Shadow of Betrayal

“We’ll head for that hill over there,” he whispered, pointing at a mound to the northwest.

“Should we check in?” Nate said.

Quinn shook his head. “It’s fine. We’ll let her sleep.”

“We’ve been gone a long time. I’ll bet she’s not sleeping.”

Nate was right. Knowing Orlando, she was still waiting up for them.

“I’ll text her, okay?” Quinn said, annoyed.

“Fine. Okay. Whatever you want.”

Quinn pulled out his phone and tapped in a quick message, then pressed Send.

Still on recon. All good. Get some sleep.

“Happy?” Quinn said to Nate.

“I’m always happy. I was just watching out for you.”

Quinn stared at him for a moment, then broke away. “I’ll lead.”

There was no cinderblock hut covering the back door to Yellowhammer. There was no need. It had been built utilizing the existing entrance to a mine hidden by several boulders. Quinn only knew this because of a notation on the map. Finding the actual entrance was another story.

They fanned out, each taking a section of the hill that looked like the best bet. At first Quinn thought he’d come up dry. It was just more rock on rock. A glance over at Nate told him his apprentice was doing no better.

Quinn walked twenty feet up the slope and took another look around, not expecting much. But then his eyes stopped on a flat-top rock sticking out from the side of the hill.

He made his way over to it, half walking, half slipping across the gravelly surface. There was something about the surface of the rock. Some of the color along the top seemed odd, lighter.

Scrapes, he realized as he got close.

There were dozens of them, each leading toward the edge of the rock that hung out into the air. Something had been moved. Something big. He peered over the side. There, leaning against the scraped rock, was another slab.

“Over here,” he called out.

Nate jogged over.

“That rock doesn’t belong there,” Quinn said. “I’d say it was up here not long ago.”

“That thing must weigh over a ton,” Nate said. “How the hell would they have moved it? Couldn’t have just manhandled it.”

“Helicopter,” Quinn said. “The same way they get in here.”

It was the only piece of machinery that would have been able to do the job, given the physical restrictions of the location. And once the job was done, the entrance would be sealed off.

“I hate to point this out,” Nate said, “but we don’t have one of those.”

“We don’t need it. We just need to move it enough to get in.” Quinn pointed toward the right edge. “It’s already leaning a little. We just need to help it along.”

He pulled off his backpack and removed the twenty-foot piece of climbing rope he had coiled at the bottom.

“Slip this over the top. Then get up there and push the rock with your feet. I’ll pull the rope. Careful you don’t fall once it starts moving, though.”

“Ha-ha,” Nate said.

Once everything was in place, Quinn said, “On three. One. Two. Three.”

He pulled as Nate pushed. At first nothing happened. He wondered if perhaps the rock was lodged in tighter than he had assumed.

“Again,” he said.

Nate groaned. “Come on, you son of a—”

Then it moved. An inch at first, then two, then six. When it finally stopped, there was a gap three feet wide by almost five tall.

It wasn’t until Nate came down and was helping him coil up the rope that Quinn realized he had made his apprentice push with his legs. Or leg rather. Nate’s missing limb hadn’t even occurred to him. And, he had to admit, it seemed not to have made a difference.

“You want me to lead, or you?” Nate asked as they pulled their packs back on.

“Have at it,” Quinn said.

Nate smiled, then slipped into the newly created opening.

It looked at though it had been decades since anyone had used this route into the underground facility. Twenty feet in, there was a door all but rusted shut. But time had weakened the metal so much they were able to wrestle it open without breaking out any of their gear.

Using flashlights, they made their way down a set of stairs that had been cut into the earth, then covered with a layer of concrete that had long ago started to crack. The walls and ceiling of the tunnel had also been reinforced, but weren’t doing any better. There were patches where concrete had fallen and broken into pieces on the steps.

As they descended, the tunnel made a constant, gradual turn to the left, providing them no more than fifteen feet of forward visibility. So it was almost without warning that they reached the end of the tunnel.

“Where’s the door?” Nate asked. The dead end was covered with more of the ancient concrete.

“We must have missed it,” Quinn said.

“I didn’t see one.”

Quinn pushed by him and headed back up the tunnel. He swung his flashlight back and forth so he could get a good look at the walls on either side.

Nothing.

He continued on for fifty feet before turning back and making a second pass.

“Is it possible they never finished it?” Nate asked.

“It’s finished,” Quinn said. “Why else cover this end with the concrete? If they’d still been working on it and stopped, we’d be looking at raw earth.”