“There’s an unused airstrip at the tail end of the island,” Max said. “The tourist trams don’t go there, so we should have some privacy to come ashore. I’ll have the techs get the Gator fueled and ready.”
The drone kept going. Juan’s eye was drawn to a fine cloud of dust rising from a spot on the south side of Malinta Hill.
“I’d say that qualifies as unusual,” Juan said.
“I see it,” Gomez replied. “Zooming in.”
A narrow road could be seen hugging the steep terrain, ending where a dark hole punctured the hill. A van was parked outside, and cables led from a portable generator into the tunnel. A miniature bulldozer, commonly known by the brand name Bobcat, came out to add a load of rocks and dirt to a large pile. When it was finished dumping its load, the Bobcat went back inside.
“I think we have a winner,” Max said.
“Do we have a map of the tunnel system?” Juan asked.
“Pulling it up now.”
Gomez zoomed out, and Max overlaid the tunnel map over Malinta Hill. A twenty-four-foot-wide main tunnel bisected the hill from east to west along the central axis of the island’s tail. Dozens of smaller lateral tunnels extended from the main tunnel, forming a herringbone pattern. Another herringbone went south toward the exact spot where the excavation was taking place.
“Those are called the Navy Tunnels,” Max said. “The whole complex was dug out by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers after World War One, since the Philippines was an American colony at the time. Some of the tunnels were intentionally blown up during the 1945 American invasion by suicidal Japanese Marines and were never reopened. They no longer connect to the main tourist tunnel.”
“We have our destination, then,” Juan said.
“Do you think Locsin is in there?” Raven asked, her eyes focused so sharply they seemed to be piercing the screen.
Juan stood. “Only one way to find out. Time to show you the moon pool.”
42
NEGROS ISLAND
Beth’s eyes fluttered open. She had no idea how long she’d been asleep, but sunlight streamed through the tiny window in the room where she had been taken after the helicopter landed.
Everything about the trip had been a blur. The pain in her shoulder from the gunshot wound had been excruciating, and all they’d done to tend to it after dropping off Locsin somewhere in Manila was to wrap it with a cloth to stanch some of the bleeding. Then they’d put a blindfold on her for the remainder of the trip. All she knew was that she had to be somewhere in the Philippines.
When they’d led her from the helicopter into the building, she thought she’d seen the moon overhead, but she could only make out a circular area of stars around it as if the rest of the sky were blotted out by unmoving black clouds. It was such a strange sight, she thought she might have been hallucinating from blood loss.
Before she’d been left alone, she was forced to take two pills. At first, she refused, but the guard threatened to shoot her right then and there if she didn’t. He examined her wound and declared that the bullet had gone in one side of the meat of her shoulder and out the other. Every time he touched it, Beth screamed in agony.
Finally, she could feel herself passing out, either from the trauma or the drug, and she assumed this was it. She was going to die. She accepted her fate and let darkness take her.
But here she was now, still alive. And, oddly, the pain had tapered off to a dull ache. She now realized they must have given her a narcotic or a sedative. She couldn’t move her arm much, but at least the bleeding seemed to have stopped.
She was also famished. She lifted her head up from the thin mattress and saw that there was a tray of food set on the small table next to her. Normally, the spread of fish and strange fruits wouldn’t be all that appetizing to her, but her stomach grumbled loudly when the aroma hit her nose.
She sat up and launched herself at the food, devouring every morsel on the tray as if she were a starving dog. She was so hungry that each bite tasted like the finest entrée from a gourmet restaurant. She washed it all down with a large glass of milk.
With her hunger craving satisfied, she examined the room more thoroughly, though there wasn’t much more to see. The window was glass but too small to climb through. The door was metal. She got up and tried the handle quietly, but it didn’t budge.
Then she heard talking outside. Someone was approaching.
She quickly went back to the bed and lay down, closing her eyes just as the door opened.
She tried not to flinch when she recognized the first voice to speak. It was Tagaan, the man from the Bangkok drug deal.
“It looks like the drug kicked in,” he said to the guard. “She must have passed out again.”
“I didn’t think such a thin woman would be able to eat that much,” the guard replied.
“It’s her body repairing itself. It must be working. We’ll check how she’s healing later this evening.”