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Wrath's Pit
Chapter 17, Part 2

Chapter 17, Part 2

The last two doors, one on either side, differed from the rest. The door to the left Tom regarded at arm's length. The door was metallic, with two horizontal sliding bars locked into brackets in the wall. A slide panel was at eye level, and another larger one was at the bottom of the door. Behind him, there was a duplicate metal door. That room was quiet. Sliding the panel back revealed an empty cell.

The tapping on the door and the yelling paused a few times as he walked down the hall, but they started up after a moment. Whoever was in there was persistent. Maybe the prisoner heard him. More likely, the constant yelling and beating on the door was to aggravate the guard who should have been in that chair.

He grabbed the handle to the low bar and slid it back. The yelling inside stopped for an instant, and then whoever was inside screamed and beat on the door even louder. With one hand on the second bar, Tom thought better of it and reached for the eye-level slide panel. He glanced at Al and slid it to the side.

Angry eyes met his. He jumped to the side in time. A bowl hit the inside of the door, spewing fluid into the hallway. The rank smell of old urine permeated the air.

“You better be able to speak English, or your ass is staying in there.”

“No, no.” A female voice almost pleaded. “I speak English.”

That made him pause. He turned and made eye contact with Al.

Al shrugged. “What’s up?” he whispered.

Tom held up a finger, shaking his head.

Fingertips extended through the gap. Whoever was inside tried to see through the panel’s opening.

“Move back.’

The fingers withdrew.

Tom slid the second bar back and pulled the door open.

Niki limped out. She was the woman in the hangar. She’d taken a brutal beating. A golfball sized contusion marred her face. Dried blood from a nasty cut on her forehead matted her hair, ran down her face, and stained her shirt. She favored one ankle over the other, but both were swollen and discolored. The toenails on one foot were missing. One arm held the other to her chest. Her neck and shoulders were black and blue.

Tom stepped back, his mouth locked open. Then he got mad.

“How did you…” She leaned in on him, her head on his vest, and began to cry.

“Who is it?” Al said from the stairs.

Tom realized he was blocking Al’s vision and shifted until he could see Niki. His jaw dropped. Neither of them had expected to see her.

Tom glanced into the room. A wadded-up dirty blanket lay on the cement floor. There was no light, toilet, or bed, only a blanket.

He gently pushed her off to get a better look at her. She was wearing an ill-fitted man’s brown perahan tunban. The sleeves of the man dress hung past her wrists. The front and back tails of the long shirt almost touched the ground.

“Is your arm broken?”

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“I don’t think so, but it hurts bad.”

Tom waved Al over.

When he joined them, Al looked her over. "Niki?”

“It’s me.” One of her front teeth was missing.

Tom motioned with his head at Al. “Take your shirt off, make a sling out of it, and let’s get out of here.”

Al wrapped the shirt around her as tenderly as he could to keep the arm as immobile as possible. He stopped momentarily, realizing this was who they'd seen in the hangar. When he finished, he looked her up and down. She’d clenched her teeth as he applied the sling. From the pain, he thought, but there was more hate than pain in her demeanor. “What?”

She unclenched her teeth. “A huge Godless demon beat me. He made me watch while he tortured my father’s soldier. They threw him off the mountain because I wouldn’t give them the information they wanted.” Her head dropped. “They brought me here after. I’ve been waiting for the Giant to return with a bowl of piss ready.” She crossed her good arm over her injured one and hugged herself.

“I’m sorry.” Neither man wanted to mention they’d seen the man thrown off the ledge. Not now, anyway.

“Thank you.”

“Yeah,” Al said. “We’re going to make this right.”

“Hell yeah, we are.”

She lifted her head. “Where’s the guard? Did you kill him?”

“Sadly, no, it seems that no one’s around.”

“They’re probably,” Al said, “out in the valley looking for us and or Mike and Julia.”

“Come on,” Tom led her toward the stairs, “I want you to look at something.”

Al held her uninjured arm as they walked. “How’d you end up here?”

“Hotak’s men ambushed one of our convoys. My brother took most of the men from the compound to investigate. While he was gone, a traitor let in Hotak’s true force. The ambush was a trick to weaken us. It worked. My father is dead, as are most of the men who remained behind. They captured me and one other. I don’t know what happened to Farid.” Her mouth set in a firm line remembering.

“I’m sorry about your dad.” The knuckles of both hands turned white. Tom’s grip on his rifle was a minor release of his anger. It wasn’t enough. “Your father was a good man and a friend.“ He noticed and released the tension in his hands and shoulders. “Do you know where we can find Hotak?”

“They put a hood on my head whenever they took me anywhere, so… I met him in his office. When we left the heliport, they took me down one level, where Hotak questioned me. I have no idea where he might be now.”

“I guess we do this the hard way,” Tom said. “We need you to decipher this diagram.”

“How did you two get in here anyway?”

“Long story. We’ll tell you all about it when we get out of here.” Tom put his finger on the Biohazard symbol on the diagram. “The Biohazard symbol gives us a pretty good idea what’s up, nothing good.” His fingertip then traced the words around the level five area. “What does all this gibberish mean?”

Niki surveyed the diagram. Her finger moved from level to level, above the fifth level, then below it. She drew back her good arm, cradling her injured one.

She stepped back, lost in thought.

“Well?”

“Most of it describes how dangerous level five is. Unauthorized individuals stay out. It also describes the biological safety classification of each room. There are five classifications. They are all related to the danger to unprotected individuals. One is the least dangerous, and Five the most dangerous. Most of these areas are on the fifth floor, but it does classify a subbasement as a Five. The information doesn’t detail what kind of work is being conducted. But it does describe an animal storage unit and an incinerator.”

As she spoke, her anger grew.

“That,” Tom said, “reemphasizes our original plan. We got to figure out how to get out of here and report this. But, with Niki, do we try to gather more intel first?”

“You know,” Al said, “she’s a mess and can barely walk? I’m more concerned with how we’ll get her out of here, let alone us and any intel we gather.

“I’m not sure how much help I’ll be. If we can contact Farid, he’ll help us.”

“That’s better than nothing. I wonder if they have a communications room?”

Niki stared at the diagram.

“The rooms on level four are all marked for medical storage. On level six is a server room, a water purification room, and more medical storage.”

“What about three, seven, eight, and nine.”

“Three is the kitchen, storage, and living quarters. Seven and eight are listed as offices and more living quarters.” Niki grunted. “Level nine is the Imperial Chambers.”

“You’re kidding?”

“I guess,” Al said. “We know where Hotak is.”

A noise came from upstairs.

Tom moved his finger to his lips and looked up the stairs.

They all heard it.

Tom pointed them to the right stairway leading down.