CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“GO, GO, GO!” Victor Chen shouted down the tunnel.
Still wiping the slumber from her eyes, Grace stumbled through the narrow underground passageway, devoid of any illumination but that of Jack’s flashlight.
She’d rehearsed this scenario with Jack countless times, but it never involved the heart-pounding tension she experienced right now.
“Miles, are you okay back there?” she said between gasps.
“Right behind you,” he whispered.
“They killed Eli!”
Jack hissed, “Don’t slow down!”
Finn Brady allowed them to squeeze past him as he plastered his back against the tunnel wall. “We’ll hold them off as long as we can. Whatever you do, don’t stop until you’re clear of the wall.”
“Got it,” Jack said.
Victor stopped as well and urged them past him. As they did, he said, “For freedom and truth. Don’t let any of this be in vain.”
In the distance, through the sepulchral walls of the tunnel, a few more gunshots echoed dimly. Someone else back in the house had been killed.
“Hurry, Princess,” Jack said.
Snapping back to the moment, Grace picked up the pace and ran harder. Her lungs began to ache from the sparse air in the passageway. After about a minute or two—it felt like hours—a dim light flickered ahead of them.
“That’s it,” Miles said. “We’re almost there.”
At the end of the tunnel, Jack shone his light on a wooden ladder. He scaled it to the top where he proceeded to smash open a thin wooden hatch.
All at once, dirt, leaves and branches fell in.
Jack sputtered and spat, then climbed out of the opening.
A second later, he popped his head back in. “Careful, the rungs are rotted.”
Grace climbed up and took his hand.
Jack pulled her out, straightened up, and scanned the area.
Miles followed up the ladder, then pulled it out of the hole in the ground and tossed it away. “Damn Nazis are going to be searching every district wall in the country for rebel tunnels now.”
About two meters behind them stood a solid concrete wall. From where they stood, it was almost too tall to see the top. It had to be about fifteen meters high.
“We’re out of visual range of the closest sentry tower.” Jack ducked to the ground and pointed at a search beam coming from the west. “But they’re going to soon find this location, so keep a low profile.”
She’d seen the tall concrete wall from the top of Wolf’s Head. It surrounded the entire region, the city and its rural outskirts where Eli’s safe house was supposedly hidden. The wall separated everything beyond the boundaries of New Berlin. It reminded her of pictures she’d seen of the Great Wall of China before the Japanese, with the support of the Empire obliterated most of it back in 1986 to liberate the Chinese from the communists.
Liberate, or occupy?
What would she actually find outside the enclosed boundaries? Would it be anything like the things of which she’d been warned?
“All right,” Jack said. “Are we ready?”
Grace nodded.
“Let’s move out.”
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THE FÜHRER'S DAUGHTER
Mystery / ThrillerNew York Times and USA Today bestselling author Joshua Graham teams up with bestselling author Jack Patterson for an alternate history saga that will rock your mind. "A clever, imaginative tale of what if, rooted in secrets, believable and evocative...
