Faith raised her eyebrows. “I find that hard to believe.”
With a light chuckle, Rawls lifted the duffle bag and slung it over his shoulder. “I’m not sayin’ he doesn’t make misjudgin’ him downright easy. But actions speak louder than words, and he’s over there protectin’ Amy and her rug rats right now.”
They’d have to agree to disagree on that particular cliché. In her opinion, words carried as much weight as action, and she had plenty of empirical data proving that Mackenzie’s loud and often nasty vocalizations marked him as a misogynistic jackass. Not that they had time for such an argument.
“I can carry something,” she offered, deliberately changing the subject.
“You sure can.” He handed her a heavy-duty metal flashlight and picked up a second one for himself. “I’ve grabbed some NVDs in case we need them, but the flashlights will do us for now.”
“NVDs?”
“Night vision devices. They’ll give our vision back if the torches go dark.” He paused to scan her frame, his gaze lingering on her face. “How you holdin’ up? That ticker of yours behavin’?”
She schooled her face into sincerity, held his gaze, and nodded. “It’s ticking away just fine.”
Which wasn’t a complete lie. At the moment it was beating normally. And he hadn’t asked about earlier incidents . . .
Instead of easing, the tension on his face intensified. He frowned. “How much Cordarone you got left?”
The pill count wasn’t something she could exaggerate. Not when he needed to know where the pill was in case her heart flatlined and she lost consciousness or couldn’t get to the tablet herself.
“I’ve got one left. It’s in my right pocket.” She offered him a tight smile. “I guess we can’t count on Wolf making a medicine drop under the circumstances.”
A moment of concern touched his face, but he quickly buried it. His blond hair flashed beneath the overhead lights as he shook his head.
“Not the original drop. But we’ve got the sat phone. After we rendezvous with the others in the hub, we’ll call him. Fill him in.” He offered her a reassuring smile. “Hell, knowin’ Kait’s big bad friend, he’ll probably grab the closest chopper and mount a rescue.”
It was doubtful the phone would work in the tunnels, let alone the hub—where the various tunnels intersected. The hub was a natural stone cavern seven hundred feet or so from where they currently stood. The rock would block the satellite signal, making the phone ineffectual.
But she swallowed her reservations and tried to project confidence. There was nothing they could do about their lack of outside communication at the moment. At least they had the phone on them. Worst case, someone could sneak outside and send off an SOS.
“Flashlights on,” Rawls said, lifting the duffle bag from his shoulder and easing the strap over his head until it hung from his upper back. “Stay on my six. Yell if I go too fast.”
He didn’t wait for her confirmation, just turned toward the steel shelf beside them and pressed a lever on the inside of the top rung. He stepped back as the metal unit jerked and slid out from the wall, revealing a thick, black hole. Once it stopped moving, he dragged it back another foot.
“Pull the door shut behind you.” He grunted with satisfaction as the beam from his flashlight ruptured the profuse darkness.
With a deep breath, Faith followed his bent back and the jiggling canvas bag into the tight enclosure. Bending slightly herself, she stopped just inside the tunnel, her flashlight beam bouncing across water-streaked concrete walls. The thick metal door with its attached shelf slid back into place with remarkable ease and hardly any effort on her part. She aimed the flashlight at the door’s bottom, it had to be mounted on some kind of roller.
“You need help?”
A hint of impatience sharpened the question. Apparently she wasn’t going fast enough for his liking.
“I got it,” she said, turning to follow him.
This obviously wasn’t the time to let her curiosity get the better of her. Not that they were in any real danger being twenty feet beneath the ground and protected by a multitude of locked, electronically sealed steel doors.
She studied the walls, floor, and ceiling of their current tunnel as they struck out for the rendezvous point. It looked like some kind of huge concrete pipe—the thick, round ones used for sewers or flash-flood drainage. It was tall enough for her to stand upright, although there wasn’t enough room for the two of them to walk side by side.
The cylinders must have been difficult to handle, considering how huge they were and the fact that they were buried so deep in the ground. Installing them would have required excavation equipment, which must have been brought in by helicopter since the camp was so removed.
“You okay back there?” Rawls’s voice broke into her thoughts.
“I’m fine,” she said, looking up. A metallic shimmer drew her attention toward his left hip.