Dangerous Ground (Fiona Carver)

by Rachel Grant

As much as she wanted to lean into him and catch her breath after this startling development, she knew it wouldn’t be wise to dawdle. “We need to see if you caught anyone on the video.”

  He pulled the small camera from his pocket and held it between them. Not surprisingly, the camera was high-quality. The screen was the size of a credit card, and the video was stabilized even though his hand hadn’t been steady.

  “There’s someone down there. On the lower path beneath the arch.”

  “So the shots came from below,” she said.

  “Maybe. There might have been two people.” He pressed a few buttons and zoomed in, then replayed the first video.

  “That could be Victor, I suppose. It’s hard to be certain with the layers of clothing and hat.”

  “Yeah. Let’s see if I captured the person up top too.” He switched to the second video.

  “You’re certain someone was up top?”

  “They had to be. No way your pack could have been shot like that from below, same with the bullet that hit the ground next to me.”

  “Right. Not unless they’re magic bullets.”

  He hit “Play” on the second video, and she flinched when the bullet sounded, even though she knew it was coming. Her gaze drifted up from the screen and fixed on the cut on his cheek. It would likely scar. “You’re pretty darn impressive too.”

  He smiled but said nothing, just zoomed in on the hillside and replayed it again in slow motion. After watching several times, he finally broke the silence. “There has to be someone up there, but I didn’t get anyone on the video.”

  “With someone above and someone below, we’re trapped in here, aren’t we?” The LUNA bar threatened to surface again. “And if they follow us into the tunnels . . . we’re cornered.”

  “Not if there’s another way out,” Dean said. He pulled out the map in the plastic pouch.

  “Dylan didn’t mark a way out. All these tunnels dead end.” She traced the hand-drawn lines.

  “Then we’ll have to go off the map. Take a tunnel he marked but didn’t explore.”

  “We’ll have to add to the map or we’ll get lost. Maybe, if we lose Victor—or whoever it is—in the tunnels, we can double back and exit the way we came.”

  “We’ll keep that open as an option, but I have a feeling one of them will stake out the entrance. Plus, there could be more than two of them.”

  “But why? Why did they shoot at us? Why did they . . . disappear Dylan?”

  He gave her a grim smile in the dim red light. “Thank you for using that verb and not the one you were thinking.”

  She placed a hand on his thigh right above his knee and squeezed. After being shot at, Dean had to recognize that the odds they’d find Dylan alive were decreasing down to nil.

  Dean’s focus remained on the map, his breathing slow and steady. There was a calm about him that was unexpected. She suspected he’d entered some sort of hyperfocused survival zone. The ability probably served him well in his work. She knew just enough about wildlife photography to know those who were at the top of the game exercised extreme patience, and they often weren’t risk averse.

  Was Dean calling on those skills now? Was that why he wasn’t falling apart after they’d been shot at?

  “Dylan came back here because he wanted to see if he could find more metallic stones, to confirm there was a meteorite debris field,” Dean said. “I don’t know a whole lot about meteorites, but I remember reading about the one that is theorized to have killed the dinosaurs. They found the crater under the sea, and it’s massive, as fitting of something that could wipe out megafauna across the entire globe. Do you know how old Mount Katin is?”

  She shook her head. “I remember Dylan saying something about . . . a hundred thousand years? Maybe? It’s earlier than the fifteen thousand years max I’d be looking at for cultural history, so I didn’t really pay attention.”

  “Okay. So what if a massive meteorite hit somewhere near here sometime in the last seventy-five thousand years? The main crater could be underwater or incorporated into the volcano, and as the cone grew and lava tubes formed, pieces of meteorite could be embedded in the walls. Hundreds of years ago, the Unangas explored these tubes, collected some of the rocks, and used them in their homes. They even buried their dead here.”

  She nodded. It was not just plausible; it was probable. “And when the village was wiped out by the mudslide, it’s possible knowledge of the tube network was lost, or the routes they knew had shifted with new lava tubes. After that, they might have been content to leave the burial caves alone and undisturbed through the centuries.”

  “Yeah, so for whatever reason, they didn’t come back here and gather more of the metallic rocks. And this hasn’t exactly been accessible to those who might want to explore the tubes since then. It’s part of the Aleutian wildlife preserve, and between that and the military’s development plans, access is severely restricted—believe me on this point, I tried for weeks to find another way to get here—so the volcano was monitored by USGS but went largely unexplored until Dylan was hired to do a more extensive evaluation for the EIS. And Dylan, being basically obsessed with volcanoes, was extra thrilled to discover there was a vast network of tubes that hadn’t really been mapped or explored.”

  Fiona nodded and tapped the map Dean held. “This is far beyond the scope of work for the EIS. But he had downtime he could fill with exploration. His job wasn’t like mine; he didn’t have a gazillion historic and prehistoric items to record. And Mount Katin’s been pretty quiet for the last few decades.”

  “So Dylan stayed busy during his downtime by exploring the cave system.”

  “And after I showed him the meteorite artifacts, he decided to come back here and see if he could find more of the debris field.”

  “That’s my guess.” He tapped the map again. “In July, Dylan ordered a bunch of two-way radios—the kind that can be used as relay stations to extend communications in caves. I found the receipt on his computer. I spotted two radios on our way here.” He pointed to two locations Dylan had marked with the letter R. “He must’ve come here with Trevor or someone else to set up the relays so he could communicate from deep in the cave. Dylan never messes around when it comes to safety.”

  “So he wasn’t alone in creating this map.”

  “Probably not.”

  “I wonder why he didn’t have this map with him that last day?” She stared at the crisscrossing lines, smooth and true, despite being hand-drawn.

  “My guess is he’d made a copy. There was a scanner and printer in the office tent.”

  “True. He might’ve done that regularly, copied his original and added notes to the copy while he explored, then updated the original when he returned to camp.” It explained the lack of cross-outs. Map making was messy work, with lots of mistakes and erasures, and this map was drawn in ink. “So he came back that last day with a copy of the map to find the meteorite. But why would that lead to his disappearance?”

  “Meteorites are valuable,” Dean said. “Some contain rare earth metals that are used in cutting-edge technology like cell phones and automobiles. If this meteorite is big, it could be very, very valuable.”

  They studied the map and came up with a plan, then refilled their bottles with water from the stream, dropping tablets inside to purify the contents, although given that this was an underground stream likely fed by a caldera lake or rain runoff, it was probably safe already.

  They pulled their packs back on, and Dean led the way, backtracking through two tunnels to get to the passage marked with an M on the map—which could stand for meteorite or metallic.

  “Is the ocean floor being mapped as part of the study?” Dean asked.

  “The coastline of the study area has been mapped already. More extensive mapping will be done outside the bay if the navy moves forward with base construction. You think they might find the impact crater in the ocean?”

  “It’s possible. The crater could have been disguised in t
he immediate vicinity by volcanic activity, but intensive mapping would likely reveal it.”

  “If the meteorite hit close to the island, who would it technically belong to? The United States? The state of Alaska? The Aleut Corporation?”

  “That’s an excellent question. I’m sure Alaska has comprehensive mining laws regarding ownership, but how would that apply to the ocean?”

  “You think someone else—maybe someone from Pollux—found either the debris field or the crater and wants to harvest and sell it, and they were concerned when Dylan started searching for it?”

  Dean nodded, his head bob making the red glow from his headlamp bounce across the walls. Fiona had turned off her headlamp to limit the spread of light through the tunnels. “Yeah. That’s my theory. You told Dylan and the geologist—Trevor—about the metallic artifacts. And they both visited your site.”

  “Sylvia was in the tent the night I showed Dylan the stone. As were John and Roy. It was dinnertime. Even the cook and pilot were there.”

  “But Victor is the guy who’s still on the island with us, and he might’ve been below the natural bridge.”

  “And he’s not a geologist. Or if he is, he’s never worked in California.”

  “Someone worked very hard to get Victor on this project.”

  “Yes,” a male voice said from behind them. “They did.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  Dean’s first thought was to protect Fiona, who was behind him and couldn’t see the path ahead. He snapped off his light, plunging them into absolute darkness, which would give Victor the advantage only if he had night-vision goggles with an infrared illuminator.

  He grabbed Fiona’s hand and dropped down, scooting on his knees into a large crevice he’d spotted. He placed her hand on his sleeve and felt her grip, freeing him to use both his hands to grope in the darkness to prevent either of them from bashing their heads on a rock or slipping into a crevasse.

  Once he was certain he and Fiona were safely out of sight from the main passage, he peeked out, eyes wide open in darkness so complete, he could believe he was blindfolded, and looked for a pinpoint of red light.

  He spotted it—and quickly snapped on the white beam of his handheld Maglite. Aiming it right for the NVGs, blinding Victor, at least for a moment.

  Then he grabbed Fiona and again placed her hand on his arm. She gripped him without a word, and they crawled forward together, putting distance between them and the man who hunted them, unable to see the path ahead or behind.

  “You won’t find your brother,” Victor said. “He’s dead. His body tossed in the sea.”

  Dean didn’t respond. Didn’t react. He just groped in the darkness to find a path. He’d process the words later. Right now, he had to save Fiona. He was the one who’d insisted she explore with him. It was his fault she was in danger. Again.

  Movement behind indicated Victor was advancing, and he flashed the light at him again, this time using the strobe setting.

  He hoped the guy had cheap NVGs and not the military-grade ones that recovered quickly. Victor had a gun. Dean’s best weapon was a knife. If Victor got close enough for him to use it, it would be all over. Their only hope was to lose him in the tunnels.

  There was a chirping sound—a two-way radio signal—and a tinny-sounding voice echoed in the chamber. “Where are you?”

  All at once, Dean realized his mistake. He’d assumed the relay radios had been left by Dylan, but it wouldn’t have made sense for Dylan to place the relays that last day if he’d been here alone.

  The relays had been a sign that Victor and his accomplice had been exploring these caves.

  And they had a copy of Dylan’s map.

  Victor’s position was hard to gauge as his voice also echoed off the stone walls. “In the west tunnel. I found them.”

  The radio chirped again, and the same voice responded. “Perfect. Charges set. You have five minutes to get to the entrance. Plenty of time if you’re in the west tunnel.”

  Victor cursed into his radio. “Asshole. I told you to wait.”

  “And I said trapping them was our best bet,” the other man said. “Better run. Four minutes, fifty seconds.”

  Dean shone the strobe light in Victor’s direction again. The man cursed, and Dean caught a muzzle flash accompanied by the deafening bang of shots fired.

  The sound echoed through the tunnel, loud enough to dull his hearing, but he thought he heard rocks skittering on uneven ground.

  He risked the light, which revealed the passage was empty. Victor had run for the exit.

  “Blinding him as he pulled the trigger might have saved us,” Fiona said, her voice shaking.

  “I don’t think he was really aiming, so much as trying to make a point not to follow him.” But yeah. One of them could have been shot.

  “He made his point, then.”

  Dean nodded. “I think . . . I think they’re blowing up the entrance.”

  “If Victor doesn’t make it out, he’ll be trapped too.”

  “I think I’m going to hope he makes it, then.” It was a strange thing to say about a man who’d just told him Dylan had been murdered. Who’d just shot at them. But they had a far better chance at survival if they weren’t trapped with a man who’d shot at them multiple times already.

  Dean wrapped an arm around Fiona and pulled her to his side. He snapped off the flashlight, once again plunging them into absolute darkness, this time without even a tiny red glow.

  He needed to think, but his brain was spinning.

  Fiona’s arm slid around his waist, and they sat in the darkness, side by side, arms wrapped around each other, the only sound in the tunnel that of their soft breathing.

  He focused on his breath, imagined he was in a blind waiting to take the perfect shot. He tried to sink into the Zen nothingness of waiting, but he couldn’t do it.

  Is Dylan dead?

  He reached out with his twin energy and tried to feel his brother in these caves. He came up blank, empty. But that meant nothing. He and Dylan hadn’t shared that kind of connection in years. Decades, even.

  Dylan didn’t feel dead to him. But he didn’t feel alive either. And that, more than anything, was what scared him.

  When the blast came, he was almost certain only two minutes had passed, not the five promised, but then, time was truncated and elastic with adrenaline.

  Fiona’s grip tightened on his waist, and she let out a soft whimper as the entire cavern shook.

  He pulled her onto his lap, turning her sideways to accommodate the bulky pack, and held her even as he held his breath, wondering if the tunnel they were in was compromised now and would crumble down on them.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Fiona clung to Dean, practically burrowing into him. If they were going to die, at least they had this comfort of holding each other. Not alone. As Dylan must have been.

  As Regan had been.

  Her heart ached for what Dean must be feeling right now. For herself too as her memories of the search for Regan played on repeat in her mind.

  She couldn’t even process all the emotions she was feeling. They were trapped inside a volcano, and the cavern they were in could collapse at any moment. If they made their way to the entrance, they would probably find it blocked, and if it wasn’t, they were sure to be greeted by Victor, his partner, and their guns.

  She racked her brain to think if the voice she’d heard on the radio was familiar—someone on the team—but between the static, relays, and echo of the cave, it was impossible. It could be anyone, even Sylvia, although she was almost certain it had been a male voice.

  After a long moment, she said, “Our only option is to keep going deeper. Look for another exit.”

  “I was thinking the same thing. We were going to go off the map anyway. That was the whole point of coming here.”

  “There really could be another way out,” she said hopefully.

  “I choose to believe there is.” He said it with such conviction. If anyone
could will another exit into existence, it would be Dean Slater.

  She kissed his cheek, her lips brushing against his whiskers; then she placed her forehead on the spot she’d kissed and took a deep breath. “I think”—she exhaled, long and slow—“you’re amazing.”

  “I think you’re pretty incredible too. Plus, I just thought of a bright side.”

  “Oh yeah? What’s that?”

  “We don’t have to cross the bridge again, or climb down the narrow hillside, or drive back up the crap road.”

  She laughed. It felt so good to laugh. “You’re right. That is a bright side.”

  He reached up and cupped her cheek. “I’m going to get you out of here, Fi.”

  She wondered if he wanted to kiss her. If she turned on her light, would she see desire in his eyes? She wouldn’t object to being kissed right then, but also . . . the man had just been told his brother’s body had been tossed in the northern Pacific Ocean. His emotions had to be in deep turmoil. Bad timing for something that would change the dynamic between them, no matter how much they might want to pretend it wouldn’t.

  She gently extracted herself from his lap and got to her feet. “I’m going to assume that since this tunnel hasn’t collapsed yet, it’s stable.” It’s not like they had any other choice. “How far are we from the end of the map?”

  He shone his light on the page and pointed. “I think we’re here.” He ran his finger along the line. “Two more forks, then we reach the end of the known universe.” He met her gaze. “How are you with tight spaces?”

  “Thankfully, claustrophobia isn’t one of my issues.”

  “Yeah, but crawling through tight, unmapped tunnels would freak almost anyone out. I’ll admit I’m not excited about the prospect.”

  “We don’t have a choice. I’ll deal.”

  “You really are amazing, you know,” he said softly.

  She smiled at him. “Ditto.”

  It was possible to find another way out. She knew just enough about lava tube formation to know there was hope. Tubes were formed when a thick flow of lava, what Hawaiians called pahoehoe, flowed down the volcano. The top layer, being cooled by the air—and the air in Alaska was quite cold, so she imagined it cooled quickly compared to other climates—would form a skin and solidify, creating an insulated tube that the lava continued to flow through, down the mountainside, eroding the ground it flowed over, carving tunnels in the rock.