“Mi dispiace, but no. There have been questions in the office this week already.” He winced. “If I don’t meet the maintenance team at the Villa of Mysteries in the next ten minutes, someone may mention the American scientists I escorted in, and come looking for you.”
I shook his hand. “We appreciate everything you’ve done.”
Mario checked his watch, his charming exterior slipping a little. “I also need to convince my co-workers to avoid the concert tonight without raising more questions.”
“Good luck.” Once he left, Brooke and I took a few minutes to finish with our suits. Hoods up, gloves on, and we each tested our rebreathers. We put the air supplies away until we got closerto our target and clipped our facemasks to our belts, ready to slip them over our heads at a moment’s notice. I donned one of the maintenance helmets with a headlamp and descended first. My boots touched the packed earth floor, and I glanced around, finding three different corridors, two of which I wouldn’t fit through. “Clear.”
Brooke turned on her headlamp and climbed down to join me in the cramped space. “Cozy.”
“Better than that cave system in…” I started, pulling out my phone and the map. “Where was that?”
“The one near the Helmand province border?”
“The one with the IEDs.”
“Oh my god, I remember that.” She nudged my shoulder and laughed. “You always knew how to show a girl a good time.”
The only corridor large enough for me stretched out to the east. “I think that’s our path to the House of the Arches.”
After the first half an hour, I stopped and dropped my backpack. “Let’s do our tech check here. We’re far enough underground to verify if the signal’s still good.”
We each put in our tiny earpieces, connected them to our phones, and enabled comms.
“Comms check,” Brooke said. “Reynolds base, this is Brooke. We’ve entered the underground tunnels.”
“Copy,” Brie’s voice came through the earpiece. “Coming through loud and clear. Rav?”
“Copy.” I dug in my pack, pulling out one of the drones. “Will’s upgrades are working flawlessly down here.”
“Good to hear,” came Will’s voice. After two subterranean jobs this past year—one in the Roman Catacombs and the other under the Rock of Monaco—he’d made several upgrades to our phones to improve reception underground. Everything had been fine close to the amphitheater, but it was always wise to check. “Want to test the drones?”
“I do.”
Before we could launch the first one, the phone I’d given Brooke buzzed. She showed me the screen with Bobcat’s name. “How do I patch it through to the whole team?”
“Here.” I tapped the screen above the Accept button, on the hidden spot that would do as she’d asked. “I’ll keep my voice channel open with Reynolds, and we’ll set yours up for Pendragon. It should provide a suitable loop.”
“Bobcat?” she said. “You’re on speaker with the Reynolds team.”
“Good.” His voice carried new urgency. “Those western trucks were decoys. Empty containers, fake hazard placards, the whole nine yards.”
Tabarnak. I moved closer to Brooke so he’d hear me. “What about the third vehicle?”
“Still tracking it north, but I’m betting it’s empty too. I suspect Scarlett was right, and they’re moving the real payload differently—small vehicles, multiple trips, staying under the radar.”
That made tactical sense. Greek Fire didn’t require massive quantities to be devastatingly effective. A few strategically placed containers of liquid, combined with the powder in the fireworks, would create the dual-deployment scenario we’d identified.
“You’re still ready to move without authorization?” I asked.
“We don’t have a choice.” Bobcat’s tone hardened. “When you confirm the Greek Fire presence, we’re hitting the lab.”
Brooke met my eyes. Pendragon was about to go completely off-book. “You understand the implications?”
“We’ll handle the fallout,” he said. “Thousands of civilians don’t wait for bureaucracy.”
“What do you need from us?” I asked.
“Visual confirmation of the deployment system. Once we have that, we move simultaneously—you neutralize the amphitheater threat, we take down their production facility.”
