Читать книгу Sky Key - Джеймс Фрей, James Frey, Nils Johnson-Shelton - Страница 21

They’re running. Sarah is in the lead and Jago has made it a point of pride to catch her. He pushes himself, pumping his legs as fast they’ll go, and he still can’t touch the Cahokian.

No one has followed them.

Sarah’s elbows swing and her shoulders sway as she clutches the rifle in her hands. The only light in the tunnel comes from the train signals, red and green at intervals, and the headlamp strapped to Sarah’s forehead. It’s on the weakest setting, only 22 lumens, a red filter over the white plastic.

The red halo of light bounces along the walls. Jago finds it strangely mesmerizing.

“SAS, you think?” Sarah yells over her shoulder, not even out of breath.

“Sí. Or MI6.”

“Or both.”

“Four at the door, two at the window, sniper support.” Jago counts them off. “How many you think in the van out front? Or at HQ?”

“Three or four in a mobile unit. Twenty or thirty at ops.”

“Probably a drone too.”

“Probably. Which means—”

“They saw us come in here.”

“Yep.” Sarah skids to a halt. Water pools around the soles of her shoes. The tunnel forks. “Which way?”

Jago stops next to her, their shoulders touching. He memorized these tunnels as part of their escape plan. Went over it with Sarah back in the hotel. Maybe she wasn’t listening. Maybe her mind was elsewhere, like it’s been these last days.

“We talked about this, remember?” Jago says.

“Sorry.”

“North goes to the High Street Kensington station, which is basically outdoors. South is a service bypass,” he reminds her.

“Then south.”

“Quizás. But these tunnels will be crawling with agents soon. It’s only been”—he checks his watch—“four minutes and three seconds since we came underground. We might be able to make the station, get on the next train, and disappear.”

“We’d have to split up.”

“Sí. We’d meet at the rendezvous. You remember the rendezvous?”

“Yes, Feo.”

They both know this is imperative. Renzo, who’s unaware of this little hiccup, will be at the airstrip in the afternoon to pick them up. This was their plan. But now that Sarah and Jago have been made, they need to get out of the UK ASAFP. Every extra second they spend in the tunnels will be an extra second that the authorities can use to catch them.

Jago points to the rightmost tunnel. “If we go to the service bypass, it’ll take us longer.”

“Why?”

Jago sighs. He’s disturbed by how much she’s forgotten, or how much she didn’t listen to in the first place. Players don’t forget or miss things, especially things like escape routes.

“Because,” he says, “we’d have to use the—”

A slight breeze cuts off Jago.

“Train,” Sarah says casually.

Without another word, Sarah takes off into the north fork. Decision made. The wind picks up at her back, the tunnel begins to glow. She sees one of the cutouts used by workers to avoid moving trains. She dashes to it and slides in. It’s big enough only for her, but directly opposite is another. Jago fits into it just as the cacophony of the approaching train fills their ears.

The vacuum riding the front car takes Sarah’s breath and pulls her hair around her neck. Her eyes are level with those of the seated passengers on the Tube. Sarah picks out a few in the blur of glass and metal and light that passes less than a foot from her face. A dark-skinned woman with a red scarf, a sleeping elderly man with a bald spot, a young woman still dressed in last night’s party clothes.

Regular unsuspecting people.

The train is gone. Sarah gathers her hair together and remakes her ponytail.

“Let’s go.”

As they approach the station, the light in the tunnel brightens. She switches off her headlamp. The station comes into view. The train that just passed them pulls away from the platform. From their low angle they see the heads of a few people making for the exits.

They go to the short set of stairs that leads to the platform, being careful to stay in the shadows. Sarah raises her hand, points out the cameras closest to them, one of them hidden behind a grate.

“They’re going to see us once we’re on the platform.”

“Sí. We wait here for the next one.”

Jago unscrews the small bolt securing the scope to his rifle. He belly-crawls up the steps, as close to the platform as possible without appearing on camera, and peers through the scope.

Just the usual early morning scene. A few people waiting, swiping at smartphones, reading tabloids and books, staring at nothing. A businessman appears in the middle of the platform. Brimmed hat and dark shoes, a rolled newspaper tucked under his arm. He looks disappointed. He’s just missed his train.

“Coast looks clear.” Jago lowers the scope.

“We’ll have to leave the rifles.”

“You still got that pistol, though, right?”

“Yep.”

Jago rescans the platform. A young mother holding the hand of a three-year-old. A blue-collar worker in a jumpsuit. The businessman, who’s now reading his paper.

Jago squints, focuses the eyepiece.

The businessman is wearing what looks to be a very nice suit—and black tactical boots.

“Mierda.”

“What is it?”

“Hand me your rifle.”

Sarah does it without asking. Jago shoulders it, aims, pulls the secondary trigger that fires the undermounted dart gun.

The projectile puffs out of the chamber with a low whoosh and pop. The man is too far away and doesn’t hear it. The overhead digital sign several feet past him announces that a new Edgware Road–bound train will arrive in one minute. The man steps back at the last split second, and the dart just misses his neck, clanking into an advertising panel.

The man drops his paper and sets his feet wide, looks left and right. Holds a hand to his ear and says something. Jago pulls back from the top of the steps.

“No good. Gotta go back.”

“Someone see you?”

“Don’t think so.”

“Christ, Jago. You don’t think so?”

Maybe he’s getting sloppy too. Too much forgetting, too much Burger King, too much sex.

Sarah stands and looks, and there he is. Already 20 paces closer. The businessman sprinting, his hat fallen off, a pistol in his hand.

Jago brings the rifle up and without sighting pulls the secondary trigger again. Another dart. It hits the man in the cheek, just below his eye. He recoils and falls, slides along the concrete only 47 feet away. He comes to a stop. He rolls. Paws at his face, the bushy-tailed dart hanging out of it. He fights for consciousness, but it’s no use. He passes out.

The young mother screams.

The Players turn and run. The light from the station recedes. Sarah flicks on her headlamp. She’s several feet in front of Jago when they feel the air change, the light coming for them.

The Edgware Road train.

Sarah kicks it into high gear. She slams into the safety of one of the cutouts as the train comes into view, her shoulder crunching into the concrete wall.

But Jago’s not there. He couldn’t run as fast. He’s only 13 feet away, but it might as well be a mile. He looks at her. She can see his eyes, wide and white.

Sarah screams, “Down!” as the train barrels by, cutting off her view of Jago.

The train’s horn sounds. It doesn’t slow. A loud smack and sparks and a small explosion. The rifle being impacted by the front of the train. All she hears after that is the machine churning in front of her, the movable storm of wind, the Doppler effect of the blaring horn.

Again, Sarah looks into the blurred interior passing just in front of her, this time through glassy eyes. And this time there are no people on it. None. Until the last car, which is full of men dressed in all black.

Men with lots and lots of weapons.

The train didn’t slow because they saw him. They saw him and they wanted him dead.

The train finally brakes as it disappears around the corner and pulls into the station. She has maybe one minute to get to the other tunnel. She glances into the well between the tracks. Doesn’t see any sign of him. Squints. Raises her eyes. There, in the darkness, a piece of cloth floating through the air and settling on the rail.

A piece of cloth that matches Jago’s shirt.

She takes a step forward to see what else she might find, but freezes when she hears voices in the distance. Men, frantic and yelling.

No time.

She shakes with fear. No time to see what’s left of Jago Tlaloc.

Fear.

She rubs her sleeve over her eyes and vaults onto the tracks and runs away.

Runs away from another death.

Another death of someone she loved.