“Which way?” said Decker.
Robie looked in both directions, took a sniff of the air, examined the dirt on either side of the doorway, and said, “Footprints and airflow only come from that way,” he said, pointing to their right.
He took the spikes out of his belt and held two in each hand. They poked out between his fingers like an animal’s claws.
“If anyone’s here, that explosion will have alerted them,” said Decker.
“I’m actually counting on that,” said Robie.
A hundred feet later, Robie grabbed Decker and thrust him into the shadows right next to the wall. Robie reached up and pulled the wires from the light directly above them. This part of the passageway became far darker.
Someone was coming fast.
A few moments later a trio of men burst into view; all three were armed. They ran in a column formation.
Right as they passed, Robie struck with the spikes. He stabbed one man in the neck, spun around, and sunk two spikes into the second man’s gut, thrusting the spikes upward to his diaphragm. Both men went down, and neither would get back up.
The other man turned and pointed his sub gun at Robie. He never fired, because Decker fell on top of him. His nearly three hundred pounds pinned the man flat to the ground, and his sub gun tumbled from his hands.
Robie picked up the weapon and looked at the other two men. One was dead, the other was gurgling his last few breaths. Robie waited until he expired and said to Decker, “Let him up.”
Decker slowly rose off the man. Robie said, “Who are you?”
The man sat on his haunches and shook his head. He was around forty and his dark, curly hair was shot through with gray.
“Where are we?” said Robie.
Another shake of the head.
“Why did you kidnap us?”
This time the man didn’t even bother to shake his head. He just sat there and stared at Robie for a moment before lifting his hand to his mouth.
Robie leapt forward but the man had already swallowed something.
He started convulsing, then foam seeped out of his mouth, and he fell sideways. He took a few tortured breaths and then his body relaxed.
Decker bent over him and checked his pulse. There was none.
“That was a fast poison,” he said.
“Sort of the point,” replied Robie.
Decker picked up one of the sub guns, and they kept going in the same direction.
There was a doorway up ahead.
Robie fingered the sub gun and looked at Decker.
“Count of three. You go left, I go right.”
Decker nodded.
“One . . . two . . . three.”
They burst into the room, Robie’s gun covering the right half of the space and Decker’s the left.
Dead center of the room stood Ben Purdy.