Sam Fisher- Finding Eli

  The place is moldy and dusty. It’s full of scrap metal and pieces of broken bathroom fixtures—sinks and bathtubs. The air is foul and I can’t imagine anyone being down here for more than ten minutes. The Shin Bet soldiers shine flashlights around the room and look behind some of the junk.

  “Nothing here, sir,” one of them says.

  “Yeah,” I say. “Carry on, I’ll stay and take a closer look.”

  The men ascend the stairs and disappear. I stand in the center of the basement and slowly circle in place. Just for grins I switch my goggles to thermal vision in the hopes that I’ll catch a breathing body. Nothing. However, just before I switch back to night vision, I notice some heat signatures on the floor. I bend to examine them more closely and realize they’re not heat signatures at all but rather footprints left on the dusty floor. I switch to fluorescent mode and pick up more indications of disturbance in the dust. I can now trace an imaginary line along the footprints that leads to a corner of the room where more dilapidated kitchen appliances are piled. There’s a lot of junk in-between so I shove stuff out of the way, making a clear path to the area. Eventually I have to climb over a pile of rubble to get there.

  I see three old refrigerators, several sinks, two stoves . . . all of it appears to be from the sixties or seventies. I open each of the refrigerators and find them empty. I try the stoves next and there’s nothing inside them. I’m about to give up when I notice that a bathtub is leaning sideways against the wall, tub-side in. I reach over and pull the thing down.

  Inside is Eli Horowitz, cowering in fright. My Tavor is in his face faster than he can blink.

- Splinter Cell, Chapter 40