The waterways are complicated and labyrinthine. They’d be impossible to navigate in the dark, with only one tank of air. Except that we have a map. As long as we don’t take any wrong turns, and as long as none of the tubes are too narrow for a body to pass through, we should be able to swim all the way up to the heart of the mine.
This is the most secretive way inside.
Those going in through the tunnels will take a more direct route, one we know for certain can be traversed. But they’ll be vulnerable to attack by Marko’s men.
“I want you to swim in,” my mother says to Freya and me. “Take your friends. Adrik, too. I’ll go in through the tunnels with the others.”
“What about Nix?” Sabrina asks.
“She’s going with you,” my mother says.
“You plan to drag me along underwater?” Nix says, holding up her handcuffed wrists.
“You’ll swim, or you’ll run out of air in that underwater maze and drown in the dark,” my mother says, calmly. “And if you don’t cooperate, I need you to remember that your father has kept my husband prisoner for three and a half years. You’re only breathing right now because I think you might be of use to me. The moment you become a hindrance instead of a help, I’ll snap my fingers like this,” she gives one crisp click of her finger and thumb, “and that will be the sound of a bullet entering the back of your skull. Do we understand each other?”
“I understand,” Nix says.
My stomach is one solid knot.
I know better than anyone that my mother means exactly what she says.
But if she tries to hurt Nix . . . I can’t let her do it.
I’m almost relieved we’re splitting up, even though I know Adrik and Freya are just as loyal to my mother—and just as dangerous to Nix—as any of my father’s soldiers.
“Perhaps you should swim as well,” Timo says to my mother, quietly.
He’s worried she might be injured or killed in a direct assault. We’d better not rescue my father at all, if the first piece of news we give him is that his wife is dead.
My mom isn’t having it.
“I’m the best shot of any of you,” she says, sternly. “I’m going in through the tunnels. Now remember—watch out for Kuzmo. We need him alive. Or we need his eyes.”
One of the pieces of information my father passed to us was that the locks are operated by retinal scan. And as far as he knows, only Kuzmo and Marko himself can open his door.
Miles lured Marko away. Kuzmo is still inside that compound.
We need to find him and shove his face up against that door.
“Alright,” my mother says. “We’ll take this Jeep and you—”
She’s interrupted by my phone buzzing loudly in my pocket. I pull it out, seeing the last name I want to see on the screen: Miles Griffin.
I answer the call.
“What is it?”
“He left,” Miles says.
“What do you mean he left?”
“I mean, he was walking up to the hotel, we were ten feet away from each other, and he turned around and left. Didn’t say a word to me.”
“Where the fuck is he going?” I cry.
“I have no idea.”
Predators have a sense for traps.
My mother told me that.
I wheel around to face her, seeing that she already heard both sides of the call.
“What do we do?” I ask her.
“We go in. Right now.”
“What if Marko called them?”
“I don’t care if he has,” my mother says, fiercely. “It’s now or never. We’re getting Ivan back.”
We pile into our respective Jeeps, my mother heading for the tunnels, our car driving to the point in the Ile river where we can access the outflow pipe leading up into the mine.
As we jostle around in the back of the Jeep, Nix catches my eye. Her face is pale and rigid. We’re both thinking the same thing, without either of us speaking aloud:
Marko Moroz could be on his way here right now.
“Am I going to grow another set of arms swimming in this shit?” Adrik says, eyeing the outflow pipe distastefully.
“The mine is supposed to be decommissioned,” Freya says, fitting her mask onto her face.
“It isn’t, though,” Adrik says. “Even if they’re not actively digging, they’re still extracting yellowcake from the ore. And selling it to god knows who.”
“Well,” Freya shrugs, “The Geiger counter says it’s no worse than an x-ray. And you’re wearing a wetsuit.”
We’re all wearing wetsuits. Even Nix, who didn’t hesitate in donning hers—not with Adrik scowling at her.
He only stopped glaring at Nix when distracted by Sabrina Gallo zipping her very tight wetsuit over her hourglass figure. I’ve never seen Adrik stunned to silence over a girl. Usually he gives them about the same amount attention as he pays to speed limits and unpaid parking tickets—a mere passing glance.
Sabrina is too intrigued by the mission at hand to pay attention to Adrik in return. She scans the map of the waterways, following the route I marked out in red.
“Don’t worry,” Adrik says. “We’ve got a list of the turns.”
“I don’t need a list,” Sabrina says. “Left, left, center, right, left, right, right, center, left, center, right, right, left, center.”
She rattles off the directions flawlessly, without glancing down.
Adrik stares at her, then snatches the map away to check if she’s correct.
“You’re still not the smartest cousin,” Leo tells her.
Anna looks pale and strained, staring down at the dark water.
I know why she’s nervous—Leo almost drowned in the sea caves below Kingmakers our first year at school. Actually, it was Dean who almost drowned him. As the cousins have reconciled since then, I’m guessing we won’t have to worry about overt sabotage. Only all the other things that might kill us down there.
“Do you remember how to use the regulator?” I ask Nix.
“Yes,” she says, snatching it out of my hand. “Probably better than you do.”
She aced Environmental Adaptation, with a higher score on her SCUBA exam than I managed to scrape in all four years.
“Fair enough,” I say, fitting my own mask in place.
We drop down into the water: first Adrik, then Kade, followed by Sabrina, Dean, Leo, Anna, and Hedeon, then Nix with me right behind her, and Freya bringing up the rear.
Freya is a strong swimmer. Still, I keep glancing back over my shoulder to make sure she’s right behind me.
The water’s freezing, even through the wetsuits. My headlamp only illuminates a small radius in front of me.
Right from the start, the tubes are narrow and congested. Claustrophobia kicks in hard as I realize it’s impossible to turn around. We can only keep moving forward, or painstakingly back up, bit by bit. And if someone were to become wedged behind me, like a cork in a bottle, there would be no going back at all. I’m glad only Freya is behind me, and not someone bigger like Leo or Adrik.
We have to shove ourselves through some of the narrowest junctions, the rough stone chutes catching and yanking at our tanks, as well as the waterproof bags in which we’ve stowed our guns and ammunition.