As El Mighty Mouse walked out of the house whistling, Gannon’s gaze slid down onto the inside of his truck floor. There was an empty Gatorade bottle there. It was next to an old sky blue kid’s flipper from when Declan was young.

He felt dizzy as El Mighty Mouse, still whistling, climbed back into the truck and turned over the engine.

The sergeant had five kids, Gannon thought. Twenty-something grandkids.

As the engine revved and they began to pull out, Gannon remembered Sergeant Jeremy’s invitation to his sermon.

He closed his eyes.

There would be only one way out of this now.

80

Two hours later it was full dark, and they were all back behind the pine woods on the rough rock shelf above the blue hole.

Along the ridge of the water hole, the mercenaries made an actual campfire, and there were chairs and a folding table with coffee and radios on it. Behind the table was Gannon’s Gator as well as another 4x4 quad they had in the back of the van.

It looked almost like they were on safari or something.

They had done a better job of setting up shop than he and the Aussie geology professor had done, Gannon thought as he sat there. And they had been there for over two weeks.

Beside Gannon sitting on the uncomfortable rock were Ruby and Stick and Little Jorge. Reyland was seated to their right about five feet away on one of the camp chairs.

As they sat silently in the firelight, Gannon busied himself by vividly wondering how the skin of Reyland’s neck would feel in the palms of his bound hands.

He was still quietly staring and imagining when there was a sudden loud splash from the water below.

“He’s right. It’s like a damn maze under there, boss,” Blackbeard suddenly called up from the hole’s pond-like surface. “There are tunnels at every damn turn. We could be here for months. Shit, years!”

Reyland turned in the campfire’s light.

“You sneaky little prick,” he said, flinging the dregs of his coffee thermos at Gannon across the firelight.

“You’re wasting your time,” Gannon said as he chinned coffee off his face onto his shirt. “Just send me down already. I know exactly where it is.”

“I think this cop is playing games, boss,” he heard Blackbeard call up from the water hole. “There’s so much silt in the water you can hardly see even with a flashlight. I think he’s lying. I don’t think there’s shit down there.”

Gannon took a relieved breath as he heard this. Twenty minutes before as the mercenary suited up and went under alone, Gannon had started worrying that maybe the son of a bitch might actually come across the bag by sheer luck.

Guess not, dumbass, he thought.

“You hearing me, boss?” Blackbeard called up.

“Shut up,” Reyland said, staring at Gannon.

“I know you have a map. Where is it?” he said.

“I already told you. I had a map, but I burned it after I hid everything,” Gannon explained. Which was actually true.