The same hope Gabe had started to feel before returned. “You mentioned a tunnel.”
Nate sighed. “We all saw the blueprints, Ryker. There were no indications of any underground structures on this property.”
Ryker gave the guy an incredulous stare. “You buy land and build an underground escape route, you really gonna turn that shit in to be approved?”
“The man makes a good point,” Ghost agreed.
As far-fetched as the idea sounded, Gabe would believe in the fucking Easter Bunny if it meant there was a chance Ellena was still alive. “Let’s say Radcliff does have an escape route somewhere. How the hell are we going to find it?”
“Not through there.” Kole motioned toward the burning house. “It’ll take at least a day for those flames to die down and that shit to cool off enough for us to touch anything.”
“She doesn’t have a day.” Gabe shook his head, the need to search for his wife a living, breathing thing. “If Ellena and Walker are somewhere underneath us, we need to find them now.”
“Agreed. Which is why a chopper carrying an R2TD is headed this way.” Ryker glanced down at his watch. “Should be dropping it within the next thirty minutes.”
“Hold up.” Nate spoke again. “You’re telling me in the time it took that house to explode and for you to walk your ass back over to us, you’ve procured a bird and a sophisticated, ground-penetrating radar to be hand-delivered to us…a half hour from now.”
The tech genius was clearly impressed with the agent’s pull, and Gabe couldn’t blame him. An R2TD—Rapid Reaction Tunnel Detection—was a tool created by the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center. Using ground-penetrating radar, the system can pick up sounds and movement deep beneath the earth’s surface.
“I have a contact who works near the border. A couple of their men will deliver the device and my contact will be on standby waiting to relay the data in real time.”
Zade’s brows rose high. “Just like that?”
Ryker shrugged. “They owe me a favor.”
“Who doesn’t?” Matt snorted.
Ready to crawl out of his skin, Gabe asked, “Where are they dropping it? We should go now so we’re ready.”
A thirty-minute wait may seem like a drop in the bucket to the others, but for him, it already felt like a lifetime.
“There’s a small clearing two clicks south of here.”
“Let’s go.” Gabe didn’t wait for the others to start walking. To Ghost’s team, he said, “Truck, you and the others watch that place like a fucking hawk until we get back.”
Gabe knew full-well this could be a goddamn goose chase. The operative in him also understood the chances of Ellena and Walker still being alive were slim at best.
But he’d lived the past three years believing he’d lost any chance of being with Ellena again. By some miracle he’d never understand, he’d gotten her back.
Slim chance or not, Gabe would dig to the Earth’s fucking core if that’s what it took to hold her in his arms again.
Chapter 23
“Psst. Doc. Can you hear me?”
Ellena fought against her body’s efforts to regain consciousness, again. If she stayed lost in the sea of black, she wouldn’t have to face Radcliff or his goon again.
“Come on, Doc. I need you to wake up.”
Doc?Ellena’s sluggish mind processed the voice. Her heart beat a little harder when she realized it wasn’t Radcliff. It was…
“Adrian?” The name came out a mumbled slur.
“Yeah, it’s me. Can you open your eyes?”
It took a monumental effort to do so, but Ellena finally managed to peel her lids apart. She blinked several times to help rid her sight of the blurred image before her. When she did, Ellena found herself gasping in horror.
“Oh, my god.” She stared back at Adrian’s bruised and bloodied face. He was sitting directly across from her, his wrists and ankles tied to the chair. “What did they do to you?”
