by CJ Lyons
He made sure Itzel was out of hearing range—without knowing the players, he didn’t trust anyone except Caitlyn. “I came because it turns out Hector has a business partner, a Dr. Carrera, who’s been helping him harvest body parts from prisoners here and selling them in the United States.” There was more, but that was the main gist—not that his intel would help them escape. “Oh, and, that CIA guy, Romero. Definitely playing both sides.”
“You mean his own side,” she said. Should have known she’d see through Romero’s bull. She looked past Jake. The others had triage and first aid well in hand.
“Is there another way out?” Caitlyn asked the woman, Itzel.
“There’s a way through the caves, down the river. But it’s dangerous.”
“Show us.”
Itzel handed them each one of the lightweight inflatable LED lanterns and led them around the small lake—well? Pond? Jake wasn’t sure, the thing looked bottomless with its strange milky green water, and was a good twenty feet in diameter—and then back through a narrow passage leading deeper beneath the mountain.
“I never should have told him I have proof of his atrocities,” she said. “If I’d kept quiet, he might have let us go.”
“No,” Caitlyn told her. “He wouldn’t have. He can’t afford to leave any witnesses.”
“What kind of proof do you have?” Jake asked.
“After the earthquake a few years ago, part of the temple collapsed and flooded. It’s a temple dedicated to Chaac, the rain god, and contains a cenote like ours.” She nodded over her shoulder at the well behind them. “It must have developed a fissure, allowing it to drain. Once the water receded, we found shards of bones. At first we thought they belonged to our ancestors, human sacrifices to Chaac, but then we found modern-day clothing. Remnants of prison uniforms, women’s skirts, shoes.”
She broke off and pressed one hand against the cold stone wall, as if catching her balance, but the lantern light glinted off tears on her face. “They weren’t all from twenty years ago, either. Some of the body parts still had flesh on them.” She turned to them. “What did they do to them? The way they were butchered—”
Jake explained about what he’d found in D.C. and what Romero told him about the clinic. Itzel grew quiet, her fingers clutching her cross so tight, he was surprised she hadn’t yanked the chain off.
“Maybe Romero was exaggerating,” he finished. “Trying to distract me from coming here.”
She shook her head. “There have been stories. But what could I do? I had Michael to worry about and my people—” She looked behind them to where they’d left the others. “I should have done more. Should have fought back. Found a way to stop them.”
“It’s not your fault, Itzel,” Caitlyn said, laying a hand on the older woman’s arm. “Right now we need to concentrate on getting out of here. Getting help. And finding Maria.”
They continued through the narrow passage. Jake ducked his head, but still ended up banging it against the low-hanging rocks. The sound of running water came from below. They came out on a narrow cliff above another pool of water, this one fed by an underground stream that disappeared into the rock wall, tunneling beneath the mountain.
“Follow the current. You’ll come out at some natural pools. We use them for fishing and bathing. There are several canoes there, take one downriver—there’s a tall waterfall at the entrance to the lake, but if you get out on the north side of the river, there’s a path that will lead you down the rest of the way to the clinic.” Itzel paused, looked them each in the eye, reminding Jake of his third-grade teacher. She could look at you like that, know exactly who’d been naughty and who’d been nice—only much more scary than Santa Claus.
Last place Jake wanted to look was all that water rushing beneath the rocks, into absolute darkness, an entire mountain on top. He hated water. Had ever since he was a kid and his brothers threw him into the pond on their farm and he almost drowned. How the hell was he going to make it down a river and through a mountain?
Didn’t matter. He would. He had to. He distracted himself by examining the cavern walls. The rocks were stained in a straight horizontal line almost at the top of the chamber. A water line.
“After the earthquake this cavern flooded,” Itzel said as Jake reached over his head to touch the high-water line. “But over time the river has stabilized back to its previous levels.”
Caitlyn bent down and tested the water temperature. “We just need to swim through there? Sounds easy enough.”
Of course it did—to her. She’d spent her college vacations as a white-water rafting guide in West Virginia. Hell, plunging into an unknown underground river that traveled beneath a mountain was her idea of fun.
“Will you all be safe here?” Jake asked. What he really wanted to ask was, Isn’t there another way out? But he didn’t.
“Yes. There’s fresh air, we have food, enough for a few days. If we need to, the adults can follow this way out, but the children—”
“Don’t worry, Itzel,” Caitlyn reassured her. “We’ll bring back help before then.”
Jake turned away from his examination of the cavern walls as he did the math. Something wasn’t adding up here. “You said the temple had a partial collapse during the earthquake. That was when you found the bones and clothing? Did you find those here?”
“No. On the mountain below the temple.”
“Do you still have them?” Caitlyn asked as they moved back into the chamber below the church. “We could use them as evidence.”
Jake shook his head at her; she was missing his point. He was distracted as she went through her pack, pulling out anything they could use for the journey, shoving it into her jacket pockets. Passport, a knife, cell, wallet. She emptied her clothing from the plastic bags she had it packed in.
He’d forgotten about her obsession with water-tight storage—ever since she’d flown to Toledo last month and had been stranded in the sleet and rain waiting for a taxi that never showed. He’d teased her mercilessly every time she packed for a trip—but now her obsession might be their salvation, he realized.
She blew air into each of the plastic bags before sealing them, providing a cushion around the guns. Then she pulled out a plastic laundry bag, put the smaller bags inside, and began to blow it up like a balloon. When she finished, she’d turned the water-tight storage into a makeshift flotation device. He shook his head in amazement. God, he loved the way she thought.
“We returned the remains to the temple,” Itzel answered. “With the others. I can take you there. After we save my people and Maria.”
She still didn’t realize the flaw in their plan. “Not if Alvarado gets there first,” he told her.
“But surely he’s gone after Maria?” Itzel asked. “He wouldn’t abandon his daughter, adopted or not. He’ll save her, right?”
Caitlyn and Jake exchanged a glance without answering.
Jake finally broke the bad news to Itzel. “He can’t let the evidence of his genocide remain—not if Carrera is planning to tell the world about their crimes.”
Itzel’s eyes went wide. “You think the colonel will sacrifice Maria and go to destroy the temple instead.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Caitlyn said firmly. She bent over, tucking her pant legs into her boots and lacing them tight. “We can’t waste time chasing Hector. We have to save Maria, bring help back here.”
“No. It’s not about stopping him from destroying evidence,” Jake explained. Both women looked at him with puzzled frowns. “If he blows the temple, it will block the river.” He gestured above his head to where there was another high-water mark from the previous flood.
Caitlyn followed his gaze, her face growing pale, lips tightening. Then she turned to look at the families gathered by the cistern. Her eyes widened as she realized there was no high ground that would save them.
“This entire cavern will flood.” She stared at Jake. “We have to stop him.”
He nodded. “And we have to
stop Carrera.”
“No choice. Once we make it out, we need to split up.”
He did not like the idea, but she was right. There was only so much ground they could cover, and with lives at stake … To hell with anyone else. He grabbed her by the waist, bringing her to him, pressing his lips against hers and not giving a damn about what anyone watching thought.
“I don’t want to let you go,” he murmured.
He loved the blush that colored her freckles and the way her eyes had lost their focus. Loved that he could do that to her—make her lose control.
Not for long. She pressed her palms against either side of his face and kissed him hard. “I’m not that easy to get rid of. Wanna bet I make it back before you?”
“It’s a bet.”
*
When she was young, Caitlyn had loved water. She and her dad fishing in the river below their home in North Carolina. Rafting the New River Gorge during summers off school.
All that changed last year when a serial killer tried to drown her. He’d failed, but the man with her had died, sacrificed himself to save her.
As she pulled away from Carver, trying to keep her worry from her face, all she could think of was his face, floating below her in the dark water, as the current yanked her away. She had to keep Carver alive.
Her oath to protect and serve meant Maria and the lives of Itzel’s people should take precedence over either her or Carver. In the past, she’d always put that oath and the lives of civilians first. But now, Lord help her, she knew in her heart that she could not bear to let another man die to save her. Not Carver.
She didn’t care what it took. He was making it out of here alive. If that meant she was going to rot in hell, so be it. Because the only way she’d let any harm come to him—or Itzel’s people—would be if she were dead.
They grabbed their gear and followed Itzel back into the rear cavern. Caitlyn took out her map of the area around the temple, and Itzel marked the best path for Carver as well as several dangerous areas where the earthquake had left sinkholes.
Caitlyn handed Carver the improvised flotation device she’d made with the bags filled with air as she zippered the whole thing inside her travel pack. “Strap it onto your chest,” she told him. “It will help stabilize you if the current gets rough.”
“What about you?”
“You weigh more than I do. Plus, my jacket will give me some buoyancy.” She snugged the elastic cords at her wrists and waist as tight as they would go and zipped the jacket tight. She’d sealed her smaller Glock along with her personal items into the inside pocket. Her knife she kept in an outside pocket, where it would be handy.
Itzel handed them each one of the inflatable LED lanterns. Caitlyn secured hers with a length of cording to the zipper pull on her jacket pocket so she wouldn’t have to worry about dropping it.
Carver made do with tying his to his upper arm, where it would be out of his way. As he glanced into the water, she was surprised to see fear flit across his face. By the time he looked up at her, it was buried—the man was a consummate actor.
She hugged Itzel. “We’ll get Maria,” she promised, hoping it wasn’t a lie.
“Stay safe,” Itzel said. Then she hesitated. “Maybe I should go with you.”
“No, you stay,” Carver said. “Your people need you.” With one last grimace at the water below them, he jumped in, Caitlyn right behind.
She swam to take the lead. The current quickly swept them from the pool and into the tunnel leading under the mountain. “Keep your feet up in front of you,” she told him, shouting over the roar of the white water. “Don’t try to walk until it slows.”
He flailed a bit at first but finally leaned back and stopped struggling against the current. Their lights were bright beacons reflecting from the water and the limestone walls surrounding them. Caitlyn’s attention was divided between anticipating obstacles and navigating their route ahead, and keeping track of Carver behind her.
The roar of white water thundered ahead of them. Caitlyn guided them to a boulder small enough that they could climb out of the water. “Let me try to see how big these rapids are.”
“We don’t have much time,” he reminded her. No need. She was quite aware that at any moment they might be engulfed by floodwaters backing up into the caverns if the temple collapsed and dammed the river. But until that happened, there was nothing to do but keep moving forward.
She crawled over the boulder, holding her lantern ahead of her. The river cascaded through a narrow crevice, barely three feet high—and only a third of that not filled with water.
There was no way to tell how far a drop it made or if there would be any room with air to breathe on the other side. Itzel had said the route was passable, but who knew what level the river had been at when her people used it before. Too many variables, too few answers, and no time.
She crawled back to Carver. “From the sound of it, there’s a waterfall, but I’m not sure how high it is. Or how deep the water is below it—we could be crashing through to rocks. And I can’t see if the water fills the passage or if there’s room to breathe.”
He swallowed hard but gave her a grin. “Why don’t I go first? No reason you should hog all the fun.”
Before she could stop him, he rolled off the boulder, into the water, and the current swept him into the darkness.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Dr. Carrera gestured, and the two men with him grabbed Kevin while the man with the scar rammed his gun barrel into Maria’s back and took her arm.
“Stop it,” Michael cried out. “You can’t do this. I won’t let you.”
“Now, Michael,” Dr. Carrera said in a voice more appropriate for scolding a toddler, “you need to listen to me. I know what I’m doing. Pablo, take Maria upstairs. She can wait in the isolation ward until we’re ready for her.”
The man with the scar prodded Maria up the stairs. She reluctantly climbed the first two steps, then looked back over her shoulder.
“Dr. Cho, let’s get you back to the OR. I’d like you to do at least one more practice run before we begin. We can’t afford any mistakes.”
Kevin stood straight, glaring at Dr. Carrera. “I don’t make mistakes. But you have. This will never work—you don’t have the skills to perform the harvest.”
“You let me worry about that,” Dr. Carrera snapped.
“Let them go,” Michael said. He raised his shirt and grabbed hold of the thick tubing running out from his belly. “Let them go now or I’ll pull the LVAD.”
The doctor tilted his head and shook it at Michael. “Now, now, Michael. I’m sure you don’t want anything to happen to your sister.”
Maria couldn’t help her cry of pain as Pablo grabbed her hair and yanked her back toward him, his gun jabbing her between the ribs. He twisted his fist in her hair so that she had to contort her body, trying to relieve the pressure.
“No, stop!” Michael shouted. “Don’t hurt her.”
“That’s better,” Dr. Carrera said. The guards dragged Kevin down the steps back to the basement with its operating rooms while Pablo pushed Maria up. She craned her head to look down and met Kevin’s eyes. Neither of them said anything—what could they say?
As they turned the corner on the landing, she saw Helda and Dr. Carrera escorting Michael through the door and into the main corridor. He looked terrified and called out, “I’m sorry, Maria.”
Then he was gone. But a puzzle still remained. Had Dr. Carrera really said that she was Michael’s sister? How could that be possible?
The questions helped to distract her from the sights awaiting her when they reached the third floor and Pablo unlocked a solid metal door and shoved her through it. The hallway was lined with doors more like prison doors than hospital ones: metal with small windows and an open slot in the middle. Behind the windows were women: all ages, mostly Maya, eyes wide with fear or insanity, she wasn’t sure.
At the sight of Maria, howls and shrieks filled the air as i
f the patients were greeting her with their own language. Pablo hustled her past them quickly, but she caught glimpses of women missing a leg, some with eye patches, one lying on a cot facedown with her shirt pulled up, exposing angry red tissue on her back where her skin had been peeled off.
She’d been able to keep her panic under control while she was with Kevin, but the sight of these women, in pain, insane—or driven there by their captivity and the horrors they’d suffered—brought her own terror back in a wave that threatened to swamp her. She staggered but Pablo caught her. Before she could find her balance again, he threw her inside a cell. The door clanged shut behind him, and she was alone except for the anguished cries of her fellow captives.
The room had a cot with a thin mattress, no sheets or pillows, a sink and a toilet, and a window with ornate bars high on the outside wall. That was it. Except for a bloody handprint planted to the side of the door as if someone had been fighting to stay inside the cell and had to be dragged out.
Maria’s breath came in short quick gasps that left her dizzy. She sank onto the bed, the springs groaning under her weight, and gave in to tears. What she wouldn’t give to be back home in her boring life with her boring parents and their boring routines. Or on the booze cruise, watching drunken frat boys hit on her friends.
Her dream of exploring, finding adventure … what an idiot to think she could ever have a life like that. Way it looked now, this cell might be the last place she saw.
Pity drowned her with tears she couldn’t stop. Her thoughts traveled back through the past few days, to the fun conversations she’d shared with Prescott—poor Prescott!—and the way he’d flirted with her, made her feel so smart and pretty and special. Michael had made her feel the same way—only not giddy like she wanted to get closer to him romantically, like she’d felt about Prescott, more as if he somehow knew and understood her.
Sister, the doctor had said. Michael’s sister.
And earlier, Michael had said the doctor wasn’t really his father.