Cave Diver

by Jake Avila

  The twin compartments were stacked from floor to ceiling with hundreds of tea chests. One had broken open, and spilling from its hessian liner were black five-kilo balls of raw gummy opium. After seven decades curing in airtight storage, it had intensified in strength. Already light-headed in the pungent fumes, Mia warned Nash to avoid the gooey mess, lest the opiate-laden oil be absorbed by his skin.

  ‘What was this used for?’ Nash asked Mia as they lugged their loads back.

  ‘Morphine,’ she grunted. ‘It must be worth a fortune.’

  Rain was falling heavily through the ragged square of daylight when they reached the stern. The water was now lapping their waists, and in the press of slippery bodies passing up tea chests, Nash’s claustrophobia felt like thick treacle slowly filling him up inside.

  They went back for another load, and when they returned, the water was noticeably higher. A nervy trooper tried to argue his way out, but the NCO angrily ordered him back. Nash knew the stern would be underwater in ten minutes. What worried him more was the overflow. When that hit, anyone stuck down here without air or lights was doomed.

  ‘We’ve got to get out of here,’ he told their guard, rapping on the curved steel above.

  ‘Lebih dalam! Lebih dalam!’ added Mia for emphasis. Deeper! Deeper!

  This time she could barely keep her head above the frigid black water. The Indonesians, who were of even shorter stature, were panicking.

  ‘Biarkan kami keluar bajingan!’ they screamed in unison. Let us out, motherfucker!

  The NCO yelled at them to be quiet so he could hear the walkie-talkie. At last, he nodded, then kneeled to pull the first man out. When it was their turn, Nash pushed Mia up, and then she helped pull him out.

  They stood upslope of the shivering troopers while the cargo net, laden with tea chests, ascended in the driving rain. Nash’s eyes were fixed on the jade-green water creeping swiftly towards the hole in the deck.

  He was giving Mia further instructions on the pony tank when there was a sudden disturbance in the sinkhole. A great gout of water and air belched up from the submerged exit passage, driving powerful waves in every direction. The soldiers cried out in alarm as a waist-high wall of white water bore down on them and washed right over the stern. The last man in line was swept, howling, into the green water and never reappeared.

  ‘It’s coming,’ Nash told Mia grimly. ‘Be ready.’

  By now the cargo net was almost down, and the NCO had his pistol out. He gesticulated at Nash to come forward and take the walkie-talkie.

  ‘It’s overflowing the cave!’ Sura sounded shrill. ‘If you want your friends to live, keep salvaging the opium.’ She broke off to shout at someone. ‘No, no, take it up to the helicopter. I’ll be right behind you. Tell Ricki we’re going as soon as I get there.’ There was a squawk as she returned her mouth to the receiver. ‘Do you understand me, Mr Nash?’

  ‘Yeah, I heard you the first time. Have a safe flight.’

  Nash grinned manically at Mia. The parting shot was gratuitous, but he figured they deserved it.

  When the cargo net hit the flooding deck, the terrified soldiers fought each other to get inside. Nash turned to retrieve the pony tank when Mia screamed.

  ‘Rob!’

  The NCO had an arm wrapped around her throat, and was dragging her backwards into the cargo net. His pistol was aimed at Nash’s face.

  ‘You stay! You stay!’

  Mia reached out in silent dismay through the web of ropes as the net tightened.

  Nash watched helplessly as the heavily laden net was hoisted into the air.

  Chapter 38

  Like a sluice gate opening on a dam, the lake in the Hoosenbeck Cavern overflowed and instantly transformed the river bed into a white-water rapid. Within minutes it had reached the Kopassus camp, almost sweeping away a slow-moving gunship pilot, before recklessly charging on until it smashed headlong into the rocky remains of Martin Heider’s dam. Here it slowed, backing up, growing ever deeper as it relentlessly funnelled through to rejoin its underground twin at the resurgence pool and become whole again. But there was one more twist in the Hoosenbeck’s annual transmogrification. As volumes increased, and the subterranean system reached maximum capacity, the river rose even further, and just above the Kopassus camp, an offshoot broke free of the riverbanks, racing along a scoured channel to plunge more than a hundred metres into the sinkhole with a bone-shaking roar.

  Ignoring the chaos unfolding outside, Boerman worked like a machine, jemmying and hauling the solid, massively heavy lock boxes out of their inverted frames, smashing open their infuriating mechanisms, shaking out their precious contents, then loading the steel bucket with gold bars.

  A hand thumped him on the back.

  ‘Fuck off!’ he roared. ‘Can’t you see I’m busy?’

  ‘Air juga semakin bertambah!’ his terrified assistant screamed. The water is rising!

  When Boerman got up and stuck his head out of the hole in the hull, he was stunned to see the once-fatal drop had become a pool of white water swirling just ten metres below the gantry.

  ‘Mba Suyanto says you talk now!’ the soldier babbled. ‘You talk now!’

  ‘OK, OK!’ Boerman flung down the crowbar. ‘I heard you the first time!’ Snatching up the walkie-talkie, he depressed the talk button. ‘Sura, where are you?’

  ‘Where do you think?’ The radio squawk made her voice sound even more enraged. ‘We’re about to take off for the Albany. Why aren’t you doing what I told you? The sinkhole is flooding.’

  ‘But there’s thirty kilos to go, liefie.’

  ‘Damn it, Jaap, there are 200 kilos sitting up there unattended! Do you want Alatas making off with it?’

  Boerman’s jaw clenched. ‘I’m heading up now.’

  ‘Good. Once Alatas is gone, kill Carter and Douglas. Then stay with the gold until Ricki returns. Understood?’

  ‘And Nash?’ Boerman’s eyes narrowed. ‘Don’t forget, you promised me.’

  ‘Two chests of opium is the same as a Maserati. I want Nash loading tea chests into that cargo net until the very last minute, do you hear me? You can kill him just before you leave.’

  Jaap beamed with delight. He would start by throwing down Mia Carter’s head to him.

  ‘Thank you, liefie.’

  ‘Shut up and listen carefully. Once we reach the ship, I will have Saworno head downriver at flank speed. You and Ricki will rendezvous with us on the move, before returning for the remaining opium. When next you reach us, we should be across the border, safe from my father’s clutches. Understand?’

  ‘No problem, liefie.’

  ‘Don’t fuck it up. Out.’

  Boerman decided to give Sura a wave from the gantry before he climbed the rope. Sure enough, the Jet Ranger rose over the line of trees and headed his way.

  The explosion was savage – a blinding orange fireball which simply blew the chopper apart. One second it was there, the next it was flying chunks of smoking debris. The sound boom rolled over a second later, followed by a hot wave of stinking avgas.

  ‘Menyelamatkan kita, Allah,’ breathed the soldier beside him.

  ‘No!’ screamed Boerman. ‘No!’ The animal howl of despair came from the deepest depths of his soul. Without Sura, life had no meaning, no value. She was his anchor, his purpose, his future. And she was gone. Gone!

  The wave of all-encompassing pain gave way to a slow hammer pounding inside his brain. His blood ran cold as capillaries, veins and arteries turned to ice. How could it have happened? The blast . . . it wasn’t a petrol explosion. The viciousness of it . . . it had to be a super-fast accelerant. Something like C-4. Or a grenade . . .

  Boerman looked down to where Nash was crouching above the deck gun, and then he knew.

  ‘Satan strike me dead! Last night at the cave!’

  The only thing that could have stopped Jaap Boerman then was a heavy-calibre bullet between the eyes, perhaps two. With a strangled shriek of hate, the
Afrikaner charged along the wildly swaying gantry towards the Kopassus trooper. Ripping the man’s gun free, he swatted him aside with a backhand that would have stunned a horse. With a howl of terror, the soldier tumbled through the air, legs and arms whaling.

  Boerman raised the MP9 to his shoulder and emptied the entire magazine. Bullets sparked off steel, but the infernal Nash was too quick and dived into the milky green water.

  ‘Damn you!’

  And then Boerman realised there was a much better way to make Nash pay.

  ‘Come on, move your ass!’ Kapten Alatas shouted at his soaked and exhausted men.

  Already they had loaded a thousand kilos of gold into the crew compartment of the Mi-24 Hind, and there was still room for more.

  ‘Yes, yes, take it, take it!’ he yelled, pointing at what was left of Sura’s pile.

  If she was stupid enough to leave twelve million US dollars lying about, he had no qualms about relieving her of it, but they needed to expedite before she flew overhead and called up her massive bule. Disturbed by the thought, Alatas signalled to the pilot to gun the twin Isotov turbines.

  Wedged on a narrow isthmus between the sinkhole and the raging Hoosenbeck, the Hind’s enormous rotors quickly whipped up a hurricane, flinging tents and utensils into the sky. Alatas grinned at the sight of the big-titted doctor cowering in the lee of her guard. If not for her weight, which was worth around three million dollars, he would have happily got better acquainted with those beauties, but no matter, delayed gratification in the fleshpots of Bangkok would certainly suffice.

  ‘Come on!’ Alatas roared, anxious to be gone.

  Battered by the downdraught and spray, his men fought to stow the last of the bullion.

  One foot inside the gunship, his gut clenched when Sura’s Jet Ranger popped into view overhead. Then it exploded.

  Blood drained from the kapten’s face. General Suyanto must have launched an attack!

  ‘Pergi, pergi, pergi!’ Go, go, go! he screamed at the pilot to take off.

  They were barely off the ground when rounds starred the ballistic-resistant windscreen. Flinching, Alatas craned around in his seat. He was amazed to see it was old Frank Douglas, staggering in the massive prop wash, an archaic machine gun in his hands.

  The kapten was not unduly worried, for the Hind’s cockpit was essentially a titanium tub. But then, at point-blank range, Douglas took aim at the stubby underwing pod containing the thirty-two rockets, that were so effective at turning native huts into bark splinters.

  ‘Take off, damn you –’

  The huge explosion neatly flipped the Hind onto its back. The mighty rotors fragmented into great scythes, dismembering most of the watching Kopassus troopers in an eye-blink. Then the fuel tank ignited, turning the stricken aerial battle tank into a furious pyre.

  A groggy Alatas awoke to find himself paralysed and ablaze. He began to shriek as the flames engulfed his flesh, hissing and spitting. The last thing he saw was an exquisite slender tongue of liquid gold running along the upturned cabin roof before, mercifully, the rest of the Hind’s munitions went up in an almighty roar.

  Swimming virtually blind beneath the choppy white water, Nash had just exhaled when his rebreather cut out. It was rotten timing, for against the deep rumble of the cataract plunging into the sinkhole, it was impossible to know whether the maddened Afrikaner was still shooting, or awaiting his opportunity. With teeth clenched, Nash cautiously stuck his head above the surface, just in time to see a massive fireball ripping right across the top of the sinkhole. He flinched as a smoking chunk of wreckage spun crazily through the air, before realising it was the remains of the gunship.

  ‘Go, Frank!’

  The heady rush of savage ecstasy ended just as abruptly. Frank and Mia were still up there. If they were still alive, how was he going to reach them?

  Movement on the sinkhole wall drew his eye. It was Boerman. Climbing up the line of the block and tackle, faster than humanly possible, he looked like an albino gorilla fired up on crystal meth, driven by the much more addictive need for revenge.

  With the gantry out of reach, Nash looked around frantically for another way up. The sinkhole lip was still a good fifty metres above him, and there were no ropes reaching down to the water. That only left the submarine.

  Swimming hard on the surface against the drag of his gear, he hauled himself up on the rearmost anti-aircraft gun, now just above the waterline. Unharnessing the rebreather, he realised a bullet had shattered the oxygen sensor, and flung it aside.

  Above him, the submarine rose at its crazy angle. At least atop the long hangar section there were plenty of handholds.

  He had climbed perhaps a dozen metres when an insane roaring, audible even over the crashing waterfall, made him stop and look up.

  ‘Nash! Nash! Nash!’

  On the crumbling sinkhole edge, mighty arms raised like twin columns, Boerman held Mia’s supine body high above his head. At least Nash thought it was her body, for when Boerman shook her in his fury, he saw her legs kick as she fought for balance. Nash lurched from desolation to despair. The madman was going to fling her down and dash her to pieces on the logjam, and there was not a single thing he could do beyond reach out in supplication.

  But the crazed Afrikaner had other ideas.

  ‘Stay there, you fuck!’ he bellowed. ‘Stay right where you fucking are!’

  Slinging Mia over his shoulders, the big man hooked onto the line, and launched off the lip. Nash prayed Mia wouldn’t fall as Boerman braked his descent in a white mist of smoking rope. When they slammed down on the gantry, Nash thought it would break, but it bounced them into the air like a springboard, before swaying violently back and forth.

  Boerman untethered from the cable and began dragging a terrified Mia along the gantry. She fought with all her might, but her blows and kicks were like a child’s to a raging bull. Then they vanished from sight.

  Boerman was taking Mia inside the submarine. But why?

  Nash knew Boerman’s oxy-cut hole was just twenty metres further along on the starboard side, but there were precious few handholds he could use to reach it. The quickest way in was via the gantry. Climbing fast, Nash had just reached amidships when a furious banging of metal on metal inside the hull stopped him dead. What the fuck was Boerman doing?

  Stepping around the remains of the inverted safety rail, Nash used fingers and toes to grip a join in the steel plate, barely clinging on to the near seventy-degree incline as he inched around the curvature of the hull. Somehow, he had to get far enough around to drop down to the gantry, without breaking his legs in the fall. Gritting his teeth, he was close to the point of no return, when he craned his neck down and saw Boerman perhaps five metres below, staring up at him.

  ‘Where is she?’ he yelled down.

  ‘I’m going to give you a chance, Nash, which is more than you gave Sura.’ The big man was shaking, trying to get a grip on his emotions.

  ‘Let Mia go! You know this has nothing to do with her.’

  Boerman’s face was grey-white, his blue eyes strangely washed-out like chips of mica.

  ‘You won’t admit you’re a coward. So, I’ve set you a challenge to prove it.’

  ‘No games, Jaap . . .’

  ‘I’ve locked your woman in the forward compartment.’

  ‘You’ve what?’

  Boerman gestured at the churning water, which had almost reached the gantry.

  ‘In about ten minutes, she’ll be stuck in there for the rest of the wet season.’

  ‘Damn you, Boerman. That’s inhuman.’

  ‘Save your energy, Nash. You’ll need it.’ Boerman turned to go, and then he paused. ‘Oh, and just in case you’re thinking of hiding down there with that pony tank and waiting for all of this to go away . . . I’ll be up here, wiring this old sub to blow.’

  Pony tank?

  Flushed with adrenaline, Nash had completely forgotten it was hooked to his belt.

  ‘Boerman, wait!
’

  The Afrikaner gave him a two-fingered salute.

  ‘See you in Hell, Nash.’

  Returning to the cable, he hooked on and swiftly began to climb.

  Chapter 39

  Nash coiled himself and leaped as far as he could, landing right beside the gantry in the churning water. Surfacing with a gasp, he slithered onto the plywood, which was already beginning to float, then made his way to the split in the hull.

  Inside, the passage stretched up and away like a dark tube.

  ‘Mia!’ he shouted, at the top of his lungs. ‘Mia!’

  There was no answer.

  Nash hesitated. The tube was about to become a deathtrap, full of jagged steel edges and dark corners to trap and pin him. It was as if a switch had been thrown, and abruptly the strength drained from his limbs. His feet felt glued to the platform, which wobbled from side to side.

  Only self-loathing propelled him inside. And the water followed like a malevolent presence as he woodenly climbed the passageway. The light dimmed to a flickering green glow as the water pulsed and surged at his heels. The confines of the tube seemed to shrink. His chest began to constrict. All he wanted to do was escape to the light and air . . .

  And then he froze.

  Clinging to a door frame in abject terror, Nash was tormented by his failure. How could something that was once so easy be so desperately hard? A profound grief choked him. The old Rob Nash wouldn’t have hesitated. Where had he lost him?

  Of course, he knew. He’d known all along. He’d lost him in the Octopus the day Natalie died.

  In that moment of complete despair, Nash finally confronted the obvious truth he had steadfastly refused to face through all the soul-searching, the inquest, the trial by media, and the damning look in Jonathan’s eye. The awful, shameful and ugly truth that his obsession had cost him everything, because if he had just gone back at the first sign of trouble, his beautiful Natalie and their precious unborn child would still be alive today.

  It was his fault.

  A great racking sob erupted from the very centre of his being, echoing stark and lonely in the shrinking void of air.