“He was here. The computer's still warm.” Randall tapped the thirty-two-inch monitor. “He probably watched us come through the escape hatch.”

Niki stood up and walked around the desk. Her ankle was stiff, and her limp was more pronounced.

The makeshift sling was doing a poor job of keeping her arm steady. She held it tight to her chest. Of their group, she was the worse off. Everyone else had minor injuries, but as much as she denied it, Niki was not in a good place. They needed a way out. They needed to get all this intel out and analyzed. Maybe then someone could stop whatever Hotak had planned.

Niki circled the desk again. The ankle didn’t look like any amount of warming up would help.

Tom dropped the pack on the desk and joined Al.

“Randall, if you’d do the honors.”

Randall stuffed their hard-earned intel into the pack.

Niki made another circuit.

What to do? What to do? They hadn’t come for any of this shit. They were supposed to sneak and peek. If possible, he’d have gone off the reservation, found Hotak, and killed him. Now what? Stand around all day? Run?

Niki step dragged her way around the desk again.

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He wanted Hotak dead. Where was he? The helicopter? Outside? The lab? Rounding up more men? There’s only one place he was likely to be. The helicopter. If they made it up there and no one opposed them, a big if, then what? If the bad guys chased them up there? No way they could climb down while the enemy shot at them on the way down.

“Here.” Julia handed Randall the hard drive.

If they went down to hijack a couple of trucks, there are potentially more bad guys down there. How many bad guys can there be? We’ve wasted plenty, twenty or so were in the tunnel.

Niki came around the desk and stood next to him. She put her good arm through his and pulled herself into him. Her eyes stared out the window, not moving.

He looked down at the top of her head. Her hair was dirty, and she smelled of stale sweat. He smiled down at her. He was sure he didn’t smell much better.

She whispered something. He dropped his head closer to her mouth.

“Do whatever you have to do,” she whispered. “Get us out of here if you can. If we make it, we can go after him another time.”

He stood and looked out the window with her. She’s giving up. He looked around. Everyone was doing something, but they all looked listless.

“Al, what do you think?”

“Up, down, through this tunnel.” He shook his head, once left, once right. “We don’t have many options.”

Tom snorted and said, “No.”

They’d both done the math. The tunnel was full of bad guys. Down below, there were probably pickup trucks to get out of here, but more bad guys to stop them from leaving. Above them was a helicopter they couldn’t fly with a pilot they might or might not be able to force to fly them out. And there would be more bad guys up there. They were safe for the moment. But everything that had happened was catching up with them. Lack of sleep, lack of food, lack of water, all that could be overcome. Lack of motivation and lack of purpose that would get them killed.

He leaned down and kissed her smelly head.

“Maybe I should have married you.”

She looked up and smiled. “To an old man like you?”

He grinned and let her go.