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He said, “Ask Maizie what’s on that satellite view map. Does it show a door?”
“Maizie?”
“I heard, and there’s nothing.”
Kenna said, “Let’s go. One wouldn’t have given us this location if there’s nothing here.”
She rose out of her crouch and started into the clearing. No structure. Not even a small shed.
When she got near enough, she spotted something on the ground. “Looks like a manhole cover.”
“Or some kind of hatch.” Ramon grabbed the edges and pulled, but it didn’t move.
“What did they even teach you in that cartel?” Bruce pushed him out of the way, grabbed the manhole cover like it was a steering wheel, and rotated it a quarter turn. Inside, the mechanism clanked. “Here we go.” He lifted it open and eased down inside first.
A whole lot different from the men at that house, offering for her to go first. Even if it had been a joke, her colleagues treated her nothing like that. They were all willing to take the risk for each other.
Bruce flicked on a flashlight down below them, at the bottom of a short ladder. He looked up from an alcove or at the end of a hallway. “It’s clear.”
Ramon patted her shoulder. She climbed down the ladder and, at the bottom, shifted the rifle in front of her. Ready to defend themselves just in case the worst happened.
She held aim down the long corridor. Lights were spaced out every twenty feet or so, leaving shadows between.
“Let’s go.” Bruce went in front of her.
She followed him down the long hall, which had to span the distance between the hatch and the silo that Fleming had designed. “Are we going down?” she whispered. The hall seemed to be descending, though it wasn’t steep.
“I bet it’s a ventilation shaft.” Bruce lifted his watch and looked at the screen. “Maizie wants access to the internal computers as soon as we find a terminal.”
“Copy that,” Kenna said. “You guys worry about that. I’ll worry about getting the people out.”
Her phone buzzed.
“Hold.”
They all sidestepped, stopping with one shoulder to the wall. They crouched together, and she slid out her phone. “The FBI wants to know where I am. Special Agent Herron wants us to go with her to the front gate. They’re about to approach.”
Ramon nudged her from behind. “Tell her we got lost.”
She replied to the agent what Ramon had said. It could be construed as the truth, but only as a stretch. The FBI didn’t need to worry about Kenna. They only needed to worry about doing what was necessary to rescue the people here and save Jax.
Bruce flipped off his flashlight and whispered, “Someone is coming.”
She turned the brightness all the way down and huddled behind Bruce’s back, praying whoever was in the hallway with them didn’t come this far down. She looked at the program Maizie had created from the architectural designs and saw they were still several hundred yards from the structure. Maybe even half a mile.
One level had rooms that Fleming had labeled “residences.” That was likely where she would find people, if they weren’t spread out through the facility.
“Okay,” Bruce whispered, rising slowly to stand.
She followed him, and Ramon came up behind her. The three of them headed down the hall until they reached another alcove and a hatch that looked like it belonged on a submarine. Whoever had been in the hall with them must have comethrough it, or it was only some small kind of animal they hadn’t noticed underfoot, like a rat. Better not to know.
Ramon did the honors with the door, similar to the hatch they had descended into but this one faced them like a giant safe door. They stepped into the decommissioned silo.
She looked at her phone. “Left, and we need to find stairs to go down four floors.”
“Room-by-room search?” Bruce asked.
“No, we’re going straight to the residences. Those rooms are big enough for groups of people.”