Kiss the Girls

Get the others out,” she urged me. “Please let the others out of these cages he kept us in.”
    Just then a strange, terrible sound echoed in the passageway. A scream of pain. I ran from Naomi’s room and saw the one thing I could never imagine happening, not in my worst nightmares.

Chapter 109

    T HE LOUD, deep-voiced call for help had come from Sampson. My partner was in trouble. Two men, both wearing ghoulish masks, were struggling over him. Casanova and Rudolph? Who else could it be?
    Sampson was down in the hallway. His mouth was open in shock and pain. A knife, or ice pick, protruded from the center of his back.
    It was a situation I had faced twice before, riding patrol on Washington’s streets. A partner in trouble. I had no choice and only one chance. I didn’t hesitate. I raised my Glock and fired.
    I surprised them with the quick shot. They hadn’t expected me to shoot while they were holding Sampson. The taller of the monsters grabbed his shoulder and fell back. The other looked down the hallway at me. The cold glare of the fierce death mask was a warning. Still, I’d taken away their edge.
    I fired the pistol a second time. aiming at the second death mask. All the lights went out suddenly in the underground house. At the same time, rock ‘n’ roll music erupted from speakers hidden somewhere in the walls. Axl Rose howled “Welcome to the Jungle.”
    Pitch-blackness fell over the hallway. The rock music shook the foundations of the building. I clung to the walls, and moved steadily toward where Sampson had gone down.
    My eyes pressed into the darkness, and a terrible fear swept over me. They had jumped Sampson and that was no easy task. The two of them seemed to have appeared from nowhere. Was there another way in or out?
    I heard a familiar low growl. Sampson was up ahead. “I’m here. Guess I didn’t watch my back,” he gasped out the words.
    “Don’t talk.” I moved closer to where his voice had come from. I knew approximately where he was now. I was afraid that maybe they hadn’t left. They had just improved their odds, and I was sure they were waiting to jump me.
    They liked to work two on one. They needed to twin. They needed each other. Together they were unbeatable. So far.
    I inched my way along the wall, pressing against it with my back. I moved toward shapes and shifting shadows at the end of the passageway.
    There was a faint glimmer of amber light ahead. I could see Sampson curled up on the floor. My heart was pounding so fast there was barely a space between the beats. My partner was badly hurt. This had never happened before, not even when we were kids on the streets of D.C.
    “I’m here,” I said to Sampson, kneeling beside him. I touched his arm. “You bleed to death, I’ll be pissed off,” I told him. “Just be real still.”
    “Don’t sweat it. I’m not going into shock, either. Nothing shocks me anymore,” he groaned.
    “Don’t be a hero.” I held his head lightly against my side. “you’ve got a knife stuck in the middle of your back.”
    “I
am
a hero… go on!… You can’t let them get away now. You already hit one. They headed toward the stairs. The same way we came in.”
    “Go, Alex, you have to get them!” I turned at the sound of Naomi’s voice. She knelt over Sampson. “I’ll take care of him.”
    “I’ll be back,” I said. Then I was gone.
    I turned a dark comer of the long passageway in a low shooting crouch. I found myself entering the first corridor we’d come to.
They headed toward the stairs,
Sampson had said.
    Light at the end of the tunnel? Monsters hiding along the way? I moved faster in the semidarkness. Nothing would stop me now. Well, maybe Casanova and Rudolph could. Two against one weren’t the odds I wanted on their home field.
    I found the doorway out at last. There was no lock, no doorknob. I’d blown it away.
    The stairway was clear, at least it looked that way. The trapdoor was open, and I could see dark pine trees and patches of blue sky overhead. Were they waiting up there for me? The two clever monsters!
    I climbed the wooden steps as quickly as I could. My finger was light on the Glock’s trigger. Everything was surging out of control again.
    I exploded up the final stairs like an all-pro fullback through a small hole in the line of scrimmage. I burst from the rectangular opening in the ground. Did a semi-acrobatic roll. Came up firing the Glock. At the least, my combat routine might ruin somebody’s