by Jeanne Adams
They gathered everything and rolled it up into a more compact bundle. They’d finished the last of the Nutella and crackers the previous night. All that was left was half a canteen of water.
“Let’s fill up the other canteens,” he said, reading her mind. “We don’t know when or if we’ll find water again.”
“Okay, here—” She handed him the canteens and he went to fill them. “Let’s finish this other one now and fill it too.”
“Good, you go ahead.”
She uncapped it and drank it down, the cool water soothing her throat. She was grateful for the surge of energy it brought. Even without food, they could manage if there was water. She worried about Dav though; his hand looked terrible. At worst, if infection set in, he would get a fever, and if they couldn’t get out, he could get gangrene and die from it. At best, he might lose the finger even if they couldn’t get to medical help quickly.
“So, shall we toss a euro, to pick a tunnel?”
“You have one?”
“Yes, I do. And a drachma as well.”
“Luck piece?”
“You could say that,” he said with a smile, and held it out to her. It was shiny and well rubbed, but obviously old.
She examined it, then handed it back, but he declined. “You keep it. We’ll share the luck, yes?”
Tucking it in her pocket, she nodded, touched it. “Deal.”
They faced the walls together, looking at the various tunnels. “Last time, the tall, accessible one was the dead end,” she said. “The rounded, smaller one, led us here.”
“Would they repeat or mix it up?”
“My money’s on repeat,” she said. “What do you think?”
“Since I feel better, and I’m relatively clean, I will be willing to try that. If it comes to it, and it’s another dead end, then I feel like we won’t fall apart—well, I won’t fall apart,” he said, with a sheepish smile.
“I’ll do my best not to, too.”
“Then let us proceed,” he said. “Flashlight on?”
She flicked the switch and followed him into the tunnel. They proceeded fairly quickly, even though Dav had to wrestle his way through narrow openings on several occasions.
They had been traveling steadily to the right, which surprised her since most of the tunnels so far had been straight.
Dav abruptly stopped and she nearly ran into him.
“What is it?” she asked, trying to see around him. The light shone through, but she couldn’t see anything.
“You will not believe it,” was all he said before he disappeared.
Chapter 15
“It’s a dead end?”
“Yes, but look.” Dav shone the beam of the light around the chamber they’d come into. A shaft of sunlight, small and faint, shone from above them, but not enough to show what the flashlight did.
Carrie’s jaw dropped. Literally. And Dav laughed.
“Yes, I feel the same way,” he said. “As if I’ve wandered into that Indiana Jones movie we were discussing.”
“Good Lord, how many niches?” she asked, counting as Dav moved the light over the crypts. The light caught the flash of gold and beading and weaponry. The artifacts glinted in the light, despite the dust of centuries.
“All the riches in the world and nowhere to spend them,” he said, feeling unaccountably sad. What good was wealth if you had no way to utilize it, and no one upon whom to lavish the beauty of gold or gems? Hadn’t he already been thinking that, thinking about a family and why he wanted a daughter or son to carry on his legacy? Had he not already decided on Carrie, he would have now. His admiration and desire for her soared once more as he watched her, eyes alight with curiosity at their find.
Hungry, tired and facing a return down the difficult passage, she was still appreciative of the beauty, of the history that lay before them. She moved along the niches, her artistic interest outweighing any fear or revulsion when it came to the skeletons. Then again, he had to admit they looked more like Halloween props than real people.
He felt a wave of weakness. It could be hunger, or it could be infection. Either one was potentially debilitating. He knew his strength was waning. “Much as I hate to say it, we should go back.”
“Yes, I know,” she said, still looking at the niches.
“I hate to say this too,” he added, “but we should take a gem or a link of gold or a coin. It may be our only way to barter ourselves to freedom, or get help.”
When she turned to him, her face wore a mutinous expression in the flashlight’s crisp beam. “The site shouldn’t be disturbed.”
“No, it shouldn’t. But if we can get free, and we have to use whatever we take, I’ll buy it back and we’ll see that this find is put into the right hands.”
She hesitated.
“I promise I will get it back if I can, return it here, Carrie-mou. Do you doubt my word?”
She huffed out a breath. “No, I know you’ll do it. It’s just...”
He nodded. “I know. I feel bad, but I also wish to survive, to get you home.”
She nodded as well, and directed him to shine the light more closely into one niche. A beautifully carved bowl was held in the hands of the niche’s occupant. It held gems and links of gold, some hammered, some smoothed. She pulled out three items, and spoke, directing her words toward the occupant of the niche: “We’ll bring them back. Thank you for the loan.”
He said nothing about her promise to the dead. He would have done the same, said the same. Some superstitions crossed cultures, he decided.
She pocketed the gold and gems and they began the onerous return journey.
When they got back to the waterfall, no light could be seen. The orb of sunshine was gone.
“Do we stop, or try the other path?” she said, wearily.
He felt himself waver again, felt the flush of heat that washed over him, then receded.
Fever. Exactly what they’d been dreading.
“I do not wish to go on,” he admitted. “But I have begun to feel feverish, Carrie-mou. I think we must keep moving. If there is any hope that this last tunnel leads out, we must try.”
Fear made a mask of her features. “You need more aspirin, and rest.”
He shook his head. “No resting. If I get worse, you cannot carry me, my flame. The aspirin, I will take, however.” Every ache, scrape and pain in his body made itself known as he spoke. The aspirin would be most welcome.
He took two with a gulp of the water, and they set out down the second tunnel. It ran straight, and even when it narrowed at several points, Dav could still squeeze through. They crossed two more pits as well.
Dav was beginning to believe the tunnel would never end in anything, other than more tunnels, when the light showed them yet another dead end. This time, however, instead of a rounded room or platform, a stacked wall of flat, regular, worked stone blocked the way. He heard Carrie’s moan of despair.
“It is not a cave, Carrie-mou,” he said, holding on to that thought with everything he had. “It is something we have not yet seen, therefore it could be a way out, even when it does not seem to be.”
As they neared the wall, Dav thought he smelled fresher air. He stopped her. “I feel a breeze again. Check with the light,” he ordered. If she resented his terse command, she said nothing.
Together they braced themselves and she began to play the light along the floor leading to the wall, then up the left side, over the ceiling and down the right side. She had just begun to slide the beam down toward the floor when Dav noticed the discrepancy.
“Wait. We have to get closer.”
They moved closer, step by step, until they were at the wall. The light disappeared into a narrow margin between the stacked stone and the wall of the tunnel. Beyond the crevice, the light bounced off rocks and dirt. The stone and earth were damp—he could see that in the narrow beam.
“Wait, go back to the right,” he said, peering into the darkness. The light played back and he saw green.
Leaves. Vines, of some kind.
“What is it?” Carrie demanded, gripping his belt tightly as she moved the light at his direction.
“Leaves. Something grows in there. I think that means it’s close to the light, to the surface.” He was excited now. If there was a way out, they were saved. “What time is it? How close to daylight?” He was fairly sure they wouldn’t be able to assess things with just the flashlight, not from here, through the eight-inch-wide opening.
She passed him the light, her hands shaking, and dug out her broken watch. “It’s after midnight,” she said, her earlier excitement giving way to sudden weariness as she realized how long they’d been lost in the tunnels.
“Then we will sit here and rest until the sun rises,” he decided.
“Good plan,” she said. “Or as good as any,” she added as they slid down the wall, sitting with their backs to the heavy bricks so the faint breeze could play over their sweaty faces. “Do you feel that?” she added, lifting her face and turning it toward the crevasse.
“The breeze? Yes, it feels good.” It felt more than good. It felt heavenly. The stir of air made him realize how hot he was. Before he’d completed the thought, however, he shivered. The fever was making itself known.
She must have felt the shiver, because, to his surprise, her hand touched him gently, resting on his forehead. “I’m not sure how high your fever is, Dav, but even with the aspirin, you’re burning up.”
“Yes, I know, my Carrie-mou.”
“Is there anything I can do?” she said, kneeling now at his side. “More aspirin? Or is it too soon?”
“Yes, to the aspirin. And no, I don’t think it’s too soon. It has been several hours.” He gratefully took the canteen and drained it, knowing they had the other three left. “And then, we sleep.”
“Okay,” she said, and she seemed to appreciate that he’d set an agenda. In fact, she sounded weary and discouraged. “That sounds like a plan.” She busied herself for a few moments, finding the canteen and the aspirin. She also got out a power bar and split it between them. “I forgot I had these, but we need the energy and the calories.”
“We have burned energy today, haven’t we?” he said lightly, thinking of their lovemaking as well as their travels.
“Yes, we have,” she said, and in the radiance of the upturned light, he saw her smile.
It was her smile that made the decision for him. Tomorrow, when they woke, he would tell her that he planned to ask her to marry him. In fact, he decided, leaning back and closing his eyes, he would ask her.
She turned off the light and he pulled her securely under his arm so that he could hold her and they could be close. Although they’d been hot from all their exertions, and he even hotter from the fever, the night breeze was chilling them both. It felt good now, but would be colder by morning, especially if his fever did not abate.
With his battered coat around his shoulders, and around Carrie’s back, he sat awake thinking. His mind circled and circled long after she’d fallen asleep, her head pillowed on his chest.
He would ask her to marry him. He wanted to—needed to. Nothing about his feelings for her had changed. He rubbed at his chest, and whispered, “Andras.” Husband. What kind of husband would he be? Would he be what she wanted? Needed? On one hand, he felt sure she would agree to marry him. But his knowledge of himself was less solid, less quantifiable. There was the cry of a wild animal beyond the wall, and he felt his heart leap in both hope and fear.
The cry of an animal that close meant freedom might be near. But it also meant danger. Carrie shifted in her sleep.
“Shhhh, darling,” he soothed, and she murmured something unintelligible and settled once more. He didn’t think anything could get through the narrow opening to harm them, but he would watch. And listen. Whatever it was would get to him first, so at least he could protect her.
Another thought occurred to him. Unless she was protected with the pills women took, she could also be pregnant. Not likely, he realized, but stranger things had happened.
He fell asleep dreaming of daughters who looked like Carrie and his mother, and sons that were sturdy and strong, dark-haired and blue-eyed, and calling him father.
“Sir?” Marjorie called to him as he was about to exit the plane. Her brow was creased in a frown, so he presumed that she was worried yet again about disturbing him. He sighed, but smiled.
“Yes, my dear?”
“There is another call for you,” she said, sounding a bit breathless. “Would you like to take it here on the plane, or should I have it routed to the car?” She hesitated and he began to see the issue. Routing to the car, here in Guatemala, might be slightly more challenging than it was in the United States.
“I’ll take it here. José!” he called down the steps, catching the attention of his local driver. “Stow the bags; I’ll be there in a moment.”
José nodded, not attempting to speak over the noise of local air traffic.
He accepted the receiver. “Yes?”
“Sir, there’s been an issue.” It was the man he’d sent to watch Niko.
“Yes, go on.” Irritation rose within him. He didn’t like it when things went awry.
“Two hunters of ours were tracking that high-value animal and its mate.”
“As we discussed,” he said, irritated that they were covering the same ground.
“I’m afraid the hunters suffered a mishap. They’re going to have to turn in their hunting licenses.”
Dead, then. Hmmm. Not good, and not part of the plan.
Fury singed him, then receded. His man was right to report in; it wouldn’t do to take the irritation out on him. “Do we know what caused the mishap?”
“No, not at this time,” the man replied tersely. “I’m checking options and possible sources. It may be there were snakes in the grass, but nothing points to a snakebite.”
“I see.” Had Davros bought one of Niko’s men? Had Gates Bromley figured out where Niko had stashed Dav? He wondered how he could shift these new developments to his advantage. It might be an opportunity to pursue, to give Davros’s people a lead and be the rescuer this time. Give him more time to live now, and kill him later when things were clearer. “Has there been any sign of the rare beast, or has it escaped its containment?”
“No, sir.”
“Interesting. Thank you for letting me know. I will consider our next move. Stand by for more...” He hesitated, not wanting to say “orders” or “instructions” on an unsecured network. “Communications.”
“Will do.” He detected relief in the man’s voice, and let a wry smile twist his lips. They were always so surprised when he didn’t yell. “Thank you, sir.”
He pondered the new development. Was there a third player in the field? He had been sure he’d tied up all the loose ends. No one in Niko’s sphere, now that he’d eliminated Niko’s team, had the skills to effectively take out three of his men without leaving a trace his man could find. The fact that the grate was still locked, with Davros apparently still inside, puzzled him as well. It would be interesting to see what Niko reported when he called in.
Ana and Gates had holed up in the small hotel at the game reserve where they’d secured space. Here in the offseason, the rates were ridiculously low and the proprietors were thrilled to have the team take more than half the available rooms. They were going to fan out from here, having come to the hotel straight from the hangar. Holden and Callahan would process everything, see if they could get a further direction from this point.
“What if we really have an inside breach?” Ana asked her pacing husband. “What do we do?”
“It would explain some things.”
“Things?” she said. “What things?”
“Little things that went wrong last year, things that could have been chance and could have been interference, but I couldn’t ever pinpoint the source and I knew they hadn’t come from outside or from our known enemies.”
He looked grim and Ana
didn’t blame him. When and if they could catch their mole, she decided she would leave discipline to Gates. It wouldn’t be pretty, and she’d bet there would be both personal retribution as well as lawyers involved in a great deal of it.
That brought her back to thinking about Dav. “It’s been nearly five days, Gates. What are the chances?”
“The ransom note was delivered three days in,” he said, instead of answering. “We can’t judge by timing on this one.”
“Gates.” All the compassion she had for him and her own fear made the one word come out like a combination plea and question.
“I know, I know,” he said, raking a hand through his dark hair in frustration. His thick hair was darkened to nearly black with perspiration and his fingers left grooves in the heavy layers. The rooms were stuffy and closed in, and yet it wasn’t warm enough to want the air-conditioning on. “There are so many factors here. We have kidnappers who are well organized, well supplied and funded. We have the death at Carrie’s gallery, which is connected. Presumably the girl there—”
“Inez.” Ana supplied the girl’s name. “Art student, parttime employee for events, moves up to full-time when Cal leaves.”
“Yes, Inez,” he continued. “Presumably she was their connection to be sure that the date between Carrie and Dav went off as scheduled. She was probably instructed to let someone know when they left, keep the timetable right up to par. She probably wasn’t aware that she was doing it, Baxter says she had a new man in her life, according to her friends. One about whom she was secretive. Obviously, it’s not good to keep those kind of secrets,” he added grimly. “That said, she wasn’t our inside leak; she wasn’t even there last year.”
“And yet she died because she knew someone’s face. Did Bax get anything off the security tapes?”
“Man, wearing a hoodie, enters and sweeps the girl off her feet. This is, we presume, the new mystery boyfriend. They suck face on the way to Carrie’s office, making it obvious he knew her and had a relationship with her, probably for some time, since she let him in without hesitation. For five minutes, the camera shows an empty hallway, then goes off.”