their weapons, and then allowed them to go into the lift. Dmitri pushed 31, and the elevator began to descend, moving slowly deeper and deeper into the earth. Yana couldn’t say if it were her imagination, but she felt as if the pressure of the earth were pushing into her, as if she had to struggle to breathe.
Finally the doors parted, and they stepped into the east tunnel. Cool air blew through the shaft, sending a shiver of freezing air over her. She’d forgotten about the descriptions she had heard of the prison—it was cold, bereft of light, as if one would wither in its sterile darkness. They would walk for a few minutes through a narrow tunnel, the neon lights playing above, and emerge at the other end. It was a short walk, and yet Yana felt as though they were making a journey to another universe. She had always found it eerie that people aboveground knew nothing about the space. It could cave in, killing thousands of living beings, and nobody would know the difference.
When they reached the core of the panopticon, the immensity of the space pulled her eye up, and then, just as her vision adjusted to the scale and grandiosity of the structure, closed in on the rows and rows of creatures locked in their glass-and-metal cells, each angel back-lit by harsh neon.
Yana glanced at Bruno and then Verlaine, wondering what they would think of the state of their underground prison. Unlike other facilities she’d visited, where the ambiance was sleek and clean, orderly and antiseptic as a hospital, the panopticon was a dungeon of the classic medieval variety. The floors were concrete and stained with blood. Dim lights shone overhead, creating pools of murky light. There was, somewhere in the mass of cells, a lab where countless men and women labored over biological samples of angelic creatures. Every living being could be opened, studied, and classified. There was a pretension toward research and scientific progress, of course, but in the end they were there to exploit the prisoners for their own benefit. Every creature, Yana knew from her own experience, belonged to its captor.
“The security offices are this way,” Dmitri said, walking toward an alcove off the panopticon.
Yana slowed her pace to match Verlaine’s and, speaking quietly, so that the others wouldn’t hear her, said, “If your Evangeline is here, she’s in one of these cells.”
Verlaine gave her a grateful look. She squeezed his arm and gestured for him to come closer before she pulled a wad of material from under her sweater and pushed it into his hands. He looked at it, puzzled, and then smiled: It was the drunk security guard’s jacket. She’d lifted it off his chair as they passed through the elevator doors with Dmitri.
III
This is one of the only spots in the facility without security cameras,” Dmitri said, bringing them into an office and locking the door. “It’s safe to talk here.”
Verlaine paced the room. “There isn’t much to talk about,” he said. “We just need to know where Godwin is holding Evangeline.”
Bruno didn’t know if he should admire Verlaine’s obsessive pursuit or if he should tell him to back off and let Dmitri guide them. It was Verlaine’s nature to push harder the closer he came to his target: He always wanted to go in shooting, no matter what risk was involved. It was an admirable quality when they were on familiar terrain, with plenty of backup and weapons at their disposal. Being a million miles underneath a Siberian nuclear wasteland, in a security office loaded with plasma screens displaying hundreds of Russian angelologists and thousands of creatures in their cell pods—that was another story. Yana had assured them that Dmitri would be safe, but he couldn’t help but be wary of a man who had spent most of his career in the frozen tundra.
Bruno searched the video monitors for Godwin, but all he could make out were various office spaces filled with people in lab coats. “You ever get Godwin on one of these things?”
“I have been monitoring Merlin Godwin for fifteen years,” Dmitri said, waving a hand dismissively at the plasma screens. “Believe me, it would be a pleasure to nail him. But I can tell you that Godwin and his crew would never be stupid enough to let me see anything too important.” Dmitri leaned against his desk and crossed his arms across his chest. “My surveillance only goes so far.”
Bruno tried to imagine Dmitri