Page 21 of Wired Ghost

Raveaux held onto a sapling and peered over the edge into the pit, his heart stuttering with fear at what he might find—but there was nothing to see but a mound of garbage at the bottom.

Raveaux’s gaze sharpened—the pile appeared to have been disturbed.

He retrieved his binoculars from inside his vest, and studied the trash carefully.

The top formed a body-sized depression, and there were marks of disturbance around the sides, as if someone had recently been digging in it. He gestured for the chief to come over.

Ohale complied, frowning a bit. “What is it, Raveaux?”

“Either someone lost something in that mess, or Sophie and Jake were tossed in there, probably for safekeeping, and they went through the garbage looking for weapons or something useful.”

The chief’s eyes gleamed with interest as he surveyed the scene. “That’s a lava tube. These things can run for miles. Looks like the ceiling of it caved in to make the hole. Do you think they could still be in there?”

Raveaux squatted at the edge of the pit. He leaned down into the opening. “Sophie!” He called. His voice echoed around the chamber briefly.

No response.

He drew a small, powerful flashlight out of his pants pocket. The chief did the same, and they shone their lights as far as they could around the edges. “It looks like some kind of cavern, but there’s no way to tell if they are still inside without going down there,” Raveaux said.

He and the chief eyed each other for a moment. “Let’s call the lieutenant over and consult with him,” Ohale said. “They would have to rappel down into the cavern, and I don’t think we brought that kind of equipment.”

Just then, the earth shivered.

Raveaux had ridden horseback on his family’s farm in France in his youth. He remembered the feeling of when his horse shook its skin to scare off a fly—but now that fly was Raveaux. He fell to his knees, grabbing for the sapling he’d held onto before, but it was out of reach. The quake was strong enough that the edge of the pit began to crumble inward—taking Raveaux with it.

He scrambled back with a cry. Ohale grabbed his vest and yanked him to safety as a large chunk of the cave’s lip fell into the refuse pile below.

The two men hurried backward, flattening themselves against the heaving soil. Around them, the trees cracked and groaned. The forest rained leaves and debris down on the rippling ground.

Over in the compound, a man cried out, clearly audible in their comms. A tree fell spectacularly, knifing down through the air to crush one of the huts. The crash of the falling tree, and the splintering sound it made, were all Raveaux could hear for a few moments as he pressed hard into the dirt, his fingers clutching it, his body spread-eagled, as if clinging to the side of that remembered horse’s hide.

As suddenly as the shuddering began, it ceased.

The crackling voices of the men filled his helmet as everyone checked in. Raveaux, too, answered to his call sign, and so did the chief next to him. Slowly, the two of them sat up and looked back at the pit. A good six feet of the edge had fallen in, collapsing one whole side of it.

Dread filled Raveaux. “If they’re down there, how could they survive that?”

He didn’t realize he had spoken aloud until the chief spoke. “Perhaps the interior is more stable. Maybe the perps took them out of the pit. We don’t know.”

The lieutenant leading the mission trotted up to them. “You two all right?”

Raveaux stood up, dusting dirt off of his clothing. “Fine.”

Ohale pointed into the pit. “Right before this collapsed, we discovered that our targets had been in this pit. Would you and the men go in and see if they are still somewhere inside?”

The lieutenant approached carefully, peered into the hole, and shook his head. “Can’t take that risk. I almost lost one of my men to that tree. He had barely left the shed when the quake hit. The ground is too unstable for any subterranean rescue attempts right now.”

Raveaux was not surprised by this, but nonetheless, disappointment tightened his gut. “What can we do?”

The lieutenant addressed them. “We have verified the camp is clear. We have also verified, now, that your targets were here, and likely captured. The best strategy would be to pursue the meth gang out into the open, since they’ve fled thekipuka. They can’t have gotten far, with the lava this active on the plain.”

Raveaux felt sick as he waited for the chopper’s return. He tried not to look at the pit—because he was almost certain that was where Jake and Sophie had been thrown to die. God knows where they were now—somewhere miles underground, potentially, with a river of lava on its way.

Chapter Fifteen

Raveaux

Raveaux leanedout of the open side window of the chopper as the team got underway again. Ohale and the lieutenant had spent a little time studying a satellite image of the area, planning a grid to search. “We know they didn’t leave via the road they usually used,” the lieutenant said. “We need to fly low around the edge of thekipukaand look for signs of where they took off across the lava fields. The base camp is well established, so likely they have already planned for an emergency exit in another direction. Once we identify that, hopefully we can catch them before they reconnect with the main road.”

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