“We just crossed over rocks that looked like rubble,” Dilya said. “Is it possible the KGB dynamited the entrance? Sealing in the gold.”
Oscar said, “That would be logical.”
“What exactly do you mean by ‘a crack somewhere in the granite’?” Showers asked.
“A hole, an entrance, perhaps small, perhaps big,” Oscar replied. “If the soldiers destroyed the main entrance, there should be smaller cracks. Maybe not big enough for a truck to drive through, but big enough for us to walk through.”
“Should be a crack? That’s real scientific. Thanks for giving us your expert opinion,” Casper said. Rather than returning the GPS to Oscar, he clipped it onto his belt.
“How do we find the entrance?” Showers asked.
“Look for water or a stream that suddenly disappears into the ground. Look for steam rising from a hole. Caves are warmer than the air outside them. Look for red dirt-iron-rich soil that has been removed from a cave.”
Dilya checked the time. “We’ve got about an hour left before sundown, so let’s spread out. Oscar and I will go to the left. The rest of you can go to the right. If we find something, we’ll get each other. But we don’t go into any holes alone.”
“That’s the only way that-” Casper started to say, but Showers cut him off, not wishing to hear another crude comment.
“If you want to go ahead without us, go,” she told him.
Casper didn’t wait around for a discussion. Instead, he began walking to their right.
“If we’re lucky, he’ll wander into a cave and never come out,” Storm said.
Oscar opened his backpack and removed four flashlights. “You’ll need these if you see an opening. But again, wait for everyone. It will be safer. Caving is dangerous.”
Showers and Storm began walking in the same direction as Casper. Dilya and Oscar went in the other direction.
For thirty minutes Storm and Showers moved slowly through the terrain, partly because it was rough climbing and she had only one arm. They didn’t see any obvious openings and it was beginning to get dark. They were just about to turn back when suddenly Casper’s head poked out from behind rocks about ten feet in front of them.
“I found an opening!” he yelled.
They hurried over to him. The crack would have been impossible to see if Casper hadn’t climbed between several large boulders. It was an opening about seven feet tall and two feet wide.
“I don’t have a flashlight, so I only got about fifteen feet inside, but the opening gets bigger as you go deeper,” he said. “Give me one of your flashlights and I’ll explore it while you go get the others.”
“We’re supposed to wait,” Showers said.
“What are you afraid of? You think I’m going to cart out sixty billion in gold in my pockets between the time you go get the others and come back here? I’m simply going to save us time in case this opening proves a dead end.”
Storm handed Casper his flashlight and he vanished through the crack. “I’ll go get the others so you can rest,” Storm volunteered. “You still have my Glock, right?”
Showers lifted her sling. His handgun was hidden behind it, tucked in the waistband of her jeans so she could draw it with her left hand.
Storm was able to backtrack quickly without Showers. He found Dilya and Oscar returning to the sheer wall.
“Casper’s gone into an opening,” he said, catching his breath.
The three of them began running and soon reached Showers, who was sitting outside the cave’s mouth. The sun was nearly completely down.
“Has he come back?” Storm asked.
“Nope. Gone like a rabbit.”
“Or a snake,” said Oscar, taking command. “I’ll go into the hole first, Dilya next, then Agent Showers, and finally you. He pointed at Storm. “There could be water, making it slippery, and be careful of drop-offs. You need to watch your heads so you don’t knock yourself out, but also keep the light on the ground so you don’t step off a ledge.”
“How about vampire bats?” Storm asked facetiously. “Just to keep things interesting.”
“If you’ve never been in complete darkness,” Oscar continued, “then you are in for a surprise. In a cave there is no light, no sunshine, not even starlight.”
“Like a coffin,” Dilya said.
Oscar reached into his bag and gave Storm a new flashlight since he had given his to Casper. The Russian then vanished into the opening with Dilya at his heels.
“Vampire bats, coffins, total darkness, steep ledges, and Casper the ghost lurking around,” Showers whispered to Storm as they entered the cave. “I might have had better odds being tortured.”
Their flashlights cut through the darkness, illuminating a narrow passageway. Storm guessed they had gone about fifteen feet inside the mountain when the crack started to expand and break in different directions. Oscar continued down the main one with everyone on his footsteps. Storm checked his watch as they made their way forward. He wanted to time how long they’d walked. When they’d traveled another twenty minutes, Oscar came to a stop and declared, “We’ve reached a chamber!”
They crowded up next to him and all shined their flashlights into the blackness. The chamber was at least thirty feet wide, hundreds of feet long, and forty feet high. It certainly was a big enough opening to hide sixty billion dollars of gold packed into cargo containers.
“Nearly all caves are made of calcite, the crystal of calcium carbonate,” Oscar explained. He shined his flashlight down and the light reflected back. About ten feet below them was a large pool of water. The roof of the cave was covered with stalactites; water drizzling along the walls had created cave draperies.
“The white that you are seeing is pure calcite,” Oscar said. “Other minerals, mostly iron, are responsible for the orange and red stains.”
“It’s beautiful,” Showers said.
“Yes,” added Dilya, “but there are no gold bars, no tanker containers.”
“If Casper had not taken the GPS, I would be able to tell if this cavern is behind the wall of granite,” Oscar complained.
“You mean this GPS?” Casper’s husky voice called from behind them. He held the GPS up in front of his flashlight for them to see. None of them had heard him approaching them. They shined their lights on him. His face was dirty, and in their flashlight beams, he looked even more menacing.
“You’re standing right where this GPS says there should be truckloads of gold,” Casper said. “And there ain’t no Commie gold bars anywhere around here. There’s nothing but water and rocks.”
“Could the gold be under the water?” Dilya asked, shining her light down at the pool beneath them. “Maybe when they destroyed the entrance, they created a dam.”
All of them pointed their lights at the water, but saw nothing except their own reflections staring back.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“Ivan Petrov must have been lying when he gave the coordinates for the gold to Lebedev,” Storm said.
“But I heard Lebedev say that he knew Petrov was telling him the truth about its location,” Showers said. “The two men had grown up together. They were like brothers.”
“Brothers don’t shoot each other in the foot and then between the eyes,” Storm replied. “Brothers don’t kill each other for gold-usually.”
“I’ve checked all of the other tunnels except for one, ladies,” Casper declared. “They’re all dead ends and there is no gold hidden in any of them.”
“How about the one you didn’t check?” Oscar asked.
“It goes in the opposite direction of us. It goes away from the coordinates. That means this cavern we’re looking at has got to be where the gold was put-unless Petrov lied.”
“You’re the geologist,” Storm said, turning his flashlight so that it illuminated Oscar’s face. “Don’t you have some sort of equipment that can tell us if the gold is here?”
“It’s got to be under the water,” Dilya said. “We have no idea how
deep this cavern is. Let’s go back to the surface. We need rope. We might even need diving equipment. But one of us has to go down there in the water for a better look.”
“I agree,” said Oscar. “Let’s go back to the surface and call it a night.”
As they walked toward the cave exit, Casper took the lead, with Oscar following him to make certain he kept on course. But Dilya hung back to get one final glimpse of the pool of water.
“The gold is down there. I feel it,” she said as Showers and Storm stepped by her in the tunnel.
As Casper neared the cave’s opening, he could see faint moonlight coming from outside. He stepped from the cave with Oscar and Showers close behind him. All three of them were blinded by a brilliant light.
“Drop your weapons!” a male voice ordered them.
Still inside the cave passageway, Storm froze. The bright light was coming from a spotlight. Someone outside had ambushed them.
Storm instinctively reached for his Glock, and then remembered he had given his handgun to Showers. He took a step backward away from the cave’s entrance and felt the barrel a pistol pressing against his back.
Dilya said, “Time to leave the cave.”
Instead, he slowly turned to face her.
“Who’s out there?” he asked.
“Friends,” she replied, “of mine, not yours. Now, move or you’ll die here.”
Dilya had betrayed them.
Rather than turning around, Storm stayed facing her with his hands raised and took several steps backward into the light. He moved deliberately, and just before he stepped from the cave, he stopped.
“Why are you doing this?” he asked her.
“Why does it matter?” she snapped.
At that second, Storm turned sideways, causing the bright spotlight to flash into her eyes. Storm had been intentionally keeping his body between the blinding light and Dilya’s face, shielding her with his shadow.
In that same instant, Storm grabbed Dilya’s wrist with his right hand and the gun with his left hand turning its barrel away from him. It was a rudimentary disarming technique taught by U.S. Special Forces, and it, and Dilya’s momentary blindness, resulted in Storm taking the upper hand.
Freeing the pistol from her grasp, he pushed her in front of him at the cave’s entrance.
“Now, let’s go say hello to your friends,” he said.
Dilya walked from the cave into the spotlight, with Storm holding the pistol against her head with his free hand.
“What do we have here?” a man’s voice asked.
“A hostage,” Storm replied.
“And I have three.”
Storm looked to his left and saw the red dots from laser-guided gun sights dancing on the chests of Showers, Oscar, and Casper, who were standing in a line at the cave’s opening.
“You can have the gold,” said Storm. “In return, we go free and we take Dilya with us until we reach the border.”
Dilya yelled something in Uzbek.
“Do you know what she just said?” the man asked.
Because of the spotlight in his face, Storm still couldn’t see the man, and he had no idea how many others were out there with him, although he’d counted four red dots aimed at his team members. Two of the lasers had been pointed at Casper.
“She just told me to shoot her,” the voice said. “This is how loyal she is to our cause. And do you understand why she is willing to sacrifice herself? Because she knows she will be martyred. I don’t expect you to understand that kind of faith.”
“I have faith in what will happen when I pull this trigger,” Storm replied.
Agent Showers jumped into their conversation. “Who are you?”
“The Jihad Group,” the man said. “And the American who is pointing his pistol at my sister’s head once tried to track me down.”
“The Viper,” Storm said aloud.
Dilya again yelled something in Uzbek.
The Viper replied with a single command in Uzbek, and the crack of a rifle broke through the night air. Oscar collapsed on the rocks, shot through the chest. It had happened so quickly that Showers and Casper, who were standing on either side of him, didn’t have time to react until the Russian’s dead body hit the ground.
“The next to die will be FBI Agent Showers,” the Viper said.
“Go ahead,” Showers said. “You’re going to kill us anyway.”
“Actually, you are more valuable to me alive right now,” the Viper said.
“I’d rather die,” Casper announced, “then have my head cut off on YouTube by a bunch of camel-screwing Hajis extremists.”
Storm looked at Showers and saw that all four red dots were now on her torso. The Viper wasn’t bluffing. She would be the next to die unless he released Dilya.
He made eye contact with Casper, and for once, the two men seemed to be on the same wavelength.
“Now!” Storm yelled. With his left hand, he grabbed Dilya’s throat and pulled her sideways toward the ground, as he began firing his pistol at the spotlight illuminating the cave entrance. Everything instantly went black.
At that same moment, Casper threw himself in front of Showers, shielding her with his own body while knocking her down, as the Viper’s men began firing. Bullets ricocheted off the rocks, making pinging sounds.
In the sheer darkness, Storm felt Dilya’s body become limp and felt warm fluid flowing onto his left hand that was still clutching her throat. She’d been fatally shot in the neck.
For a second it was completely quiet, and then the booming sound of Casper’s shotgun erupted. The first boom was followed immediately by another and another. The well-trained killer was using the red laser sights on their enemies’ guns to identify where they were hiding in the darkness. Casper’s final blast was answered with the primordial scream of a man whose body had just been ripped into by buckshot.
It became silent again, and Storm noticed there were no longer any laser sights aimed at the cave.
The Viper yelled out in Uzbek. And when one of his men replied, Casper fired his shotgun at the man’s voice. His shot drew a round of rapid return fire from the Viper’s pistol. Storm immediately answered that with his own handgun, aiming at the muzzle flashes.
And then there was silence.
Out of habit, Storm had counted his shots, and he knew he had only one round left in the gun that he’d taken from Dilya. He had no idea if Casper, Showers, or the Viper and his men were still alive.
No one wanted to speak, because that would reveal location. The evening’s already faint moonlight was now obscured by clouds. Storm slowly crawled in the direction of Showers and Casper, picking his way around the chest-high boulders that edged the cave’s entrance. When he reached the spot where he had last seen his teammates, his hand touched a body and he froze.
Was it her?
He felt a man’s hair and glasses. Oscar.
“April?” he whispered.
“Over here,” she replied.
Using his hand as a probe, he felt a boulder rising up in front of him and made his way around its edge. Tucked between large rocks were Showers and Casper. They’d taken shelter on the ground.
“You hit?” Storm asked softly.
“No, but Casper is. Bad.”
“How bad?”
“One in the leg. One in my abs,” Casper replied. “But I can still shoot.”
“How many are still left?” Showers asked.
“Can’t tell.”
As if on cue, they heard a man screaming and then the rapid fire of a gun. It was followed by another man crying out.
“What’s happening?” Showers asked.
Storm carefully inched up from where the three of them were hiding and peered over the huge boulder in front of him, in the direction of where the sounds had come from. He saw nothing distinguishable, only boulders. He inched his way out of their hiding place and crawled several feet forward, then stopped behind another large stone. Using it to shield his body, he peed over
its jagged surface. Nothing. And then there was a movement, but it was so slight that he questioned whether his mind might be playing tricks on him. He hadn’t seen the outline of a man, rather it appeared as if one of the boulders ten feet in front of him had actually moved, as if the ground around him were coming alive. He picked a single rock and locked his eyes on it. Two minutes later, he was just about to write it off as paranoia and exhaustion, when the rock seemed to rise up and move forward, ever so gradually.
Storm raised his pistol and aimed it at the stone. If it moved again, he was going to fire.
As he stared at the rock, he felt the blade of a knife pressed against his throat and the warmth of breath in his ear. The words were in Russian, but Storm didn’t need to understand the language to know the meaning. He released his grip on the pistol.
The man holding the knife at his throat forced him to his feet and called out in a loud voice. Another Russian responded and Storm heard the sounds of people moving. Showers and Casper were being dragged from the rocks behind him.
The beams from the headlights of an SUV shined on them. The vehicle was one of two that the Viper’s men had driven along an alternate route to the cave entrance. The spotlight that Storm had ruined had been attached with a long cord to one of their vehicle’s batteries.
The headlights made it possible for Storm to see the “rock” that had been moving in front of him. Five bushy monsters now surrounded Storm, Showers, and Casper. They were not rocks. They were Vympel soldiers wearing Ghillie suits, elaborate camouflaged outfits favored by special forces. Their heavy outfits were designed to make them impossible to see when they were on the ground.
“I thought these bastards were a KGB myth,” Casper said. “I never saw them coming.”
The four men standing guard wore earpieces and had been wearing night vision goggles. Their leader came forward from the parked SUVs, where he had turned on the headbeams.
A Bloody Storm dss-3 Page 7