Kevin held his hand up, signaling for Megan and Wolfgang to wait while he circled quickly around the rise and cleared the vehicle. A few seconds passed as Kevin faded from view, and Wolfgang braced himself for gunfire.
Kevin’s voice boomed over the coms. “All clear.”
Wolfgang let out a pent-up sigh and followed Megan around the rise. As the car came into view, Wolfgang panned the face of his smartwatch across the rear bumper of the Chevy. A camera was built into the watch and fed directly back to one of Lyle’s computers.
“Do you have the license plate?” Wolfgang asked.
“Copy that, Charlie Three,” Lyle replied. “The plate number matches her registration. That’s Pollins’s car.”
Wolfgang knelt behind the car and felt cautiously near the tailpipe, then tapped the pipe directly with his index finger. It was cold. He stood up and checked the back passenger side door. It was unlocked, and a quick sweep of the interior revealed nothing of value—some cigarettes, fast food wrappers, and chewing gum. But there was mud in the footwells of the passenger seat and one of the back seats. The kidnappers took her car from the museum and used it to drive her out here. But why?
Wolfgang stepped away from the car, peering at the dirt. The steady wind that blew across the desert brought with it an endless wave of dust, quickly filling shallow footprints. Wolfgang didn’t see any tracks or trails leading away from the car, but there was no reason to drive out here, in the middle of nowhere, unless . . .
Wolfgang swept the landscape immediately around the car, shielding his eyes with one hand, his gaze skipping from rock to shallow dip to scruffy desert bushes. He almost missed it on the first pass, sliding right by to the next dip, then snatching his attention back to the spot in the dirt fifty yards away.
Wolfgang broke into a jog. “Over here!”
His feet pounded against the packed dirt as he focused on the spot. With each passing yard, the disturbance on the desert floor became more distinct—a flapping, sand-colored piece of cloth pinned down by a rock and ravaged at the edges by wind. Wolfgang thought he saw another piece of cloth a few feet away and parallel to the first, also pinned down by a rock and covering the space in between.
“I’ve got it!” he shouted again.
“Wolfgang!” Kevin snapped. “Hold up!”
Wolfgang kept running. He cleared the final twenty yards to the spot and ground to a halt, scanning the dirt. He could clearly see the cloth now, pinned down in two corners by rocks—stretched tight and covered in sand.
It’s hiding something.
Wolfgang broke into a grin, the excitement overwhelming the trepidation he’d felt only minutes before.
“This is it!” he shouted, waving the others forward.
“Wolfgang, wait!” Megan said.
Wolfgang took another step closer to the nearest rock and felt the ground vanish beneath him. His foot landed on what looked like sand but turned out to be part of the cloth, and he fell forward face-first.
His face and shoulders slammed into more sand-covered cloth that gave way into a gaping hold beneath. Before he could shout or grab for the edge, Wolfgang was somersaulting downward with darkness surrounding him on every side. He coughed and thrashed his way free of the cloth, still falling. Then his butt slammed into hard, smooth stone, and he continued to free-fall downward. He clawed out on all sides, desperately searching for anything to break or even slow his descent, but all his fingers touched was empty air as cold stone slid beneath his back.
Suddenly, Wolfgang’s feet hit more stone, but it wasn’t a floor; it was a slight turn in whatever kind of tunnel he was rocketing through. He flung both arms out to grab hold of a free edge as he shot through the turn. He was falling too fast.
The surface beneath his back was flatter now, but all light from the desert surface far above had long faded. Wolfgang slid another five or eight seconds, then he felt the surface beneath him turn from stone to sand, and his free fall converted into a flipping hurtle down a gentle slope.
Everything was pitch black, and the air was thick and rank with unknown smells. Wolfgang thrashed for something to break his fall as he continued to flip and roll downward. Sand clogged his face and filled his clothes, and then he slammed into another stone wall.
Wolfgang lay still, his mind spinning. He was vaguely aware of dirt and rocks beneath his back, and as he blinked into the blackness overhead, a sixth sense told him he was in some kind of cave. Maybe it was the sounds he’d detected as he fell or just the reality that there was only dirt beneath him, not over him.
It didn’t really matter. His heart pounded, and his entire left side throbbed in pain from the collision with the wall. He forced himself up on his elbows, wincing as pain shot through his bruised hips and ribs.
“Charlie Lead?” he coughed. “Can you hear me?”
Nobody answered over the com. Wolfgang reached a dirty finger up to his ear and felt for the earpiece, suddenly realizing he didn’t feel the familiar pressure of it riding in his ear canal. Wolfgang sat bolt upright and blinked rapidly, feeling for the earpiece again. Sand ground in his ear as he fished around with his finger, but he felt nothing.
Wolfgang’s heart rate spiked, and he gasped for air. He spat sand from his mouth and turned around, feeling with his hands for the side of the slope. Panic overtook his mind, and he shook all over.
Light. I need light.
Wolfgang felt through his pockets, digging past a pocket knife and a small roll of local currency. The Canadian passport fell out, and then he felt the familiar touch of cold steel from the LED penlight he kept in his pocket. He pulled it out and fumbled with the switch, still panting for
