Beyond Eden

by Sherer, B. K. ; Linnea, Sharon

  Jaime supposed she was still in the cave below the monastery. It was her supposition that the console in the file room ran the programs in the virtual reality Cave, and it was likely the Cave itself was set up behind the second closed door. If that was correct, she should exit into the same alcove from which she’d accessed the file room.

  She remembered Brother Timothy saying, “I have to leave.” It seemed as if they had drugged her and dumped her in the virtual reality room to await someone else.

  Was anyone else left there as a guard?

  Once Jaime was out, what to do?

  There had to be another exit from the big cave. No one could bring in plate glass windows and complicated electronics or heavy file cabinets the way she’d come down.

  How to find it?

  If she could get back to that large one-way picture window, it would serve as a vantage point from which to see the whole cave.

  Bottom line: She had to get the information out to Yani, now.

  Jaime said a short prayer and pushed on the door.

  February 26, 2006, 2:35 p.m.

  The streets of Chora

  * * *

  Witgard was not at all in the mood to climb the winding road to Chora. He couldn’t believe there was an intruder in the cave. Constantine said she claimed to be a friend of Geri Allende’s, but how could that be? Getting to the cave was not a romp in the park.

  Witgard purposely kept himself suspended between nonchalance and panic. If she wasn’t some kind of cop, what did he care? It’s not like there were competing labs breathing down his neck. FIA was flying so far under the radar at this point that no one could see them as any kind of threat.

  Who the hell could she be?

  And what was he to do with her?

  Witgard assumed that when he got there she’d still be doped, so it might be possible to get some truthful information from her. Then what? All he had to do was keep her out of the way until Tuesday, no matter who she was.

  Constantine had told him that there were two monks’ cells hollowed out on the circuitous path between the monastery laundry and the cave. There must be some way to keep her there for a few days. No one would be able to hear her scream; that was certain. Did those cells have doors with bolts? It was possible. If not, they could keep her bound and the door barred.

  When he got there, Constantine would be gone, but Phil should remain, as should Anton, the burly armed guard.

  Witgard preferred the streets of Chora with only the local population. It was so much more laid-back, so much more of a family affair. All the locals knew one another. Several nodded to him as he continued his way up. He wished it were low tide, when he could have either walked in the hidden lower door or taken the boat on the river into the cavern. Now the lower door was water and the river poured into the sea from the cave, with no headroom above.

  Still, he needed to arrive before the woman came to her senses. That left only one remaining choice.

  He had timed his arrival at the monastery to coincide with the monks’ after-meal reflection. They would each be in their cells with the Holy Scriptures.

  It was as expected. As he reached the top of the climb to the monastery, one young man, a local hired as kitchen help, hurried past him, probably late for Sunday meal with his own family.

  Thus there was no one in the walkway to see him move the large, flat stone from the opening of the ancient cistern. No one to see him flip the small spring that rolled the concave bottom of the cistern open, letting the small amount of holy water drop down to the wooden floor of the glorified dumbwaiter below.

  Witgard lowered himself in, crossed himself as usual with the sway of the small box, and flipped the cistern closed again.

  Then he began the long, long descent in the dark.

  February 26, 2006, 2:46 p.m.

  Beneath the Monastery of St. John

  Chora, Patmos

  * * *

  Jaime had guessed correctly. The door from the virtual reality room opened directly into the alcove. The door to the file room was now firmly shut and, she assumed, locked. She quickly got her bearings. To her left was the passageway that led back to the room behind the waterfall. To her right was another passageway. She figured it must be the one that led down into the cave.

  Which way to go? She’d have to go left to retrace her steps, though she was hoping to find another way out. She decided to head for the window behind the falls to scope things out. Jaime headed left. The rush of the waterfall provided the aural backdrop to the open cavern, and the light spray of mist filtered back as she again ducked down behind the short wall on the walkway. She positioned herself as unobtrusively as possible and looked up over the wall.

  At first she saw no one. The cave was as massive as she recalled, and the river that ran through it was perhaps 12 feet wide. She didn’t see any kind of bridge across it. As she watched, two men appeared below her, their heads close together as they talked, so they could hear each other over the sound of the rushing water. One of the men was slight and mid-height. The other was large and burly, his head once shaven but now bristly. He wore a shoulder holster, which contained a weapon.

  She watched for another couple of minutes, but no one else appeared.

  Jaime’s confidence was building. She had actually attained her goal—gotten in, found the information they were after, and freed herself. Now she needed to find the exit. It had to be close by. No one could bring in all this equipment unless there was a direct portal.

  She couldn’t see anything from her raised perch. She’d have to go down.

  She crept backward and hurried across the alcove, past the office and virtual reality room. As she suspected, that short hall led to a staircase cut through the cavern wall.

  It was now or never.

  Jaime descended the stone steps. She paused at the bottom and listened for voices or footfalls but heard nothing. She ducked down and looked around the corner. Both men were standing on the flat riverbank far enough from the waterfall that they could continue their discussion. Their backs were to Jaime.

  This allowed her a few minutes to peruse the interior of the cave for any possible mode of egress. Nothing. She did, however, spot what seemed to be an interior door on the opposite side of the cavern that echoed the one in which she stood.

  Then something interesting happened. Both men looked up across the river. Whatever they saw or heard caused an instantaneous response. They jogged toward the waterfall and disappeared behind it, momentarily reappearing on the other side of the river. Aha.

  They stood by an interior cavern wall and looked up. Jaime’s gaze followed theirs. Only by focusing her attention on that one part of the cavern wall did she notice two dark brown vertical pieces of metal that blended well with the porous brown/black of the cave. Together they looked like tracks coming down from the roof of the cave. As she watched, a rectangular segment of the roof of the cave came lose from its surroundings and began a slow descent along the tracks.

  It was a large rectangular wooden box on a pulley, a cross between an elevator and an old-fashioned dumbwaiter. The box had a door across the bottom half, but the top half was open. Inside stood a short man in a business suit.

  The two men on the ground stood awaiting his arrival.

  This must be the man with whom Brother Timothy/Constantine had the telephone conversation. He opened the wooden door while the contraption was still a foot off the ground and hurriedly stepped off. The three men conferred, and the slighter one pointed back up toward where the file room and the cave were. The new man nodded his head. They began walking back across the cave to where Jaime stood.

  She didn’t have much time to make her decision. That dumbwaiter might be the only direct way out. She needed to get there and get out before they noticed she was gone from the virtual reality room.

  And, since the men were now heading toward the walkway behind the waterfall, her best shot was up and over.

  Jaime hoped the door back past the pic
ture window was the one that led to the opening on the other side of the cave.

  She bolted back up the stairs, through the alcove, and crawled quickly along the open walkway. When she got to the door that opened to the area behind the falls, she hoped the men were looking anywhere but up. If she’d been fast enough, they could still be behind the waterfall themselves. She opened the door and slipped through. The sudden silence was breathtaking, and she rushed past the window behind the falls, to the closed door just beyond it. She pulled it open and was once again greeted by the sound of the falls—and, as she’d hoped, a staircase down.

  She extended her arms and ran one palm against either side of the staircase walls to balance her as she fled downward. Once the men opened the virtual reality room, she was caught. There was no other way out, so she needed to be in the dumbwaiter and up top before they figured out where she’d gone.

  At the bottom of the stairs, she stopped and peered around the corner. The men had crossed the river behind the falls and emerged on the other side.

  Should she wait for them to be entirely out of view? That might not give her much of a head start. She would need time to figure out how to run the contraption. And from the length of the trip to get down here, it seemed like the shaft must be very long. If they stopped her in the midst of her ascent, she was a goner.

  The men’s focus was on getting to the steps and heading for the virtual reality room.

  Jaime took the chance. She darted out and made a beeline straight for the box. A glance over her shoulder when she got there told her she’d made it undetected. The door was on a metal hinge, and she pulled it back, got in, and shut the bolt from the inside.

  Then she slid down onto the wooden floor and looked up to try to figure out what to do. The mechanism seemed straightforward. There was a large metal switch that went up and down. It was currently down.

  Should she wait? Or should she start it and get the heck out of there? The most dangerous part would be the forty feet or so it needed to go up within the confines of the cave, where it could plainly be seen by anyone.

  It took both hands to push the lever up. There was a jolt to the wooden cage, and it started grinding up along its track. If this was an amusement park, she’d demand to see the inspection certificate before going any farther. She didn’t have that luxury.

  The machinery of the dumbwaiter was fairly loud. Only the rushing of the water masked its progress. For such an old contraption, it climbed quickly.

  Jaime was huddled against the back corner of the floor looking up at the fast-approaching cave roof when the entire box shook violently. Something had fallen onto the top of the box. Something heavy.

  Within moments, a pair of legs appeared over the side and swung forward, to catch the side of the wooden car.

  But as they did, there was yelling from below, and gunshots. Blood spurted from the person climbing into the dumbwaiter.

  The person who’d been shot lost his grip and tumbled off, making the long drop to the cave floor below.

  But she saw his face and his expression of pain and surprise as he fell past.

  Oh, shit.

  It was Yani.

  February 26, 2006, 2:56 p.m.

  Beneath the Monastery of St. John

  Chora, Patmos

  * * *

  No, no, no, no. This couldn’t be happening.

  Jaime stood up and looked over the side of the dumbwaiter.

  She was three-quarters of the way up the exposed track along the cave wall, which meant Yani had fallen maybe 25 feet. He was lying on the ground, but he was moving. He’d been trained how to land after a fall, but she didn’t know how seriously he was wounded from the gunfire.

  Jaime grabbed the lever with both hands and stopped the progress of the wooden box. It swung for a moment. Then she coaxed the lever the rest of the way down.

  It began its creaking descent.

  She knew the men were coming. She didn’t have time for a safe landing. She might have a minute while they focused on her counterpart before noticing her, but she couldn’t count on it. She opened the wooden door, swung her legs down, and jumped.

  Jaime rolled when she landed, her feet still absorbing the waves of pain. She saw the men moving, a blur across the opposite side of the cave, as she knelt by Yani.

  His breath was raspy; the left side of his shirt was soaked with blood.

  “Were you hurt in the fall? Can you walk?” she said, but even as she spoke, she realized there was nowhere to walk to.

  He nodded. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Yani put his arm around her shoulder as the men disappeared behind the waterfall. As he struggled to stand, his breathing instantly became more labored, and he leaned heavily against her.

  Shit.

  Jaime had exactly three seconds to formulate a plan. That was how long until the guy with the gun came out from behind the waterfall.

  Yani needed medical care right away. And if these goons captured them and got them upstairs, there was no way she was ever going to get Yani back down into the cave—or back up to the monastery.

  They had only one chance.

  Jaime absorbed the weight of his body, and as the first man came charging out on their side of the river, she half-walked, half-dragged Yani the few feet to the rushing current of the River of Life and pulled him in with her as she fell.

  February 26, 2006, 2:58 p.m.

  The River of Life, Patmos

  * * *

  The water was freezing. It felt like a million little icicles piercing her clothing. Jaime bobbed back to the surface, still grasping Yani around the shoulder. The current was carrying them quickly through the cave—but toward what? The so-called river of life ran into the cave wall opposite the waterfall, but there was no headroom between the water and the cave. None. And she had no way of knowing where the river spilled out or if it ran under a water-hollowed passage with no air and no headroom for miles.

  But behind her the men were shouting and running, and twice the air was punctured by the retort of the guard’s pistol. Not that she could get herself and Yani out of the river at this point anyway. The water was moving too fast, and taking them with it. They were within a couple of yards of the cave wall.

  Was Yani even conscious?

  “We’re going to have to go under,” she said.

  “I know,” he answered.

  She stayed up until the very last second, then grasped a lungful of air and ducked underwater, never letting go of her partner. He did his best to duck with her, and she pulled him downward with all her might.

  And then they were under, and the world was black and frigid.

  There was no variation. There was no slight filtering of light. There was no world other than the water and the rock wall above.

  Her lungs began to burn.

  Was this how her mortal life was going to end?

  It could be worse. The water was so cold that if there was nowhere to come up for air, they would lose consciousness quickly. Already she couldn’t feel her fingers or toes.

  The burning spread, filling her chest. She was going to have to gasp soon, even if it meant taking in water, rather than air. The beginning of the end.

  Lord, be with me, she prayed. Be with us.

  Jaime had closed her eyes as she prayed, and she opened them to find silver specks glistening in the water around her. She began by wondering what the specs were—but then stopped abruptly. If she could see specks—if she could see anything—they must be nearing light. They must be nearing air.

  She used her last reserve of energy to kick hard, to swim forward. She had to make it. She kicked and kicked again and realized that Yani was mimicking her, adding his final strength to hers.

  And then the light got brighter, and she fought with everything inside her to make it forward and up into air.

  Jaime burst out into the February afternoon, panting, drawing in air as fast as her lungs would process it. Yani was also gasping, but it didn’t seem h
e was getting the oxygen he needed. She looked around wildly to try to orient herself.

  They’d fought their way to the surface as soon as the river spilled out into the Aegean. The coast of Patmos was to her left—and, farther on, to her right.

  The current of the river was pushing them out to sea, but she fought it, pulling them back toward the rocky stretch of land. Yani did his best to help, but it was clear he was in terrible pain and unable to catch his breath. Something was seriously wrong.

  “Jaime, I… can’t… breathe,” he said, as if she hadn’t noticed. “And… so cold.”

  “Yani, we’re there. We’re almost to land. See? It’s right there. We can make it.”

  Her kicks still had some power to them; his were at least making him a neutral weight against the tide.

  And then, thank God, they got out of the flow of the river and were picked up by the tide. It pushed them in waves back toward the shore.

  When they got close enough in that Jaime could reach the bottom, she began dragging Yani, hopping up when she could to let the pull of the waves push them forward, while standing her ground as the current receded.

  It seemed like years, but finally she got them both to shore. She left Yani lying on a rocky outcropping and climbed steadily up and around the curve of the bay to see if she could discover where they were.

  When she rounded the curb, she nearly wept with relief.

  For just above her was the terrace of a hotel room.

  Farther up was a now-empty restaurant, with a sandy-colored rock wall overlooking the sea.

  It was the Petra. The terrace restaurant was where she’d spoken to Geri only that morning. And the suite was the one Geri had pointed out as hers, the most expensive suite in the hotel, the one with a balcony hanging out over the sea.

  Now all Jaime had to do was get Yani around the corner and up an outcropping of rocks. Then she could see about saving his life.