Her legs were tired but she kept running in the opposite direction away from the Maropeng centre. Eventually the path gave way to large clearings and big shady trees with only a few sparse bushes here and there. Her mouth was dry and the sun’s relentless rays beat down hard on her skin. She had no idea how far she had run but, by her calculations, it was at least five miles. Since taking the yellow path, Volkov and his men were nowhere to be seen or heard. Her feet threatened to give way causing her to almost fall more than once. She desperately needed to stop and take a break. Deciding it was safe enough, she stopped running. With her hands on her knees she bent over in an attempt to control her rapid breathing. She was nauseous and the stitch pain in her side forced her to pinch down hard on her waist. Her legs went weak beneath her body as she collapsed in the shade of a large tree. Her shaking legs stretched out in front of her while she leaned her head back against the tree trunk to catch her breath.
It wasn’t until she tried to stop the world from spinning that she realized she was about to faint and everything went black in front of her eyes.
* * *
The faint sound of men arguing in the distance brought Alex back to consciousness as she forced her heavy eyelids open. She reached her hand up to rub her eyes but couldn’t. She tried again, this time lucid enough to realize she was tied down to the very tree she had collapsed against. Confused she tried again; this time with both arms. Thick cords ran across her chest and arms and around the tree behind her. In front of her body, her legs stretched out and were bound together at her ankles. She flung her head sideways and determined the men’s voices were coming from about ten yards behind her. To the right of them Volkov sat on a chair in the shade of a large tree whilst admiring his nails. Alex wriggled her arms in an attempt to loosen the rope but it didn’t budge. She tried again, this time the rope gave way just a tad. With her arms next to her sides it was easier to curl them. If she kept doing bicep curls she might eventually move the rope higher toward her shoulders and then she could slip out from underneath it.
“Even if you untie yourself, Miss Hunt, you’re not getting away from me this time.” Volkov’s thick Russian accent startled her from behind.
She stopped wriggling and looked straight ahead not saying a word.
Chapter Twenty-One
“It seems I do have a purpose for you after all, Alex Hunt.” Volkov’s deep voice spoke again.
Alex tried to speak but her lips were dry and her tongue stuck to her palate. Deciding it wasn’t worth the effort, she dropped her head forward onto her chest. The exertion of the past few days took a toll on her exhausted body. She hadn’t eaten much in days and sitting in the hot sun all day added to her already dehydrated state. Volkov snapped his fingers and one of his men ran over to Alex with a bottle of fresh water. He held the bottle of lukewarm water against her lips and made her drink.
“Yes, yes, drink up. You’re going to need all the strength you can find Alex. If you haven’t noticed, my men are a little bit on the big side and I doubt if even one of their feet will fit down that hole.”
Piqued by his last comment Alex looked around to see what hole he was referring to. She didn’t realize she was that close to the cave’s entrance when she fainted.
“Yes, Alex, thanks to you, you brought us right to the very spot we wanted to be, so let’s not waste anymore time finding that tooth.”
Volkov barked a command in Russian at his men and two of them immediately rushed to Alex’s side and lifted her to her feet. Her leg muscles ached and she felt very weak. She asked for more water and they held the bottle to her mouth again. It helped.
“If you think I’m going to help you find that tooth you’re wrong, Volkov.”
He laughed sadistically. “I don’t think you have much choice, Alex.”
He beckoned one of his men over who held out a tablet in front of Alex and pressed play. A sudden feeling of tightness expanded across her chest and ripped her heart in two as Alex watched the moving images of a man tied to a chair. His face was covered with a black hood and his naked body was severely battered and tortured. For a moment Alex stopped breathing as her body went numb with disbelief. It was Sam. She turned her face away when a baseball bat was thrust into his abdomen.
“Turn it off!” She yelled.
He did.
Filled with sadness Alex looked into Volkov’s dark eyes that continued to mock her and instantly her tightness turned to hatred and anger. Her hands clenched into fists and her eyes turned cold.
“Let Sam go,” she said in a raspy monotone voice.
Volkov sat forward in his chair. “So now you’ll do it?”
Alex spat on his shiny black shoes in reply but kept her eyes locked with his.
“All right that’s enough time wasting. I don’t have all day. Put her in the hole,” he instructed.
“You’re supposed to be this saint, Volkov, but you’re nothing but a fraud and a murderer. You won’t get away with this.”
“Oh but I already have my dear Alex. That tooth is all that’s left for me to find. Once you deliver it to me I’m going to change the world. Genetic engineering is the way of the future and who better to lead the way than me, huh? Have you ever considered how creating a colony of new humans will change this world for the better? Think about it, Alex. I’m one tooth away from a one of a kind re-engineered genus that challenges the human body as you know it. My new species will regenerate cells and heal themselves. Their brain capacity will exceed that of human intellect by three hundred percent and they’ll have a muscular economy no mortal can ever possess.”
Alex listened as a delirious Volkov declared his plans for an engineered race.
“And then what Volkov? How are us mortals supposed to survive with your engineered humans roaming around? We’ll die out faster than you can reproduce them. It will destroy everything on this planet.”
“Oh, Alex, you’re so short-sighted. I’m not a mass murderer. Sure I enforce a little bit of torture here and there to get what I want, but mass destruction? I’ll leave that to the presidents. You can continue your ridiculous politics and Greenpeace marches all you want. Did you forget I just succeeded in getting the first humans to Mars?”
Alex’s eyes grew wide.
“You’re building a new human race to go live on Mars? That’s preposterous!”
Volkov belted a loud laugh that quite possibly traveled all the way back to Johannesburg.
“I’m a genius, but that’s taking it too far, Alex. It’s a lot simpler than that. I have already built the world’s first utopia space ship — my own Millennium Falcon. Now, no more chit chat, we have a tooth to find.”
“You are crazy if you think I’m going to go down that hole, Volkov! It’s suicide!” Alex shouted as she tried to loosen his sidekick’s grip around her arms.
“For you yes, not for me, or do I need to remind you what’s really at stake here? So before you die down there, just make sure you get me my tooth first, ok?” He mocked, his voice dripping in sarcasm.
Volkov nodded to one of his men. The six foot five sidekick scooped Alex up under his arm like he was picking up a toddler and carried her toward a nearby gaping hole next to a large tree.
“You can’t let me down there, Volkov! I don’t have any caving experience and, besides, how do we know it’s even down there?”
“Oh it’s down there all right. Our dear professor thought he was clever by leading us to the gorilla instead. He was loyal to a fault even when we sliced a blade in his kneecaps. That’s why we needed you, Alex. To finish the puzzle for us. So, unless you want the same fate as our professor, I suggest you get down there.”
His men loosened the rope around her shoulders and ankles and removed her combat vest before fastening a knot around her waist. The leather book fell to the ground and Volkov threw her a steely look.
“So you had it all along then. And look where that got you. Now get on with it Alex Hunt. I don’t have all day.”
“If
you send me down that hole you’ll never have your tooth, Volkov. I might never come out of there alive.”
“I’ll take my chances Alex. I heard you’re the best so I have every reason to believe you’ll make it. Besides, that’s why we have the rope tied around your waist. And just in the event you’re thinking of escaping, you have three hours or Sam dies.”
Alex didn’t give him the satisfaction of responding. She threw her shoulders back and fastened her hair in a bun. He had Sam and if the tooth was what he wanted, it was a small price to pay for Sam’s freedom.
Alex fought back her tears as they lowered her feet-first into the hole. The rope cut through her thin T-shirt into her flesh and she grabbed onto the rope above her head to alleviate the chafing. The deeper they lowered her the darker it became. Her body quaked as the dirt walls closed in on her.
“Volkov, please? Let’s do this the right way! I need equipment to do this? How am I supposed to see anything?”
He didn’t answer and Alex was lowered deeper down into the pitch-black hole until her feet finally touched the uneven rocky ground.
“Now find me that tooth, Alex Hunt!” Volkov shouted from above.
Alex let out a soft sob as she tried to see through the blackness. The earthy scent of wet soil filled her nostrils. She reached into her pocket for Ezra’s lighter and flicked it on. In the soft light she could see two dark tunnels; one in front of her and one to her left. Behind her and to her right she was closed in between dirt walls. She looked up towards the distant hole above her head. She must have been at least fifty feet deep but it was hard to tell through the darkness. She ventured one step forward and stumbled against something. A gentle breeze from one of the tunnels blew out the lighter’s flame in her hand. She flicked the lighter on again and looked down at her feet to find her backpack. Her heart leaped for joy as she knelt down and searched for her torch. When her fingers closed over the cold steel casing of her torch she closed her eyes and quietly exhaled.
The rope around her waist pulled tight, tugging her upward. “Hurry up Alex! Time is money!” Volkov shouted from above.
“Come down and get it yourself then!” She shouted back unable to mask her frustration with the predicament she found herself in. Her mind recalled the images of the tight spaces in the tunnels from the diagram in the exhibit. Her stomach rolled and she felt as if she was going to drown in fear. To her annoyance the rope pulled tight again and she swore at them in response. The two tunnels were equally frightening to her and choosing one over the other proved fatal no matter which way she looked at it. Her mind wandered to her poor choice of following the yellow path before. Her torchlight swung from one to the other and finally, she opted to go down the tunnel directly in front of her. She crossed her fingers and hoped it would lead to the tooth.
Alex drew in a deep breath and shone her torch around the entrance to the tunnel. She recalled Volkov saying the professor left clues. Her eyes searched the walls but there was nothing apart from limestone. She was about to take her first step and paused as the thought crossed her mind to look to the floor. Her lips broke into a relaxed smile when, in the faintest glow of her flashlight, a carving appeared on a dolomite rock formation under her foot. She knelt down to have a closer look. It was Roman numerals.
CXXII
“One hundred and twenty-two,” she said out loud as she brushed away the dirt around it with her fingers. “One hundred and twenty-two what, Professor?” She spoke in the air and studied the tunnel more closely. It was no more than fifty inches in diameter so taking proper paces would prove difficult. Deciding to wager on it being toe-to-heel paces, she hunched her body forward and navigated her way through the tunnel while counting off the one hundred and twenty-two foot-to toe-paces.
It was hot and difficult to breathe. Her head knocked on the protruding ridges of the limestone and dolomite stones in the cavity walls. The most recent bump had sliced through her skin and blood trickled down the side of her face. Roughly a hundred and twenty-two paces further she paused and inspected the walls. There was nothing. No further evidence of anything buried there. It was impossible to turn around in the tight space so she directed her flashlight down the tunnel in front of her, wondering if it would open up soon. All the while she kept her eyes on the walls for any clues. She concluded the professor’s feet were a lot bigger than hers so she add a few more feet. Her assumption paid off when the tunnel forked only a few feet further.
“Great, another fork,” she muttered.
Again she scanned the walls of the tunnel entrance and spotted the small, brown marking of an arrow above her head. It clearly pointed to the right tunnel which was even smaller than the one she’d come from and only allowed passage by means of sliding on her tummy. She checked the knot of the guide rope around her waist and secured it in place. The space was tight as she lay down flat. Her shoulders wedged between the sides of the underground passage and it was hard to breath. Stings of pain shot through her elbows as they scraped on the sharp edges of the tunnel floor. She pushed and shoved, wriggling her body sideways in places and willed her mind away from the confined claustrophobic space. And just as she thought she had mastered the tunnel, she hit a stone wall. Again, fear threatened to push her into hysteria but she fought her mind to stay calm. She had crawled a good ten yards. Going in reverse was going to be incredibly challenging. It took everything not to break down in tears and she momentarily dropped her chin onto the coarse dirt and shut her eyes. Her mind recalled the tortured images of Sam who was depending on her to get through this and save him — for once. She lifted her head and sniffed back the tears resolving to dig her heels in and reverse. She lifted her torchlight and froze. In front of her, above the very stone that prevented her from moving forward, she looked at the single stalactite that hung down from the ceiling. Alex frowned. Usually one found stalactites inside a large cave chamber; not like this inside a narrow tunnel. She slithered closer, reached up and pulled it. Dirt fell down onto her head and a creaky noise came from the stone wall in front of her as it loosened from the sides.
When the creaking stopped Alex pushed it forward and the stone rolled out into a massive chamber. Alex felt her chest open up as, for the first time inside the cave system, she was able to breathe easily again as relief washed over her.
The chamber lit up under her torchlight to reveal glistening stalactites and stalagmites everywhere. Now standing upright she stretched out her aching arms and back and took in the majestic cave. She had never been one for tight spaces but being inside the very cave system that was home to an extinct hominin species, was simply exhilarating. Sam’s face played across her mind. He would have appreciated this. A lump formed in her throat and she wiped her face with the inside of her shirt and cleared her throat.
“Ok Alex, let’s get that tooth and get the hell out of here,” she spoke words of encouragement to herself. The beam of her flashlight looked into every angle for clues as she searched the cave. If the professor had hidden the tooth here it could be anywhere, but what she knew for certain was that she had followed his clues — she just needed to find the next one.
“Think Alex, think. Where would he hide the tooth?”
Up to now the professor had used authentic ancient riddles. He was a paleoanthropologist so chances were he’d communicate through fossils. She searched the floor bed, pacing every inch of the cave. Eventually her torch settled on a corner where a small pile of fossil bones lay to one side as if it was the remains after a lion’s hunt. Alex bent down to inspect it. Her memory flashed to the fake bone Ezra found in the professor’s office and she picked them up, one by one. All in all there were about twenty bones — vertebrae, possible parts of a ribcage, a few digits, and then a large femur. Working her way through each bone checking for anything peculiar she paused when a noise came from inside one of the digit bones. She shook it vigorously from side to side. There was something inside. She spat on the bone and rubbed it clean with her shirt to reveal a bone mimicking th
e very rubberized PVC bone they had found the first clue in. Ecstatic with the find Alex twisted the ends in opposite directions and heard the familiar click and release. Barely able to contain her excitement she carefully pulled the two ends apart and tipped them over into the palm of her shaking hand. Her heart drummed against her chest as two molars stared back at her.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The difficult crawl back to the cave entrance was propelled by overwhelming euphoria. Alex couldn’t stop smiling. With intoxicating pride and newfound energy, she navigated her way back through the tight underground cave system. She’d give Volkov the tooth so he’d let Sam go, and once she was back home, ICCRU would hunt him down. He wasn’t her problem anymore. She had found what she was sent there for. All she cared about now was Sam — and getting out of there alive.
When she finally stepped foot into the hole again, she tugged on the rope, signaling for Volkov’s men to pull her up.
“Pull me up, Volkov! I have what you want!” She yelled up into the opening above her head. The sun had already set and the moon’s dim light shone down on her.
“Hey, Volkov! Get your goons to lift me out!” She shouted again when nothing happened, tugging on the rope at the same time.
The Alpha Strain Page 14
