Chapter 56

Chapter Fifty-Six

T he sun was high in the sky when Rand's phone pinged.

Freya

We have coordinates from the spider.

Relief exploded through him. He'd been through many long nights in his career, but this had been a different kind of hell.

Her next text was the coordinates. He clicked on them to see the location on a map, but before it loaded, he sent the most important question.

Rand

What's the time stamp?

The spider started its journey sixteen hours ago. It took two hours to go the first twenty feet or so, then it traveled two miles before it pinged a cell tower.

Sixteen hours.

Kira had released the drone at 1700. Right around the time Rand had been at the Kulik estate. Was she still there?

Was she still alive?

If she didn't have water, sixteen hours in the Maltese heat could be deadly. But at least most of those hours had been night.

He had a Fire Team ready to go. The coordinates were in the countryside outside Mdina. They would move in quietly—Rand in civilian gear, the team as backup.

Separate cars in case he needed to talk his way through a guarded gate. But they'd move in with force if needed.

Ten minutes after Freya's text, Rand was on the road, driving to coordinates that satellite imagery showed was nothing but a rocky slope miles from nowhere.

Not surprising given that the spider had to traverse two miles to get within cellular antenna range, but it was a reminder that the island of Malta, while only seventeen miles long and nine miles wide, still held large swaths of undeveloped land that baked in the Mediterranean sun.

The road ended far before he reached the coordinates. Rand left his car and set out on foot, imagining the spider drone traversing the same path. He'd met Leah, the drone's inventor, a few months ago. She was married to a Raptor operative and made millions in the tech industry, but saved her most special drones for Raptor, who now shared them with FMV.

When he found Kira, Leah would have his eternal gratitude. She didn't need money, so he'd find other ways to thank her. Every book he wrote would be dedicated to her. Her favorite charities would become his.

The sun burned bright as he walked the ground, staring at his phone like a tourist as he made his way to Kira's last known position.

At last, he was there and found…nothing but rocks and dirt. She must be underground.

Where was the entrance?

He signaled for the SEAL Fire Team to join him, and they walked the hillside in transects like archaeologists, according to Morgan, who, along with others in the office, monitored their body cameras, providing more eyes to spot anomalies on the ground that could hint at a hidden door.

They were seeking something as simple as wooden doors covering a storm cellar like one might find the world over, or rocks stacked in a cairn to hide the entrance to the underworld.

Thankfully, they had the spider drone's wandering route to direct their search, or they might never have found it. The color of the wood blended with the natural landscape. But it was a door set into the ground and covered with rocks to disguise it.

They cleared the rocks and pried open the door, revealing a basic aluminum ladder that was anchored to the rock wall. Rand descended first, entering a labyrinth. This must be a prehistoric site—one the Maltese government didn't know about, or it would be protected. At some point in the recent past someone had found it and installed the ladder and—it took a bit for Rand to find it—another door with a sturdy metal lock.

His first instinct was to shoot the lock, but he suppressed the impulse. Kira could be beyond the door.

Instead, he kicked the door and shouted, "Kira! Are you here?"

T here was a thump and a shout. Kira couldn't make out if there were actual words. The sound echoed and was distorted by the labyrinth.

Was Reuben back? Looking for her?

She folded her legs to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. The pain from her cuts no longer bothered her. Yes, she hurt. But it was the least of her worries.

She held still, her body the smallest ball she could make and hoped if it was Reuben, he'd be too much of a chickenshit to descend into the lower level of the crypt, which, she'd learned when she first descended, was full of human bones.

Valkyries were supposed to guide the souls of the dead to Valhalla. Instead, she'd joined their earthly remains in the underworld.

T hey used a small explosive to pop the lock. This time, they didn't find a ladder, but a folding metal staircase. Again, Rand descended first. A wave of rancid odor was the first thing that hit him, and his heart squeezed.

No. Kira hadn't been here that long.

That kind of stench took time to build or heat to ferment, and it wasn't hot down here.

It was downright comfortable.

"Kira!" he shouted again.

His voice bounced back at him, but otherwise, there was no reply.

He descended, flashlight beam lighting the steps and path ahead. Red markings decorated the walls and ceiling.

This wasn't the Hypogeum. That was in Paola, near Valletta, and as far as he knew, the Hypogeum was the only recorded site of that type in the Maltese Islands. Still, this had to be a similar crypt. Was it also Neolithic? And if so, how did Reuben know about it, but not the Maltese people?

They would have to research who, exactly, owned this patch of earth.

He and the team explored the space. There were dozens of passages, some nothing more than a low hole in the wall that could be a long tunnel. Kira might fit through them, but the SEALs would have to drop their gear to squeeze through. They skipped those for now. They'd search the easier-access passages first.

They located the cause of the stench.

"Cousin Andre," Rand informed the others. From the looks of it, he'd been shot. His body must have been left to the elements for a bit before he was removed down here, because he was more decomposed than this environment would allow given that he'd been alive just three nights ago.

He turned from the body. Kira had to be here. They had drones monitoring the villa. Reuben hadn't left the estate. He couldn't have come back and taken her without being spotted.

"Kira!" he shouted again as he turned in a circle, trying to decide which corridor she might have crawled through. Her name echoed back to him in a distortion of his voice, the sound bouncing around the cavern. She might not recognize his voice with the way sound carried. But he could waste a lot of time searching each path. Getting her to respond would dramatically shorten the search time.

He spotted steps cut into the earth. There was another level below this one.

He crossed to the stairs. "Kira! Are you down the steps? It's me—" He cut himself off, remembering her Star Wars references the other day. "I'm Luke Skywalker. I'm here to rescue you."

Her voice came from somewhere below. A low, hollow, echoing sound. "Now that's just wrong. Sure, Darth Vader was Leia's father, but Luke? He was her brother. You'd better not be my brother."

T he sudden light after so many hours of darkness exacerbated Kira's dehydration headache. She squeezed her eyes closed. It was too much at once. Instead of being blinded by darkness, she was now blinded by light. Everything made her head throb.

But she didn't need eyes to know it was Rand's arms that surrounded her. His scent overrode that of the rot that permeated the tomb.

He lifted her aching body from her hidey hole and held her tight as he ascended the ancient stairs. She buried her face against his chest and breathed him in.

Rand. Her Rand.

He'd found her.

Was this how it had been last December? His strong arms holding her as she babbled deliriously?

She wasn't entirely certain she wasn't delirious now. She was so thirsty. So tired. Everything ached from head to toe. Plus, she was strangely chilled for the hot climate. A cold sweat dampened her skin.

Fever?

They reached a ladder, and there was discussion among the others—SEALs, Rand had said—of placing her in a harness and pulling her up, but Rand instructed her to hold on tight.

She locked her arms around his neck, and he carried her up the ladder into the light of a hot Maltese day.

Past and present merged in her mind. She opened her eyes and met Rand's concerned gaze as he carried her across the rocky ground. He was so beautiful. And now she remembered her jumbled thoughts from last December. Perhaps it was being jumbled again that unlocked the memories.

She stroked his cheek. "You look like my love," she whispered. She didn't mean Apollo this time. No, he looked like Rand. Just Rand. "My one and only love."

He stopped, the sun kissing his skin and lighting up his gold-blond hair. "Kira." He closed his eyes. "Oh, thank god. Kira."

She stroked his cheek again. "I have a question."

He looked at her, waiting.

She smiled and felt her dry lips split in the heat. "Are you allergic to strawberries?"