“Well, I think you deserve a week off.”
They drove in silence after that. Peyton didn’t see a single building outside—no homes, no businesses. Except for the paved road that carved through the hills, this place was untouched by civilization.
“We’re coming up on it,” she said as she studied the Labyrinth Reality app. “A hundred yards to destination.”
Desmond slowed the car. “Direction?”
“Roughly ten o’clock.”
The road curved to the right. There was no driveway or path leading in the coordinates’ direction. Desmond pulled the car off the road and parked.
“Stay here.”
“No way.”
“Peyton—”
“I’m coming with you.”
“All right,” he said, resigned. It was the reaction of someone who had been married twenty years and knew when an argument was futile.
Outside the car, they crept into the forest. The ground rose with every step; the road sat in a valley. Ancient evergreen trees surrounded them. Between their canopy and the fog, the light of the moon and the aurora faded away. Peyton could see less than twenty feet ahead of them.
She touched Desmond’s shoulder, then pointed at the flashlight she held, silently asking him if she should switch it on.
He shook his head no. His rifle was slung over his shoulder, a handgun in one hand. With his other hand, he reached back, took Peyton’s hand, and led her through the dark forest.
It was utterly quiet. She heard no animals stirring, no birds calling. When she stepped on a branch and snapped it, the sound seemed deafening. Desmond froze.
“Sorry,” she whispered.
He waited for any reaction, any sound. But the forest remained still and quiet.
“Distance?”
Peyton activated the phone. “Thirty yards. Dead ahead.”
Desmond crept forward, the gun held out now.
Peyton held her breath as they walked the last ten yards. The fog seemed to close in on all sides.
The phone beeped. A message popped up:
Labyrinth Entrance Reached
Desmond took the flashlight from her hand, turned it on, and panned around the area, cutting through the fog. Suddenly he stopped.
Peyton saw it too. Her first thought was: it’s going to explode.
Chapter 76
Desmond crept toward the small metal box that lay on the ground. “Stay back,” he whispered. “Could be booby trapped.”
She retreated behind a tree ten yards away and watched him draw his fixed-blade combat knife. With the serrated edge, he sawed a limb off a nearby tree, cut the branches off, and used it to flip the box open.
To Peyton’s relief, nothing happened.
Still cautious, Desmond stepped forward. He bent down, drew a small scrap of paper from the box, and exhaled.
“It’s a new set of GPS coordinates,” he said.
“Where?” Peyton asked.
He took the phone out and typed on it. “Still in Shetland. Maybe twenty or thirty miles from here, I think. We can drive.”
An alert popped up on the phone’s screen. It was a message from the Labyrinth Reality app:
1 Entrance Located.
She showed the message to Desmond.
He paused. “It’s the same message as before, when I opened the app in Dadaab.”
He took the phone and clicked the message. A map appeared. The location was in Australia, in the southern half, near the coast. It was rural, and as Desmond zoomed in, Peyton saw a dark spot in a green and brown landscape. He zoomed to the maximum, and Peyton’s mouth went dry. Desmond was silent. They had gone there together, fifteen years ago—to Desmond’s childhood home. The burned remains were more overgrown now, but the charred foundation of the old ranch house still rose above the weeds. There was no indication anything had changed, but Peyton didn’t know how old the satellite images were. Someone or something could be there now. Or could have been hidden there, just like at this location.
“What do you think?” she asked.
He glanced at the phone, then at the scrap of paper with the nearby GPS coordinates. “I say we check out the coordinates here, then we can decide on going to Australia.”
“Should we call Avery?” Peyton asked.
“No. Not until we know what’s going on.”
A tree-mounted, motion-activated wireless camera came to life when Desmond entered the scene. The individual who had been monitoring the feed woke and watched anxiously. It wouldn’t be long now.
Desmond and Peyton drove through the night. The fog was still heavy, but Peyton thought it was starting to lift. A constant breeze buffeted the car, as if they were driving through a giant wind tunnel. The road curved left and right as they went deeper into the mountains of Shetland.
At five hundred yards from the destination, a dirt road split off from the paved road. Desmond leaned over and saw on the phone that it led to the coordinates. He reached into his backpack and pulled the night vision goggles out. He cut the car’s headlights as he pulled the goggles on and started down the dirt road.
Three hundred yards later, he killed the engine.
“We’ll hike in.”
They walked along the tree line of the dirt road, which weaved through the forest seemingly arbitrarily. It ended in a clearing with a small cottage. There was no sign of life: no lights glowing through the windows, no smoke rising from the chimney. The rubble stone exterior was shades of gray and blue and purple; moss grew on the wooden roof. The place looked ancient, as if it had been built in the Middle Ages and abandoned.
In the dim light, Desmond gave Peyton a look that said, Stay here.
He didn’t wait for her to respond, merely handed her the key to the car and ran toward the cottage, rifle held at the ready.
Peyton held her breath as he went around the right side of the house. Ten seconds passed. Then twenty. Lights came on, the front door opened, and Desmond walked out onto the porch. He waved her toward the house.
When she reached the steps, he said, “You’ve gotta see this.”