The Labyrinth Key

by Christopher Cartwright

  Their gaze met without the need for words.

  Tom turned to Armando. His tone echoed that of the academic’s tone earlier in the Jeep- a man who knew his corner and knew it well. A tone spared from being labeled condescension by politeness, and politeness alone. Sam knew the anger was spurred by fear.

  “Armando, you have to understand, dives are actually very dangerous alone. According to the United States Marines, almost twenty percent of divers-”

  “Please.” Armando held up his hands. “I know the stats and I know that it is not without risks. But I have sent men down in these caves, or caves like them, three times before. And trust me – diving in these caves, having a partner with you…” He looked at them straight, as if he wished it were different. “This only endangers both parties. I speak from experience.”

  For a moment, no one spoke as they considered their options.

  Finally, Sam shrugged. “I’ll go, Tom.”

  Tom shook his head stubbornly. “Fat chance. If there’s an emergency, you get stuck or worse. Just no way…”

  “I’ve got less chance of getting stuck than you.”

  Armando broke in, hands raised to deter an argument. “It is a question of space, gentlemen. You must understand that some of these crevices are extremely narrow, and the likelihood that you would be able to help one another in such an event… say, for example, you, Mr. Reilly,” nodding toward Sam to illustrate his point, “make it through a narrow crevice successfully. You beckon Mr. Bower, here, who is much broader than you, forward. Because of your prowess, you think you can manage. He gets stuck. Not through any fault of his skill, simply because of his size. And then…” He spread his hands, helpless. “He can’t get out and now, Mr. Reilly, you are stuck in the chamber beyond.” He looked at them levelly. “You must consider which benefits outweigh the risks.”

  Tom set his chin. “At least you’d have company when you go.”

  For a moment, they sat in silence. Sam had been around enough dying men to know that the company of a friend sometimes made all the difference in the world.

  Armando tilted his head and Sam wondered again if he’d had military training. “Yes,” he allowed, finally. “That is true. You would have company.”

  Sam turned to him, running a hand through his hair. “There are no other options?”

  “No,” replied Armando. “As I said, there are portions of the tunnel that are very narrow – ten inches, even a foot in diameter, and we’ll all be endangering ourselves if we clog the system up with bodies.”

  Sam considered this carefully, yet he knew that Armando was right. They would have to make the dives individually.

  “All right, we’ll go separately,” conceded Sam.

  Armando smiled, triumph fierce behind his eyes. Tom snorted, but Sam saw the gears turning behind his eyes, too. Finally, Tom got to his feet. “I’d like to see you dive with SCUBA gear while getting harpoons shot at you by the Italian mafia, Mr. Ayala,” he said. “Or get out of Dragon Cave by yourself.” He jerked his thumb at the men loading up the trucks. “You need me, I’ll be helping out while I can.”

  Sam laughed. Low morale was dangerous morale. “I guess you’ll be taking all the SCUBA tanks out of the truck yourself!” he called after.

  Tom turned, glowering. “You bet your ass I will!”

  “Really? How much would you say my ass is worth?”

  “Guess we’ll know when you haul it up out of hell.” Tom scratched his forehead, fighting a grin, and Sam knew he was seduced by the thrill of the chase. “Guess it should be worth at least a couple of bucks.”

  Armando laughed, and Sam got the sense he knew exactly what Sam was doing. His estimation of the man rose when he said with a wink, “Oh, a couple of bucks? I wouldn’t bet on that. Sounds like a lot.”

  By now the conversation had taken a joking turn and the locals had gathered around, watching the exchange with amusement. Though they spoke minimal English, it was clear they understood the dynamic.

  Tom scoffed. “How about you carry these tanks through the jungle, Mr. Reilly? I’m sure your enthusiasm will make them feel like little pillows.”

  Sam’s laugh was interrupted by a shout from the overseer, who gestured at the loaded Jeeps.

  “Everything off. Time to go.” The broken words would have sounded terse and unfriendly from anyone else, but the man’s beaming face and friendly tone proved that it was merely the language barrier – he was proud to show off his English skills to these foreigners. He glanced inquiringly at Armando and said something in Spanish. Then he rubbed his fingers together in the universal sign for money.

  Tom and Armando looked at each other and burst out laughing.

  Sam brushed his hands. Mission accomplished. All the equipment had been unloaded during their bickering. Sam couldn’t help but crack a smile, despite his anxiety at the perilous trek awaiting them. He’d faced perilous treks before- they both had, and a good team made up for quite a bit.

  Trekking through a jungle with diving equipment was a lot easier said than done. Tom and Armando had formed a temporary alliance and forced Sam to lug all three tanks. However, as the humidity levels went through the roof and the mud got thicker the deeper they traveled into the jungle, the carts the two had opted to use to pull instead of carry the tanks dug deep into the ground, grinding them to a halt.

  Sam had never been much of a tree-hugger. He was more interested in beating the jungle and getting to the treasures it hid, but it was impossible not to be intrigued by the new types of plants and insects that he saw everywhere. He looked to his left and there were exquisite flowers in shades of violet to green, with endless variations of numbers of petals. He looked right. A tree towered above him, branches reaching to the sky and shielding their skin from the harsh rays of the sun.

  Occasionally, Armando would hold his arm out, stop the group, and stab a surprisingly wicked-looking knife into a seemingly random tree. He would then stick a wooden spigot into it, like a cork into a wine keg. After a few moments, water would begin dripping out like a leaky faucet. How Armando found the right kinds of trees, Sam had no idea. Tom and Sam had both learned trail craft in the Marines, and it had served them well on a number of occasions during deployment and after. But this was a whole other level – these were not skills acquired and filed away because someday they might be useful. This was the locals’ everyday life; and their motions reflected this bone-deep familiarity. Of course they knew the ins and outs of the jungle.

  As he trudged forward, Sam suddenly realized that he no longer had to fight the vines to stumble through. Was the jungle clearing up? Sam looked up hopefully. “Hey.” He reached out and tugged the shirt of the nearest man who hoisted a SCUBA tank on his head like some kind of science fiction crown. “How much longer?” At the look of incomprehension, he mangled a sentence he wasn’t even quite sure was Spanish.

  To Sam’s dismay, the local laughed in a bright show of teeth that reminded Sam of those flowers. He waved his hand into the distance, again and again, his meaning quite clear: ‘We’re not even halfway there’ gesture. The hand dipped, then, demonstrating a motion like a plane coasting in for landing. The man grinned and slapped Sam’s arm in encouragement. Don’t worry, Sam interpreted, the next part’s all downhill.

  A regular hiker would have sighed with relief at the notion of an easy downhill climb. Sam knew better. Downhill treks, especially on a dense jungle floor full of vines, leaves, and other tripping hazards, were the most dangerous part of any jungle hike. His worry was tripled by the fact that each hiker was carrying just about his own body weight in gear. The three empty air tanks hanging from the ropes he’d slung over his shoulder had already started to take its toll, and the prospect of gravity increasing on them weighed his heart, too. His muscles burned with every step, the unyielding plastic fibers digging into his sweaty t-shirt. There was no way he could keep going, at this rate. From what he could hear, it wasn’t much better for his friends either. They were panting like do
gs in the humidity. Sam plopped himself down on a rotting log off to the side and practically threw the tanks off his back and into the mud, relieved to have them off.

  Sam said, “Guys, I call time. Let’s take a break.”

  Tom, having similar thoughts, set his equipment down next to Sam’s. As the duo watched the rest of the group stumble down what seemed to be a near vertical hill while bantering effortlessly back and forth with the ease of people who do this all the time, Sam suddenly noticed something.

  “Hey, who is that new guy?” He pointed.

  Tom stared blankly, trying to home in on whatever Sam’s finger was pointing at. “Where?”

  “Over there. There. The guy carrying less stuff than anyone else.” Sam tried not to sound annoyed but, if the man had room to spare, he’d be happy to share.

  Tom scanned the group, searching as the team stopped to take a break in a distant patch of shade. Sam watched as the man in question took a lengthy drink from his water bottle.

  “Oh, he’s the doctor. An anesthesiologist. Apparently Armando isn’t taking any chances with the team’s safety on this expedition.”

  “We have a doctor?” Sam’s brows rose. “I don’t know if that makes me feel better or worse.” He squinted. There is nothing about this man that indicates his profession, he thought. As he watched, jealous, he put his water bottle away and took out a sandwich, devouring it in a matter of bites. Sam’s stomach growled.

  He rubbed his hands on his pants to cover it up and pushed to his feet. His body groaned in protest. “Hey, let’s go. We don’t want to get left behind.”

  As Sam and Tom resumed their downhill climb, Sam quickly realized that although the locals were slow, they were faster than he or Tom could ever hope to be. By the time he reached some level ground, he was panting. Armando, waiting for him at the base, seemed barely out of breath.

  “We’re here,” he announced. Without looking back, Armando plowed through a wall of bushes and disappeared.

  Sam and Tom glanced at each other, shrugged, then followed.

  Sam tripped over a few thick roots that were sprouting one on top of the other and lost his balance when the gear on his back shifted, causing him to tumble hands-first into the bushes Armando had slipped through. It was not the graceful entrance he’d have preferred, but the foliage easily gave way; almost as if it wanted Sam to see what was on the other side.

  The first thing that caught his eye was the brilliant radiance of the pool before him. Sam had witnessed such amazing shades of blue and green only once in his lifetime. At the Tomb of El Dorado. This time however, it was nature’s work and not centuries-worth of gold piled up. The colors almost appeared layered; the middle depths cast in deep shades of navy and the edges a marvelous turquoise. The pool was surrounded by reeds, like a crust and forming a barrier several feet wide. This natural barricade would have to be traversed with care prior to entering the water. Doable but, even still, something itched at the back of Sam’s mind. Something felt off.

  “Are you sure this is the right place?” Sam asked tentatively. “Sure, it’s beautiful and all, but it looks like the cover of a travel brochure for South America more than anything else. What’s so special about it?”

  Armando opened the map gripped in his right hand and made a show of squinting. He turned the map this way and that, then checked it against the pool. “Yep. This is the right place.”

  Tom’s forehead furrowed in puzzlement. “This is supposed to be the entrance to the Highway to Hell. I expected something more dramatic than this. Something… sulfurous, at least.”

  A local spoke up, speaking as his focus shifted between Sam, Tom, and the cenote. Sam raised his brows. “Translate?”

  Armando wiped his face with a handkerchief and pocketed the large square of fabric. “He says that it might look normal, but it is very special.”

  “Disguise.” The local drew his thumb across his forehead, serious. “Xibalba.”

  Sam considered the pool in a new light. Well, that made more sense, at least. “He’s saying they left it unmarked for a reason?”

  The local seemed to understand. “Not special. Seems. Conquistadors not…” He shrugged, unable to find sufficient English but Sam got the picture.

  “I guess that’s as good a solution as any.”

  Armando grinned. “So good it has remained hidden for centuries.”

  “But you’re sure this is the right place?”

  Armando’s voice hardened. “That’s what we’re hoping you’ll help us determine.”

  Tom was eyeing the pool with an engineer’s trained eye. “Where’s the opening then?”

  Armando shook his head after a subtle nod toward the locals. “They refuse to go under, and they refuse to dive. The entrance is down there, but where, exactly...”

  Sam was beginning to see why they’d been called in after all, as the local who’d spoken earlier lowered his chin and spoke fearfully, “Cannot risk. Cannot find. Curse.”

  “A curse, eh?” Sam looked at Tom who, despite his words on the patio, seemed to eye the crystal water the same way some men look at boats and cars. “I guess we’re gonna be the guinea pigs.” He laughed. “You want to go first?”

  Tom jumped at being caught longing and then grinned sheepishly. Dropping all pretense, he shared what Sam had already read on his face. “You bet I do!”

  Chapter Six

  Tom looked down at the inviting crystalline waters below, the slight breeze disturbing the surface of the pool and sending out ripples that went on endlessly in the calmness. If he closed his eyes, he could imagine himself relaxing all alone at the community pool on a scorching August afternoon, enjoying the water as the pool emptied during the hourly break.

  The journey to Xibalba would be long and arduous. From what Armando had told them, it would take every bit of his maximum dive time of three and a half hours to reach and return. To improve the odds, he would dive using a closed-circuit rebreather system.

  He opened a large duffel bag and laid out his Dräger Closed-Circuit Oxygen Rebreather on a canvas mat. The rebreather was originally designed for military use, police diving, and search and rescue, but to Tom, their rectangular, rigid aluminum backpack gave them the awkward appearance of an astronaut’s personal life-support system. Mounted on either side of this backpack were two gas cylinders. One was filled with oxygen and the other, a diluent called Trimix.

  He and Sam methodically and efficiently worked their way through their dive equipment, slowly going through the laborious process of preparing each part for the dive.

  Tom opened the aluminum backpack. Inside was an axial-type scrubber unit filled with the granular absorbent used to remove C02 from the closed-circuit during the dive. He removed the half-used cartridge and replaced it with a brand-new unit, filled with five pounds of soda lime and then reinserted it, locking the lid with a heavy-duty thread.

  He then began to test the unit for leaks. Two leak tests were conducted. These were generally known as the positive and negative pressure tests and are designed to check that the breathing loop is airtight for internal pressure lower and higher than the outside. The positive pressure test ensures that the unit will not lose gas while in use, and the negative pressure test ensures that water will not leak into the breathing loop where it can degrade the scrubber medium or the oxygen sensors.

  Next Tom tested his full-face mask for leaks.

  He took a deep breath and started pre-breathing the unit. It was a process of breathing normally for about three minutes before entering the water to ensure the scrubber material gets a chance to warm up to operating temperature, works correctly, and that the partial pressure of oxygen within the closed-circuit rebreather is controlled within the predefined parameters.

  Tom inhaled effortlessly.

  The gas he breathed was humid and warm, rather than the dry, cold air divers are used to with compressed air and a SCUBA cylinder and regulator set up.

  He checked his gauge for two things.
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  One, that C02 levels weren’t rising, meaning the new soda lime scrubber was doing its job correctly and two, that the partial pressure of oxygen within the closed-circuit remained within the initial set point of 1.3 bar.

  Tom ran his eyes across the top reading, where a nondispersive infrared sensor showed that the C02 levels weren’t elevating. Below that, his glance stopped to examine the reading from the oxygen analyzer. It showed the partial pressure of oxygen as 1.3 bar.

  Three minutes later, he said to Sam, “I’m all good to go.”

  Sam double checked his equipment, giving him the all good signal.

  Armando’s voice rose up and spilled over the loud crowd. “Good luck, Tom. I wish I could come with you.”

  Tom raised one eyebrow and gestured to the pool. “Thanks Armando. You’re welcome to come with me, if you like.”

  “I wish I could, but there’s no way I would survive a dive like this,” the Mexican historian confessed as he parted the reeds and approached Tom. His face turned serious. “You’ve got all the equipment? Everything ready?”

  Tom double checked his dive equipment. “All good.” He waddled over to the edge of the cenote and splashed the surface with his flippers.

  Sam swept a magnanimous bow. “Then we’re ready when you are.”

  Positioning the full facemask on himself, Tom dipped into the waters below, head first. The water was warmer than he expected. Tom didn’t like it. Instead of perking him up and keeping him on his toes, the water enveloped his body like the towels his grandmother used to put in the dryer to warm for him after he got out of the pool. The feeling was visceral and relaxed him. He shook himself free of the memories. Warmer meant more comfortable, and in a high-stakes dive like this, the last thing he could afford to be was comfortable.