“Rikki?” Leo shivered. “How do you intend to contact Sarah?”

“We had a fallback plan in case things went bad,” Rakkim said, still taking in the Tigards’ farm, wanting to remember every bit of it. A ladybug landed on his hand. He watched it amble toward his thumb. “I’ll transmit a one-second compressed-data packet to a weather station in the Canadian Rockies. The information will move to Sarah-”

“-as part of the regular streaming update of storm conditions.” Leo snorted. “Brilliant.”

Rakkim watched the ladybug flutter away. Remembered some ancient nursery rhyme about babies on fire.

“If the Chinese are involved with the Colonel, you might as well just send it directly to Beijing,” said Leo. “The Chinese have the most sophisticated data-mining operation on the planet. Anything going in or out of the Belt is going to be snagged and decoded faster than you can blink. That’s probably what happened to the other shadow warriors-the Colonel probably knew their entry point before the Fedayeen did.”

Rakkim stayed calm, evaluating the new information without taking it personally. Leo’s expertise wasn’t wide, but it was deep. If he said the plan was shit, Rakkim wasn’t about to step into it.

“You’re not the only one with a backup plan,” said Leo. “Spider has an emergency contact in Atlanta. You can call from there.”

Chapter 26

“Watch your step,” said the Colonel.

“I’m no hothouse flower, Colonel,” said Baby, dropping to her hands and knees. Her tight jeans scraped the rock face as she squeezed through the opening.

Moseby offered her a hand from the other side. “Ma’am?”

She took his hand, giggling as he pulled her through. “I declare, the Belt has more gentlemen per square foot than anyplace on God’s green earth.”

The Colonel wriggled through the cleft in the rock, more agile than anyone would have expected for a man his age. He brushed back his hair, dust drifting down. Two of his adjutants waited for him inside the inner passage, two others worked their way through after him. One of them, Trey, a big ole boy from the Kentucky border, almost got stuck, and had to be dragged through, embarrassed and a little frightened.

The Colonel walked around the widened interior passage, his shadow huge in the floor lights. He gingerly touched one of the walls, looked at his fingertips.

Baby pounced on his shadow. Looked around, dirt streaked on her cheek. “Spooky.”

“I told you not to come,” said the Colonel.

“You know I like a little scare, Colonel,” she said, kissing him. “Keeps the blood circulating, that’s what my mama says.”

“What makes you think this tunnel goes anywhere?” the Colonel said to Moseby. “Jefferson’s already checked it out.”

“No, sir, he checked out the main tunnel,” said Moseby. “This is a little feeder line…run off the main one to see if it was worth excavating later. The old-timers used to do that a lot when they were chasing coal.” For the last few days and most of the nights, he had been walking the tunnels and mineshafts honeycombing the mountain. Examining untouched tunnels and ones that had already been explored, and crossed off from consideration. “My point is, I don’t blame Jefferson for not bothering with it, but sometimes folks miss things. They get so focused on what they’re looking for that they don’t see what’s right in front of their nose.”

The Colonel walked deeper into the narrowing tunnel, his head almost brushing the ceiling. “I like a man who doesn’t take things as they are. Speaks well of you.”

Moseby joined the Colonel. “The reason Jefferson was interested in the main shaft was because there’s a lot of calcite present, which attracts moisture, and the slope is right to collect it at the bottom somewhere. Like the lake you’re interested in. When the main shaft ended in a dead end, Jefferson went on to other tunnels, but this little feeder line has also got the same factors. No reason it might not have a lake down there.”

The Colonel shivered. “It’s cold down here.” He rubbed his hands together. “Some of the other shafts are hot enough to bake bread in.”

“Don’t get any ideas,” said Baby, taking the Colonel’s arm. “I can’t cook worth a lick. The Colonel’s always riding me about his first wife’s cooking.”

The Colonel leaned close to one of the walls, rubbed his finger over a section and examined it. “What are these sparkly mineral deposits?”

“Schist. It’s sparkles because of all the mica in it,” said Moseby. “Might be one reason the seam was never fully mined. Schist fractures easily. Causes real problems.”

The Colonel rubbed his finger against the wall again. “My information about the lake is sketchy, but there was mention of the passageway down being marked by stars. It was passed off as delusional, but seeing this schist makes me wonder.”

“You should have told me earlier,” said Moseby.

“You seem to be doing just fine,” bristled the Colonel, “and I wasn’t sure how reliable the information was. Everything I know I got third- or fourth-hand.”

“Colonel, sir?” called one of his adjutants. “Are we almost done here?”

“Why don’t you go back into the main shaft,” said the Colonel. He turned to Moseby. “My men hate it down here. Can’t say I blame them. We’re soldiers, not moles.”

“That’s a rude thing to say to Mr. Moseby,” said Baby, tickling him. “If he’s a mole, he’s a darn cute one.”

“Mr. Moseby knows I hold him in the highest regard, Baby, it’s just the men and I prefer open sky…” The Colonel stopped as the adjutants squeezed back into the main tunnel, taking one of the floor lights with them. The tunnel seemed suddenly smaller, the air thinner. The only way to work this far underground was to keep your mind focused on the task at hand, just concentrate on breathing in and out. Once you let your attention slide, once you noticed how cramped it was, and started to imagine the sheer weight and volume of rock and dirt overhead, you were lost. A man’s screams echoing off the walls could start a panic, a blind rush to daylight trampling everyone in the way. “Open…open sky is preferable to this entryway to Hades.”

Moseby could see the Colonel struggling to overcome his fear-it was one of the reasons he wanted to have this conversation here. He needed all the advantages he could get. The Colonel’s eagerness to go back outside might make him tell the truth. At least more than he intended. “It’s always difficult finding a specific object underwater, Colonel, but all you’ve told me is that there’s something lying at the bottom of an underground lake. Something you evidently want badly enough to commit hundreds of men and I don’t know how much money. So what am I looking for?”

“As I’ve told you before, that information remains classified.”

“Colonel, I at least need to know how big this thing is that you want me to find.” Moseby walked back to the rocky outcropping that partially blocked the entrance to the main tunnel. “This rock face has been here for thousands of years. Anything or anyone entering this feeder line had to make it past that narrow opening. So, Colonel, is this thing I’m looking for going to fit through?”

Behind the Colonel, caught in the light, a single drop of moisture slid down the rock. “Yes…yes, I believe it would.”

“Is it metallic or organic, because I’ve got some very sensitive detecting gear? Colonel?”

The Colonel glanced at his wife. “Baby, are you cold? Shall we go?”

“It’s all right,” said Baby. “I feel safe down here with you two big strong men.”

The Colonel jerked as the floor light flickered, the battery running low. “I think we should leave.”

Moseby nodded. “Colonel, I’ve come a long way on your say-so. I left my family with men I don’t know, men I don’t trust. I was supposed to be able to talk with my wife at least once or twice a week, but Gravenholtz keeps making excuses.”