Page 36 of Croatia Collateral

A cloth was pressed over her nose and mouth.

She tried not to breathe but eventually had to.

When she inhaled, her vision blurred and faded to black.

Chapter 8

Dax walked with the two men down the street from the Jesuit Stairs, turned onto a less traveled street and then into a narrow alley between ancient stone structures. According to Dmytro's instructions, he pressed his heel into the stone every other step, praying the invisible ink was leaching through the holes in his heel as designed.

Armed only with the plastic blade, Dax went through several scenarios in his mind of how he could fight his way free of the two bruisers chosen to escort him to the meeting of the Nexus Collective.

At six feet two inches, he didn’t consider himself a small man. His two escorts made him feel considerably insignificant. But size wasn’t always what mattered. Cunning, skill and quick responses made all the difference.

When the two men stopped in front of what appeared to be a solid stone wall, Dax tensed, ready to defend himself.

Had this all been a ruse to get Evan away from his bodyguards so they could rough him up and demand a ransom for his safe release?

If that were the case, Dax might be screwed. He wasn’t Evan. Nor was he rich like Evan. If they demanded a ransom, they’d be sorely disappointed by the meager amount he had in his savings account. It was a lot for a guy who’d been in the military most of his adult life, but nothing compared to the billions Evan Maas had accumulated.

As the man on his right raised his hand, Dax bent his knees slightly, assuming a ready stance.

The big guy’s hand reached for what looked like an antique iron light fixture. He pulled down sharply.

Dax expected the fixture to break away from the wall, but it didn’t. It acted like a lever.

Once the man released the lamp, it sprang back in place. The stone wall swung inward, faster than Dax would have thought possible. The two men gripped his arms and hurried him through the opening.

No sooner had they cleared the opening, than the stone wall moved back into place as if set on a timer. Had they been standing in the way, the huge stone door would have swept them back out into the street. Had anyone been following them, they might not have gotten to the alley in time to see the wall open or close.

One of his escorts clicked on a flashlight.

Dax didn’t have time nor enough light in the right direction to search the walls around him for a lever that would reopen that door.

The two men ushered him, single file—one in front of him, the other behind—through a narrow stone passage, barely large enough for one man to traverse. As it was, all three men had to duck slightly as they moved through the structure or risk scraping their heads on the stones above.

The passage sloped downward. When they came to a T-junction, the man in the lead turned right.

Dax tried to guess what structures might be above where they were. After a left turn at a four-way intersection and another right turn at a T-junction, he wasn’t sure. Maybe they were heading back toward the Saint Ignatius Church.

He’d memorized the turns. Should he need to find his way back to the stone doorway, it would behoove him to know which way to turn. Especially if he was running blind. Without a source of light, he’d be feeling his way along the walls, praying he didn’t miss one of the turns.

The longer they walked, the more turns he had to commit to memory. Where the hell were they taking him? He was beginning to think they were taking him outside the walled city.

A moment later, the man leading the way came to an abrupt stop.

Dax nearly ran into him. Stopping short, he tried to see around the big guy and what his flashlight was aimed toward. A heavy metal door stood before them, appearing as old as the fortress and as impenetrable as the stone walls.

The man aimed the light at a dark metal plate on the wall beside the door. He slid the plate upward, exposing a keypad and keyed in five numbers.

Dax committed the numbers to memory as the door swung inward, revealing yet another passage lined with stone walls, ceiling and floor.

He followed the lead escort around two more corners, arriving at another door like the first. Again, he slid a metal plate upward to expose the keypad and entered the same set of numbers.

The door opened, not into another passage but into a room the size of a gymnasium with high ceilings and the same stone walls. Modern lights illuminated the space, shining down on modern furnishings.

In the middle of the room stood a massive black table with what appeared to be a raised relief world map taking up the center. Every continent was represented, with current borders and major cities marked.

Several people stood around the table, staring at the map.

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