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tunnel—then the world exploded.
    Fire.
    Smoke.
    Pelting rocks and stinging grit.
    Jordan shook free of McKay’s embrace but stayed on his knees.
    He took in deep gulps of fresh air, trying to clear his head.
    He watched for any sign of the leopards through the smoke, but the tunnel had completely collapsed. As he stared, an avalanche of rock continued to flow down from above, further sealing the passageway, reburying those bones along with the two leopards inside.
    â€œHow many land mines did you use?” Jordan gasped out, his ears still ringing from the blast.
    â€œJust one. Didn’t have time to dig up more than that. Plus, it was enough.”
    Before him, the mass of Shahr-e-Gholghola steamed and shuddered. Jordan pictured the subterranean cavern collapsing into stony ruin below. More explosions ripped through the ruins, blasting smoke and rock.
    â€œThe quaking is triggering other land mines to blow,” McKay said. “We’d better haul ass out of the way.”
    Jordan didn’t argue, but he kept a wary eye on the ruins.
    They retreated to the thatched-roof house. Cooper came stumbling out to meet them. Blood ran down one side of his face.
    â€œWhat happened?” Jordan asked.
    But before Cooper could answer, Jordan hurried past his teammate to find the home empty.
    What the hell . .  .
    Concern for the girl spiked through him.
    Cooper explained. “As soon as you went into the cave, the girl dove through the window. I tried to go after her, but that damned professor clubbed me, screaming, ‘Let her go! Let the demons take her.’ That guy was a whack job from the beginning.”
    â€œWhere are they now?”
    â€œI don’t know. I just woke back up.”
    Jordan sprinted out of the hut. Falling snows filled in their tracks but he could see that the girl’s tiny feet pointed west, the professor’s east. They’d gone in opposite directions.
    McKay caught up to him.
    A thump-thumping beat echoed in the distance.
    A helicopter, ablaze with light, came sweeping toward them from Bamiyan, drawn like moths to a flame. The Rangers had heard the explosions.
    â€œGreat,” McKay said. “ Now the cavalry comes.”
    â€œWhat’s next, Sarge?” Cooper asked.
    â€œWe let someone else get the professor,” Jordan said, rediscovering his outrage. It flowed through him, warming him, telling him what he must do, centering him again at long last. “We go get that little girl.”
    T HREE DAYS LATER , I sit in my nice warm office at the Afghan Criminal Techniques Academy. All the paperwork has been filed; the case is closed.
    The events surrounding that night were blamed on a single unusual finding at the ruins of Shahr-e-Gholghola: a gas signature emanating from deep underground. The gas was a hydrocarbon compound called ethylene, known to cause hallucinations and trancelike states.
    I remember my own confusion, the things I thought I saw, the things I wished I hadn’t. But they weren’t real. They couldn’t have been. It was the gas.
    The scientific explanation works for me. Or at least I want it to.
    The reports also attribute the leopards’ strange and aggressive behavior to the same hydrocarbon toxification.
    Other loose ends are also resolving.
    Professor Atherton was found a mile from the ruins of Shahr-e-Gholghola—barefoot, raving, and suffering from hypothermia. He ended up losing most of his toes.
    McKay, Cooper, and I had searched through the night for the little girl, and eventually I found her nestled in a shallow cave, unharmed and warm as toast in my coat. I’d been grateful to find her, relieved that I had cared enough to keep searching. Maybe I’d find my way back to those innocent Iowa cornfields someday after all.
    The girl had no memory of the events at the ruins, likely a blessing. I’d taken her to a doctor, then turned her over to her relatives in Bamiyan, thinking that was the