Roman Ice

by Dave Bartell

  “Ollie,” said Carmen, “you seem drawn by a memory.” Her voice brought him back to the present, and he waved away a bird that was pecking at a tomato.

  “I think I know where Darwin might come out,” he said, remembering a letter he had tucked away in their attic.

  “Where?”

  “Fort Augustus, Scotland,” he said.

  77

  The Lava Tube

  Karl stopped. “Sit. Drink water,” he said, then walked back a few steps toward Iceland and stood still.

  “What are you doing?” Stevie asked.

  “Listening.”

  “For what?” she asked. Hope flickered as she thought of followers.

  “Be quiet.”

  “Are you listening for the others? I left them a scrap of my top. They know I’m alive,” she said and felt her confidence swell.

  He strode back and shoved her to the ground. He pinned her with a knee on her chest and tore a piece of her top. Before she could catch her breath, he tied her ankles tight. She screamed in pain.

  “Stop it! What are you doing? You can’t leave me here!”

  He walked about ten meters away, knelt down and took some things out his pack. She rolled away from him and tried to focus on something other than the pain.

  “There’s the ATV,” said Eyrún.

  “Wait,” said Ian, waving them back. What did you do, Karl? He approached the ATV and shined his light around the machine, looking for a booby trap. A couple minutes later he waved them forward. “It’s just out of petrol.”

  “What about Stevie?” asked Eyrún.

  “She’s with him,” said Ian, holding up cut zip ties.

  “What’s he going to do to her, Ian?” asked Eyrún.

  “I don’t know. I doubt he planned that far ahead.”

  “Humor me and guess,” said Eyrún.

  “Use her to distract us. Keep us from getting too close if we think he’ll hurt her.”

  “For your sake, he better not,” said Eyrún.

  “We have a hostage of our own. He says he wants to get back to his fiancée. Well, let’s find out how much,” said Zac.

  They walked another hour when Eyrún stopped and knelt down to look at something. She held it up.

  “It’s a piece of cloth. What color shirt was Stevie wearing? Lavender, right?” asked Eyrún.

  “That’s hers,” said Zac.

  “Then she’s alive and expects that we’re following. C’mon,” said Eyrún.

  A couple hours later Ian saw another piece of lavender fabric. This time in the middle of the tube. Eyrún pushed around him to get it, but he tackled her to the side of the tube. Zac jumped into the fray.

  “It’s a trap!” yelled Ian. Zac stopped fighting. “Everyone back. At least a hundred meters,” said Ian, stripping off his pack. He waited for them to reach a safe distance, then crawled up to the fabric taking great care about where he placed his hands. When he was less than a meter from the cloth, he lowered his face to the floor and shined a light around the fabric.

  The lavender strip poked out from a few rocks. The smallest rock lay on top of the fabric to keep it in place. It would not have fallen that way. He eased backward, then stood up and walked back to them.

  “It’s a small IED set to injure, not kill. He knows that would slow us down more,” said Ian.

  “How so?” asked Pétur.

  “If one of were us killed, we would leave the body here. But if one of us were injured, then we would carry them.”

  “Jesus,” said Eyrún. “Is this how you people think?”

  “How do we disarm it?” asked Zac.

  “We don’t. He’s counting on us trying, and I don’t know what else he might have done to it.”

  “So what, we tiptoe around it?” asked Eyrún.

  “More or less,” said Ian. “He’s also trying to slow us down and knows I’ll be looking. He doubtless left the other strip of Stevie’s shirt as a decoy and figured we would be dumb enough to pick up this one too.”

  “I might use the same strategy,” said Zac. “How do we know that you aren’t gaming us too? You show us the first bomb to lure us into trusting you, then you walk around the second and boom, one of us is bacon.”

  “I don’t want to die down here any more than you do,” said Ian.

  “Knock it off,” said Darwin. “We need some level of trust here. Ian, you lead. Zac, you follow.”

  Ian stood over the device while they walked around him. When they were on the other side, he resumed his place at the front of the line.

  Karl kicked her foot. “Let’s go,” he said.

  “I need to pee,” she said and walked down the tube.

  “Stop there.”

  “Oh fuck off,” she said, undoing her pants. Karl turned away. She tore another small strip from her top and threw it to let the others know she was still alive. Karl had driven her hard all day, but at least he stopped every couple hours and she collapsed in a heap at each break. At one point, Karl consulted a journal or map. “What are you doing?” she asked. “Do you know a way out?” He did not answer.

  They continued walking, and she kept hoping the others caught up. But who? Jón, Pétur, and Ian were in the diamond room. Darwin and Eyrún had gone into the opposite tube. Had they gotten out? What if only Zac was left? Would he come after her?

  She realized no rescue was coming. They would have caught us by now or made some noise. With a sinking feeling she realized the knife was her best option and thought how best to catch Karl off guard. I need to draw him out.

  They stopped about an hour later. “You need sleep,” he said.

  “What about you?” she said. No answer.

  She pretended to sleep and watched him through squinted eyes. The man has to sleep sometime. She felt for the knife and reassured herself that she could do it when the time came. She saw him take something from his shirt pocket. It was smaller than the papers he had been consulting, but she could not tell what it was. He looked in her direction. She kept her eyes almost closed. He looked back at the item in his hands and, after a couple minutes, returned it to his pocket and buttoned it.

  78

  London

  After picking up Emelio at London’s Heathrow Airport and a quick dinner at home, Olivier climbed in the attic to find the letter from Angus Kinnaird. He remembered keeping it, just not where.

  “How’s it going, Ollie?” Carmen yelled from below the ladder. He jumped and whacked his head on a rafter. “Ouch. Shit.” He rubbed his head.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yes, you surprised me is all,” he said.

  “Did you find it?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Well, hurry up. Emelio got tickets for tomorrow morning at half six to Inverness. You need to pack and have time get some sleep,” she said.

  “Okay.”

  At last he recalled where he had put the Scotland research. He moved a few boxes of holiday decorations that were on top of a box of his old university papers. He lifted the lid and sneezed from the dust. Pinching his nose, he tabbed through the folders until he found it. A folder labelled: “Fort Augustus.” He remembered the day the letter arrived. They were rushing out their flat to one of Darwin’s football matches. Along with the usual junk in the post was a note from Angus Kinnaird that he shoved in his pocket to read later. He smiled at the recollection of a younger, clumsier Darwin as he lifted the letter from the folder. Turning toward the light, he read.

  Dear Olivier,

  We found the cave. It was farther north than we looked. A shepherd who came into the pub described a cave he found while chasing some errant members of his flock off a higher ridge. He said it was hidden behind a large outcropping and could only be seen from the side. He guided us there the next weekend.

  Sure enough, the cave mouth looks out across a line of peaks that fits the “three sisters” you described. The enclosed photo shows the peaks although it is difficult to see on account of the lovely Scottish w
eather. The cave extends inward about 10 meters before narrowing into a declining passageway that is easy to follow. While it is hard to estimate distance underground, I sensed we traversed half a kilometer then began a steeper descent.

  After a couple hours, it opened into a chamber. A stream rolled off the edge onto rocks below. I belayed my daughter about 10 meters down for a closer look. From below, she said there were two tunnels — one under the ledge where I stood — both over 7 meters round. Maybe these are the Roman mines you talked about. She took a photo with her flash camera, but it shows little detail.

  We talked about plans to explore the cave on our way back home, but it was not to be. That week they diagnosed my wife with pancreatic cancer and, sadly, I lost her three months later. Before passing, she made me promise to give up caving. She never liked it. Said it was a dirty and dangerous pastime and she didn’t want our daughter to lose both parents.

  I kept my promise, and anyway, my Coira isn’t interested in caving anymore. I can take you to the cave entrance, but won’t go in with you. Perhaps you can credit us with the discovery.

  Kindest Regards,

  Angus

  The wrinkled envelope contained three photographs. One showed a round black center surrounded by dark brown rocks. He guessed this was the tunnel. The second was of a mountain labeled ‘From the cave mouth’. The last photo, although overexposed from the flash, showed a symbol on a rock.

  A faded cross shape. Lines connected five dots that looked chiseled. The two dots at the top of the cross were set close to each other. A line scratched between them angled down to the left. It looked familiar. It was a symbol of some sort. He jumped up almost whacking his head on another rafter.

  “Papa, do you still have that picture Darwin texted you from Iceland?” he yelled.

  79

  The Lava Tube

  Pétur’s limp had increased. Eyrún checked him again but found no obvious injury. His chief complaint was pain and cramping in his upper right hip. They distributed more of Pétur’s pack among themselves until he was just carrying a water bottle.

  “What do you think?” asked Darwin.

  “I’m not sure, but he’s hiding how bad it hurts,” said Eyrún.

  Ian stopped them a few more times to inspect suspicious looking groups of rocks. It was unclear if these naturally occurred or Karl was messing with them. Little conversation took place and Darwin called a halt. “Stop. Pétur’s tired. I’m tired. I don’t want us making a mistake, like missing a trap.”

  “I can go ahead,” said Ian.

  “Like hell,” said Zac. “We stop. You stop.”

  Eyrún gave Pétur the last of the ibuprofen and Ian helped move him to a flatter spot, but they could not get him in a comfortable position either sitting or lying down. They placed packs behind him which seemed to help as he quieted down. Ian helped him eat. At first Eyrún protested Ian’s involvement, but Pétur said it was fine, so she crossed to the other side of the tube and sat against the wall next to Darwin to check his bandages.

  Zac was up the tube a short distance setting up some kind of perimeter warning. “In case Karl comes back,” he had said.

  “No,” said Ian. “He’s making a run for it.”

  “Was he always like this?” Pétur asked Ian.

  “Who?” said Ian.

  “Karl.”

  “I heard he was better,” said Ian.

  “Better from what? You said you met in Zimbabwe. What was going on?” asked Eyrún.

  “Guerrilla fighting against the government.”

  “Why?” asked Pétur.

  “Mugabe’s corrupt regime took our land and redistributed it. Some of us fought back,” said Ian.

  “Us? How did you get involved?” asked Eyrún.

  “My family was in Rhodesia for a hundred and fifty years and I was one of the first children born after Zimbabwe became independent. My father was a trusting man and believed in a peaceful transition. I saw the corruption when I entered university in Harare and told my father to resist, but he never wanted to hear it. I met up with some people on campus who said they were fighting back against the government stealing land. At first, it was just protests and legal action, but it was useless. Then one day I heard that the government sent the army to seize our farm. My friends and I attacked the soldiers, and I spent three weeks in jail. It was Robert who bailed us out. I don’t know what he saw in me, but he listened in a way my father never did,” said Ian.

  “What’s Karl’s story?” asked Pétur, who rested his head on a pack.

  “He killed a government agent,” said Ian.

  “So he is a killer,” said Eyrún.

  “It was self-defense. The government came to ‘buy’ his farm. When he refused, one man grabbed Karl’s wife. I don’t know the whole story, but Karl hit the man, who stumbled and struck his head on a post. The next day more men came. Troops posing as a gang. They raped and killed Karl’s wife and daughters. They told him when they came back, he’d better be gone.”

  “My god,” said Eyrún.

  “It was happening all over. I first met Karl about a year after they killed his family. He was one of Robert’s captains and feared by the military.”

  “When did you get to South Africa?” said Pétur, now sounding nearer to sleep than consciousness.

  “We left Zimbabwe after a few years when we knew nothing would change. Robert joined a security firm in South Africa and brought most of us across.”

  Pétur began snoring.

  “No wonder the man is the way he is,” said Darwin.

  “Sympathy for the Devil,” said Zac, who had walked up midway through the story and continued singing the Rolling Stones song to himself.

  Stevie sat and chewed on a protein bar after another grueling day. Her limbs were heavy. I need to do something soon. He must be tired. She watched Karl open his pocket again. She was closer this time and could tell it was two photographs. He returned them to his shirt and got up to attach a cord from his wrist to the zip tie on her ankle. “I need sleep. If you try to run, I’ll know.”

  She pretended to sleep until Karl snored. Then, she crawled over and unbuttoned his pocket. She slid out a plastic covered photo of a woman and two girls standing on the porch of a house. They wore summer dresses, hats and gloves like it was a special occasion. A second photo was just the woman. She put them back in the plastic and slid the bundle into the pocket. Her foot slipped on a rock. She froze. Karl jerked at the sound and only turned. But he folded his left arm across his chest.

  Merde! Her heart pounded in her ears. There was no way to button it. The muscles in her arm twitched from holding herself in an awkward position. With painstaking care she kept slack in the cord connecting them and shuffled back to her spot.

  Karl woke up and winced at the pain in his neck and back. The furious pace was taking its toll. He rubbed out the kinks while thinking out what to do. Another of Robert’s plans gone to shit. Goddamnit, Ian. Why did you do it? Fuck, it’s time to get out here and disappear.

  He weighed his options. An explosion large enough to block the tube might kill him. And the woman slowed him down. He thought through the cryptic notes he had copied from Darwin’s notebook. The place to get rid of them is the waterfall. The woman will lure them in. That Zac guy will want to save her.

  He noticed his shirt pocket had come unbuttoned. He pulled out the contents. The photos were reversed from what he remembered. He looked at her sleeping form. Could she have done it?

  “Get up, bitch,” said Karl kicking her foot. He cut the zip ties on her ankles and thrust a flask in her direction. “Drink. Let’s get moving.”

  “I have to pee,” she said, and walked some yards down the tube. She squatted and seemed not to care if he watched. When she walked back, he waited until she was looking at him to button his pocket, watching for any sign of alarm.

  Stevie sensed Karl walking on her heels all morning. She had tried to cover her earlier panic with a stretch. Think. There
has to be a way.

  She had skill with a blade, courtesy of a former boyfriend in the French Commando Hubert who was aroused by knife play. She had initially liked the danger, but left because of his violent undercurrent. But that was just for sex. Can I really kill him? she debated with herself while they walked. He intends to kill me. First blow has to be self-defense. Right?

  A hissing sound ahead of them had been growing louder and now resolved into water splashing on rocks. Humidity had increased and the empty darkness took on a light gray haze. She recognized the smells of lichens and then the tube ended. She peered over the edge at a dark pool, its surface ridged from the splattering water. Mist roiled up from the pool and beaded on her skin and clothing. She followed the water up about ten meters to its source, a stream that flowed off a ledge in front of a triangular mouthed cave. The waterfall fanned out in a two meter wide curtain that poured into the pool obstructing another lava tube straight across from her.

  Black slime, thickest near the waterfall’s edges, draped the walls of what looked like a volcanic shaft. The chamber was more compact, only seven meters across, than the diamond chamber, but disappeared into darkness when she looked up. Comme c’est joli—how pretty, she thought, closing her eyes and breathing in the soft, wet air. Except that I’m down here with this idiot. She scanned the room looking for a place that would give her some advantage.

  “Go. There,” said Karl pointing to the ledge in the cave mouth.

  “You can’t be serious,” she said. “Those rocks look unstable. Why do I need to go there?” The only path she could see was up a large pile of sharp boulders on the left.

  “It’s the only way out,” he said pulling out a rope and trying to pass it between her thighs.

  “I know how to do it,” she said slapping his hands away and taking the rope. She passed the short rope between and around her legs to fashion a crude climbing harness. When she finished, he stepped behind her and lifted her by the harness. She gasped as it pulled at her groin. She turned and shoved him as hard as she could. He held her off, and she kicked him in the shin. He punched her chest with his palm, sending her falling backwards. The rocks! She spun and absorbed the impact with her hands, her face stopping just at the edge of the lava tube. The pool was a couple meters below. There were a few larger rocks, more like blocks that tumbled off the lava tube opening.