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“What?” Roni touched his chest. “John?”
“Mac.” Thiswas why Driver had gone ballistic. “Mac called for help, and the only help that could’ve gotten here this far and this fast are?—”
“Oh.” Roni’s eyes went wide with horror. “Missiles.”
9
“Run!”Driver bawled. Grabbing Shahida by an arm, he slung her around with enough force to make her stagger. “Musa, get her out of here!”
“Come on. This way!” Scooping up the boy, Flowers scurried across the cavern then stooped, let the boy down, prodding him into the tunnel and then pushing Shahida to follow. “Go, keep him moving. You, too, Musa, get going, go as fast as you can. Remember, at the fork, gorightand thenanotherright to get you headed back towards the exit.”
“Same goes for you two,” Driver said to Roni and John. “Follow Flowers.”
“Not without you.” Balling her fists, Roni stood her ground. “Put the radio away. Forget Mac. You can yell at him when we’re out.”
“We’re not going togetout if I can’t get him to stop another drone strike. I’m coming, I promise, I’ll be right behind you, but I got to do this.” Driver rounded on John. “Worthy, get her out here.”
“Come on. He knows what he’s doing.” John wasn’t exactlysureabout that, but staying didn’t seem the smartest thing to do either. Hooking a hand around Roni’s waist, John pulled heraround and then gave her a push. To his relief, Roni obeyed and hurried to the tunnel. As he stooped to follow her inside, another tremor shivered through the walls and rock and into his knees. A shower of debris, bits of rock and dirt, salted his back.Uh-oh.Craning a look over a shoulder, he spied Driver across the room and back on his radio.
“Driver!” he bawled. “For God’s sake, come on!”
Then, spinning on the balls of his feet, he lunged into the tunnel. Ahead, he heard the others splashing and sloshing through puddles. He couldn’t see Roni, but Shahida’s flashlight was a wavering, bouncing beam spearing the darkness in an erratic sawtooth pattern that reminded John of the terminal spasms of a dying heart.
No one’s going to die.He’d forgotten about the grade. He was already panting, his breath rasping in and out of a throat full of razors. His knees were wet, and as his hand came down in a puddle, wetting him to the elbow, he looked, saw water sheet over the back of his hand as the stream hurried downhill and thought,Wait a minute…
But then he sensed the tunnel widening, the ceiling lifting, and the thought evaporated. Struggling to his feet, he spotted Roni’s silhouette in Shahida’s flashlight, and then a second beam came on as Roni swung to spotlight him. “Where’s Driver?”
“He’s right behind me,” he lied. Shahida’s light had already faded. “You need to follow Shahida. Keep going. We’ll both be only a few seconds behind.”
“Are you sure?” She kept the light pinned on him a beat longer. “You didn’t leave him, did you?”
The accusation in her voice stung, but he was saved from a reply as the earth shivered again, violently enough to make the water in the tunnel and underfoot slosh as if someone was trying to walk with a basin filled almost to overflowing. “Please, Roni, go now. It’s going to take you twice as long to get back as it didto get here.” He felt a stream of water surge against his boots, part, and then cascade past. “Love,please.” And then he forced out the words he didn’t want to say. “I will make sure Driver gets out. Just get going, okay?”
A wordless beat slipped by. With the light on him instead of her, he didn’t know what emotion she felt. She might relieved; she might be thankful.
She might pick Driver.The pang in his heart was so painful he tasted salt in the back of his throat.I could be waiting here to save the man who stole her from me.
All suppositions. All maybes. Except for the one sure and certain thing, which he said now.
“I promise, Roni, I won’t leave until he gets here.” When she didn’t speak, he said, again, “I promise.”
A beat. “All right,” she said. “You just better.”
Then she turned and left him, alone, in the dark.
10
Thirty seconds.The blackness was so complete he couldn’t see his hand in front of his nose. Fumbling for his flashlight, he nearly dropped it.Careful.He forced himself to slow down, to think about each movement. Lose his light now and he’d never find it. Gripping the body in his right hand, he thumbed the flashlight to life. A lance of bright yellow light speared the darkness.
Okay, you’re okay.He struggled to control his breathing. He had to stay calm. But was thirty seconds too long? The thought nagged. Aiming his light, he played the beam over sheets of water chuckling over the irregular cut of the walls. What had been solitary puddles spotting the floor here and there was now a churning, muddy, ankle-deep and very cold stream.
Only that morning but which seemed ages ago, Flowers had told him about the water, stoppered up in this aqueduct by a Soviet missile strike, tunneling through limestone and earth to a new, very healthy flow. Thousands of gallons of water coursed through a neighboring conduit to bubble up as a spring less than two football fields away before diving back underground.
Because, you know, you drill into stone, adjacent rock cracks, gets weaker, Flowers said.Water keeps these tunnels nice and cool, though.
Except, now, something had upset that very delicate balance.
Mac wouldn’t target his own tunnel system. Drone strikes were highly accurate and used for precision kills to minimize damage, something as important in the current scenario as on a city block or marketplace. In fact, now that he thought about it, way back at Benning a DCC instructor had shown footage of drones rocketingintocaves and taking down a whole mountain.