Chapter 35
Brooke
I huddled close to Rav, staring at his phone screen as the drone’s camera swept across the hidden chamber. It was everything we’d been looking for—the entire assembly required to deploy the Greek Fire in liquid form.
“Can you get the drone closer to that containment unit?” I asked Will through my earpiece.
“On it.”
The drone moved silently forward, its camera zooming in on the metal cylinder. If this was the real system, we’d just found what we came for.
“Let’s move,” Rav said, already turning toward the new passage marked on the map.
“Stop!” I blurted, and he halted. “Masks on. No chances.”
“Good thing I’ve got you here.” He dropped his pack and fished out his polycarbonate facemask that attached to the incursion suit’s hood. We hooked each other’s hoses up to the low-profile rebreathers hidden in the bottoms of our bags and tested the seals.
“Good to go,” I said.
He tapped his face shield against mine, then left at a jog. Our headlamps bounced light off stone walls worn smooth by centuries of water flow. The narrow passage forced us into single file, then onto our knees.
“Take the next right,” Will directed. “You should see an opening about fifty feet ahead.”
Rav’s light caught the edge of a break in the stonework—an offshoot tunnel nearly invisible until we were on it. A light brown swath of camo netting draped down from the ceiling. “They scrimmed the entrance!”
However they’d secured the netting, it had come loose, so that only part of the tunnel offshoot was still hidden. We pushed it aside and stepped through.
The side passage opened into what might have been a maintenance chamber when Pompeii was a living city.
But today, it was filled with the containment unit and all the required accouterments.
The hoses were coiled on the ground. Were they long enough?
They only had to be about a hundred feet long.
One hundred plus slack, plus height to reach the metal fittings we’d found.
“It’s all here,” Rav said softly. “Will, are you sure the robot dog’s map included this spot? We checked it all yesterday.”
“Now that I’m looking more closely, it appears the dog walked past this chamber, but never went in.”
I unzipped a pouch at my waist and pulled out a Greek Fire field test kit. I ran the first strip along the containment unit’s surface, tossed it into the little pouch, snapped the inner ampule, and shook the bag.
Nothing. Not even a trace response.
I’d never created the chemical myself, but I’d run thousands of virtual tests in Pendragon’s labs. No matter how careful the handling, Greek Fire molecules always transferred.
Always.
But I ran a second test on the manifold, which also produced nothing.
Had I screwed up the test design?
They work, Brooke. Bobcat got a positive off the truck.
So why was there no Greek Fire? It was well after six. The concert started in an hour. Surely Fenix wasn’t bringing the chemical in later?
“Brooke?” Rav touched my arm, snapping me out of my conversation with myself.
“Something’s wrong.” Irritation burned in my chest. Did I have to crack the whole thing open?
That was too risky. I moved to examine the connectors more closely.
They were big. Only a few inches, but bigger than the connector we’d spotted near the scaffolding on our first recon into the drainage system. “These thread sizes are— Wait. Shit!”
“What?” asked Rav.
“There’s no power!” No generator, no electrical wiring, no way for the tank to actually push anything material into the amphitheater.
I unscrewed one of the connections and shone my light onto the O-ring it revealed.
It was pristine. I pulled it out to roll between my gloved fingers. “Brand new. Bone dry.”
Every test I’d run with Haddad’s formula had shown the same results—even minimal exposure would leave unmistakable traces. The arsenical compounds were tenacious, clinging to everything they touched. The test kit relied on that conclusion.
But these fittings were factory-perfect.
I ran my fingers along the housing that would’ve contained the initiator circuits. “No etching. No heat marks. No residue.” I slammed another test strip against the metal surface with more force than necessary. “And no fucking power! It’s all fake!”
“Fake?” Rav asked, leaning in next to me to see the test kits before I shoved them into my disposal pouch.
“The whole assembly doesn’t make sense,” I said, anger flaring. “Why put all this here if you’re not going to bring the chemical down here or power it?”
"The crowds are starting to filter in now.” Scarlett’s clipped voice came through the earpiece.
“We’re in position backstage. It’s a veritable who’s who of Fenix back here.
I’ve seen at least three people with phoenix tattoos on their hands who I don’t recognize, plus Pavel, Leigh’s brother, Slobbery Mouth Maguire—”
Someone giggled in the background of the call. The Reynolds team chattered constantly, like they couldn’t shut up.
With the sealed mask on, I couldn’t mute them.
I had to focus.
So I ripped my mask off and threw it at the container, resulting in a loud clang. There wasn’t any fucking Greek Fire to worry about anyway.
“Brooke,” said Rav, pulling me to face him.
But I exploded at him. “I told them this would happen! I fucking told Pendragon to destroy the formula! Using it as bait was the stupidest idea they could have come up with! And now, Fenix is using it as bait for us!”
“Drew here,” came a voice through my earpiece. “Sorry to interrupt, but I’ve tested three of the fireworks displays with the field test kits you gave me. All negative.”
“Keep checking,” I said, unable to mask the desperation creeping into my voice. Thousands of lives hung in the balance, and we were chasing shadows.
Rav swept his light across the setup once more. “Why would they put so much effort into fake hardware?”
“To keep us busy. To make us think we know where the threat is coming from.” I tapped the pressure gauge—sitting at zero. “They’ve known we were watching. Maybe from the beginning. You were right. Noah was—”
“Movement!” Will’s voice came over my comms. “Drone two just picked up someone moving deeper in the system, east-northeast of your position. And camera three’s gone out again.”
“Fucking tabarnak.” Rav was already moving. “We’re moving.”
We pushed deeper into the tunnels, leaving the elaborate decoy behind. The passage gradually widened as we approached a junction point near where we’d left the Fenix robot dog.
“Fork ahead,” Will advised. “Path reconverges after about two hundred feet.”
Rav took the left path, pointing me to the right.
My tunnel curved gently, transitioning from stonework to an area dotted with terracotta drainage pipes.
“The drone’s lost him,” Will said. “Its camera’s gone out, too.”
I pushed forward, slowing as a side channel appeared on my right. But sound came from behind me. Someone’s heavy breathing. Not Rav’s. I started to turn, but not fast enough.
A solid weight slammed into my back, driving me to the ground. The impact knocked the wind from my lungs, my face hitting rough stone. I tried to roll, but a knee pressed into my spine, pinning me in place.
As I fought to breathe, the weight suddenly lifted. My assailant moved toward something in the wall. Through watering eyes, I saw him reaching for something embedded in one of the pipes. Something that glinted like metal.
I pushed to my knees, fumbling for the expandable baton at my hip—good thing the security guard at the front gate hadn’t found that. The metal rod extended with a flick of my wrist, reassuringly solid despite only having used it in training.
“Rav,” I gasped, hoping the earpiece hadn’t jostled free. “I found him.”
The man turned at my voice, his narrowed eyes the only thing visible behind his fabric face covering. He was maybe in his thirties, solid build, dressed in black gear similar to what I often wore with Pendragon.
He lunged toward me as I struggled to stand.
I swung the baton in a defensive arc, catching him across the forearm. He hissed but kept coming, grabbing for the weapon. We grappled awkwardly in the confined space, my back scraping against the wall as he tried to disarm me.
Then Rav was there, a blur of sudden violence. He caught the man with a perfectly aimed strike to the throat, followed by a swift knee to the midsection that doubled the man over. He tried to retaliate with a wild swing that Rav effortlessly sidestepped.
I watched, momentarily transfixed, as Rav systematically dismantled the man’s defenses. Every move was precise, economical.
One more reason I’d never found another man who could replace him. He was exactly what I needed when things went sideways.
The man reached for something at his belt, but Rav caught his wrist and twisted until the man dropped to his knees with a grunt of pain.
“Zip ties,” Rav said calmly, as though we were discussing dinner plans.
I retrieved a set from my pack, and together we secured the man’s wrists in front of himself. The fight barely lasted twenty seconds, but my heart was racing like I’d sprinted a mile.
I turned my attention to the terracotta pipe and what he’d been trying to retrieve. Carefully, I extracted a small electronic device with an antenna and a tiny green light on its side. I flicked a switch on its top, and the light went out.
All of a sudden, noise erupted in my ear—the Reynolds team’s rapid chatter. My earpiece had been off.
Rav asked, “Are the cameras back on now, Will?”
“They are. And your earpieces are transmitting.” The near-silent whir of one of the drones approached, and a puff of air brushed my face as Will stopped it in front of me. I held up the device. “Signal jammer.”
“Allowing them to walk by our cameras without us seeing them?” asked Rav.
“Perhaps,” said Will. “Bring it back when you’re done. I want to disassemble it and see how they bypassed my systems. It probably messed with the batteries, too.”
Above us, gentle music started. Was it already time for the concert to start? We were running out of time.
The pieces began to click into place in my mind. The decoy trucks Bobcat had reported, the fake deployment system, and signal jammers that masked their movements. “If they wanted us chasing our tails down here, where’s the real attack?”
If there was one coming at all.
“What would Noah gain by telling you about an attack that never happens?” I asked.
Rav’s brows drew down behind his mask. “Takes us off the playing field?”
“And why send out the empty trucks? From the real lab?”
“Keeps Pendragon off the field, too?”
“But he literally brought us all here!” I glowered at the bound man on the ground and could have kicked him for his smirk. “It doesn’t make any sense!”
“Because Noah’s no match for Enzo.” The man spat out a mouthful of blood. “The phoenix will rise, and there’s nothing you can—”
Rav kicked the man to shut him up, then removed his mask to access his earpiece. “Bobcat, do you copy?”
I shifted my channel to communicate with Pendragon as well.
“This is Rav.” His jaw clenched. “We’ve confirmed the amphitheater is not the target. Repeat: the amphitheater is not the target. We’ve captured one Fenix operative with tech that was blocking our cameras. I think we’ve been played.”
“Copy that.” A tense silence followed before Bobcat’s voice came through. “If they’ve been toying with both of us, the element of surprise is gone. My men are back at the lab with me. We’re moving in—see if we can confirm what’s inside and maybe find evidence of the real target.”
“You didn’t get your weapons released, did you?” I asked, concerned about my team wandering into danger without any firepower.
“That’s a negative, Doc,” Bobcat replied grimly. “We’ve got this, all the same.”
“Copy,” Rav said. “We’re heading out of the drainage system. Let us know what you find out.”
We started moving, forcing our captive along as we navigated the narrow passages. Three years spent tracking every possible lead on Greek Fire, and I’d utterly failed at least three times now.
Lark had helped his hacker in Warsaw get away from us.
We were wrong about Mnemis.
Now, we were wrong about Pompeii.
The music swelled above us as we walked, the concert beginning in earnest. Eight thousand people gathered in one place, apparently just as safe as they’d all expected. The danger had all been a play.
“Almost there,” Rav said, setting a punishing pace along the final stretch of the tunnel.
The music dimmed, replaced by a voice booming through the sound system. “Welcome, people of Pompeii! Tonight you will witness a miracle!”
Scarlett’s voice cut through our comms, sharp with alarm: “Oh, shit.”
The voice continued. “A rebirth!”
Scarlett breathed, “It’s Noah.”
Rav’s hand snapped to his earpiece, as though he couldn’t believe what she’d said. “What’s going on?”
Our captive stumbled on a rock, then laughed. “The phoenix is about to rise.”