Although it’s usually cold beneath the desert floor, it was hot as hell down here. Steam hissed up from vents like the whole place was going to blow—or that’s how it looked to my frenzied imagination. When we passed refinery staff, they were going about their business as if it were just another day on the job, which to them it was. Actually, I guess for me it was too. Jesus, I need to get into a safer line of work. Lion taming, maybe; I heard the benefits package is good.

The farther down we went the more humid the air became, and the heavier the smell of raw oil and cooked petroleum. Two levels down I saw that the walls were lined with stretches of dark lichen and cobwebs.

“Are we at the center of the earth yet?” asked Lydia.

“Australia’s a couple of floors down.”

When we were at the base of the last stairwell, Lydia slid back her sleeve and tapped the keys of the PDA strapped to her wrist. We studied the map and compared it to our surroundings. The floors were marked with old painted lines color-coded for different destinations for routine maintenance. We followed one that rounded a snaking series of turns, passing dozens of small rooms with locked doors.

Lydia was a better lockpick than I was and she fished out a couple of pieces of flexible plastic and loided the locked rooms. Janitorial office, supply closets, bathrooms. Nothing of interest, so we kept moving.

Ghost, with his heightened senses, was drinking it all in, cataloging a thousand smells and their variations. He was trained to react to nitrites from explosives, to decomposing flesh, and to a few other key smells, but so far he wasn’t giving me any of the signals that said he’d found anything. You can’t train dogs to detect nuclear materials.

When we were in a stretch of empty corridor Lydia checked the PDA again, then looked at the walls and up at the low ceiling. “We’re getting seriously deep here, Gaucho. We still have a signal?”

I tapped my earbud. “Talk to me, Dancing Duck.”

Khalid said, “Checked all my unknowns off the list on levels eight and seven. Nothing. Laundry rooms and showers. Heading down a level.”

His signal was almost buried under a hiss of static.

“Roger that,” I said. “Sergeant Rock?”

“Nothing yet but we need to finish level two. Five more unknowns to put eyes on. Lots of foot traffic here. Slowing us down.” His signal was even worse; he sounded like he was whispering at the bottom of a well.

“Copy. Your signal is weak and variable.”

“Back atcha. What’s your twenty, Cowboy?”

“We’re rock bottom. No joy. Moving to zero point.”