Once on the water, Rand opened up the engines, and the boat raced across the sea. Wind whipped at his face and the engine roar blocked out everything. Still, in his head, he could hear the sounds of Kira being beaten by her brother.
He barely remembered the crossing from Gozo to Malta and the harbor just outside Valletta, but suddenly, he was there, and he slowed the boat to a crawl as he entered the no wake zone.
He demanded another update and got the same answers as before.
Kira was missing.
Freya had searched Laskin’s security footage to see if Kira had boarded the helicopter with Reuben, but none of the cameras focused on the landing pad. NSWC searched the air to determine where the helicopter had gone. All they knew was it had not gone straight to the Kulik villa as expected. It must have stopped somewhere first.
Drones monitoring Kulik’s property had caught Reuben—and only Reuben—exiting the helo and entering the villa.
A team of SEALs was ready to deploy from Sigonella, but there was no point in sending them when they didn’t have a destination.
He docked the boat with the skill of a lifetime on the water, locked the helm, and descended to the stern. To Freya, he said, “Still no signal?”
“You know I’d tell you if there was. But it’s early yet. She might not be conscious.”
He wanted to puke. This was a thousand times worse than last December, when Kira had been taken by another billionaire who wanted to control her. He’d come to Malta to protect her, but instead, he’d put her in the line of fire.
It didn’t matter that she’d agreed to the change in mission. He’d still failed her.
She hadn’t sent a plea for help this time. No. He’d listened live and then to the recording. No help from her lips to be heard. Just a sharp gasp of pain before she stopped making any sounds at all.
Rand would tear Reuben Kulik limb from limb.
He removed the tactical gear he’d received in the darkest hours of the night from the lazarette. As soon as they had a location, other SEALs would join him. Until then, he was alone.
He placed his body armor and weapons on the bed where he’d last made love to Kira. A few feet away was the shower in which he hadn’t made love to her when they’d finally gone to bed last night.
Another promise broken.
Everything ached. Her head. Her back. Her thighs. Kira slowly came to consciousness, and the stinging pain from the cuts on her thighs were the least of her worries. At first.
But as the nerves woke along with her brain, her legs throbbed. A dozen—probably more—cuts reopened as she shifted on the hard ground.
Where was she?
Beneath her hands and cut-up thighs, she felt dirt and sand and rocks. The darkness was complete and the air cool in a way that wasn’t possible in Malta without air-conditioning. Unless she was underground.
She’d wanted to see the Ħal Saflieni Hypogeum. Perhaps her brother had been kind enough to arrange a private tour of the Neolithic archaeological site. Generous considering tickets were impossible to get at the last minute.
But somehow, she didn’t think that was what Reuben had done. Not that he wouldn’t be happy to bury her in a prehistoric necropolis. He’d made his feelings toward her clear. But it was unlikely even a billionaire could get access to dump her body in one of Malta’s most precious World Heritage sites.
There was another person in here with her. But they would be no help. From the stench, she guessed they’d been dead for at least a day. Maybe two?
Well, Reuben had said he’d take her to Cousin Andre. Apparently, he was a man of his word. Not comforting given that he wanted her dead and had said as much.
She ran a hand down her body. Her pendant was gone. No phone. No purse. He hadn’t bothered with tying her up, which meant wherever he’d dumped her had to be secure. But then, who needed bound hands when she couldn’t see said hands in front of her face?
Reuben had pocketed her pendant and smashed her phone. Not that either of those could transmit from underground. They’d be useless to her here. There was nothing like several feet of limestone and earth to prevent a signal.
She ran her fingers through her hair.
Help me, Obi-Wan. You’re my only hope.
Damn, Star Wars again.
In this instance, Obi-Wan was Leah Ellis, the drone engineer who’d asked Freya to beta test her new toy.
Kira searched her scalp and felt a rush of relief when she found the burr-like ball Reuben had missed in his search. She wished she had a light to examine the tiny device that was a half centimeter in diameter. She pressed it between her fingers and counted to ten, just like she’d practiced this morning. When she released it, she felt the spider legs unfurl with a touch that flicked against her skin, soft as butterfly wings.
She should have waited until she’d explored the space, but she’d been too eager to see if she still had the key to her rescue. Now she’d have to crawl around in the dark, holding the precious item in one hand.
In the end, she decided to skip the three-limb crawl because she needed both hands to explore in the pitch darkness. She placed the tiny spider drone on top of her head and checked periodically to make sure it hadn’t moved as she crawled around the mazelike space.
At least, she thought it was a maze. Very hypogeum-like. At last, she found steps cut into the earth, but they went down, not up.
She kept looking. Even if she had to go down before she could go up, she would wait to explore in that direction.
She moved slowly in the dark and always knew she was close to where she’d started when the stench of dead fake cousin grew stronger.
She had no idea how much time passed as she searched. Thirty minutes? An hour? Time had no meaning in the relentless dark.
She moved one slow inch at a time, necessary to avoid precipitous drops into an unexpected void. Several times, she moved a hand forward to find no ground to place it on.
After she’d likely gone in circles at least three times, she found another opening that led to more stairs. These weren’t cut into limestone; they were metal.
