Page 89 of Poison Evidence

He broke the dirt with the spade, probing to see if there were voids he could exploit. When he found none, he chose what seemed like the most likely spot and began to dig in earnest. This was where RON would’ve come in handy. Ivy had explained her specialty in remote sensing—more than Lidar, she’d also equipped RON with ground-penetrating radar to glimpse below the surface without touching a shovel.

Digging in an archaeological site, she’d explained, was a destructive process. Documenting a site destroyed it. So archaeologists had turned to remote sensing, ways to gather data without ruining the site. It was why her process of mapping the Peleliu battle site was preferred—thousands had died and destruction was also desecration. But remote sensing could find the remains without disturbing them. The best of all worlds.

But he didn’t have Ivy anymore nor her technology. The truth was he missed the woman a hell of a lot more than the machines he’d abducted her for to begin with.

CAM might make this easier, but Ivy would make it fun.

It killed him not to know how she was doing. He’d wanted to wait for her in her hotel room, to surprise her and hold her and make love to her one more time.

But only a fool would take that risk when Luke and Ian would be right outside the door.

He doubted she would follow his instructions and leave, but he’d had to try. His next step was to contact Luke and convince him. Luke would never leave on his own account, but protecting Ivy was a different story.

At least they had Ian Boyd for backup.

The shovel hit limestone, and he grimaced. So much for his gut feeling. He adjusted, moving a meter south, and tried again.

He was on his fifth probe—following the technique Ivy had described for attempting to find or explore the boundaries of archaeological sites—when the shovel slipped through the soil and disappeared nearly to the end of the handle.

He’d found a void.

He dug with renewed energy. Thirty minutes later, he had an opening. A tunnel under the roots of the tree, just as CAM had predicted.

Rain was starting to fall as he crawled into the void. Maybe his wetsuit would protect him from the toxins. All he could do was hope. And strip as soon as he was done here.

Did the Chechen cling to the same feeble plan? Was Dimitri repeating his mistakes?

Would Dimitri too be found, taken, and tortured?

He had to dig as he crawled and wondered if the tunnel would collapse behind him. Days from now, Ivy and CAM might find him, delirious with thirst and hunger, desperate and pained from the blisters caused by tree sap.

It was a shame there was no Occupational Safety and Health Administration for spies. The hazard pay would be out of this world.

He’d never officially received a paycheck from Russia. Every dime had gone into a numbered account, which Sophia would find out how to access when she reached Jakarta.

He held on to that thought. Sophia and Yulian would be free.

Ivy… She might carry his child.

It was crazy the emotions that thought brought with it. He’d never realized how much he was ruled by biology. How much he’d had a need to fulfill that genetic imperative.

But dammit. He wanted tobethere. To see Ivy’s belly grow. To witness sonograms and listen to heartbeats. To hold his daughter or son. To cheer for first steps. To hear his baby call him Daddy.

Ahh, fuck, and wasn’t this a shitty time to want the impossible?

He pushed through soil and vines. Crawled through musty earth and poisonous roots.

Fuck it.

He couldn’t have any of the things he wanted, but he could save his sister and nephew. He could save Ivy and Luke. He could do one damn thing right before he died. But to do that, he had to find the AUUV to draw out the sonofabitch who was calling the shots in his life.

He would die before this was all over, but he wasn’t going alone. This handoff would happen in person, or it wouldn’t happen at all.

He felt something hard in front of him. Limestone, probably, but he probed it with gloved fingers.

Smooth surface. He pulled off the dive glove that protected his fingers—getting a rash hardly mattered at this point—and palpated the surface. Cold, but not stone cold.

Plastic cold.

---