Page 97 of Doyle

He might be as recklessly stubborn as Tia. Whom he’d left sleeping in the cot back at the medical tent so many hours ago. He’d wanted to wake her, but he’d foreseen a small,okay, epic,scuffle and...

Perhaps that hadn’t been fair, but daylight had been burning, and in his brain, all he’d seen were the kids suffocating under the toxic sulfur dust.

So yes, he’d left her behind, armed himself with gloves and protective gear and a gas mask, climbed up the mountain despite his fatigue, and lowered himself into the belly of the beast, again.

“Anything?” said a man named Jake, who’d arrived just a couple hours ago with a team of specialized SAR techs on a plane from the States, bringing medical equipment. He’d also brought his physician wife, Aria. A big man, he possessed the same military aura as Doyle’s brother Stein.

Who was missing.

But Doyle couldn’t go there.Kids first.

It hadn’t taken Ethan and Declan long to boot up their fancy tech and identify an approximate location for the kids. Jake’s boss, a guy named Hamilton, and Pete had huddled up and deployed their recon crew with an urgency Doyle respected.

He hadn’t even asked about Stein as he grabbed gear and suited up. Pete had driven them on the four-wheeler up to the base of the cave-in, and after a quick assessment, kept going on the trail, around the mountain to another entrance.

That information about the other entrance might have been useful before his survival swim in the ocean,thank you.

Now, Doyle ran on adrenaline and hope as he turned to Pete to hear his answer to Jake’s question.

“Nothing. Radio cut out.” Pete wore a cap over his short blond hair. He tucked the radio away. “We’re probably too deep. Doyle, you recognize anything?”

They’d trekked down a long tunnel and emerged into the entrance chamber, debris spilling into the vault. “Yes. We tried that tunnel before, but it had been blocked off.” He pointed to the tunnel where they’d followed Ethan’s footprints.

And maybe he shouldn’t have been quite so,ahem,he’d call itcommittedwith Ethan about his suspicion that Ethan had caused this mess. His brain had simply been on overdrive, given the fun in the ocean and Tia receiving oxygen in the tent and the missing kids and Ethan on his cell phone?—

Good thing Declan had stepped between them.

“How about that one?” Pete walked over to the tunnel they’d taken before, when Doyle and Tia heard voices. “I see footprints.”

“That’s where we last heard them,” Doyle said, and Pete turned, his headlamp lighting up the craggy tunnel.

“Let’s go,” he said.

Pete held a GPS with the map of the mountain loaded in and now oriented himself in the tunnel. “According to this, this tunnel leads to the monastery.”

So, Ethan had been wrong.

Another reason not to blame him for this disaster. Still, it was Ethan’s big mouth that had enticed the kids to hunt for the stupid treasure.

Later.Doyle followed Pete and Jake down the tunnel.

“Ethan thinks the kids are located in a parallel tunnel,” said Doyle. “He followed this one, but it’s blocked off from a previous tremor. He thinks they took one of these rabbit holes.” He indicated a tunnel that jutted off from the main vein.

Pete had stopped, red dust stirring up around his boots. Moved his GPS unit, then—“That one.” He walked over, crouched, and stared into the gap. “Can anyone hear me?” His voice echoed in the shaft.

Nothing.

Please, God, don’t let them be dead?—

“We’re here! We’re here!”

A male voice. It sounded lower than Rohan’s or Jaden’s, but that could be the echo, or the dust. Pete turned and pulled off his pack, then eased out a large Maglite. He set it up at the edge of the tunnel, shining it inside.

“Let’s see if we can get to them before we call it in. Doyle, you stay here.”

Doyle’s jaw flexed. “I know these kids.”

“I know you do. That’s why we need you here, in case...” His mouth made a grim line.

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