did what I had to,” she said, helping Sam back off the ground.

“Yes,” he uttered, still mildly in shock. “Yes, you did.”

“Come on,” she said, motioning to Sam to join her
by the man's bedside. He was wearing only a sagging white T-shirt and institutional-grade black pants. Finally there was a face to go with all those desperate cries. But the face was nothing like she had expected.

First, he was ancient. There was barely a hair left on his head, and any hair that remained around his ears was like the dead white wisps of a dandelion. His face was so pale, it was like
translucent ivory.
The deep creases through his cheeks looked like mistakes that had been made with a sculptor's chisel. An ugly gray goatee had sprouted around his lips, and his entire frame was hunched over like an
old Dutch marionette.

His eyes were the only feature that made him look alive. Bright, ocean-blue eyes that had obviously seen more life and death than Gaia could comprehend. But they weren't so easy to see, because they were clouded with tears.

The old man collapsed into Sam's arms and seemed to hold on for dear life. “You are angels,” he cried in a light Russian accent that Gaia hadn't picked up on before. “
Angels
. I thought I'd heard voices in the silence, but I wasn't sure. I thought guards, maybe, but now. . .”

“It's okay,” Sam said gently, looking up at Gaia as he held the man tighter. “It's okay.”

“Thank God,” the man repeated again and again. “Thank God.”

Gaia stepped behind the old man and stroked his back gingerly. She was still doing her best to shake off
her dizziness and stay alert. “What's your name?” she asked.

The moment she touched him, his eyes suddenly lit up. They opened wide, revealing every millimeter of his sparkling, ocean-blue irises. “My name is Dmitri,” he said, seemingly hypnotized by her presence. “Dmitri Gagarin.”

“I'm—”

“
Gaia,
” he said, finishing her sentence as he stared at her with that frozen, enthralled expression. “I know who you are, of course.” He smiled almost submissively. “I worked for the Organization for almost forty-five years. You and your mother. . . you know. . . you are somewhat like royalty to us. . . .”

Gaia pulled away the moment she heard the word
Organization
. The Organization was synonymous with Loki. The Organization had killed her mother. She did not want to even touch a man who worked for that horrid agency, no matter how old or frail or desperate he might be. She even considered leaving the old man in his filthy cell.

“Oh, no, please,” Dmitri begged, searching deeper into Gaia's eyes. “Do not misunderstand. I
hated
Loki. I hated what he did to the Organization. I
hated
what he did to your mother. And what he tried to do to you. That is why he had me locked up in here. Because he knew I was his enemy. He knew how well I knew him.”

Now Gaia wasn't sure what to think. But she knew this much: Any enemy of Loki's was a friend of hers. The next question fell from her lips before she could even stop it. “You knew my mother?”

A grand, wistful smile spread across his withered face. “I knew
of
her,” he said. “Of course. We all did.”

“And my father, too?”

“Yes, of course. I knew of your father. I still know many things, you know. Many people. I am not as
obsolete
as Loki would have liked to believe.”

Gaia darted her eyes up at Sam. She didn't have to say a word for him to understand what she was thinking. Maybe they didn't need to search an entire building full of ransacked files. Maybe they had just found themselves a
virtual walking database
of information. Maybe they had just found exactly what they had come for. And they had just saved his life.

“Your mother,” Dmitri went on, sweetness taking over the anger in his voice. “She was. . .
special,
uh? We all thought so. Like a queen. And you, I think. . . you are like a princess.” He smiled. Gaia did not quite know how to respond to this either. “I am. . . honored, Gaia,” he said. “I am so very honored to finally meet you.”

“We should get him out of here,” Sam said. “I'd really like to get out of here,” he added. He turned to Dmitri, who was now managing to stand on his own. “I was locked up here, too.”

“
You
?” Dmitri sighed. Gaia could see the pain in his
eyes as he looked at Sam's face. “So
young
. . . Why?”

“They shot me. . .”

Sam didn't even seem to know why he had shared this fact, but for an imperceptible moment he almost looked on the verge of tears. It suddenly occurred to Gaia that he had never actually said this out loud before. He had never been able to share it with anyone other than Gaia, but it must have taken on so much more significance when spoken to a complete stranger.

“Loki shot you,” Dmitri repeated, years of regret pouring through
his fraying voice.
“Then that is
two
things you and I have in common, my friend.” He stared solemnly at Sam.

“You too?” Sam asked quietly.

“I will not show you the scars,” Dmitri said. “It is much too ugly a sight.”

Sam turned back to Gaia with an urgent stare. “We have to get him out of here right now.”

“Can you walk?” she asked. “Can you make it down the stairs?”

“To get out of this place?” He smiled desperately. “Oh, yes. To get out of this place, I would throw myself down the stairs. I will go wherever you are going.
Anywhere
that will get me closer to New York City.”

“Oh, I think we can get you pretty close,” Gaia said. She ducked under his arm to support him with her shoulders. Sam ducked under the other arm. “Just hold on,” she said. “It's going to be a long walk. But
once we get to the car, I think we can all be home before dark.”

“
Home
” Dmitri savored the word. “That would be something. . . .”