“If I don’t return, he dies,” Tom said, the words coming slowly and deliberately.
By now she was standing above him, her gun aimed at his head. She walked backwards to the elevator, opened the door, slid back the gate, and flipped the toggle switch for the light. The car remained dark.
“You’ve disabled the elevator,” she said. “Just as well. You can walk the whole way then. Get up.”
When he hesitated she kicked him in the side and he suppressed the groan. He was trying to assess the damage. His whole right side was soaked with blood. There was also a dull, throbbing pain farther down, as if one had struck his waist or hip.
He tried to get to his feet but he could barely stand. Off in the distance beyond the house he heard the blades of helicopters and the sound of bullhorns. There was also intermittent gunfire.
“Hurry up,” she said.
He braced himself on the bannister and moved down a step at a time. His arm and shoulder were raw with pain but he thought of Diana and of Brighton and Dietrich. If he couldn’t hold on they would all be lost.
When they got to the kitchen and the door leading to the cave he grasped the knob with his left hand as firmly as he could and jerked it hard. The pain shot through his body, but the noise resounded through the passageway. If Diana was anywhere in earshot she would know that they were coming.
“How very cute,” Helena said. “Is that the way you thought you were going to defeat us, with childish signals?”
Tom didn’t respond. He kept moving, taking a step at a time, but more slowly now. At least he was leaving a trail of blood that someone might later follow. The cold air rushing from the cave enveloped him, tightening his muscles and amplifying his pain. By now he felt as if he was dragging himself, but he knew that if he could just reach the door to the cave and open it, any further gunshots would be heard by Diana and she could better guard herself against any eventuality.
The door opened easily and there was a second wave of cold air, this time more damp. Something else had changed. The light in the passageway reflected on the walls of the cave, but when Helena switched it off they were suddenly plunged into darkness. She turned it back on so that they were standing among the shadows and reflections.
“What . . . ?” she blurted out and then paused, the realization sinking in. Tom turned and thought he caught a glimpse of an ugly smile. “Now you are in my father’s world,” she said. “No one but he and Karl would know how to turn off the lights in the cave. They have retaken their prisoner and now they are ready for you. Give me that flashlight you were using earlier. Hurry or I will put a bullet in your spine.”
He hesitated.
“Don’t be a fool,” she said. “I was observing you all the while with our security camera. I know you have it.”
The penlight was in his right pants pocket. He reached across with his left hand and took it out. Offering it to her he dropped it on the floor of the cave. She stepped back immediately, the pistol still aimed at his eyes.
“You become more pathetic by the moment,” she said. “Take two steps backward.” When he did she picked up the penlight and pressed down on the button on its top. The light came on. She had thought he had hoped to surprise her when all he had hoped to do, all he was able to do, was attempt to break the bulb.
“Now keep moving,” she said.
As she walked and he stumbled he could see that she was holding the penlight at her side, keeping the light on the ground, just a few paces ahead of him. She didn’t want to give anyone an easy shot at her and she didn’t want him to be seen in profile. Whatever was waiting for her ahead was still a source of some apprehension. Perhaps Alec did turn off all of the lights, but then he was struck immediately for his pains. She had to be concerned. If Karl was still functional Deaton would never have made it to the top level of the house and for all his intelligence her blind father would be no match for a young woman whose hands and feet were free.
Her vaunting about their now being in her father’s world was a whistle in the dark. The only things she could really count on were the fact that Tom was wounded badly and she was armed.
Three minutes later they were on the path between the forged tableau and the inner cave. Tom tried to walk at an even pace though his mind was cloudy and his vision was betraying him. The light just before his feet seemed to be moving in kaleidoscopic patterns. He felt like some ghost or lost spirit, wending his way through brownish yellow plastic, like a forgotten actor on an abandoned movie set. Since he was unable to see clearly, he tried to listen, but the only sounds were the squish and shuffle of his feet as he moved through gravel and damp clay.
At the mouth of the passageway Helena told him to stop and move to the left, staying close to the wall. “Slowly,” she said, poking his bloodied side with the end of her pistol.
A few seconds later they stood at the entrance to the inner cave. She shined the penlight methodically, beginning on the right and moving up and down the cave wall. The heads and arms and legs of the Tenedos partners were unreal in the faint glow of the penlight, like funhouse figures designed to frighten infants. The light illuminated the four plexiglas chambers. Tom couldn’t see whether the sword had been replaced or not. Finally Helena shined the light on the chair and the floor beyond.
She noticed that the table next to the chair had been damaged, pausing to examine it as the beam traversed the room. Tom was trying to maintain his balance, trying to see whatever she saw without passing out at the time that he might be needed most.
The beam moved to the left of the table and illuminated an empty chair. Then it moved from side to side covering the earthen floor. Tom focused. The light had seemed independent, disembodied, as if it had left Helena’s hand and was doing its work deliberately and efficiently. But Helena was there. Tom could smell the thick, nearly sickly scent of gardenias. The scent revived him. It focused his thoughts and senses. He followed the beam of light, looking at the floor. He blinked his eyes and refocused. As the beam passed beyond the left of the chair he was sure of it: Karl was no longer there and there was no sign of Diana.
Chapter Sixty
San Clemente
Tuesday, 11:54 a.m.
“Good, they’ve gone,” she said. “Turn around. We’re leaving.”
He braced himself on the wall of the passageway, his body outlined by the glow of the penlight. He felt as if he was emerging from some giant, lifeless sewer.
“Keep moving,” she said. As she reached the entrance to the passageway he heard a clicking sound and the movement of the panel as it slid back into place, walling off the inner cave. “Don’t stop,” she said. “Just keep moving forward.”
The beam of the penlight was higher now, his body fully illuminated, casting shadows against the giant stalactites to his left. He saw the gleam again, the light that he thought was a reflection from a row of eyeglasses.
For a second he thought he heard Helena stop, as if she were listening for some word or signal. “Stop,” she said; then, after a few seconds, she said, “Go on.”
A few feet from the forged tableau she told him to stop again. “That’s far enough,” she said. “This is where I must leave you.” She raised the pistol higher, aiming for the head. He thought of diving for cover behind the plexiglas, but he could barely move, much less outrun a set of bullets.
“I always enjoy the death of a fool,” she said. “A pity I can’t prolong it.”
He was ready to offer her some parting thought, some curse or threat, some final, decisive promise, when his blurred vision caught a gleam in the darkness and he heard the weapon discharge, scattering rounds to the side of his bloodied right leg.
Then came the scream: piercing, soul-searing.
The penlight was on the cave floor, turning them to spectral figures of light and shadow. He blinked and then squeezed his eyes shut, opening them again, trying desperately to
see what had happened. He thought he saw the muzzle of the automatic pistol on the ground, next to Helena’s feet. She was staggering back and forth, screaming again in pain. He saw the rush of blood running down her leg and then, looking up, he saw its source: the remains of her right hand, twitching desperately as it hung by a single shred of flesh and shattered bone.
Diana emerged into the light, the sword at her side. Helena was staring at her in mute horror. “My hand,” she cried, “my hand!”
“Justice for thieves,” Diana said. Picking up the penlight, she shined it against the tableau. “My brother’s final work,” she said. “His final work before you murdered him. There will be justice for that as well.”
Helena was clutching at what was left of her hand, gathering her strength, her lips opening in a bitter sneer. “You need courage to take revenge,” she said. “Your brother died in fear. You will also.”
Without a second’s hesitation Diana lunged forward, driving the sword deeply into Helena’s sternum, the sheer weight of it fixing her in place, like a waxwork statue, ready for the exhibitor’s case. Her voice was now a series of gasps, her eyes moving wildly in the semidarkness. She reached out toward the edge of the sword as if she might somehow remove it with her left hand, but once extended the hand merely came to rest against it.
Diana braced her foot against Helena’s belly, pulled slowly on the sword until it was fully released, then watched as Helena stumbled in the dark, finally falling against a row of stalactites before collapsing to the floor. Standing above her she stared into her dying eyes, paused, spat, and walked away.
“Can you move?” she said to Tom, who was trying to slip Helena’s weapon behind his belt as the pain shot through his arm and shoulder.
“Yes, but not very quickly.” He put his left arm around her for support, squeezing her left shoulder with the little strength he had remaining.
“I’m so glad you survived . . . and came back,” he said, his voice shrinking to a whisper. “Where . . . did they . . . go?”
“I don’t know. Alec flipped some switch or pushed some button and suddenly everything was in darkness. I hurried out of the room, thinking he might have some weapon and start shooting wildly. After a few minutes I heard him rouse Karl. Then I heard Karl’s footsteps, but they grew fainter and fainter. I couldn’t follow them in the dark without bumping into something and giving away my position. The next thing I knew you had returned with her, so I waited to see what I could do to help.”
“You did it . . . all,” he whispered, trying somehow to kiss her in the blurred haze.
“They couldn’t have followed you or you would have found them on the steps,” she said. “What about the elevator?”
“Dis . . . abled,” Tom said. The words were coming harder now. “There has to be . . . another . . . way. Of course . . .”
Chapter Sixty-One
San Clemente
Tuesday, 12:05 p.m.
“Check her pockets,” Tom whispered, each word coming with a separate breath.
“For what?”
“A . . . key.”
Diana returned in a few seconds. “It was in her purse. It’s electronic.” She raised the penlight so that Tom could see the object. It looked like a miniature TV remote, with four small buttons.
“One . . . for the inner . . . cave,” he said, “another for the . . . the real entrance.”
“What do you mean, the real entrance?”
“Like . . . Pech-Merle,” he said, his voice slowing. The . . . real entrance . . . behind . . . the horses. How the . . . c- cave was . . . discovered. This . . . is . . . an . . . au-then-tic . . . copy. The second exit for . . . escape.”
“The floors of the house are over there,” she said, “on the side of the cave with the elevator. If the other entrance is back here, back behind the horses, it would come out somewhere lower, down the side of the slope. On another street. That must have been their escape route. They probably had a car waiting. Damn! Why didn’t we anticipate that?”
“Don’t . . . w- worry about . . . that,” Tom said. “Go . . . back there.” He nodded his head in the direction of the stalactites with the bright calcite, the eyeglass stalactites.
He slumped forward, half leading her, half falling. Together they worked their way back between the formations, taking a short cut to the path rather than backtracking to the area of the inner cave.
“There,” Diana said, aiming the penlight, its light beginning to flicker and fade. Behind some grillwork of stalactites and stalagmites she could see a smooth wall behind a low ceiling. “Careful,” she said.
It was no more than six feet and a few inches in height. When Tom stepped forward he could feel the top of his hair brushing against the top of the passageway. “How far?” she said.
“Fifty . . . feet . . . off to . . . the . . . left.”
The light was faint now. “Hu-r-r-y,” he said, unconscious of the fact that she was holding him up, pulling him along. “See . . . anything?”
“No,” she said, as the light finally faded. She tapped the penlight against the side of her leg, shaking the batteries, hoping for some kind of miracle. She depressed the button at the top, there was a final flicker, and then nothing.
“Damn,” she said.
“My . . . left . . . pocket,” he said.
She reached inside and found a pack of matches. Lighting one and holding it in front of them she started to move forward, but the damp cave air extinguished the flame. Lighting a second one she held her left hand around it, protecting it. They moved forward, more slowly this time. The light was faint and there were only five matches remaining in the pack.
“Look . . . there.” He pointed to the end of the path. There were only another ten or twelve feet of passageway, then an abrupt, inclined wall of damp earth.
“Door is . . . close,” Tom said, measuring out the words.
“Too much . . . slope for . . . wheelchair.”
Diana took out the electronic device and started pushing buttons. Nothing happened.
“Damn,” she said again. “They’re gone. I just know they’re gone.” She showed him the device, turning it so that he could see it.
“Look,” he said, “see . . . this?”
It was a small, tubular extension at the top of the device with a single prong at the center.
“The transmitter,” she said. “So? It’s not transmitting.”
“Close to . . . the . . . re-cei-ving unit,” he said.
“Or attached to it,” she said. There were two matches left. She lit one and started going over the wall.
“Lo-wer,” he said. “He’d be reaching . . . from . . . the . . . chair.”
Diana knelt down. The floor was cool against her knees. The match was almost burned out but she thought she saw something near the base of the wall. She let the light go out, then felt around the rim with her fingertip. There was a piece of imitation calcite covering it, but beneath the calcite she could feel metal. Inserting the transmitter into the opening she could feel the sleeve around the prong sliding surely. When it would go no further she pressed a button. Nothing. Then a second. Still nothing. As she pushed the third button she heard a click. When she pushed the fourth she felt a rush of warm air.
Chapter Sixty-Two
San Clemente
Tuesday, 12:18 p.m.
The open door revealed a passageway that angled sharply to the right. At first the light was faint, but as they got closer to the end of the passageway they could see a glow.
“The wall’s translucent,” she said. “Maybe the stuff inside is too, but with the earth covering it you couldn’t tell. There must be only a few feet of earth around us here. It’s much warmer than in the cave.”
She turned to look at Tom, wondering why he hadn’t responded. He was leaning against the wall of the passageway, his eyes c
losed.
“Tom! Tom!” she said.
He opened one eye and tried to walk toward the end of the passageway, but collapsed against the side of the wall. “Be . . . careful,” he said.
She took off her blazer and covered Tom’s arm and shoulder with it, pressing it against his wounds as he winced. With his left hand he tried to remove Helena’s pistol from beneath his belt. “That’s OK,” Diana said, covering his hand with hers, then slipping it aside and removing the weapon.
She hurried down the passageway, the pistol raised, her heart pounding. The artificial slab was loose on its hinges. The electronic device which had opened the inner door had also opened the outer. She pressed against it slowly and could see the earth and dry grass along the edge of the door.
The door itself was low, just high enough for Alec to go through in his wheelchair. Figuring that they would not have waited to watch the door but rather have made a quick escape, she pushed the door open. For a moment her view was obstructed. Then she realized that there were several boulders just beyond the door to mask its outline from prying eyes.
Stepping around the side of the largest boulder she saw a narrow indentation in the scrub that could serve as a trail. Beyond that was a street ending in a cul-de-sac. The houses on the street were surrounded by redwood fences and in between the last houses on the west side of the cul-de-sac was a black Lincoln Town Car. Its back was toward her, ready to start up, ready to accelerate, ready to leave.
At first she thought of aiming for the tires and shooting, but decided to try to get closer first. If it was Alec’s escape car—and she was sure that it was—there would be time for a shot or two. If they escaped she wanted to get the license number if she possibly could. She took a deep breath and started running down the path.
INTO THE DARK : A TOM DEATON NOVEL Page 30