The Deep Zone

by James M. Tabor

“Don’t you ever sleep?”

  “Not much. You?” He released her ankle.

  “Now and then. But I wasn’t having any luck.”

  “Cahner and Arguello don’t seem to be having trouble.”

  “Exhausted, both of them.”

  “Yes. Long, hard day.”

  Neither of them spoke for a while, Bowman lying down, Hallie standing over him, both listening to the cave talking: water flowing, wind soughing, every once in a while the sharper, cracking sound of rock breaking from the ceiling of some distant chamber. There would be silences of varying lengths and then another sound, explosive, as rock hit the cave floor. Some impacts were so distant that they sounded like small bags being popped, but others, closer, were louder and made the floor shake. It was a process that never stopped, like a human body continually sloughing off dead skin cells. And where the rocks landed was purely the luck of the draw. Hallie knew that a rock, pebble sized or big as a house, could hit any of them at any time.

  Cahner had been right about objective dangers in the mountains. Caves had plenty of those as well. Rockfall was one, roughly analogous to avalanches. Up top, you could at least see and avoid avalanche-prone terrain. Down here, the only thing you could do was not dwell on the danger. If you were in the wrong place at the wrong time, well, you had to hope it would be big enough to kill you quickly.

  “Are you just going to stand there?” She could hear the smile in Bowman’s voice.

  “I don’t know. Is there room down there?”

  “Plenty. Come on down and stay awhile, why don’t you?”

  Hallie eased down to her knees, felt for the cave floor, and sat down beside Bowman. Or tried to. There wasn’t enough room between his body and the rock wall for her to sit. She squeezed down beside him on the cave floor. She couldn’t even lie on her back, but had to turn onto one side, facing Bowman.

  “See? Tons of room.”

  Hallie could tell he was still smiling. “For you, maybe,” she said.

  “For us.”

  “Oh, roomy as hell.”

  She was lying on her left side and he on his right, their faces separated by a foot of darkness. She could feel the warmth of his body and smell the scent that had led her here, a salty, leathery smell with traces of something like burnt honey. Not a bad smell at all, she had to admit. Wonder what I smell like? But she quickly scratched that thought.

  Hallie’s critical distance—the minimum space between her and another person before she began to feel uncomfortable—was greater than most people’s. But here, squeezed together with Bowman like two sardines in a tin, she felt safe and relaxed. She wasn’t making herself relax, it simply was what it was.

  “I’m curious about you,” she said.

  “I can understand that.”

  “What is Wil short for?”

  “Might not be short for anything. You’ve heard of Will Rogers? He was just Will.”

  “Are you just Wil?”

  “No. It’s short for Willem.”

  “Sounds Scandinavian.”

  “Middle English, actually.”

  “How do you know?”

  “My twenty-sixth great-grandfather was a soldier in the English army at Agincourt. An archer. Bowmen, they were called then.”

  “So that’s where the name came from. Bowman.”

  “Yep.”

  “You’re serious about all this?”

  “Very. My mother was obsessive about family history.”

  “She got back that far?”

  “Just a bit further. But the records start to fade beyond the eleventh century.”

  “Where are you from?”

  “Colorado. A little town called Arago. How about you?”

  “Near Charlottesville, Virginia. But that’s not what I meant.

  We’re Washington, after all. I meant, where do you work?”

  “I know. No place important. You wouldn’t have heard of it.”

  “Try me.”

  She heard him sigh. “Say you go out to dinner. They want to know what I do. I say I can’t say. Okay. They drop it. But they can’t really. It’s Washington. You are what you do. They keep picking, through the soup, the salad. Halfway into the main course, they’re still picking. Not funny now. They get irritated. Think I’m weird, or just pretending, trying to get over on them. Man, woman, doesn’t matter. About dessert, I see them get down behind their eyes, the hell with that arrogant jerk look.”

  “Wow.”

  “Why wow?”

  “That’s the most I’ve heard you say since we met.”

  “Oh. Well, you asked.”

  “So are you like, a black ops guy, doing clandestine things all the time? CIA? DIA? Delta Force?”

  “I don’t talk about what I do. Didn’t I just say that?”

  “Sure. I just wanted to see how you handled it.”

  “Oh. Well?”

  “A little testy. But not a deal breaker.”

  “That’s good.”

  “Why don’t you just make something up? Create a fantasy life?”

  “Never works. ‘Fantasy’ is another word for ‘lie.’ You make mistakes. Somebody close finds out you’ve misled them about a huge chunk of your life… I mean, how would you feel?”

  “Used. Abused. Betrayed.”

  “Well, then.”

  “Are you really from Colorado?”

  “Yep. My mom is dead. My dad runs our cattle ranch.”

  “Like, a working ranch?”

  “Very working. About three thousand acres in Gunnison County. He’s a cattleman, through and through. A vanishing breed, but it’s all he knows. He’ll die in a saddle one day.”

  Horses, she thought. “Are you a dog person or a cat person?”

  “Not much for cats. Some dogs are okay. Really, I’m a horse person.”

  Yes. “You know what? Me, too.”

  “Really?”

  “Yep. I grew up on a horse farm down in Virginia. My mom raises horses and trains them. I was riding before I could walk, almost.”

  “What breeds? Quarter horses?”

  “Quarters are kind of like Goofy, don’t you think? We have Morgans and Trakehners. They’re rocket scientists with four legs.”

  “Ever worked cattle on a really good cutting horse?”

  “No.”

  “Then you can’t know much about quarter horses. Maybe not about riding, either.”

  “Ever gone over a six-foot jump?”

  “No.”

  “Then you don’t know anything about horses. You’ve never ridden until you’ve jumped.”

  He laughed.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “How about this? I’ll get you on a great cutter if you’ll get me on a jumper. Deal?”

  She could sense him reaching for her hand. She took his and they shook. “Deal.”

  “You can ask some things about me.” She left her hand where it was.

  “I already know some things about you.”

  “How?”

  “They put together files on all of the team members.”

  “Who’s they?”

  “Just they.”

  “Okay, okay. What was in them?”

  “A lot.”

  “Example?”

  “Stephen Redhorse.”

  “He was in there?”

  “Him and a few others. Not as many as I would have guessed, though. But from the volume of data, I’d peg him as the one. What happened?”

  “Wasn’t that in the file?”

  “It was in the file that you haven’t seen him for a few years. Not why.”

  “We met at Hopkins. He was a physics PhD. And a full-blooded Native American. Comanche.”

  “Complicated?”

  “No. We got on well. The thing was, his parents hated me. All whites, really. We tried, but couldn’t get past that.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Are you really?”

  “No,” he said.

  “Me, neither. Not no
w, anyway. With hindsight, I can see it was for the best.”

  “What happened with you and BARDA?”

  “So we’re really going deep here?”

  “We’re already deep.” No smile in the voice now.

  “In more ways than one. Didn’t my file talk about that?”

  “There were odd redactions.”

  “Somebody wanted me out, and they made it look like I was selling secret research for big bucks.”

  “But you weren’t?”

  “Of course not. That’s the first asshole thing you’ve said.”

  He ignored that. “Who would want you out? And why?”

  “I asked myself that a million times and haven’t come up with a good answer. My turn. Do you kill people?”

  “Rarely. And only those who really do need killing.”

  Wow, she thought. That’s something you don’t get in every conversation. “Tell me about your family.”

  “I’m an only child. My mother died of brain cancer six years ago. Glioblastoma. At least it was fast. She was diagnosed and was gone six weeks later. My father is one tough customer. He’s sixty-four. Served in Vietnam, a LRRP.” He pronounced it “lurp.” “Works sixteen hours a day, most of it horseback.”

  “A LRRP. Those were tough men.”

  “You know about LRRPs?”

  “Told you, my dad was career Army. He was in Vietnam, too. Airborne Ranger. You have a wife? Kids?”

  “Neither.”

  “I didn’t think so, but I needed to ask.”

  “Sure.”

  She waited for another question, but an instant later her head snapped up and her eyes opened. “What?”

  “I didn’t say anything. You dozed off.”

  “I did? Yeah, I did. ’S funny… couldn’t sleep over there.” Her brain was sluggish with lactic acid and fatigue. Making it all the way back to her own spot felt just about impossible. “D’you mind if I sleep here a while.” More a statement than question.

  “Do you snore?”

  “Been known to. Jus’ elbow me.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “Wha’ about you?” She could feel her eyes drooping.

  “What about me?” Bowman tilted his head.

  “Do you snore?”

  “Never.”

  “Never? Come on. Ever’body snores.”

  “True. There’s a surgical procedure. Reduces the uvula, tightens up surrounding tissue.”

  That woke her up a bit. “You’re not kidding.”

  “No.”

  “Why in hell would anyone do that?”

  “There are places where snoring can get you killed.”

  Yeah. There must be. Her eyes were beginning to fall shut again. She was easing into the misty, unfocused place between here and there. There’s something else I want to ask, she thought, but for the life of her she could not remember what it was. “I think I’m going to sleep.”

  “Good idea.”

  He turned over onto his back. She shifted her position and their bodies settled and softened, molding against each other. She lay with her head on his shoulder, his arm around her. She folded one arm against his side and lay the other across his chest. His breathing was slower and deeper than hers, but every once in a while they would breathe together and she liked the unison. He felt solid next to her, but warm and yielding at the same time. And he smelled even better close up.

  The last thing she remembered was him kissing the top of her head, and then she was asleep. She snored softly a few times, but Bowman didn’t elbow her. He lay awake for a while, listening, feeling her chest and belly move against him as she breathed. When he knew she was deep in REM sleep, he drifted off himself. Or as much to sleep as he ever went. She dreamed of swimming in cool, blue water. He dreamed of black mountains and red muzzle flashes.

  TWENTY-TWO

  THE NEXT DAY, HALLIE WAS LEADING THEM ALONG AN AIRY spine of whitish rock, a natural catwalk that looked like frozen milk. It was two feet wide, its surface slightly convex, and glistening-slick with moisture. Mountaineers would have roped up before crossing such terrain. They had been moving for fourteen hours.

  “How deep are those drops beside us?” Cahner was playing his light down into the darkness. The beams disappeared into a yellowish fog before hitting anything solid.

  “About two hundred feet on the right, two-fifty the left.” Hallie had laser-ranged them the last time. “Not as big as Don’t Fall Wall, but nothing you want to go down.”

  “I am not enjoying this part.” Arguello was shuffling along in baby steps, barely picking up his boots, his arms raised and outstretched like a wire walker’s.

  “Put your weight in your feet.” Hallie shone her light on his boots.

  “My weight is on my feet.”

  “Not on. In. Think like all your weight, all your thoughts, and all your energy are dropping into your feet. Make them part of the rock.”

  “Aikido,” said Bowman, right behind her.

  “Yep. A master can plant himself like that and you couldn’t move him with a tractor.”

  “Seen it.”

  “That is better, yes,” said Arguello, his arms coming down a little.

  “Keep your eyes focused on the trail three feet ahead. The rest of you will go where you look.”

  Half an hour later, Hallie held up one hand. “Stop here.” She had been watching a yellow Sirius atmosphere analyzer, about the size of a deck of cards, which showed an increasing concentration of hydrogen sulfide. They had all been able to smell the rotten-egg odor, too. “Rebreather time.” Because the rebreathers were closed-circuit systems that did not draw in external air, they could function as gas masks like those used by firefighters. They all retrieved the rebreathers from their packs, put them on, and checked their functions. Doing that made Hallie think of Haight.

  Too good a man to have died like that.

  Hallie realized the others were all looking at her. She raised her voice to be heard through the mask: “Let’s go. Be especially careful with these things on. They’ll restrict your peripheral vision. You’ll lose some view of the footing.”

  After another quarter mile, Hallie’s skin began to tingle inside her caving suit. She looked at the Sirius and saw its red warning LED illuminated. The concentration of hydrogen sulfide here was now lethal. If any of them had a mask leak or failure, they would die like the soldiers gassed in the trenches of World War I.

  They passed through a stadium-sized chamber with a domed ceiling fifty feet overhead and walls striped red and white like a barber pole from alternating layers of iron sulfide and calcite. The air filled with a yellow-green fog that diffused their light beams and, in low places, collected into a gaseous soup so thick it hid their feet.

  After another five minutes, Hallie stopped. The others came up beside her.

  “Holy Mary, Mother of God.” The rebreather did nothing to muffle the horror and awe in Arguello’s voice.

  “Welcome to the Acid Bath.” Hallie played her light beam back and forth, out in front of them. “Pure, industrial-grade sulfuric acid.” The light reflected off the surface of a subterranean lake filled with shining liquid about the consistency of kerosene, glistening and oily. Even though there was not enough air movement to create wave action, the liquid had a life of its own, colors changing on its surface in a slow, endless upwelling of iridescent reds and yellows and greens. Vapor floated over the liquid and collected in a urine-colored fog.

  “Without rebreathers, standing here you’d be dead in five seconds.” Hallie picked up a rock and tossed it far enough out into the lake that no liquid would splash on them. When the rock hit the lake’s surface, there was an instantaneous boiling, accompanied by a sound like sharp static electricity. And that was it. The lake had eaten the rock that quickly.

  Bowman stepped closer, using a stronger hand light to see farther. “We can’t go through it, so we must be able to go around it.

  Right?”

  “Yes.” Hallie led them t
o the right, following the acid lake’s shore, and came to the place where the cave floor met vertical wall. Two feet above the floor there was a ledge no more than twelve inches wide, like those that ringed older buildings in cities.

  “A section of wall peeled off, leaving that ledge. It’ll take us around to the lake’s far side. No other way.”

  “How far?” Bowman asked.

  “A thousand feet, give or take. The ledge isn’t wide, but it’s dead flat all the way. Like a traverse on a rock climb.”

  “I have not climbed rock as much as you,” said Arguello, tense but under control. “What is the best way to do this?”

  “Keep as much boot sole on the ledge as you can. Hands shoulder height. Never move both hands at the same time. Left hand moves forward, finds a hold, secures, then right hand follows. Then left foot, then right. Don’t overreach. You want to stay balanced on this thing.”

  “That will not be so easy with such packs.” Arguello, again.

  “It’s doable. We made it before. Just cinch your shoulder straps and waist belts as tight as you can get them.”

  “Why don’t we use the Gecko Gear?” asked Cahner.

  “The atmosphere here is toxic, so all the moisture on the rocks will be, too. It could damage those tools. I don’t know that for sure, but I don’t know that it won’t, either. Without those, we won’t get out of the cave. We’ll have to go with our regular caving gloves.”

  “I understand.”

  “I have one question,” Arguello said.

  “Shoot,” Hallie said.

  “If that acid dissolved the rock you threw, why does it not eat through the rock at its bottom and just seep away someplace?”

  “Good question. The acid is lighter than water, so it floats on top of an aqueous layer—it’s called a lens—that protects the bottom.” Hallie turned to Bowman. “How do you want to go? What order, I mean?”

  “I’ll lead off. Then you, Al, and Rafael. Let’s do it.”

  Bowman stepped up onto the ledge and found secure holds for both hands. He stood there for a moment, checking his balance. Then he started traversing along the ledge, sliding his feet and relocating his hands in small, smooth movements, the fluid rhythm of an experienced climber.

  Hallie waited until he was fifty feet ahead, then clambered up to the ledge herself. Standing on it was, right away, an exercise in battling vertigo. Her whole body was pressed against the cave wall, breasts and belly and thighs. The pack was not much of a problem, but the ledge was narrow enough that she had to lean her head back to change the direction in which she was looking.