For a moment, she lay there, heart pounding.
Pushing her backpack in front of her, she moved steadily down the shaft. A dark room. A room where two men sat cleaning guns.
There was only about twenty feet left of ventilation shaft. God, what if it didn’t go all the way to that garage? What if she couldn’t find him?
Keep going.
She inched along toward the end of the shaft. But as she drew nearer, she saw that it didn’t end there, but turned to the left where a large screen opened into the garage.
A man’s shouts. More shouts.
A groan.
Malik!
She crept forward until she reached the screen—and her blood went cold.
He hung from a rod, his elbows and wrists tied together so that his weight rested on his shoulders. It must be excruciating, like crucifixion but without nails. Kuti stood there, shouting up at him, while one of his men piled something beneath him.
Kindling. Firewood.
Oh, God!
They were going to burn him.
Some part of her wanted to punch out the screen, take out Malik’s pistol, and start shooting. But with her luck she’d miss and run out of ammo—or hit Malik.
If these fuckers wanted to play with fire, she would help them out.
Do you know what you’re doing? What if you blow yourself up?
She was clueless, but she had to try.
She used the bend in the shaft to turn herself around and headed back the way she’d come. When she reached the closet where she’d found their gear, she went to work. She took some gauze out of the first aid kit, opened the whisky bottle, and stuffed the gauze inside like a cork, tilting it to soak the gauze. Then she pushed out the screen, struck a match, and lit the gauze, rolling the bottle toward the box of whisky.
Not bothering to pull the screen back into place, she crawled as fast as she could back toward the garage. She needed to be there and ready when the fire drew these bastards away.
Smoke. She could smell it. Could they?
Shattering glass. A small explosion.
Smoke filled the ventilation shaft, engulfing her.
Shit!
Kristi held her breath and moved faster, pushing her backpack ahead of her.
Hang on, Malik. I’m coming.
20
Malik gritted his teeth and fought to hold on, both shoulders dislocated now. He’d suffered before—gunshot and shrapnel wounds—but he’d never endured anything like this, pain tearing him apart. But worse than the pain was knowing he had failed Kristi.
He had promised to get her home, and now…
Cobra will come.
Yes. The GPS trackers.