by David Wiltse
Light, however, was only minutes away and Becker would be ready for it.
Pegeen regarded him as he squatted just below the crease in the hillside, too agitated to even sit. He reminded her of a cat waiting outside a mouse hole, ready to pounce.
"What now?" she asked.
"We wait until we can see enough to find the entrance — unless we hear it breathing first."
"I can still radio for assistance," she said. She knew he would not allow it, but if things went wrong, Pegeen wanted to be able to say she had tried to do the right thing.
"We'll ask for assistance if we need it," he said.
"Right now we don't need it."
She watched him for a moment, then sat on the ground, folding her legs under her. Her body was sore in spots; she could still smell him, taste him, almost feel his hands upon her. She knew it wasn't smart to say anything right now, but she said it anyway.
"Should we talk about last night?"
She thought she caught him trying to stifle a sigh.
"Later," he said.
"I just want to clear up one thing," she said. When he didn't respond, she continued, "Was last night the reason you brought me along on this case?"
Becker turned to her, his brow wrinkled quizzically.
"You said you asked for me to work with you for a special reason," she said. "Was last night it? Was last night the special reason?"
"No," Becker said, surprised. "I didn't expect last night until it happened… I love Karen, you know. I didn't mean to mislead you otherwise."
Pegeen gasped inwardly. Mislead her?
They experienced it first as a change in air pressure, as if the shock wave of some great cataclysm had swept over them, and then, almost immediately, they heard it-the sound of something enormous coming right at them, swooping down at them with a rush of wings. A great column of moving blackness was overhead, moving very fast, and then it whirled and poured into the ground be hind them with a noise unlike anything Pegeen had ever heard. The column assumed a funnel shape as it drained into the earth, accompanied by a cacophony of beating wings and shrieks and pounding air.
"Bats," Becker said, but Pegeen did not need to be told. The swooping, swerving flight of the stragglers on the edges told her what they were; bats, millions of them, flying as if in the vampires' panic to beat the sun to their resting place. As they disgorged into the hillside, vanishing into the solid ridgeline as if by magic, they looked like the ominous whirling wind of a tornado, touching down only yards away from them. Underbrush waved and whipped about in their wake, and the closer trees bent under the pressure created by millions of leathery wings.
It seemed to Pegeen to last for hours, but in reality it was over in a few minutes-the moving cloud thinned to a wispy trail of black smoke tendrils, and then to the few latecomers, each one exposed and vulnerable away from the flock. As if on a signal, the sun's rays hit the sky overhead as the last of the bats vanished into the earth.
"I think we found our breathing hole," Becker said, moving to the spot where the bats had disappeared.
Pegeen realized she had been crouched reflexively into a protective ball, her hands over her head to protect her hair. She was grateful that Becker was more concerned with the hole than he was with her at the moment. She joined him, dragging the two backpacks they had carried from the car.
"You're not planning on going in there now,' she asked.
"They're insect eaters," Becker said, opening one of the backpacks.
"They won't bother us."
"They already bother me," Pegeen said, but Becker wasn't listening.
"He's here," Becker said. His voice was hushed and strained as if holding in excitement. Pegeen thought it sounded almost reverential.
A rope vanished into the hole, barely visible at the lip of the opening but rising slightly above the ground as it approached the tree to which it was tied. Becker sensuously slid his hand back and forth on the rope.
"New rope," he said.
In the increasing light Pegeen saw a path leading to the hole, where something large and heavy had been dragged over the weeds and underbrush. The path trailed off down the hillside.
"And he's not alone," she said.
"Not anymore," Becker said, grinning.
He removed a length of synthetic climbing rope that was coiled onto the back of his pack and secured it quickly and efficiently to a tree trunk.
Shouldering the pack, he whipped the rope around his body and under his leg. With his left hand on the secured portion of the rope, his right holding the trailing portion, he backed up to the hole. The opening was no more than four feet wide and went into the side of the ridge so that it rode on a plane that was close to vertical before it plunged straight down.
Pegeen surveyed the abyss with her flashlight and saw no bottom.
"Browne's chart says it's thirty-five feet to the bottom," Becker said.
"They taught you to rappel in training camp, right?":,Of course."
"This will be a little different. The chart shows the mouth opening out as it goes down. There won't be anything for your feet to touch after the first few feet, so it's more of a free fall, but just take it slow; you'll be fine.
"I know that," she said, angrily. "I can do this."
"If I had any doubts, you wouldn't be here," he said.
"Once we're down there, keep quiet. Sound travels a long way.
"I don't plan to sing and dance," she said.
He looked at her for a moment. The sunlight was increasing; Pegeen could make out the shadows under his eyes from lack of sleep. She imagined she looked as bad, or worse. But unlike Becker, she feared that she also looked apprehensive. She certainly felt that way. Becker looked happy; his eyes were shining too much.
"When we get to them, you protect the girl," Becker said. "I'll take care of him."
She nodded. She had no doubt that he would take care of Swann.
"Oh, and, uh-Pegeen," he continued, having trouble saying her first name, "thanks for last night. You kept me sane.
He grinned again-Pegeen was not certain if it was at her or in anticipation of Swann-and backed into the hole. With a little hop, he broke away from the surface and his head dropped out of sight.
Thanks for last night? Thanks?
She shone the light into the hole, watching the top of Becker's head recede, spinning slowly as he dropped.
There was a small bald spot on the crown of his head which she had not noticed before. Well, why should I? she thought bitterly. I've been blind in general. Thanks for a night that had left her shaken and disbelieving and filled with hope and fear and emotions so raw and basic and mysterious to her that she couldn't even name them?
I fucked him to save his mental health, your honor. Never mind what it did to mine-I was happy to make the sacrifice for the good of the Bureau.
When he had reached the bottom of the shaft, Pegeen wrapped the rope around herself and eased her way into oblivion, following a ray of light that he shone up at her.
She wasn't frightened, she told herself. She was too fucking angry at the insensitive son of a bitch to be scared of anything, but she kept her eyes fixed on the diminishing patch of sunlight above her. When her feet touched something solid at last, the light had dwindled to a space so small she could cover it with her thumb. So maybe I'm a little scared, she admitted.
Becker awaited her impatiently, turning his flashlight from the rope to the chart in his hand as soon as she released the rope. Without a word to her he motioned with the beam and moved off.
They followed the meandering course of an old riverbed, walking upright most of the time but stopping now and then as the roof curved down.
Pegeen could not believe how dark it was. The stone seemed to absorb the light rather than reflect it, and she could see only where her flashlight pointed and nowhere else. She had not been prepared for the cold, either. It felt as if she had stepped into a meat locker, although the sound of water running somewhere told her
that the temperature was not below freezing.
Becker slipped suddenly, his feet flying from under him, and he landed on the stone with a squashing sound.
She knelt beside him and saw why he had fallen. In front of them, as far as the flashlight would carry, was a spreading mat of bat shit. She played the light up walls and onto the roof, where hung a writhing mass of animals, still settling in for their daylight rest. They hung everywhere she could see, like a million inverted winged mice Their teeth shone eerily white in her light as they chattered and nipped at each other, and she had the feeling she was being leered at by a madman.
The entire mass of them moved and twitched and wriggled like one huge body in torment, as if the cave itself were brought to squirming painful life. The bats were crowded so closely together that Pegeen could not distinguish one from another until an individual one would be knocked loose and it would fly in the characteristic swooping, erratic pattern until it returned to the general body, wedging itself in and vanishing into the whole.
"Holy Christ," she breathed.
"It's bat guano," Becker said, pulling himself to his feet.
"It's bat shit, " she said, trailing her light from the appalling mass of bats to the equally appalling mass in front of her. The pellets were gray and shaped like grains of rice, and they looked dry and solid but Becker's slip had demonstrated otherwise.
She played the light carefully along the edge of the mat, trying to assess it. "It must be more than three feet thick," she said.
"Closer to four," said Becker. He seemed remarkably unconcerned.
"How do we get around it?" Pegeen asked.
"We don't. We go through it." Becker's flashlight picked out the two-foot-wide where something had been recently dragged across the surface of the mat. "He did it. We can."
"Did you know this was here?" she demanded.
"The chamber is on the chart, but Browne didn't bother to indicate what was in it. I guess this sort of thing doesn't bother him."
"Fine, let's get him down here."
"It's only guano," Becker said.
I 'It's shit, " insisted Pegeen.
"Only in your mind." Becker stepped directly into it, following the path where Swann had dragged the loaded golf sack.
"I can't believe this," Pegeen said, placing her foot gingerly in the track Becker had created. "I-'m walking through shit up to my thighs."
"Sounds like a fair description of life," Becker said.
"Oh, Christ. Oh, Christ."
"Hey, the FBI isn't all paperwork and investigations, you know," Becker said cheerfully. "We got to have some fun sometimes."
Pegeen would gladly have pushed him face first into the goo. Just don't let me slip, she prayed silently.
The muck rose above her waist, but the footing underneath seemed dry and solid. She could not imagine the age of the pile, but knew it had to be counted in centuries.
"Oh, Christ. Oh, Christ," she muttered with every step, unaware that her silent mantra was escaping her lips. In front of her, Becker seemed terribly amused and she thought she heard him chuckle once or twice.
"Just think how badly Swann must have wanted to get in here," Becker said in a whisper.
And how badly you want to get in after him, Pegeen finished the thought.
Still, she was grateful that he was leading her, taking long, sweeping steps, pushing much of the guano out of her way like the prow of a ship.
The stuff didn't appear to be clinging as much as she had feared, only the surface layer was moist, the rest as dry as sunbaked pellets.
When his flashlight picked out the dimensions of a wall in front of them, Becker stopped and turned to Pegeen.
"There's a tunnel ahead of us, according to the chart," he said, his voice hushed. "It looks narrow, we may have to crawl. We'll do it without lights-we don't want anything shining into the main cavern."
"Without lights?"
"You're not afraid of the dark, are you?"
"No more than most sensible people. How do we know where we're going?"
"The chart shows it to be pretty much a straight line.
Just keep going forward."
"What if the chart is wrong?" Pegeen hissed. "What if there's a dropoff or something in there that Browne didn't bother to put on the chart?"
"If I fall out of sight, you'll know it's time to stop."
"You won't be in sight-we're not using lights."
"Use your imagination, Haddad. You'll be fine."
"Are you going to call me Haddad now? Are we back to that? If we are, would you mind if we just kept going a little further before we continue this discussion?"
"Why?"
"Because I'm standing up to my navel in bat shit and I don't want to be insulted at the same time."
Becker shined his light directly in her face until she pushed the flashlight away.
"You mean last night?" he asked.
"Duh."
"Last night was indescribable. You saved my sanity, I don't think I would have made it until morning."
"Could we not talk about it right here? Could we maybe find a nice sewer to sit in first?"
Becker looked down at the guano rising to his belt as if he had forgotten it entirely.
"It's dry," he said as if he didn't understand her objections.
Pegeen sighed. "Just get me to the tunnel. Please."
"When we get to the chamber, if he hears us he'll probably douse his own light. Don't use your weapon because you'll only pinpoint yourself and he may be armed.
"I won't be able to see and I won't be able to shoot.
What am I supposed to do?"
"Whatever I tell you."
"How do we find this son of a bitch in the dark?"
"I'll find him," Becker said.
"Great. How?"
Becker paused. When he spoke, she heard a smile in his voice. It was not a friendly smile.
"I'll find him by his fear," Becker said.
Swann was moaning now to a methodical rhythm, interspersing little yips like a child's bleats that came with every inward breath. The sound was monotonous and metronomic and Aural wondered if it came now from some source other than pain. It was almost a genteel snore, and in the dim candlelight that illuminated him from a distance she could not see clearly if he was asleep or awake.
He hadn't moved in several minutes and both hands were still clasped upon his face. The candle had burned down several inches since he had moved across the cavern, and Aural estimated that it must have been at least an hour.
She had tried to time it at first, using the tick of her water clock, but his moans were too loud at first for her to keep track and then it didn't seem to matter anyway. Time had long since lost any meaning.
There was no way to measure the length of a torture session-each seemed to last an infinity, and minutes and seconds and hours signified nothing at all. Progress was marked by inches as he burned his way slowly across her flesh, cigarette by cigarette, and by candles that glowed and melted and shrank and guttered into darkness only to be replaced by another.
And by pain, endless pain. There was no way to measure the quantity of her agony, but still it was distinguished by a surprising variety. Some things hurt differently than others, some pains lasted so long that she could nearly ignore them and regard them as background, some were so intense she could only scream her way through them.
Aural shivered and huddled her arms against her chest.
It was the first time in days that she had had the leisure to notice the cold. Her legs seemed ablaze but her torso was chilled. She had been shaking with the cold for several minutes and hadn't even noticed.
Another way to die, she thought. I could freeze to death before he kills me.
The rhythm of his breathing changed and she realized that he was actually falling asleep. When she was sure he was out, she would make her move. She would need at least several minutes to make her way to the tunnel, moving backwards on her hands and heels. Once in t
he tunnel she had no idea how far or fast she could go, but at least she would be trying. It would be something she could do for herself One hand slipped off his face and into his lap, then moments later, the other hand fell away. His head moved back slightly in reaction to finding itself unsupported, then stopped in position. After another few moments the head drooped lower, bounced back up, drooped lower still, bounced again as he nodded deeper and deeper into sleep.
Aural waited for his head to come to rest on his chest.
One more drop, maybe two.
Swann's head slumped all the way to his chest, then sprang back violently and he woke up crying out in pain as if the final fall had reactivated his injury.
"My eye!" he called, as if he expected someone to respond, as if he expected her to help him. "Please, Jesus, please! "
And then Aural realized that she could help and she smiled to herself because she felt for the first time. as if she had a real weapon.
Despite her pain and her condition and her shackles, she realized that he had given her power.
She waited until he was momentarily quiet, and then she spoke to him, keeping her voice low but intense.
"I can help you," she said.
It brought him to silence. He listened for a moment as if he expected her to repeat it.
"What did you say?"
"I can help you," Aural repeated.
She could see him peering at her through the cracks between his fingers.
"How?" he asked cautiously.
"You know how."
He brought his hands to his lap and grasped the knife, suspecting a trick.
"How?" he repeated.
"I can heal you," Aural said. She hoped it was her stage voice but it sounded cracked and wounded to her ear.
Again he was quiet, studying her for deception, then a shiver of pain coursed through him again and he tilted his head and gave a moan like a whinnying horse.
When his spasm passed, Aural said, "You know I can do it. You have seen me heal. You have seen the divine power of Jesus Christ move through me.
I have the power."
"Yes," he said. "I've seen you do it."
"God be praised," she said, trying to project strength which she did not feel.