Bullets ricocheted off century-old brick while Ral dragged Elena behind rusted support column that provided minimal cover. Kozlov's additional forces had emerged from connecting tunnels with tactical precision that suggested they had been positioned hours earlier, waiting for exactly this scenario.
"Katarina!" Ral shouted over gunfire. "We need extraction route now!"
But Katarina was already moving, her three years of planning apparently including contingencies for being outmaneuvered. She fired two shots that shattered overhead lights, plunging sections of tunnel into darkness that favored defenders over attackers. Then she pulled something from her vest—small device that looked like modified phone.
"Thirty seconds," she announced, her voice carrying surgical calm despite chaos eruptin
