She went to the computers, sitting, then immediately accessed the files, using the password she’d seen him type hundreds of times. She opened his last file and read.
Her heart pounded with disappointment when she keyed up a schematic drawing. It rolled into 3-D model, spinning slowly on its axis. Instantly, she recognized the configuration.
A fool would.
Howard Gantz scowled at the satellite phone, unable to reach Gannon. The call went through but wouldn’t connect. He wanted to have a look-see in Renoux’s warehouses, but he owed Gannon more than he could repay so he stuck around. He tried the call again while staring at the computer screen as it showed the top fifteen suspects. All scientists. Fucking rocket scientists, he thought, and gave a closer look at their pedigrees. He narrowed the search for people with confirmed terrorists’ ties since they all had the skill to create something horrible. It narrowed the results to five. He sat back down and read. Three of the five had been captured or were dead. The two remaining, whereabouts unknown, suspected deceased. Fine with him, but there was no confirmation. No DNA, prints, skulls on a spike.
He read the intelligence reports, easily understanding why they were on it, but not how the two men, scholars, could vanish. Both of them had to get paid somehow, and they owned patents on considerable inventions, most of them weapons.
He brought up an interrogation report. Oddly, they said the same thing. The men were forced out of government contracts for Germany, Britain, and one for a U.S. contractor. They were in research and development and the reason cited gave him chills. Creating weapons that destroyed the targets was their job.
Creating weapons that mutilated and maimed—wasn’t.
He grabbed his satellite phone and dialed Colonel Jansen.
Dirt spilled from the sealed cave and kicked up dust.
“This isn’t stable,” Mike said, helping her off the ground. He snapped out a camouflage-printed handkerchief and blotted at the blood on her forehead.
“I look that bad, huh?”
He smiled. “You look dusted in cinnamon.”
“If it’s edible, I want it. I’m still starving.” She frowned at him. “You haven’t eaten in a while, have you?”
He grew thoughtful as he fished in his pockets, handing her a granola bar she’d given him. “Not hungry, and I can pack away the chow.” His gear was usually full of food.
She unwrapped the bar and ate, saving half for later. She looked for a clean place to stash it and gave up, shoving it in her pants pocket.
Mike noticed her hands shaking, and he gripped them, rubbing. “We’ll get out of this, I swear.”
She was against him instantly, gripping. “I really don’t want to whine but it’s not looking so great, huh?” As if she could take some of his strength through their skin, squeezing him.
“Me trapped alone with you. What could be better?”
“Trapped in a hotel with a soft bed and room service?”
He chuckled and Clancy felt it vibrate into her, warm her, and she admitted she was a sap; it didn’t take much more than his strong arms around her to make her feel better. She squeezed him and stepped back, her hand grazing his satellite phone.
“We can call for reinforcements.” She pulled the phone from its holder. “Oh, man.” It was destroyed, a tangle of chips and wires.
“It won’t work through stone, and where’s that optimism?” he said.
“Back there under piles of rock.”
He tipped her chin, leaning down to kiss her delicately, and a world of feelings opened for him. Not because she was a hundred feet below the ground and he was the best chance she had to survive, but because with each moment he showed her what was underneath that rock-hard ooh-rah shield. A side of himself he probably didn’t show many. Not and be who he was, do what he did.
He drew back. Something in his dark eyes sent a fresh pulse of awareness through her. This man made her feel so much at once she couldn’t pinpoint anything when he was kissing her.
She tipped her head for more, then drew back, frowning. “Did you feel that?”
“Yes, in very specific places.”
She put her hand out. “No, the air. I felt air!” She started to move past.
He jerked her back. “Jeez, the smarts get knocked out of you back there? Go slow.” Mike turned to the only tunnel and felt the breeze. “It’s cold and damp.”
“Smells earthy.” When he cocked a look at her, she added, “This deep it would be either dry or musty, like mold. There was moss on the ground back there.” She tossed a thumb toward the sealed cave. “That means water gets in here from somewhere.”
“There are waterfalls all over the mountains. Maybe there’s an underground stream. Stick close.”
“Oh, no worry on that.” She started to toss the satellite phone, then shoved it in her pack. They moved in small increments and Mike broke off an exposed root and used it to test the path, neither willing to risk another cave-in.
“I hope Richora dies from gangrene.”
“I’m sure I can help him along with that.”
Clancy smiled at his back. He was certain they were getting out of here, and his confidence boosted her as they shifted through the narrow passageway.
The walls were a chunky mix of black stone and tawny red earth, a web of roots dangling overhead and grazing her hair. Clancy tried not to give in to the claustrophobic sensations and hoped the light kept working. After that, they’d have nothing. She kept close behind him, running her hands over the walls, and felt distinct shapes, but couldn’t see more than a vague outline of the sun and moon and some really big eyes.
Mike noticed them too and swept the beam over the sculptures. It showed a remarkably preserved mask with large eyes. “This might be a hideout from the enemy.”
Clancy frowned, tipping her head. “Do you hear that? It sounds like thunder.”
Mike looked back the way they’d come, scowling with concentration. Then his eyes flew wide. “Oh, holy shit!” He pulled her nearly off her feet, and Clancy dared a look back.
Like a house of cards, the ceiling fell, sealing the narrow tunnel with tons of dirt. They ran, desperate to outdistance the collapse in the narrow tunnel. The ground suddenly slanted sharply downward, and without traction, they slid.
Clancy shot like a rocket to the bottom, Mike slamming into her back and rolling over her. He groaned and pushed up as Clancy crawled toward him, rock piling up behind her. Mike lurched forward, grabbed her under the arms, and pulled, rolling, throwing her on her back, then covered her with his body.
Clancy coughed and buried her face in his chest, holding tight to him as dirt hit them. “I’m so over this adventure,” she said, and Mike squeezed her and chanced a look.
“It’s slowing down, come on.” He rolled and climbed to his feet, and Clancy stood. She brushed herself off, sending a cloud of powdery dust into the air, then just gave up.
Mike’s gaze moved over the interior. “This is actually a good thing,” he said and when he looked at her, she was wide eyed. Mike crawled over rocks and dirt, pushing hurriedly at the debris.
Clancy joined him. “You can’t really think to move all this back to the surface.”
“Not hardly.”
“Then why are we doing this?”
“This is why,” he said and brushed at the steep hill of dirt. Clancy leaned closer as he swept away more, and then she took the flashlight from him.
Dark stone—perfectly flat and smooth.
“This is man-made.” He cleared a wider area. “It’s granite.”
Clancy looked around, then searched for an edge. “A wall? A fallen floor? It has to be more ruins.” She couldn’t find an edge and realized it was a really huge slab. “But why so rudimentary out there and then this?”
“The Moche had a social caste. Only the rich and noble were allowed in all areas and to participate in ceremonies.” Mike asked for the flashlight, shining it around, then maneuvered across the rocks. “Back there,
topside, are the simple folk. Here, the aristocracy.” He put his hand out. “Air.” He sanded his fingers. “And humidity.”
“Down here? We have to be at least a hundred feet below the ruins.”
“Waterfalls, it’s got to be from there.” He kept his hand out, taking small steps over the rocks. “It’s probably why the ruins are so intact. Moisture kept it from drying out and cracking.”
“Till we came along,” she said as he came back for her.
“I think I found something.”
Mike helping her, they crossed to the far south, the ground leveling out. He lit the wall. There was a door made of stacked stones. Mike gave the center of it a hard shove. It didn’t budge. Then he ran his fingers around the edge, and frowned when he felt something. He held the light closer.
“There’s a carving, some kind of lever.” He blew off some dirt and brushed at the edges. He pressed it.
The walls groaned, sprinkling them with dirt a moment before the door started to fall apart block by block.
“Michael,” she said as if he was a kid who’d made mud pies in his Sunday best. “Did you have to push it!”
“Oops.” He drew her back with him, shining the light over the interior, then on the door. Stone tumbled inward.
Clancy held tight, and couldn’t take her eyes off the stones. “If the ceiling falls again, I’m going to be so pissed at you.”
But it didn’t, the shaking coming to a sharp halt. The crude door was half gone, and as more fell, a gust of cool air and dampness stroked her face. Without the flashlight there was a bluish glow radiating from the gaping hole.
Mike looked at her, arched a brow, then ducked inside, stepping over the block stones.
Clancy peered from behind him. “Oh my God.”
An underground city. Sorta. At least that’s what it looked like at first glance. Steps spanning twenty feet wide and at least a yard deep were chiseled in a half moon, and as they climbed over the fallen stones she realized the glow came from a pool of water, light magnifying and illuminating the cave.
“Can you believe this?” She turned full circle, the ceiling fifty feet high, the walls carved with the same bug-eyed faces they saw in the passageway. Some carved, some painted, but in almost perfect condition. Rough crystals glowed from inside big eyes and mouths with fang teeth.
It was creepy.
“The Moche were a strict society. There wasn’t any signs of them forming an army and going after another tribe.” Mike inspected the walls. “But they worshipped the mountains as their gods, one of many, and sacrificed to them.”
“Sacrificed? You mean people?”
“Yeah.” He found a small clay jar with double handles still brightly painted in cream, red, and black. She came to him and when he shined the light she saw the iconology on the jar and walls. It was a caravan of stretchers carried by two male figures, each bearing a single man, and the procession led to a wide altar. Three male figures were at the altar, but the terror in the victims’ faces was eerily clear.
Mike pointed out the warriors with sickle knives. “Human sacrifices began with ceremonies performed in a public square, then concluded in a private enclosure with only the priest and some members of the upper echelon.”
“Are we standing in one of the ritual altar thingies?” Only her gaze moved around the cave.
“Possibly.”
“Nasty.”
“Oh, it gets better. They drank the sacrificial blood. Those cups probably held it,” he said, nodding toward the cracked pottery near a stone bench. “In the Moche’s universe, human sacrifices weren’t just murder for show but part of their religious beliefs. They depended on nature to survive, all of it, sun, moon, water, mountains, and made offerings and sacrifices to those gods.” Carefully, he set the jar back in its spot. “They’ve found entire skeletons of people sacrificed to the gods.”
“I think you had a little more than a chapter on them.”
“There was a test,” he said and gave her a wink that flipped her nerves on and made them dance. At the base, she looked around.
“It’s clearly a hall of some sort.” She could make out benches of stone and a wall long since tumbled to the ground. “But how did they get in and out?” She moved around the outer edge where the avalanche hadn’t touched. There were no more exits, and then she saw a hole. Clancy rushed to it, pushing at the dirt and rocks, reaching over a pile and feeling the wall. “Damn. This was the way out.”
“Yeah, was.” Mike shone the light over the walls as he touched them. She came to him. “The supports fell.” The stone columns lay on the ground, broken in huge chunks where they fell. “But this isn’t cut stone.” It wasn’t jagged, but smooth in folded layers of black rock. Like lava.
Mike squatted near the pool of water, dipped his hand in, sniffed, then tasted it. “Fresh, with a little granite on the side. Like you’re sucking a rock.”
“Ah, yes, that food group.” She knelt to wash her face and hands.
“This is our way out.” He pointed to the pool.
“It’s another cave, just filled with water,” she said, shaking off her khaki overshirt and using the tails as a washcloth.
“Yes, sure, but look at the water, it ripples, it’s moving.” He circled an area, pointing the light down inside.
Beneath the glassy surface, it was crystal clear, a blue-white radiance to the uneven walls, but the cornucopia shape did not look promising. “It narrows too much,” she said.
“But it also goes deeper.” Mike shook off his pack, then stripped off his shirt, then his boots.
Clancy watched him, and when he peeled off his dark blue T-shirt, she hummed a burlesque stripper tune.
Mike went still, his hand at his belt, and only his gaze shifted. He never knew what wisecrack she’d deliver. “It’s not looking so bad,” he said, gesturing to the pool.
“Looks good from where I’m sitting.” She made no mistake about liking what she saw.
It made his muscles tighten, and pull in all the right places. “If this works, you have to go too.” He sat to take off his boots.
“We leave everything behind?”
“I’ll come back for it. If I can fit through, then the gear can.”
Clancy looked down into the pool, trying to judge the distance. “How long can you hold your breath?”
“About two minutes.”
She met his gaze. “That’s comforting. Unless it’s a lot deeper than you think.”
“I’ll come right back.”
“You better,” she said. He was lucky she wasn’t latching on to his ankle right now, because the last thing she wanted to do was sit and wait for him to return.
“As much as I wish I’d be here to see it, be ready, get out of those clothes.”
“You just want to see me naked.” She unlaced her boots.
“Got that right.”
He stood, opened his trousers, and let them drop. In dark marine-green boxers, Mike set his clothes neatly aside and Clancy leaned back as if on a sofa and whistled.
In the dark, he felt his face warm. “Can it, Irish.”
She laughed to herself, her gaze gliding over him, and enjoyed every inch of the ride. Tanned and broad, he was ripped, his muscles long and toned, and her gaze slid to his flat stomach and soft dark hair disappearing beneath the band of shorts.
But it was the scars that dissolved her smile.
“My goodness, Mike.” She ran her fingers over the gouge in his thigh, then to the thin scar on his incredibly delicious biceps. “Just who do you work for besides the Marines?”
“The A-Teams.”
“Excuse me?” she said, frowning.
“CIA, NSA, DEA, DIA.” He shrugged. “Spec Ops, your multiagency help line.”
She gave him a deadpan look. “You’re being cute. Don’t be cute. That’s my job.”
“I stand corrected.” He slid his feet into the pool, then leaned, cupping the back of her head. “I want some more of this when I come back.
” He laid his mouth on hers.
Clancy’s hands rested on his bare shoulders, and she never really knew why she’d waited so long to indulge in him. Somewhere between his rage at his hotel and little tastes of each other something had changed, ignited a blaze they’d suppressed. When it ruptured, she fell back and relinquished herself to it, taking him with her.
He slid his hand heavily down her spine, cupped her rear, and meshed her hips to his. She felt his broad erection through the thin cloth, the warmth and pressure, and she hooked her leg around his, sliding it up his thigh to his hip. Then she arched into him, urging, her hands sweeping wildly over the contours, her fingertips molding to curved muscle and man.
Then her touch slid lower. His stomach muscles contracted instantly as she neared his groin, and his moan of pleasure thrummed through her.
“I’m a mess,” she whispered in his ear, his big hands on her ribs and driving anticipation through her like a monsoon.
“So am I.”
“Oh, good, we match.”
“More than you think,” he growled.
“Mike,” she said, almost choking on his name. “I need to—” Her fingertips dipped beneath his waistband, her breath hot in his ear. “I need to touch you.”
Mike fell apart. Like the stones in the door, his feelings tumbled over each other with the feel of her warm silky palm sliding over his erection.
He curled her tighter to him, kissing her madly, then drew back long enough to murmur, “The cave dive can wait.”
Sixteen
Mike dove into her.
She was an experience—something from the tightly guarded places he rarely visited. Her kiss alone twisted a rope around him, tying him tight. In knots. He didn’t know if he wanted to keep her as close as possible or turn in the other direction.
Intimate Danger Page 23