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Dragomirov’s plan had been to lie in ambush at the top of the descending passage, just past the spot where Maddock had broken through the brick to reveal the tunnel to the treasure vault, but before he and Krasimir could reach it, a rush of hot, humid air from below told him that it would no longer be necessary.
By foolishly breaking through the wall, flooding the subterranean vault with superheated water, Maddock had signed his own death warrant. Dragomirov didn’t think the water would rise as high as the hypocaust ducts, but it seemed prudent not to find out firsthand.
A few seconds later, he reached the opening Maddock had created. A neat pile of bricks partially blocked the passage to his immediate right, providing a tacit reminder that they needed to continue straight.
Yet, as he crawled along, a sliver of doubt wormed into his brain. “Is this right?” he asked.
“What?” Krasimir’s reply was muffled, indistinct.
“Are we going the right way?” Dragomirov said, almost shouting to be heard.
Krasimir was silent for several seconds before finally admitting the truth. “I don’t know. I wasn’t paying attention.”
Dragomirov muttered an oath, but he couldn’t fault his brother. He too had failed to make note of the route. Still, as long as the passage didn’t flood, they ought to be able to figure it out through trial and error.
The duct bent to the left, then a short ways further on, hooked to the right. The sliver of doubt continued to worry deeper into his consciousness.
Wrong way. Wrong way. You’re lost. Turn back before it’s too late.
“No,” he whispered. “This is the right way.”
And he was almost sure that it was. The air on his face felt cooler, didn’t it?
He stopped as a new problem presented itself—a four-way intersection. I remember this, he thought, but then the doubting voice challenged him. Are you sure? There must be dozens of intersections like this. Maddock called it a maze.
“Go straight,” Krasimir called from behind him. “I remember this. We’re almost there.”
The admonition silenced the voice of doubt. With renewed urgency, Dragomirov belly crawled forward, emerging at last into the open space beneath the church floor. Directly ahead, a glowing square marked the location of the trapdoor leading up into the church.
His concerns about being lost underground were swept entirely away, replaced instead by a feeling of triumph.
He had won. Maddock was surely dead. Samuil’s treasure would be his, alone. He would have to find a way to retrieve it, but that was merely an academic problem. Just knowing that it was real was enough.
With renewed vigor, he scuttled toward the trapdoor, thrusting head and shoulders up through, and quickly scrambled up and out of the hole like someone escaping from a premature burial. He rolled away from the opening, lay on his back, staring up at the painted icons on the domed ceiling, and began to laugh.
––––––––
Corey’s first hint of trouble came when the feed from Maddock’s GoPro abruptly froze, displaying the all too familiar throbber.
Connecting... Connecting....
He and Slava had been following the subterranean exploration remotely from the relative safety of a table inside the McDonalds just down the street from the cordoned area, while alternately monitoring the situation with the bogus gas leak alarm Slava had triggered.
Everything had gone off exactly according to plan.
Right up until the moment when it didn’t.
One moment, the tablet screen showed Maddock walking slowly through an unbelievable hoard of golden treasure, and the next... Nothing.
Corey did not panic, as he had the previous night when his friends had gone into the vault at the museum, but waited patiently for the connection to be restored. Maddock had probably moved too far from the last repeater.
“Bones,” he called out. “You need to activate another burner phone.”
Although Maddock was the only one outfitted with a GoPro, both he and Bones had Bluetooth earbuds. Even if Maddock was out of range, Bones might not be.
But after several more seconds of silence, Corey had to admit that he had lost contact with Bones as well.
Still, there was no reason to freak out. Maddock and Bones could handle themselves.
“Something’s wrong,” Slava announced, bursting Corey’s fragile bubble of optimism.
He gave a helpless shrug. “We knew there was a chance the repeaters wouldn’t do the trick.”
Slava continued to frown. “Go to the drone feed.”
Corey tapped the screen and brought up the live video from the still hovering drone. It showed the exterior of the old church in the courtyard behind the Largo Complex. For all the activity, or rather the lack of it, they might have been looking at a still image.
“Back it up,” Slava said.
Corey gave her a questioning look, which she seemed to completely ignore, and then did as instructed, pausing the live feed and rewinding the recorded footage, first at 2X speed, then 4X. The image on the screen did not change however, and if not for the progress bar at the bottom of the screen, slowly shifting from right to left, it would not have been apparent that anything was happening.
But then something flickered in and out of existence.
“There,” Slava cried out, even as Corey paused the rewind and started normal playback.
Nothing happened for a few seconds, but then a vaguely man-shaped figure shuffled into view, moving directly toward the church doors.
“Is that a fireman?” Corey asked, and then as the man pushed through the doors and entered the church, added, “What’s he doing? Do you think he found them?”
Slava’s head bobbed once. “I don’t think he’s a real fire fighter,” she said. “I think it is one of Dragomirov’s men.”
Corey decided maybe a little bit of panic was warranted, but Slava remained cool and collected as she took out her phone and dialed a number. Maddock had left explicit instructions about what to do if things went sideways, and this definitely met that threshold.
Corey switched back to the drone’s live feed, watching and praying that Maddock, Bones and Riddle would emerge, but as before, the image on screen remained maddeningly unchanged. Corey tried calling Bones’ number, but was immediately informed that the caller was unavailable and no voice mailbox had been set up.
Nearly ten minutes passed before uniformed police officers swarmed into view, advancing toward the old church with guns drawn. Half a dozen of them lined up beside the door and executed a tactical entry, while the rest remained outside, evidently awaiting further instructions.
Five more minutes ticked slowly by, and then the doors to the church swung open. A police officer emerged, and then another, but the second man was escorting a handcuffed Boyan Dragomirov. Close behind them was another shackled suspect. Though he still wore the heavy black turnout gear of a fire fighter, the man’s helmet had been removed to reveal his identity—Krasimir Dragomirov. A couple more officers followed, the last of whom closed the doors before trailing after his comrades.
Corey kept watching... Kept waiting... But nobody else came out of the church. He pounded his fist on the table in impotent frustration. “Where are they?”