32
- 32 -
The new route wasn’t easy. Vanya led her team along a passage that became progressively narrower, forcing them to crawl. And when she had to lay flat and wriggle through one section, past cracked stonework that dripped moisture, she almost regretted her decision.
But she continued, and the passage grew wider, led to a door that opened into a basement room. The building above had collapsed, and most of the room was filled with rubble, huge concrete blocks and metal girders. It took an hour to clear enough to feel the outside air, and another hour to make a hole large enough to climb through.
The area was dead quiet. There was no wind to blow through tree branches. There were no sounds of animals, no distant voices or clanks of machinery. Only once-proud buildings now in ruins,
