The 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?”
There 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.
They 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.
