Page 27 of What Remains

“You’re kidding, right? The show’s a classic. Why?”

“You remember how Scotty’s always climbing into those utility tunnels to fix something that’s gone haywire and always just in the nick of time?”

“Jeffries tubes? Sure. They were named after one of the set designers, I think. Why?”

“Because I’d bet good money whoever built this probably watched the same show…ah.” Aiming his light to the left, Flowers used the beam to pick out a series of rough slots chiseled from stone that began a foot off the floor. “See here? How the steps slant up and into the wall?”

“Wow.” The handholds led up to an aperture wide enough for a man. “What is that?”

“You remember back at the airport when Driver talked about how they constructed these aqueducts?”

“Vaguely. He said something about wells?”

“Karez,right. The wells are what direct the flow of underground water and snowmelt.”

“And that’s what this tube is? An old well shaft?”

“Yup. The rungs driven into the rock are how guys got up and down to clean out the shafts or check on the flow. Goes all the way to the surface. There are about a half dozen we’ve found so far and likely a lot more. I’ve been up this one just to see where it ends. Doesn’t go all the way to the surface, though. It just dead-ends.”

“Plugged?” When Flowers nodded, he asked, “Solid?”

“Enough so’s I needed to spend a fair amount of time chipping myself out. I figure it happened because no one lives here anymore to keep them clear.”

“Hunh.” As they turned to retrace their steps, John said, “Nice escape hatch, though, in case an enemy gets inside.”

“I suppose.”

“You ever worry the guys who were here before will come back?”

“Since the dates we’ve found are from when the Russians were around?” Flowers shook his head. “Not really. This isn’t near anything important anymore.”

“But you still come in at night. You don’t travel in or out of here during the day.”

“Just pays to be careful. Same reason why we don’t use comms out here.”

“Complete radio silence?”

“Better believe it, brother.” Flowers gave him a significant look. “’Cuz we ain’t the only guys with eyes in the sky.”

2

Four hours later.

He did another headcount just to be sure. Maybe he’d made a mistake. As it turned out, he hadn’t, which sucked.

He wandered into an adjoining chamber. As with all the tunnels and chambers here, this was lit with LED units placed atop lips chiseled from stone. This room was a little larger than his and opened into other parts of the complex through one of three arched openings. The two smallest were at nine and three o’clock, respectively. The largest was at noon.

Roni was listening to a young boy’s lungs while another older child watched. As John slid up behind the kids, her green eyes ticked up:Yes?When he pointed at his watch and then inclined his head back the way he’d come, her eyebrows arched and then puckered into a slight frown before she held up a finger.One minute.

Nodding, he turned and retraced his steps, counting off the children here. He did this twice, hoping he was wrong.

He wasn’t.

She took more than a minute, which was fine. Leaning back against the corridor’s stone wall, he thought of how he could present this in a way that didn’t come across as an accusation.Even though, that was precisely what he was doing. He didn’t think she was the one who’d lied, though.

He thought they’d both been liedto.

“Hey.” Roni ducked into the tunnel. “What’s up?” But then when she saw the look on his face, her own clouded. “What?”

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