Chapter 17

The wooden deck of the boat rocked as Garth walked across it, his expensive shoes clacking on the recently-washed boards. He passed dock workers lifting large crates up the gangway, overseen by a pair of Harker's mercenaries, and arrived at a door into the superstructure.

Antoine opened it for him from the inside. "Sir."

Garth stepped in, and shut the door behind him. The hum of the boat's engines resonated through the bulkheads and up his legs, into his bones. "How's Doctor Fischer."

"He's well. Five watching him."

"Good. Have you heard from…"

"Marcel?"

Garth froze. He flexed his fingers at his side, and turned to look Antoine in the eye. "We can't afford any more mistakes."

"I know that. But have you heard?"

"Heard what?"

Antoine handed him a tablet computer.

Garth watched, raised an eyebrow, and pushed it back. "Diana's going to be so pissed," he muttered.

The coarse burlap bag was whipped off Gawain's head, allowing the extremely bright light in the room to make its way to her eyes. She closed her eyes for a second, blinked a few times to adjust to the intensity and looked at her captor.

A lean Asian woman in military gear was holding the bag, standing next to a wheeled metal cart where all of her equipment was.

Right next to the assortment of knives and saws and pliers.

The room itself seemed dilapidated, with peeling floor and walls and the door was a standard-sized oak thing with holes in it and rusted hinges. A dead rat laid in one corner, half its body already gnawed away by its hungry compatriots.

Her hands felt bound by something equally coarse as the bag - a thick rope, perhaps - behind her back. She wiggled her wrists, but it was secured tightly.

"Nice place," Gawain said. She craned her head to the right, half-expecting to see Holly restrained to another chair, but instead found the rotten old wall. She turned to the left, and came upon a chair.

It had been decorated with droplets of blood, and hand-shaped smear on the seat.

"Where is she?"

"In time," the woman said. "Right now, you're going to tell me exactly where you were heading."

"We were on a road tri- go fuck yourself."

The woman smiled, and picked up a pair of pliers. "I really don't want to have to do this."

Gawain spat.

The glob of saliva landed on the woman's neck, between her shoulderblades. She wiped it off and grit her teeth. "You'll learn. In time."

"Or maybe you should just let me go."

She put one foot on Gawain's chest, and pushed. The chair toppled over backwards, the impact with the floor, jarring her senses.

A hand forced her mouth open, and the pliers glinted under the halogen lamp as the woman raised it above her mouth.

"Enough!" a male voice exclaimed.

The woman paused, as if unsure of what to do next, and then threw the pliers on the floor. She disappeared from Gawain's field of view.

An older European man with salt-and-pepper hair leaned over her, in similar uniform with the exception of a pauldron on his right shoulder. "Please, Miss Izaks, do cooperate. We don't want to ruin your pretty face, do we?"

"Who the hell are you?"

"Oh, we've…" He glanced at someone outside her visual range. "We've been quite rude, haven't we? My name is Marcel. This is my lieutenant Jade. Jade, come here."

The woman stepped back into her view.

"We work for some very important people. You might argue that they're the most important people in the world, but I disagree. Importance is subjective."

"Get to the point," Gawain said.

"That's more like it. We'd like to know where your friends are going."

"I thought you'd have figured it out by now."

"I'd like to hear it from you. That and I've very little men at my disposal. Paris is massive; we'd never find them."

"Over my dead body."

"That's what Miss Beckett said," Marcel mused. "And, as you can see." He indicated the chair. "It didn't end very well."

"Not for you either. You didn't get a thing from her."

"An unfortunate sacrifice. Tell you what." He pulled Holly's chair up and sat on it, still looking down at Gawain. "I'll make you a deal. Tell us where Paris HQ is, and we won't shoot all your friends on sight. We'll give them a chance."

"They'll never surrender anyway."

"Then we'll make it quick. Where's your base of operations in Paris?"

Gawain said nothing.

"Very well, Jade."

The woman walked behind Gawain, picked up her chair and set her upright in the middle of the room.

"You're forcing me to use drastic measures, Miss Izaks." He turned to the coor and cupped his hands around his mouth. "Bring her in!"

The door opened with a loud creak, and another soldier carted in a wheelchair with Holly in it. A large piece of duct tape had been placed her mouth, and one of her hands had blood flowing freely from it, from the fingernails that had been pulled out.

Gawain's breath caught in her throat. Holly was a live, at least.

"Miss Beckett didn't know where it was. It took Jade a few hours to start believing her. But you? You know. You can't convince Jade, can you?"

"I'm not giving you shit."

"Jade."

The woman picked up a knife from the steel table, and held it against Holly's throat. "How about now?" she asked.

"Let her go and I'll tell you."

The woman smiled, shaking her head. She flipped the knife over, gripping it do the blade faced down and plunged it into Holly's thigh.

Tears flowed from her eyes as she let out a suppressed scream through the duct tape.

Gawain bit her lip. "You're not getting anything."

"Toenails," Marcel said.

Jade picked the pliers off the ground, and bent to Holly's feet. "Last chance, putain."

"...I'll tell you."

Holly's eyes widened, and she frantically shook her head.

Marcel knelt down in front of Gawain. "Good girl. Where is it?"

"Under where the Bastille used to be. There's a hidden elevator."

"Where exactly?"

"I've never been there so I don't know. This is all I have."

"And if you're lying?"

Gawain said nothing.

Marcel scoffed. "It doesn't matter. My man is on the way there now. If he doesn't find your French allies, Miss Beckett dies. If you're lying, say it now."

She cocked her head at him, silent.

"Good." He patted her on the head, and walked out the door, waving at the other soldier and Jade.

They were alone.

"I'm sorry," Gawain said.

Holly said something made incoherent by the tape over her mouth.

"We'll get through this, okay? Someone's going to come and rescue us."

Holly shook her head.

"There's a tracker inside our glasses. He'll know where to find us." Gawain looked over to the tools cart, where their spectacles laid in half, their lenses shattered. "It's going to be fine, Holly, it's going to be fine."

She repeated the same phrase, over and over and over until her throat went raw. Until she needed water. But deep down inside, she knew she couldn't really fool herself, or Holly, for that matter.

It was never going to be okay.

Gawain had lost track of her hours and minutes by the time Marcel marched back in, without Jade this time, his arms crossed. "You lied."

"I didn't," she said.

"We found nothing. No secret elevator, no anything in the Bastille. But…" He pulled his sidearm - she recognised the unique shape of a Five-seveN - and pointed it at Holly's head. "I want to give you one last chance."

"Shoot her and you'll never get it out of me."

"So you were lying."

"I'm not saying that."

"Then what are you saying?"

"Put the gun away first."

Slowly, Marcel slipped the pistol back in its hostler. "Okay. What now? Where is it?"

"In the catacombs under the Notre Dame. I swear, I'm not lying this time."

"We'll see about that." He took out his cellphone and dialled a number. Marcel listened to it for a long moment, before giving orders in rapid-fire French and then hanging up. "This time, we can talk. When my friend calls and he doesn't find Charlemagne…" He drew a single finger across his throat. "I'll find him myself."

"Can I at least have a glass of water?"

"Of course. Jade!"

The woman opened the door to the room, looking in. "What is it?"

"Lady needs a glass of water."

Jade frowned and disappeared.

"Thank you," Gawain said. "You think it could have been different?"

"How so?"

"If you hadn't joined them. Garth and the others. They're making you do this, aren't they? I can see it."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"You're just a pawn. Someone's pulling the strings, and making you dance. Don't you think you deserve better?"

"If you're trying to turn me against my people, Miss Izaks, I'm afraid you're going to have to try harder than that. A lot harder."

"Smart man," she said. "But not smart enough, apparently."

Marcel frowned, his hand on his hostler. "What are you talking about?"

"Sometimes movies are right, too. Because right now, my partner is heading straight here and he's going to tear you a new arsehole."

"The facility is too well-defended for that."

"You've a dead rat in the corner. And I'm sure you've heard of what happened to Richmond Valentine."

"Valentine was sloppy. I'm not."

"That's what he thought too. That assistant of his - Gazelle, wasn't it? - she was no match for Galahad. And Galahad was barely out of training. Now imagine what an agent of eleven years can do."

"There's no way he can find us. We removed all your trackers." Marcel smiled triumphantly. "Now, speaking of Gazelle, I liked her very much. And your people went and killed her...how?"

"Poison delivered on a blade."

Marcel grabbed the shoes from the metal cart. Behind him, Holly's eyes widened. "These? I've seen Antoine use them before."

"Yes, those. You click the heels together and the blade pops out of the left one."

"You people have such...interesting equipment. Perhaps I should give you a feel of what Gazelle experienced in her last moments."

"Do I look like I can stop you?"

Marcel smiled.

His phone rang. He swiped the screen to answer the call, and listened. His expression went from one of curiosity to a frown.

He hung up. "You're a liar, Miss Izaks."

"Kill me then. You're never getting the actual location."

"With pleasure." He raised the shoes, and clicked the heels together.

Something in the bottom of the shoe clicked.

Before Marcel knew what was happening, a smoke cloud had blossomed out of the shoes, obscuring the entire room.

Gawain leaned forwards, and got to her feet. Although her ankles were still bound, she hopped slowly to the side, past a coughing Marcel, and with a grunt, she closed her eyes and jerked her left wrist.

She felt a soft crack, and then a massive bolt of pain shoot up her arm. Gawain lifted her broken wrist out of the loop, shaking, and then navigated it to the knot. It hurt like a billion bee stings in the same area, but she worked at the rope securing her good hand to the chair, biting her tongue to stop herself from screaming.

Suddenly, Marcel's coughing stopped.

The smoke was clearing.

Gawain bit her tongue even harder, and pulled at the knot with all her strength. The pain didn't matter. After all, her life depended on it.