by Alec Peche
“I remember what was bothering my subconscious. We forgot to scan the car this morning for bugs. I'm guessing they are coming for us.”
All five stood on the hillside looking for places to run to or hide. The hillside back toward the car had a few boulders to hide behind. The hillside toward Lake Garcia had few places to hide and they would be sitting ducks.
“Let's try the cave,” suggested Marie. “I'd rather risk a cave-in then being shot by armed men.”
“Do any of our cell phones work?” Jo asked.
They all took a moment and several had no service while Marie's phone had a single reception bar.
“Who should we call?”
“Let's try Rosso or Cavallaro as we won't have to explain who we are and why we care about the two cars. Marie, you call them, I'm going to look for a way into the cave. Does everyone have good battery power on their phone? It will be dark in there and we'll need to use the flashlight function,” Jill said. Then added, “Sorry, guys, that I got you into such horrible trouble.”
“We'll survive. We always do,” Jo said. “The world needs us to continue solving murders and finding people justice. We'll be on the plane tonight.”
They paused for a group hug except for Marie who was talking to someone on the phone. At least they notified the authorities of where they were. Angela thought about sending her mother a text to say 'I love you', but that would only alarm her and her mom knew she had Angela's love. They needed to move.
Nathan stayed as outlook but knew beyond a certain point of the hillside he would be unable to see the car and its occupants.
Marie closed her phone and return to the group walking toward the cave entrance.
“I reached Sara Cavallaro and relayed out situation and position. They are on their way. Fortunately, they are not far away, but still it won't take us long to be dead. At least the police know where to look for our bodies.”
“Not to scare you, but I think if they are carrying guns, they aren't trying to be subtle. I think they'll murder us and then dump our bodies in the water and let the current take us away, or weight us down with weights a mile or two offshore.”
“That's an encouraging thought, Jill, thanks for painting the picture for us,” said Nathan sarcastically.
“So will our bodies drift to Africa or mainland Italy or will we sink after a certain time?” Marie asked as they peered around the barrier at Entella Cave.
“Your body will float for one to two weeks and the flesh will be picked off by scavengers like birds. When it's just your skeleton left, it will sink by no later than two weeks after you're dumped in the ocean.”
“You're destroying my zen feelings of twenty minutes ago,” Jo said.
They'd all been whispering, not wanting their voices to carry. They arrived at the elliptical entrance to the cave. It was raised off the ground and had plywood and a notice in Italian that it was closed. Marie wiggled the plywood, but it seemed attached to something that didn't make it easy to shove aside. Nathan tried to wiggle it as well to no effect. He looked around for something to hit the plywood with and instead stood on a rock and gave the edge a few explosive kicks. They were noisy kicks, but the plywood soon fell away. They entered the cave which was almost in complete darkness after Nathan pulled the plywood back in place.
They all glanced at their phone screen preparing to turn on the flashlight function when Jill said, “There's a text here from Cavallaro saying there's a Carabinieri helicopter on its way to us. All we need to do is stay alive long enough for the cavalry to arrive. It will take another ten minutes from now,” Jill said looking at the time to mark it.
“Let's head inside. There are likely bats and bat poop in here so watch your head and feet. As bats go, these should be relatively disease free, but they could flutter their wings at us if we get too close” Jill said.
“Better bats wings than bullets is my new motto,” Marie said.
“Yep,” agreed Nathan. As the tallest of the group he was watching the ceiling. “Jill, do you know what's inside here? Is there water? A place to hide? Chambers? ”
“I've read a little bit about it,” Angela said. “It goes on for about half a mile, and there should be places to hide along the way. Also I have a battery operated photocell for my camera that will light this place up, but it will also show the men where we are, so I would rather not use it until we are rescued.”
With her last words, the friends all reached together for a final fist pump before descending into a dark only illuminated by the phone flashlights.
Chapter 28
After receiving the poor-connection phone call from Marie Simon, Sara Cavallaro called her colleagues to see who had the fastest method to reach the four women and one man. None of the branches of law enforcement initially had access to a helicopter. They had a group approaching the village of Corleone planning on searching Salvatore Denaro's property and they were the closest to Entella Cave though still thirty minutes away. The Americans could well be dead by then, either because they were killed by the thugs or the walls of the cave collapsed on them.
She put the call into the team on the outskirts of Corleone, they were in several vehicles and included scent dogs. The way gossip carried in both law enforcement and small villages, Sara thought that Denaro probably knew of the upcoming search of his property.
“Vice-Questore Cavallaro, would we not be better to send a helicopter to reach the Americans?” asked one of the members of the Corleone search team.
“All but one of our helicopters are deployed guarding the pistachio crops at the moment around Mount Etna. I think the airtime to move one of those helicopters would take at least an hour given how far they are from Entella Cave,” Sara replied.
A small region on the northern side of Mount Etna grew a special pistachio crop that was grown nowhere else in the world that produced nuts every other year. The crop fetched a far higher price than any other pistachio nut worldwide and had been the target of thieves until the Carabinieri began guarding the crops at harvest time.
“And the last helicopter?”
“It's in Palermo for any emergencies there. If we move it, there will be no coverage for our largest city.”
“I think you should request that helicopter, I think the Americans are in dire conditions on that mountain and their deaths would harm Sicily for years to come.”
Sara wasted a few seconds thinking about it, and then agreed, a few more phone calls and the helicopter was dispatched to Entella rock with an estimated time of arrival of fifteen minutes. Given the time it would take to walk from any car to the cave, that might be enough time to save the Americans. She tried calling but got no answer and texted that information to all of the Americans' cell phone numbers that she had knowledge of hoping that one of them might get it. Marie Simon indicated when she called that her phone was the only one with cellular reception, but phones had a way of seeking reception all the time and she never knew when someone might have a few seconds of access to receive a text.
Her contact with the helicopter had assigned her a frequency that she could communicate with one of the officers aboard. They had lifted off and already exited the airspace above Palermo. Marie had reported eight men in the two cars and the information that some and perhaps all, were armed. Organized crime had never shot down a helicopter and this helicopter had five Carabinieri officers aboard and would be unable to fly all of the Americans together to safety, but should serve as a solid defense against the armed men.
Besides maybe the men were on a hunting trip and weren't at all interested in the Americans. Sara thought that was probably a fantasy on her part. She wondered how the men had known the American team was at Entella cave. Perhaps before they left their Catania apartment that morning, they didn't check for GPS trackers. She couldn't recall from any of the previous day's conversations that the Americans had ever said that they were going to visit Entella cave, so the leak didn't come from law enforcement.
She looked at her
phone to confirm that she'd received no texts from the Americans. They'd probably be inside the cave by now with no cellular reception. Then she heard the pilot mention they could see Lake Garcia and the profile of Entella Rock and there was a rapid conversation of where to land. One of the Carabinieri had a description of the entrance and GPS coordinates of the cave and knew it to be on the north side of the rock. From their altitude they could see three cars in the car park with one man leaning against one of the cars. They also spotted two men outside of what was thought to be the entrance to the cave. The copilot was unable to locate a place to land that didn't have the potential to have the rotor blades potentially clip giant boulders. Instead they used a public address system to see if they could scare some of the men off. They added a smoke grenade to the mix knowing that would get the men moving and the wind of the rotor blades would clear the smoke fairly quickly for the officers to see what was going on and rappel down from the helicopter to the ground. After the smoke dissipated, the man standing by the cars had gotten in one of the cars and drove off, while the other two men were moving rapidly away from the cave entrance and back toward the car park. Good start, thought Sara hearing the situation described over her headset. Three men down, five to go.
Three of the five Carabinieri officers rappelled to the ground with an equipment bag. The other one stayed inside the copter with the pilot ready to return when help was needed, but they were planning to set down on a distant ridge that looked safe for the rotor blades. The three approached the cave's entrance and noted the plywood barrier was leaning against the wall of the cave. Pulling equipment out of the bag that they might need including a first aid kit, headlamps, and extra ammunition they had. A quick discussion of the dangers of using a flash-bang grenade in a fragile cave. They decided to leave it behind in the bag. With headlamps on they proceeded inside then stopped to listen for voices or sounds. They could hear the rumbling of male voices and what sounded like footsteps ahead. It was pitch dark. One of the men had been in the cave as a teenager and described the walls, chambers, and passageways as he remembered them.
“Should we announce our presence?” asked one of the men.
“I'm not sure we have a choice. It's dark and tight inside in places and our night-vision goggles won't work inside an area with no ambient lighting. We'll have to use headlamps to find our way in.”
“Will we have trouble finding them? Are there multiple forks in the cave path?”
“There's only one loop in the cave. There are branches off the main path, but they are all dead-ends. There are places that we'll need our torches to see where the cave continues as it may be a few feet up off the ground.”
The men nodded and he continued, “I recommend that we go as far as possible and I'll lead. Once we get close to the other group, I will turn off my lamp as I don't want to be a target and I'll announce our presence. There are five Americans – four women and one man and we believe there are five members of the Denaro family inside. Let's hope none of them is hiding behind us. Also remember, it may be damp inside so no tasers and any use of our guns could result in severe injury with bullet ricochets. For the safety of the Americans, we would be wise to ask them to leave the cave. If we can catch them outside we'll arrest them, but I'd rather take their guns off of them and have them exit and return to their cars. Okay?”
The men nodded and they set off with as much speed as they could muster in the dark and over rocky surfaces. They came upon their quarry sooner than expected. They arrived at the first large chamber where beautiful gypsum fairyland lit up by torches. Stalactites and stalagmites created hazards to walking. By the time they reached what their leader had thought was the final chamber, they had made up considerable ground on the men and could see their lights ahead. It helped their speed to have headlamps rather than torches or cell phones to light their way.
Chapter 29
The Americans entered the cave with Angela at the front and Nathan in the back as it was better to have the tallest people book-ending their group. As Angela had predicted, there were rocks they had to climb up and over to continue along the passage. Jill, as the shortest member had to be boosted by Nathan when she wasn't tall enough to reach. They continued as fast they could into the first chamber and then discussed their strategy. They paused a moment to look around the chamber.
“This reminds me of the chase through the cemetery in the Sounds of Music movie. Let's continue to the fourth chamber as it's the largest from what I remember from the map I saw. Once there, how about if we each choose a rocky formation to hide behind. It's either that or hide in one of the dead end passages along the way,” Angela said.
They all stopped whispering as they thought they heard a distant noise.
“We better get a move on,” Angela whispered. Sounds traveled in the cave and they thought they still had some time to get farther into the cave and hope for more time for their rescuers to arrive.
“Sounds like we have company,” Nathan said. “Let's hope the Carabinieri are not far behind. I agree with Angela's suggestion. Let's work on hiding as soon as we reach the chamber, and while we're at it, let's grab some of these rock formations as weapons. Try and hide higher up in the chamber as you'll be harder to see. Aim for their light sources rather than their weapons, and hopefully they have the brains to recognize that if they shoot their guns, they are as likely to get hit by bullets as we are.”
“If I recall the final chamber has two dead-end passages and one passage that loops back to the main passage. We should probably plan to hide in those and hope that they are high or at least behind some rock formation. Of course if they're too hard to find, we won't find them either,” Angela said as she began moving forward.
On that somber note, they hustled through the cave, walking as fast as they could and even jogging in a few spots that allowed it. When they reached the last chamber by Angela's count they all quickly dispersed to the farthest reaches of the cave chamber with rocky spears in hand, turned their lights out and waited for the approaching Italian voices and it sounded loud as the men were making no effort to hide their presence.
Jill did a quick look around the chamber hoping everyone was hidden, but as no one had their lights on it was impossible to tell. As planned, Jo and Marie were hidden in one of the passages, Angela was by herself in another, and she and Nathan were in the third.
They saw the light before they saw the men. Their lights were bobbing all over the cave walls and when Jill peeked toward the entrance, she saw no guns. Perhaps this wasn't the men that they'd seen in the cars.
Then, as the men entered the chamber, they turned and she saw guns tucked into their pants. Apparently, someone in their group knew they'd needed to keep their hands free for the cave chase. They scattered around the cave looking for them while speaking Italian, so Jill had no idea what they were saying. Angela could understand she was sure, but their cellphones didn't work underground and so they had no way to communicate.
The tunnel had been cool compared to the warm Sicilian air when they first entered and in their rush to hide they'd generated heat, but now they had been still for a short time. The cold was beginning to seep into all of them, and if they didn't watch it, they would all soon have chattering teeth from shivering. Jill had her arms wrapped around each other while clutching her crude rock weapon in one hand.
They were all hoping for the appearance of the second group of lights signifying the arrival of their rescuers – the Carabinieri. Jill's heart stopped when she heard Angela's voice in Italian. They must have discovered her. She peeked from her hiding place to see if she could help defend Angela. She got up on her knees making her best softball pitch at the man closest to Angela.
The light went out close to Angela and she heard a man groan and say something in Italian and then there was a sound of someone crashing to the ground. She hoped it wasn't Angela. There were no more words from her. Jill pulled back into her hiding place as a light approached the area she and Nathan were hiding
in. Nathan passed her another rock as he coiled tightly ready to kick out at anyone that got close. The light continued to bob and weave toward their hiding place as a man held his light down to see where he was stepping. At the moment the man passed their hiding place which was elevated about four feet above the floor of the cave chamber, Nathan sprang a single leg kick to the man's head. The light source which must have been a cell phone flipped down as the man dropped with a groan.
Jill whispered in Nathan's ear, “Two down, three to go.” She had counted the number of light sources that entered the chamber. With two lights out it was darker inside the chamber.
On the other side of the room, they heard further grunts in Italian as another light source was extinguished by either Jo or Marie. Three down, two to go she thought, then she saw an additional light source enter the chamber and thought, 'rats here comes additional men'. Then a voice rang out and something was commanded in Italian. She wondered if this was the boss's arrival. There was momentary silence until she heard Angela's voice in Italian. Why was she giving her position away?
“The Carabinieri has arrived, stay where you are,” Angela advised her English speaking friends.
There was a further conversation which no one but Angela understood. Then the two men carrying lights exited the chamber minus their guns that had been in the back of their pants. There was a moment of quiet, then the room got much brighter as lights were turned brighter. Jill and Nathan heard a rustling followed by a few more words in Italian by Angela. Then Jill was squinting over the sudden bright light that originated from where Angela had been hiding. All at once they could see the beauty of the chamber they were in, as well as two men lying flat and another one sitting against the wall holding his bloody head. Everyone else in the chamber was adjusting their eyes to the sudden illumination.
After a moment, one of the Carabinieri officers said, “Ladies and gentleman, I believe you can come out now. I am Tenete Greco of the Carabinieri. Are you injured?”