Zulu's deep, hoarse voice was suddenly close by his right ear. "What's the matter, Bone-man?"
Bone held his flash steady on the rock in front of them. "If I'm right, that slab is balanced on the lip of a crevasse; it will tip if anyone steps on it. Or if any of those pebbles fall, Prindle will hear it and know we're here. Can you brace the edges of it?"
Zulu grunted, then got down on his stomach, extended his arms and gripped the edges of the slab.
"Got it," Zulu said quietly. "You were right; it wouldn't take much to tip this thing."
"Hold it steady," Bone said, then knelt down and painstakingly began to pick the small pebbles off the slab's surface. When he had finished, he touched Zulu's shoulders, felt his bunched muscles. "Can you pull it back—easy—just far enough so that it won't tip if we step on it?"
In response, Zulu sucked in a deep breath, hunched his shoulders and began to pull on the slab. There was a slight grating sound, and he stopped. The slab had been moved almost two inches.
"Bone-man? I don't want to make too much noise."
"That may be enough. Very carefully, slowly, release the pressure and see what happens."
Zulu slowly began to release his grip—and the slab began to tilt. He grunted softly, pulled the rock back another inch, again relaxed his grip. The slab began to tilt, then held.
"Okay, Bone-man," Zulu said with a deep sigh. "I think she'll stay there as long as we don't do too much tap dancing on it."
Bone motioned for Lightning to come closer, then addressed the two men, turning away slightly so that they could not see the blood on the front of his shirt. "Are you two okay?" When Zulu and Lightning nodded, Bone continued, "If you watch what I do and move exactly as I do, neither of you should have trouble getting past this section. Then we put on the night-vision goggles. Stay close behind me, step where I step and try not to make a sound. When we reach the other side of this little hole in the ground, we'll be very close."
(ii)
Bone, wearing his infrared goggles, sat in the darkness, his back braced against cold stone, trying to slow the beating of his heart and fight against the feeling of despair that threatened to overwhelm him. Throughout their long journey, which had now stretched to almost fifteen hours, his energy reserve had been fueled principally by hope. Now that hope was almost gone. He was at the top of an incline, fifteen yards from the edge of the ancient, sunken graveyard and one of the entrances to the vast stone chamber. If there was anyone in the chamber, flickering light should clearly be visible from this vantage point. But there was only darkness. It seemed he had risked all their lives on a journey that had led to nothing but more empty darkness.
He took a deep breath, signaled for Zulu and Lightning to follow, then started down the incline, taking care to avoid stepping on the ossified bones underfoot. He came to the entrance to the chamber, pressed back against the wall, peered around the edge of the mouth of the tunnel—and almost cried out.
Barry Prindle, wearing his purple priest's chasuble, was lying prostrate, sprawled in front of his stone altar.
But there was no sign of Anne.
At Bone's signal, Lightning—who had removed the cotton padding from his rifle and fitted the scope—came forward, followed by Zulu. Lightning nodded to Bone and Zulu; all three men stripped off their goggles. Bone and Zulu turned on their powerful flashlights while the police lieutenant raised the rifle to his shoulder and sighted on the still figure on the far side ol the quicksand pit.
"All right, you son-of-a-bitch!" Lightning snapped in a voice that was clear and powerful despite his obvious exhaustion. "You move a muscle, and you get a rifle slug right between the shoulder blades."
"Don't kill him!" Bone said in an urgent whisper.
Lightning shook his head, whispered, "I won't; I just want him to think I will." He paused, then barked: "All right, Prindle, sit up slowly!"
The draped, still figure of Barry Prindle did not move, and Bone could not tell if the man was breathing. He played his flashlight around the great chamber, still saw no sign of Anne.
"You two wait here," Perry Lightning continued curtly. "Now it's my show."
Lightning, his rifle held at the ready, went into the chamber, circled the pool of quicksand, cautiously approached Pi-indie and poked him in the ribs with the toe of his shoe. When then-was still no response, the detective knelt down beside the figure and reached for Prindle's right wrist to feel for a pulse.
Bone felt a prickly sensation at the back of his neck. "Be careful, Lieutenant!" he called out. "There's something—!"
Suddenly there was a blur of motion. Prindle spun around, and the razor in the hand Lightning had been reaching lot glinted in the beams of the flashlights. Lightning leaped backward, raising his arm to protect his throat, and the blade slashed across his wrist and forearm. Blood spurted. Lightning cried out and fell backward, the rifle dropping from his hand and skittering off into the darkness. Prindle was instantly on his feet. He grabbed Lightning's flashlight, played it across the stone behind him until he saw the rifle and headed for it
Both Bone and Zulu, at Prindle's first movement, had started running forward. Zulu slipped and fell in the field of bones but Bone kept running, sprinting on the narrow ledge around the quicksand, past the bleeding, dazed Perry Lightning, toward the robed figure who was stooping down to pick up the rifle. Suddenly Prindle spun around, and Bone ducked as the razor slashed through the air over his head. He dove for Prindle's legs, missed. But he had his hands on the rifle—for a moment. Prindle kicked it away. Bone scrambled to his feet, crouched and slowly backed away as Prindle, his bright green eyes gleaming with madness in the light reflected from the walls, came at him, slashing with the razor. Bone sidestepped the first attack, but then, his strength almost completely gone, his legs buckled under him and he crumpled to the stone. A moment later Prindle was bending over him, raising the razor to slash at his face and throat.
The fingers of a huge hand wrapped themselves around the wrist of the hand holding the razor, twisted and pulled. There was a cracking sound that echoed throughout the chamber, and the razor fell to the stone. Prindle screamed in agony and rage; he continued to scream as Zulu effortlessly lifted him off his feet, marched him to the edge of the quicksand pit and threw him out into the air. Prindle's body described an arc; he landed splay-limbed, on his back, in the center of the pool of quicksand, and immediately began to sink. His screams became even more high-pitched.
"I'm all right!" Bone shouted as Zulu started back toward him. "See to the Lieutenant!"
Zulu nodded and went to Perry Lightning who, although his eyes were glassy with shock, had had the presence of mind to wrap his fingers tightly around his forearm, just above the gash; the spurting from the severed artery had stopped. Zulu quickly stripped off his belt, wrapped it around Lightning's arm to form a tourniquet, tied it off.
"You're going to be all right, Lieutenant," Zulu said quietly. "I've got my own medical kit in one of the packs, and the Bone-man will tell you I'm real good with cuts."
"Thanks, Zulu," Lightning said, sitting up and grasping the end of the belt. "Go see if Granger's all right."
Bone, one hand over his bleeding stomach, walked to the edge of the quicksand pit, looked out at Prindle, now almost three-quarters submerged. Prindle had stopped screaming, and was beginning to whimper like a child. His eyes were wide with terror.
"Don't struggle," Bone said calmly as he played the beam of his flashlight over the other man's head. "If you don't struggle, you won't sink so fast. Actually, I've been told that a man can swim in quicksand, if he knows how to do it. I've never done it, so I'm afraid I can't be of much help to you. Also, it looks to me like you may have sunk in a bit too deep to do any swimming."
Prindle began to scream again.
"Jesus Christ," Zulu said, shaking his head. "How long is it going to take him to go under?"
"I don't want to die!" Prindle shrieked.
"Neither did any of the people you killed,
" Bone said in the same soft tone.
"I did it for them!"
"What about Ali Hakim?"
"Please . . . I don't want to die like this! This is where I buried all the heads! They're down there, waiting for me! I can feel their teeth in me!"
Bone swallowed, found that his mouth was very dry. "What happened to Anne?"
"She's dead! Please don't let me die like this! Don't let me be buried alive in a graveyard!"
"Did you kill her, Barry?"
"No! She threw all the lamps and supplies in here, then ran off into the tunnels behind you! She killed herself!"
Bone felt his heart beat faster, and he suppressed a grin. A smart woman, he thought. And a very brave one.
"Bone!" Prindle screamed as the quicksand rose to his chin, and he had to arch his head back to breathe. "I'm sinking! Help me!"
"How's the Lieutenant, Zulu?" Bone called back over his shoulder.
"I'm all right, Granger," Perry Lightning said.
"Did you hear this man's confession?"
"I wouldn't have come down here with you, Granger, il I hadn't thought I'd been wrong about you. You know that."
"Just checking," Bone said as Prindle's head finally sank beneath the surface of the quicksand pool.
Bone walked quickly back to where he had dropped his coil of rope, then returned to the spot where he had been standing, looped one end of the rope around his chest. "Give me a hand here, Zulu, will you? Take the other end of the rope."
"Bone-man, what the hell do you think you're doing? You can't save Prindle. He's gone."
But Bone was already leaping through the air. He landed in the center of the pit, almost directly over the spot where Barry Prindle's head had disappeared from sight. He kicked with his legs as he hit the surface, slapped at the surface with his hands to keep from sinking too deeply. Then he groped beneath the surface until he felt the top of Prindle's head, grabbed a handful of hair.
"Okay, Zulu, pull; low angle, steady pressure, easy does it."
Zulu crouched and braced his legs, then began pulling on the rope. Slowly, Bone began to move, pulling Barry Prindle up after him; after a few seconds Prindle's head broke the surface. His face was a deep crimson, and his eyes bulged from the effort of holding his breath. The pent-up breath came out of him with a loud, whooping sound—and then he began to scream once again, mindlessly, and wouldn't stop.
It would probably have been more merciful to let the man die, Bone thought as he reached the rock ledge at the edge of the pit, dragged Prindle up and out of the quicksand. Prindle had indeed felt the sharp teeth of his many victims, and was now hopelessly mad, beyond the reach of any other human being.
Zulu silenced Prindle with a left hook to the point of the chin. Then the street poet wiped the mud from Bone's face and body.
"Jesus, Bone-man," Zulu said, shaking his head. "I don't know why you did that. You should have let the fucker die. The lieutenant's in a state of shock. He'll keep his arm as long as I keep tending to his tourniquet, but I don't know how we're going to manage to get everybody back the way we came."
"Don't worry," Bone said wearily, bracing himself with his feet slightly apart so that he wouldn't sway. He'd felt stitches tear loose as he'd dragged Barry Prindle to the surface of the quicksand pit, and he wondered how much longer he had before he lost consciousness. If only Anne had somehow kept her wits about her as she'd run away in the darkness, there was still hope.
"Don't worry?"
"We're not going back the way we came. There's an easier way."
Zulu thought about it, said: "The way Prindle came in?"
"Right."
Zulu nodded toward the unconscious man in the priest's chasuble. "He's a space cadet now, Bone-man; he's gone. I don't think he'll be telling us anything."
"He won't have to. The way will be marked."
"Huh?"
"Handcuff Prindle, Zulu, and take care of the lieutenant. I'll be back in a little while."
"Bone-man—?!"
"Keep the faith, Zulu. I'll be back. If for any reason I'm not, search the mouths of the caves at this end. You should find some kind of marks. Follow them."
He found Prindle's blaze marks almost immediately—large, thick Xs drawn in red oil crayon on both sides of the cave on his far right. Ten minutes later he found what he had not dared to hope would be there.
In the middle feeder cave, beginning almost at the mouth, there was a piece of a woman's silk handkerchief anchored beneath a small stone. Ten yards further there was another piece.
He found Anne fifteen minutes later, perhaps an eighth of a mile down the length of the tunnel. She was sitting on the floor of a small chamber, knees drawn up to her chest, sipping from a canteen of water. As he came around a bend and shone his light on her, she smiled wryly and gave a weak salute.
"Boy, am I glad to see you," she said as Bone knelt down beside her and wrapped her in his arms. "I heard a lot of fussing back there a while ago, and then I heard you coming down the tunnel."
"Why didn't you call out?" Bone asked in a rasping voice.
"I . . . I was afraid it was a dream, Bone. If it was, I didn't want to wake up. Barry . . . ?"
"He's not ever going to hurt anybody again."
"Lord, are you a mess," Anne said, pulling away slightly and looking over Bone's body. Then she saw the fresh blood marbling the drying mud and she uttered a sharp cry. "Bone, you're bleeding!"
Bone wearily rose to his feet, put both hands over the wound in his stomach. "I'm all right—or I will be. I don't think we're that far from the surface. Come on."
Anne got to her feet, managed to get her shoulder under Bone's right arm as he staggered and sagged. "It's my turn to do a little rescuing," she said as they made their way back toward the stone cathedral, and the way out.
Bone, Anne, Perry Lightning and Zulu—resplendent in his flowing, multi-colored robes, holding his staff—stood just outside the security checkpoint at the boarding gates leading to the American Airlines terminal at John F. Kennedy Airport.
"Oh, John," Anne said, wrapping her arms around Bone and holding him tight, "how I'll miss you."
"And I you," Bone replied softly, gently stroking her hair. "But it's time for me to go back to where I belong—at least for a while."
"You belong anywhere, John; you can survive anywhere."
"I belong where I feel at home, Anne."
"Yes, I know," Anne said, and sighed. "I shouldn't be greedy. This has been a wonderful month we've spent together."
"And, thanks to the three of you, I've certainly seen plenty of New York City—the right way. You have vacation time next month, Anne. Then you'll come to visit me, in my world."
Anne stepped back, shuddered slightly. "But no poking around in caves, my love."
"I promise; no caves. Just some hiking on gentle slopes. I have a chalet up in the mountains." He paused, winked at Anne. "We'll have a good time."
"I'm the one who's going to do some caving," Zulu announced proudly. "I think I showed some talent down there. Right, Bone-man?"
Bone grinned at his traveling companion. "Without doubt."
"I'm going to miss you, too," Anne said, squeezing Zulu's hand. "I'm going to think about you every time I drive past St. Thomas Church. Who can ever take your place?"
Zulu bent over and kissed Anne on the cheek. "It's time for me to move on, Anne. The bone-man says that I'll make out like a bandit in Denver with what he calls 'my act.' I want to try it out, as a change of pace. Hey, if I get tired of all that scenery, I can always come back and live under Grand Central."
"You see me before you ever go underground again, Zulu," Perry Lightning said. "If you come back to New York, you'll always have a place to stay with me—for as long as you want. Got it?"
"Thanks, Lieutenant."
"That goes for you too, Granger."
Bone nodded. "When are you coming out to visit me, Lieutenant?"
Perry Lightning smiled thinly. "We'll see. I'm afraid
all that fresh air might make me sick. Good luck to both of you."
Lightning shook hands with Bone and Zulu, and Bone kissed Anne. Then the two men picked up their bags and started down the ramp. They stopped at the bottom to turn and wave, and then they turned a corner and were gone. Anne and Perry Lightning, arms linked, walked from the terminal.
Table of Contents
BoNE
Chapter One
(i)
(ii)
Chapter Two
(i)
(ii)
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
(i)
(ii)
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
(i)
(ii)
(iii)
Chapter Seven
(i)
(ii)
Chapter Eight
(i)
(ii)
(iii)
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
(i)
(ii)
(iii)
(iv)
(v)
(vi)
Chapter Eleven
(i)
(ii)
(iii)
(iv)
Chapter Twelve
(i)
(ii)
(iii)
Chapter Thirteen
(i)
(ii)
(iii)
Chapter Fourteen
(i)
(ii)
(iii)
Chapter Fifteen
(i)
(ii)
(iii)
Chapter Sixteen
(i)
(ii)
Chapter Seventeen
(i)
(ii)
(iii)
(iv)
Chapter Eighteen
(i)
(ii)
(iii)
(iv)
Chapter Nineteen
(i)
(ii)
Bone Page 37