“Not today!” Remi shouted.
She grabbed the Theurang box with both hands, raised it over her head, then bolted upright and slammed it into Marjorie’s forehead.
Pinned by Remi’s headlamp beam, Marjorie’s face went slack. With blood streaming down her forehead, her eyes rolled upward. She fell backward and went still.
Stunned, Remi scooted backward until she was pressed against solid stone. She closed her eyes.
Some time later, a sound penetrated her half-conscious mind.
“Remi? Remi?”
Sam. ”I’m here!” she shouted. “Down here!”
Thirty seconds later Sam’s face appeared at the top of the shaft. “Are you okay?”
“I may need a little checkup, but I’m alive.”
“Is that what I think it is?”
Remi patted the Theurang box beside her. “I just happened upon it. Pure dumb luck.”
“Is Marjorie dead?”
“I don’t think so, but I hit her pretty hard. She may never be the same again.”
“An improvement, then. Are you ready to come up?”
Sam, now armed with Russell’s machine gun, had made his way back to the main tunnel. Unsure of Zhilan’s location, he simply grabbed his backpack and found his way to the second pit and Remi.
Thirty minutes later they were both back in the Great Room. Together, they reeled Marjorie’s limp body up the shaft. Sam handed Remi the machine gun, then scooped up Marjorie and folded her across his shoulder.
“Keep an eye out for the Dragon Lady,” he told Remi. “If you see her, shoot first and forget the questions.”
As they neared the tunnel exit, Remi stopped. “Do you hear that?”
“Yes . . . Someone’s whistling.” A smile spread across Sam’s face. “It’s ‘Rule, Britannia!’”
Cautiously, Sam and Remi stepped out of the tunnel.
Sitting twenty feet away, his back against a boulder, was Jack Karna. He spotted them and stopped whistling. He gave them a cheery wave.
“Tallyho, Fargos. Oh, wait, that rhymes. How clever of me.”
Dumbfounded, Sam and Remi walked toward him. As they drew nearer they could see tufts of white emergency dressing jutting from a scarf tied around Karna’s neck. He was cradling Ajay’s Beretta in his lap.
A few feet away, Zhilan Hsu lay flat on her back, her head propped up by Ajay’s balled-up parka. Wrapped around the midpoint of each of her thighs was a bloody field dressing. Zhilan was awake. She glared at them but said nothing.
Remi said, “Jack, I think an explanation is in order.”
“Quite. As it turns out, Russell is a good shot but not an expert marksman. I believe he was trying to shoot through me and get Ajay in the process. His damned bullet punched through that muscle . . . What it’s called, between the shoulder and the neck?”
“Trapezius?” Sam offered.
“Yes, that’s it. Two inches to the right and I’d be a goner.”
“Are you in pain?” Remi asked.
“Of course, a monumental amount. Say, what’s that you’re carrying, lovely Remi?”