Sean didn't need to look over his shoulder to see Tommy's disgust. He could feel it from across the pool.
"Good enough for me," Sean said. "See you on the other side."
He worked his way back across the rocks and into the deluge once more, disappearing from sight. Once he was in the middle, he let himself drop down into the water and pulled his body down using the rocks. The maneuver saved him valuable seconds, and in a brief moment he was back at the tunnel entrance again.
This time, Sean used the rock to his advantage, pulling his weight through the submerged corridor faster than he could swim. Gripping the flashlight in his teeth kept both hands free as he reached for a handhold and then another until he made it to the shaft. Just as he'd done before, he twisted his body around and used his feet to kick off the floor and up to the surface.
When he broke through to the air, he still had plenty left in his lungs. Knowing where he was going made all the difference. And to think he'd almost drowned before.
Sean dog paddled in place—remaining over the shaft—and aimed the beam of his flashlight down into the water so Adriana could see it. The light diffused somewhat, but it would do the job.
About thirty seconds later, he noticed movement in the shaft below before Adriana suddenly burst through the surface. She blew out the air from her lungs, spitting a little water as she did so. Then she shook her head and smoothed her brown hair back against her head.
"Not too bad if you go through it fast," she said.
"Tommy would never make it."
"You're probably right."
He turned his body, shining the light around the underground pool to see if there was a good place to climb out. Over to the left, it appeared the rock gradually sloped into the water. Something else caught Sean's eye about five yards away from that spot.
"You see that?" he asked.
"Looks like cave art," she said.
"Let's have a look."
The two swam over to the shore and found climbing out to be a trickier bit of work than expected. The sloped rock was slippery, and the two explorers both nearly fell as they tried to keep their footing.
The water dripped off of them, echoing off the stone in the cave and blending with another sound.
"Is that an underground stream I hear?" Sean asked. He flashed his light around the room.
"Sounds like it. There must be a fissure in the riverbed above."
Standing on solid ground, Sean untied the cord around his ankle and opened the dry bag. He produced three glow sticks, cracked them, and tossed them on the floor. They cast an eerie green glow onto the wall, revealing the rock art the two had seen from the water.
"Why'd you bring your gun?" Adriana asked, seeing Sean's pistol in the bag as he removed his phone.
"Force of habit," he said as he winked. "Never leave home without it."
She rolled her eyes and moved over to the rock where the paintings stood out like ghosts etched in stone.
"Come on, Agent Wyatt," she joked. "Let's take a look at these."
He joined her and crouched by the wall. "More of those odd-looking beings," he said, running a finger next to one of the shapes.
Creatures with narrow bodies and huge round heads dotted the rock, covering a span of about ten feet. There were twelve of them in total, and again the white hands appeared in random places across the ancient canvas.
"What is with these hands?" Sean said. "They've been at every place we've seen so far."
Adriana looked at him, puzzled. "You mean you don't know what those mean?"
He shook his head. "No. I have no idea. Do you?"
"No," she said with a frown. "Just surprised you don't. That's kind of your thing, you know, history?"
"Sorry. I've been a little busy lately, you know, spending time with the woman I love?"
"Aww," she said with a grin. "I know. And I appreciate that." She changed the subject back to the artwork. "So what does all this mean? There are lots of those circles again. I take it whoever put this here is conveying more passage of time?"
"Most likely. That much we do know, at least now. But there's nothing else." A look of growing concern washed over his face. He pointed his light to either side of the drawings. There was nothing else to see. "I don't understand. Mathews should have left something here for us, a riddle or clue of some kind."
Adriana picked up one of the glow sticks and held it out at arm's length. She stepped cautiously over the rocks, shining the green light on the wall as she moved. "I don't see anything," she said. Eventually, she came to a point where the path ended abruptly in a rock face.
Sean aimed his flashlight back in the other direction and searched the opposite wall for any signs of something Mathews could have left. He, too, found nothing.
"I don't get it," he said as Adriana rejoined him. "It should be here, right? Or am I crazy?"
"The jury's still out on that one," she said. "But you're right. There should be something here. Maybe we're just not thinking about it correctly. What was it the last riddle said again?"
Sean's nearly eidetic memory sprang to life. "The boomerang's water flows into the underworld, another secret kept. We found the secret room. Stands to reason whatever Mathews put here would still be here." He had a gut-wrenching thought. "Unless someone got here before us."
"Maybe," Adriana said. "Or maybe the secret isn't here in this cave. What if it's in the water? After all, the clue suggests that the secret is kept there, not up here."
The realization hit him. "You're right. This whole time I thought it had to be up here in the cave, but that's not what the clue says at all. It's in this pool." He flashed her a look of admiration. "Very impressive, my dear."
She leaned close as if to kiss him. "Why, thank you." Then she yanked the flashlight from his hand and fired a flirty smirk. "Let me take a look. I can hold my breath longer than you."
"I don't suppose telling you no is an option."
Adriana was already tiptoeing cautiously to the water's edge. She glanced back over her shoulder. "You know it isn't."
Before he could protest further, she jumped back in the pool and disappeared below the surface.
"There's no debating with her," he said to himself.
Sean watched her swim all the way to the pool's bottom, following the light as much as he could in the rippling dark liquid. It was difficult to tell what was down there. The water was remarkably clean and free of debris, which made visibility less of an issue for the swimmer.
The light danced off the submerged rocks below as Adriana made her way around the semicircular pool. He noticed her abruptly stop and hover over something. She was halfway around the grotto, and he had no way of being able to tell what she'd found. He didn't have to wait long.
Sean watched as the light streaked toward the surface. Her head breached the air and she spewed water away from her lips. After two short breaths, she turned to where Sean was sitting on the rocks next to one of the glow sticks.
"There's a dead body down there."
The ghastly report caught Sean off guard. "Maybe you should get out of there."
She shook her head. "Whoever it was, they've been dead a long time. I'd guess over fifty years. It's just a skeleton, really. Probably drowned trying to come through that tunnel. I guess they didn't know how far back this thing went."
"You sure you don't want me to look around?" Sean asked.
"No, I'm good. Going to check around the rest of the perimeter."
Again, Adriana tipped over and dove headfirst into the water. Her feet kicked the surface as she knifed down into the blackish pool.
Sean could do nothing but watch as she made her way around the base of the wall. Only a few yards to the right of where Sean was perched, she stopped again. The light fixated on something—what it was, he couldn't tell. She'd been down for about a minute, maybe more. He wished he'd set a stopwatch to keep track.
It started jerking around violently. Sean's heart pounded. His gut told him
the worst had happened, that she'd caught her foot in a rock or something and couldn't get it free. He stood up, ready to dive in to her rescue. As he steadied his balance, the light stopped its radical gyrations and went still.
A single horrified thought pierced Sean's mind. Adriana drowned.
25
Watarrka National Park
Sean jumped out and into the water, making sure he put enough distance between himself and the rocks that he didn't injure himself. Desperation coursed through his veins as he dove downward, cutting through the water with hard, powerful strokes. He pushed his muscles to the max as he kicked and paddled down toward the light near the bottom.
As he drew close to the lithe, white figure, the flashlight suddenly turned up toward him. Adriana blew bubbles out of her nose and then pointed at something in her hand. Then she motioned to the surface with her index finger.
Sean was so relieved he nearly sighed in spite of the fact that he was twenty feet under water. He gave a nod and watched her ascend before he kicked off of the pool floor toward the surface.
The two broke into the cool cave air and hovered for a moment in the water, kicking their legs to keep them above the gentle waves.
"You okay?" Sean asked, trying to cover up the near-irrational concern he'd felt just moments before.
"Yeah. I'm fine. Why'd you come down there?"
Sean felt embarrassed. "I...I saw the light getting yanked around like something was wrong...so I...I jumped in because I thought you were in trouble."
An appreciative smile crept onto Adriana's face. "That is so sweet. You know I can hold my breath longer than that, though."
"I know. I just...I didn't know how long it had been, and I started to worry."
She pulled close to him and gave him a kiss on the cheek. "It's good to know I have a hero for a boyfriend. Now let's see what this thing is."
She held up a stone cube about the size of a baseball.
Sean stared for a moment at the object.
"Come on," she said, and then she paddled away toward the shore. He followed quickly after.
They sat on the slope with their feet still in the chilly water as Adriana passed the cube to him. She pointed the flashlight at it, revealing engravings on four sides of the stone's surface.
On one side, letters and an ampersand spelled out J & M C. Another side featured what looked like an animal paw. The third image looked like it had been defaced, nothing more than a divot dug out of the stone. The last engraving was the shape of a boomerang.
"Well, there's another boomerang," Sean said. "Starting to see a pattern here."
Adriana continued to look at the object. "What do the others mean? You think the letters have something to do with Mathews?"
"Maybe. We need to get back to the others. Been gone a while."
"Don't want Tommy to worry?" she said in an almost seductive tone.
He shrugged. "Yeah. And I'm not totally convinced we're out of the woods yet with whoever was following us."
"You and that intuition. It never shuts off, does it?"
"Sometimes I wish it did."
He tucked the rock into the dry bag, tied it to his ankle like he'd done before, and jumped back in the water.
The two made their way down the shaft and through the tunnel, returning to the daylight that mixed with the churning white water of the falls. Instead of going left when they made it out of the underwater corridor, the two turned right and headed for the landing close to where Tommy said he and Reece would wait.
Sean popped up first and spotted the two exactly where they said they'd be. Adriana wasn't far behind him and caught up as he swam slowly toward the shore.
"Did you find anything?" Tommy asked eagerly. He'd been sitting on a small rock next to Reece. Their spot was situated in the canyon's shade. Even so, Tommy had already dried off completely due to the warm, dry air.
"Yeah, but we don't know what it is."
He found a place where the rocky ground ascended onto shore and trudged up to the others. Once out of the water, Sean disconnected the cord around his ankle and then removed his gun and the odd cube.
"Take a look at this," he said, tossing the rock to Tommy.
Tommy nervously caught the cube after almost fumbling it to the ground. He stared at the still-wet object with Reece looking at it over his shoulder.
"Another boomerang," Tommy said.
He flipped the cube over and examined the other engravings. "Not sure what these letters represent. Any ideas?" he asked Reece.
"Not off the top of my head, but that paw print I recognize. Looks like a wallaby's foot."
"You recognize that?"
"Of course I know that. I'm an adventure tour guide. Part of that entails tracking animals sometimes."
Sean was impressed. "You hunt animals for sport?"
"Nah, mate. Well, not wallabies. Really, I only take a few hunters out every year, but I don't like it. Only do it for the money."
"What happened to this part?" Tommy asked as he turned the cube again. He pointed at the place where it appeared the image had been dug away.
"No idea," Sean said. "We found it like that."
"I guess whoever put it there wasn't happy with the way it looked so they took it off."
"Seems odd," Reece said. "The rest of it is so perfectly done."
"Here, hold this for a second," Tommy said to Reece and handed him the cube. "I want to take a few pictures.
Reece held out the stone with the divot facing up. Tommy took his phone out of the gear bag at his feet and took the first picture. "Okay, now turn it."
Reece started to twist the cube, but a loud bang stopped him. The sudden noise was accompanied by a bullet ripping through Adriana's upper chest. Blood splattered onto Sean's side. He looked into her shocked face. Adriana's eyes went wide with shock, and then she fell over backward into the water.
"Adriana!" Sean shouted.
Tommy reacted, shoving Reece behind the nearest boulder. He charged at Sean, diving at his friend who desperately reached out his hands to grasp at Adriana as she splashed into the pool. Another shot boomed from above. Tommy's shoulder struck Sean in the midsection and drove him behind another giant rock just as the second bullet smashed into the rock where Sean had been standing.
Tommy hit the ground hard with Sean on top of him. Sean struggled, but Tommy wouldn't let him go, keeping his weight pressed down on his friend.
"Stay down," Tommy ordered. "Don't do anything stupid."
"Adriana...I have to save her, Schultzie." Sean's protests were muddled. He still hadn't fully comprehended what happened.
Tommy felt like he was riding a crazed bull. Sean fought with every ounce of his strength, but he couldn't get his friend off of him.
"It's an ambush, Sean. There's a sniper up there on the other side. And he's got us pinned down. You go out there, you're a dead man. We're in a kill box."
Sean's breathing increased. "Where's Adriana?"
Tommy poked his head around the boulder and saw Reece tucked down, out of the sniper's view. He pulled his head back before the gunman could see. There was no sign of Adriana.
"She's gone. Reece is behind the rock next to this one. I need you to focus, buddy."
Sean searched his friend's eyes for answers. Usually Sean had an idea for every situation. This time was different. Sean's emotions poured out of his eyes that kept twitching left to right as if searching Tommy for answers.
"Let me go," Sean said. "I don't care if I get killed. I love her, Schultzie."
Tommy gripped his friend's shoulders tight. "I know you do. But you walking out there and getting killed isn't what she would want. Right now, we have to get out of here. You, me, and Reece. You hear me? We have to move, or we're all dead. We need a plan."
Sean still held his weapon in one hand. Tommy's gear bag was sitting twenty feet away, close to the water. Adriana's was next to it, meaning they only had one gun between the three of them, and only one magazine of ammuni
tion. No chance he could go for the other bags. The sniper would cut him down. At the moment, Sean didn't care about that.
To make things worse, Sean knew they were up against a skilled sniper with nothing more than what equated to a pea shooter. His .40-caliber was plenty of gun when it came to a short-range firefight. Hundreds of feet away from the target, it would do little more than scare the other guy.
Tears welled in Sean's eyes. He started to speak but had to choke back the words. Finally, Sean pushed his mind back to the way it was when he worked for Axis—to times when he'd lost comrades in the field and had to push on without them. This was different, way different. The mental exercise strained his faculties to their utmost. He sniffled and then realized what he had to do.
"That's it," he said, more to himself than to Tommy.
"What's it?"
"Do as I say, and we might just get out of this." Sean swallowed hard, shoving down his emotions to the back of his mind as much as possible.
Tommy stared at Sean with uncertain eyes. "You just came up with a plan? Like, right now?"
"Yeah. But you're not gonna like it. Listen to what I say." He leaned around to the side of the boulder, keeping his head out of view and tucked away behind a bush growing right beside it.
"Reece," he hissed.
"Oy," he said, using common Australian slang.
"You and Tommy do exactly as I tell you. When I start shooting, you two sprint to the water. Get in, and don't come up for air as long as you can stand it. Swim downstream. I'll catch up to you."
"There's no way you can hit him from here," Reece said. "You're good, but even you have limitations."
He wasn't wrong.
"I'm not trying to hit him, although if I get lucky I'll take it. I just need to buy you guys a few seconds to get in the water. Once you're in, make sure you stay a few feet below the surface. Bullets lose most of their force within a foot or so of hitting the water."
"What about you?" he asked. "Who's going to cover you?"
"If I do it right, I'll buy enough time for myself, too. Just get to the water when I start shooting." Sean didn't say what he was really thinking. He didn't care if the shooter moved for him or not. His plan was to get Reece and Tommy to safety. If he died trying, so be it. Sean was in a reckless place now, a place where personal safety was no longer an issue.
The Sean Wyatt Series Box Set 4 Page 18
