Page 70 of Emi's Hero

Inside was a single metal-framed bed pushed into the corner. A cardboard box turned on its side served as a bookshelf with a few worn copies of children’s books. Crinkled sheets of paper were stacked on top of the box with pencil drawings of stick figures—a little person and a bigger one, both with long hair.

Another cardboard box contained what looked like children’s clothing, worn and stained, having seen better days. Another box contained a few T-shirts and frayed jeans.

This was it? These few items collected in cardboard boxes were the sum total of Emi and Sara’s belongings?

Anger surged in George.

Emi had said she’d left Sara with the cleaning woman, Maria. Neither Maria nor Sara was in the room. Which meant either Maria had escaped with Sara or Warren had taken Sara to another part of the compound.

George moved on. Sporadic sounds of gunfire became fewer until there were no more shots fired.

He found the courtyard Emi had spoken of. Hawk entered it from another direction.

“The front corridors are secure. We found half a dozen men and women who don’t speak English locked in different rooms. We think Warren used them as slave labor to maintain the premises. Dev and Teller escorted them into Warren’s private quarters to keep them together and out of range of themercenaries’ bullets.” Hawk looked beyond George. “No sign of the little girl?”

George shook his head. “Not yet.”

“I tried to check in with Kalea and Emi,” Hawk said, “but the radio signals are blocked by the thick concrete walls.”

“I have one more hallway to check,” George said.

“Same,” Hawk said.

“Sara has to be here somewhere,” George said. “I can’t go back to Emi without her.”

“We’ll find her,” Hawk said and left the courtyard from the direction he’d entered.

George reentered the hallway and moved on to the next door and the next with no sign of the little girl. When he came to another turn in the corridor, he eased around it, finding it empty.

A door stood open at the end.

As he approached, the room beyond wasn’t like the others. In fact, it wasn’t a room at all. It was a tunnel carved out of the mountain.

Emi had said something about seeing a corridor where the walls were darker, like stone.

So far, the front of the bunker compound had been the only entry they’d found. Could this tunnel into the mountain lead to another way out?

His gut told him yes. It also told him Warren had escaped through it when they’d blown up the front entrance.

If he had Sara, he couldn’t be moving very fast.

Unlike the bunker’s corridors, the tunnel wasn’t wired for lights.

George patted the armor-plated vest. Hadn’t he seen a miniature flashlight clipped to one of its straps?

His fingers closed around the little flashlight, and he unclipped it and pressed the button on the end.

The beam barely lit four feet in front of him, but it was better than no light at all.

Holding the light in front of him, George ran into the tunnel, picking up speed, his pulse racing. This had to be it. It had to be where Warren had gone. And he had to have Sara.

The tunnel curved to the left, widening at one point to a large room filled with wooden crates.

“Sara?” George called out. He checked between and behind the crates, finding nothing.

Afraid Warren was putting too much distance between them, George continued into the tunnel. He noticed that the path was sloping gently downward.

Something moved along the floor ahead of him. Because he didn’t see it soon enough, he nearly tripped over it.

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