77 North by D. L. Marshall

Author:D. L. Marshall
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Canelo
Published: 2023-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-nine

Severnaya Zemlya, Siberia

Present day

‘Move,’ Abi said simply, and she didn’t have to say it twice.

We sprinted along the frozen corridor, Glock held alongside my torch. With my finger tensed, the beam danced across ice-packed carpet, past sagging doors and piles of wallpaper that’d peeled and were lying discarded like rotting leaves in a gutter.

‘There’s a door up here. Once we’re through, we’re in the warm wing. Torches off, quiet as a mouse, yeah?’

I gave a grim nod. A few seconds later, we rounded a corner to a solid-looking door that was probably reinforced and definitely well insulated, but not on a par with the huge bulkhead on the ground floor. Abi paused and pulled out a key, wiggling it for several seconds before it clicked. She switched off her torch and waited for me to do the same before slowly opening the door.

This one creaked so loudly I thought it’d wake the whole hotel. She stopped part-way and squeezed through. I followed. First the light hit, just dim night lighting but bright as day after navigating the darkness of the ruins. Then the warmth hit like a wall. Compared to the temperatures of the bunker and destroyed wing, it was positively equatorial.

We’d emerged behind the staircase on what seemed to be one of the middle floors, if the views out of the dirty window were anything to go by. Abi leaned over and looked down the stairwell. Way below, the tiled floor of the lobby shone. Voices drifted up as a couple of men called to each other in Russian.

‘What are they saying?’ I asked, running to the corner of the corridor to check the floor was safe.

‘Don’t worry. They’re talking footie.’

‘One of the guards was following us back there in the ruins, what happens when he raises the alarm?’

‘That was no guard.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Did you catch that jacket? No one round here wears that old stuff. Come on.’

She grabbed my hand and led me down the stairs, sticking to the walls, onto the floor below. She stopped at the end and paused to look around the corner.

She just had time to utter ‘Fuck,’ before launching, whipping the knife up from her pocket.

There was a scuffle, a gurgle. By the time I’d stepped around the corner, she was lowering a twitching man to the floor with her knife sticking from his neck.

‘There are always two,’ she whispered.

As if on cue a door opened a few metres ahead, a second guard stepped out into the corridor. I started running before he realised what was happening. He fumbled with his holster as I leapt.

My foot caught him in the chest, knocking him back into the room. I followed him in with a left fist to his cheek, swinging my Glock round into his rebounding head. The effect was instantaneous: he crumpled to the floor, out cold.

I looked around. We were in a time capsule bathroom. I dragged him into the nearest green Formica cubicle and dropped him against the wall.

Abi pushed in past me and lunged at the prone man.

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