The Warsaw Protocol: A Novel(28)

Konrad led the way down another drift.

Offshoots appeared periodically into more dark passages left and right. Some were labeled, most were not. Then a white sign with black letters noted that an offshoot to the right was named SZCZYGIELEC.

Goldfinch.

“That was marked on your map,” he said to Konrad.

“That’s right. It will get progressively tighter from here on. This is an area no one visits. It’s known only through old charts and records.”

Vic turned to face him with a look that asked if he was going to be okay.

“I’ve never been claustrophobic,” Jonty said. “I’ll be fine.”

They kept going into the blackness, and he felt like he was descending into the abyss. Without their lights they would not be able even to see a finger touch their nose. The passageway narrowed. They found a chamber marked GO??BIE, and finally came to one labeled JELE?.

More names from the map.

Ahead the tunnel had fallen in on itself, leaving only a small hatchway through the salt debris, big enough for a man to pass through on his belly. A dark space opened on the other side.

Vic nodded.

Jonty faced their guide. “I need you to wait here. We need to handle this alone.”

Konrad had the good sense not to argue and simply nodded.

“I also need that map,” Jonty said.

Konrad handed it over.

No sense delaying.

This had to be done.

“Lead the way,” he said to Vic.





CHAPTER NINETEEN


Cotton quickly corrected himself.

Not a gun.

A Taser.

Two barbed electrodes attached to conductors shot through the air. Their needles found his chest. Electricity surged through him. White-hot pain exploded in his brain, leaving a trail of quivering nerves in its path. His muscles overloaded and he collapsed to the floor, his body convulsing into contractions. Like a leg cramp amplified a thousand times. The weapon continued to click as high-voltage current passed through him. The feeling of helplessness and vulnerability seemed overwhelming. He had complete control over his mind, but not his body.

The Taser’s clicking stopped.

The whole thing lasted no more than five seconds, but it had been the longest five of his life. He stayed conscious, aware of his surroundings, with only one thought.

For the pain to stop.

And it did.

But he was immobile.

He tried to catch his breath.

Ivan bent down and plucked out the darts. “Pass on message, Malone.”

Then the Russian left.

Son of a bitch. That hurt.

He slowly sat up.

His head and mind felt dull and heavy.

Dammit.



* * *



He entered the small lobby of his hotel, a fine 18th-century burgher’s house converted into a cozy, elegant establishment not far from the central market. On the walk over his nerves had settled. He should call Stephanie and pass on the message. Not because Ivan wanted him to, but because she needed to know the lay of the land. He’d make that call after getting upstairs to his room, where he’d have some privacy. He remained hungry, and his hotel, though quaint and comfortable, provided no room service. He’d have to head back out to find a snack, which wouldn’t be a problem given the number of nearby cafés.

He retrieved the room key from the desk clerk and climbed two unbroken flights of wooden stairs to the third floor, pulling himself along on the balustrade. He approached his door and opened the dead bolt. Inside, he tossed the key on the dresser. His room was a small suite with a separate area for the bed, a paneled door in between, which hung half open. No lights were on, the ambient light from outside leaking in through the windows, providing more than enough illumination.

A noise came from the other room.

A squeak.

Then another.

Somebody was there.

He approached the doorway, staying to one side. Only an idiot rushed into the dark, so he reached around the jamb and flicked the wall switch. The room lit with the soft amber glow from two lamps on the nightstands. In the bed, her back propped on a pillow, lay Sonia Draga.

Back when he was still with the Magellan Billet, during the years he lived apart from his wife, Sonia had been quite a temptation, one he’d succumbed to on more than one occasion. Those encounters had not been without passion, though more a uniting of kindred seekers, two drifting souls who took comfort in each other since they both seemed to understand loneliness.

But that was all in the old days. BC. Before Cassiopeia.

Things were different now.

“Ivan asked for a favor and I obliged,” she said. “He promised he’d behave. Did he?”

He walked over and sat on the bed, noticing that she’d removed her shoes, her toenails painted blood red. “He Tasered me.”

She touched his arm. “Would you like me to make it better? My way of apologizing.”

He needed to say something to bridge that clumsy gap between offer and caress. Years ago, as a young navy lawyer, he’d made the mistake of cheating on his wife. Why? Looking back, he had no idea. It just happened. A stupid act, a vain attempt at thinking someone else cared, finding pleasure in them, if only for a moment, regardless of the consequences. He hurt Pam more than he ever thought possible, and she repaid him with a child that he only learned years later was not biologically his. It took more than a decade to end that civil war. He and Pam now got along just fine. Gary, their son, knew the truth, and had come to terms with the fact that though he may not be a Malone by blood he was in every other meaningful way.