The Exfiltrator

by Garner Simmons

  *****

  Corbett grabbed Tariq by his shirt and pulled him back beneath the rock outcropping. A moment later, the familiar sound of a Kalashnikov echoed off the walls as bullets splintered the stone around them. Without question, whoever was up there had managed to pinpoint them by spotting their light as they made their descent. The more pressing questions, however, were how many and would they try to follow?

  “They’ve seen us…!” Tariq spoke in a forced whisper, his voice laced with fear. “We’re trapped.”

  “No. Listen to me! Do not panic. You understand…? Stay cool.” Corbett replied. His words were measured and in control. “Just do as I say. I want you to place your hands on my shoulders and when I move, you follow.”

  Another burst of gunfire rained down from above. The signature sound of an Uzi as it sprayed the rocks around them. So, there are two, Corbett thought, sensing Tariq’s mounting fear.

  “We just need to wait them out.”

  “Them…?”

  “From the sound of it, there are at least two. Once the shooting stops, we’ll give it a couple of minutes then move. Got it?” Corbett hesitated, waiting for Tariq to respond. When he didn’t, Corbett asked again, “You understand?”

  “Yes,” he answered quietly at last. “I do. I understand. The gunfire spooked me – I wasn’t ready. Just give me a minute. I’ll be okay.” Corbett waited. The voices above continued followed by the sound of shuffling steps as their pursuers began to make their way down into the void, moving deliberately, just as they themselves had done, making their way along the ledge. Abruptly another burst of gunfire slammed into the rock walls, then nothing. As the seconds ticked by, Corbett watched and waited.

  ****

  Beneath the wall of paintings no longer visible in the darkness, Ella lay still, listening, uncertain, confused. Having awakened to total blackness, she was afraid to move. Her head still throbbed from striking the rock overhang. What if she attempted to rise? Would she hit her head again? And what happened to the lights? Thinking back, she remembered the strange thrumming sound of an engine followed by an explosion. Whatever it was must have taken out the generator. Which meant she was a prisoner of the darkness. Like being buried alive. Would anyone even think to look for her? And how would they reach her trapped so far underground? How could this be happening? Her mind spinning, she thought of her mother and tried to remember the last time she had taken the time to write a real letter. Had she told her how much she loved her? And all the things she had put off doing in order to spend this summer in Spain. Always taking for granted there would be time to do them all. The trips she had yet to take. The places she still hoped to see. It was all so unfair. But if life was unfair, why should death be any different?

  Lost in her own thoughts, she almost failed to hear the sound of someone moving through the darkness, coming her way. Instantly, she stopped breathing, straining to listen. The scrape of a boot, sound of a footfall. Michael, she thought? He’s come back. Pulse racing, she started to scramble up only to hear muffled voices drifting through the darkness. One… no two. But who? Maybe it wasn’t Michael after all. Paranoia stoked by fear fueled her imagination. The memory of gunfire. The explosion. Some madman come to kill them all? She felt around her for something she could use as a weapon. Her hand found a broken shard of rock. Picking it up, she crouched in the darkness expecting the worst.

  *****

  High above, Jarral could once more hear the sounds of movement coming from below but saw nothing. He strained his eyes to pick out some definitive sign, but nothing revealed his prey. Tariq was down there of that he was certain. And with him, no doubt, the American Infidel. To find and kill them. A true test of faith.

  Starting forward, Jarral began to feel his way down along the rock wall just inside the entrance. As he suspected, his feet found a rock ledge leading downwards into the void.

  “There is a ledge. Bring the torch. It will show us the way.” Stepping aside, he allowed Raif to go first.

  Looking down into the pit, Raif hesitated, filled with a momentary sense of acrophobia.

  “Trust in Allah,” Jarral intoned, “and the path will rise up beneath your feet. Such is the will of God.”

  Drawing a deep breath, Raif faced the rock wall. Then holding the torch out ahead of them, he began to follow the ledge as the two men began their descent.

  *****

  For Corbett, time seemed to stand still as they waited in the dark for the sounds of gunfire to subside. Shielding the flashlight beam with his left hand, he turned it on and off in rapid succession. The momentary illumination allowed him to locate Tariq in the blackness.

  “You ready…?” he whispered.

  “If you are,” came Tariq’s barely audible reply.

  “Place your hands on my shoulders and don’t let go. When I move, you move with me.”

  “Let’s do it…”

  Slowly at first, Corbett started deliberately forward over the uneven ground as Tariq attempted to stay with him. Cupping his left hand over the muzzle housing of the flashlight, Corbett kept the beam fixed on the terrain immediately ahead while using his body to shield the light from whoever might be tracking them from above.

  Silently picking their way through the darkness, they moved as one. High above them in the black void of the cavern, Corbett thought he could hear the sporadic sounds of muted voices. Without question, the Jihadis had begun to make their way down into the cave after them. The only hope was to keep moving. It was not until they reached the lower chamber that Corbett felt safe enough to expose the light.

  Releasing his grip on Corbett’s shoulders, Tariq followed the light as they began to move more quickly now. From somewhere in the distance, they could hear the muffled sound of rushing water. When they finally reached the wall of the cave paintings, Corbett stopped, playing the light across primitive images. Ella’s abandoned camera equipment was still in place before them.

  “Ella…?” he called quietly into the darkness. Nothing. He called again. “Ella… are you here?”

  “Who’s Ella…?” Tariq asked slightly confused.

  “One of our interns… Ella?” he tried one last time.

  “Michael…?” her voice was filled with uncertainty, a mixture of terror and relief. Stepping tentatively from the shadows, Ella let the rock shard slip from her hand and ran the last few feet. Corbett caught her in his arms.

  “Easy… It’s going to be okay,” he whispered evenly, draining all the emotion from his voice.

  “The explosion… then losing the generator… and the lights going out. I didn’t know what to do. I tried to move but I hit my head…” Fighting not to lose it, she pressed against him, burying her head in his chest. “I thought I was the only one left.”

  “I know,” he said in an effort to quell her fears. “But you’ve got to trust me.”

  Glancing up, she finally saw Tariq barely visible as he stood in the darkness to one side. Uncertain what to think, she stared unblinking as Corbett attempted to answer her unspoken question.

  “This is Tariq,” he said quietly at last.

  “Tariq…?” she grappled with the name.

  Corbett nodded. “An old friend. We knew each other at Oxford. He needs our help.”

  “Oxford…? Michael, what’s going on?”

  “There’s been a terrorist attack. We have to move…”

  “Terrorists…?” She stared at him not quite comprehending. “Here? In the middle of nowhere…? You’re joking.”

  Corbett looked at Tariq.

  “Unfortunately, no,” Tariq said flatly. “It’s me I’m afraid.

  They’re after me.”

  “But if they find us,” Corbett added, “they’re going to kill us all,” Corbett touched Ella’s cheek. “You said you struck your head? Let me see…”

  Using the light, he ran his fingers through her hair discovering a knot just above her hairline. The moment he touched it, she recoiled.

  “That’s it. Righ
t there… ahhh.” she winced. Then reaching up, she tentatively touched the spot herself.

  “Could be worse,” he said. “You’re probably going to live.”

  “Is that the good news or the bad?” she replied, half smiling. From somewhere behind them came the sound of voices.

  “Michael…” Tariq spoke with a renewed sense of urgency. “Time to go.”

  “Go…?” Ella reacted to the absurdity of the statement. “Go where…?”

  Hearing the edge of panic in her voice, Corbett tried to sound decisive. “We’ll head toward the sound of the underground river. Take the second passageway – the one we saw the other day. There’s got to be a way out.”

  “But my camera equipment…” Ella started to protest without thinking. “I can’t just… leave it.”

  Tariq stared at her in amused disbelief. “Not to worry. I’m guessing whoever’s out there isn’t interested in photography.”

  “Assuming we’re still alive when this is over,” Corbett pointed the beam of his flashlight down through the darkness, “there will be plenty of time to come back for it later. Gotta go.”

  With Corbett in the lead, the others followed. Moving together, they descended into the deepest part of the cave system as the sound of rushing water grew louder. Along the way, Corbett quietly tried to assuage Ella’s concerns as best he could. By keeping it simple, he was able to tell her only what he felt she needed to know. And although she had many questions, she decided for the moment to keep them to herself.

  *****

  By the time the two Jihadis finally reached the floor of the main chamber, the heat from the torch had begun to scorch the flesh of Raif’s left hand. As soon as he was able, he shouldered his Kalashnikov and switched the torch to his right knowing that to cast it aside would leave them in total darkness.

  “Quickly, bring the light,” Jarral urged as they moved toward the lower chamber and the faint sound of rushing water.

  Stoic and wholly committed to the cause, Raif ignored the pain and moved with him.

  Somewhere ahead, Jarral mused, Tariq and the Infidel would eventually be forced to recognize that escape was folly. The time of Reckoning was at hand.

  Stopping to listen, Jarral thought he could hear voices. “This way,” he said, now taking the lead.

  *****

  Having finally reached the edge of the fast-moving underground river just at the point where it cut through the rock, Corbett motioned to the others to stop. Playing the beam over the surface of the water, he could see the turbulent point of entry to his right. Rushing to his left, the four-foot wide torrent raced along over the rocks for twenty meters before disappearing again beneath the far cavern wall.

  Ella stared at the swiftly moving current. “You really think this is the same source of the stream near the base camp?”

  “I’d bet on it,” he said, holding up his hand. “Feel that...?” A draft of air was coming from somewhere nearby. “Fresh air,” he said. “It means there has to be another way out.”

  “Over there,” Ella pointed excitedly toward the dark opening in the rock angling off to their left. Corbett turned the light in that direction revealing the second passageway, the same one they had seen on their previous descent. “What do you think…?” she asked hopefully.

  “It’s worth a shot…” Corbett said, already on the move. “Only one way to find out.” The others quickly followed.

  *****

  Having accidentally tilted the torch, Raif cried out as flaming kerosene spilled onto his right hand. Reacting, he tossed the torch aside and began slapping his burning flesh against his tunic attempting to smother the flames. Annoyed at having to stop, Jarral quickly retrieved the torch and without stopping forged ahead.

  “This way,” he said moving deeper into darkness. “Listen… the sound of water. They can’t be far.”

  The thought of plunging the second and third degree burns on his hand and wrist into the cool, deep water, gave Raif fresh purpose. And compelled by Jarral’s example, he whispered a prayer to Allah for the strength to ignore the pain as he hurried after him.

  *****

  Trailing behind Corbett and Tariq as they made their way along the dark passageway, Ella hurried to keep pace. Given the events of the past 24 hours, her life had taken on a sense of the surreal. Trying not to think about the faceless men with guns who now pursued them, she forced her mind to focus on other things – images from her childhood, a baseball game she had once attended with her father in New York’s Shea Stadium, her mother’s almost non-existent cooking skills.

  Shifting gears, she attempted to retrace the moments in her life that had brought her to this place. The string of seemingly isolated events that, taken alone, lacked cohesion. From attending a chance lecture at college that led her to impulsively change her major. To deciding against her mother’s wishes that she would go to grad school in archeology instead of applying to law school. Her sojourn to Brazil to research the petroglyphs of the Galeras. And now finally here to this ancient cave in Spain. How could such seemingly random events have suddenly placed her in the crosshairs of Islamic terror?

  The absurdity of it made her angry. She didn’t even believe in God. The product of a non-practicing Jewish father and a fallen away Irish Catholic mother who had divorced when she was ten, Ella had grown up agnostic, finding all religions suspect. In the words of the late Christopher Hitchens’ god is not Great: “religion poisons everything.”

  And yet, here she was, trapped deep underground in a cave in the Pyrenees pursued by terrorists who killed in the name of a vengeful God. What drives such men? Fueled by ancient fears and insecurities, these were religious zealots who waged a holy war against reason while murdering all who failed to accept the irrational certitude that Allah was the one true God. With unexpected clarity, she realized that for such men as these, God, himself, could only be a man. Who else could mete out divine laws and punishments, turning women into objects? “When God made man,” read the plaque framed above her mother’s kitchen table, “She was only joking.” If only that were really true, perhaps this nightmare might end. But it did not.

  Shining the light ahead, Corbett moved down the second passageway. He had not gone more than fifty meters when he realized that the space had begun to narrow to the point where he could no longer stand fully erect. Behind him, Tariq and Ella attempted to follow the aura emitting from the flashlight. Then without warning, a few meters ahead, the darkness seemed to abruptly swallow the LED beam. As Corbett stopped, holding up his hand, the others followed suit.

  “There’s a breeze coming from somewhere,” Ella said, her words suddenly hopeful. “I can feel it.”

  Stepping cautiously forward, Corbett played the light across the space directly before them. Stooping, he picked up a loose rock and tossed it into the darkness. “Listen…” he said as it disappeared into the void.

  Corbett began to count aloud. “One… two… three… four…” Somewhere far below, the rock finally struck something solid making a faint series of sounds as it ricocheted.”

  “Open pit,” Corbett said at last, quickly calculating the depth in his head. “Dead end.”

  Overcome with emotion, Ella fought back her tears. How had she ever gotten herself into this? To die here in the dark. It couldn’t just end like this. There had to be another way.

  ‘Dead end…?” Tariq repeated, his voice giving way to a sense of resignation. “Then we are finally and truly trapped?”

  Corbett said nothing. Refusing to surrender, his mind began to rethink all the possibilities one more time. “There’s got to be a way.”

  “If it is the will of Allah,” Tariq said, accepting his fate, “Then it must be so.”

  “Will of Allah? Really…?” Ella stared at him incredulously. “And what if Allah made a mistake?”

  “The God of Islam does not make mistakes,” Tariq answered. “There is only man’s lack of the wisdom to understand His purpose.”

  Ella stared a
t him in the darkness, too angry to speak.

  “We’ve got to go back to the river,” Corbett said, “Quickly.”

  Turning, they headed back the way they had come. Toward the sound of the rushing water once more. As Ella hurried after Corbett, Tariq followed.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  A s the light from his LED glinted off the swiftly moving current Corbett re-approached the narrow subterranean channel. Behind him, first Ella then Tariq hurried to catch up. Ahead, descending through the darkness, they could hear the clipped sounds of men speaking in a strange foreign tongue. Time was running out.

  Roughly a meter wide, the river coursed over the rocks before disappearing back beneath the limestone sediment once more.

  “What are you thinking…?” Tariq asked, his eyes fixed on the churning waters. “Surely not…” Leaving the thought unfinished, he dropped to his knees and began to quietly pray in Arabic.

  “Run the river,” Corbett replied. “It’s our only chance,”

  “Run the river…?” Ella repeated as she finally realized. “Oh no…”

  Ignoring her protest, Corbett asked: “How long can you hold your breath?”

  “What are you talking about? I can’t even swim,” she replied as the sense of panic swept over her once more.

  “Not a problem. Once you’re in the channel, all you have to do is hold your breath and let the force of the water carry you.”

  “Carry me where?”

  “If we’re lucky, the base camp – where the river comes out of the rocks.”

  Ella continued to stare at the rushing water. “No. I’m sorry. I can’t do this,” she said again.

  From somewhere in the darkness behind them, the sounds of their pursuers scrambling over the rough terrain echoed off the cavern walls.