“No, you made the mistake thinking I was dead, but you didn’t stick around to make sure. You work around that poison long enough, it’s like snakebites. You develop an immunity.”
“You know I’ll find a way out of here and when I do, first I’ll make my fortune off all this gold down here. Then I’ll come after you.”
At the surface, a light clicked on and shone around down into the chamber.
Hawkes threw the knife and they heard the crunch as the Bornean fell in the bushes. Clods of dirt and rock tumbled to the floor. Then Benny appeared to slide down the pillar of light like a fireman racing down the pole to a fire. He hit the cave floor with a whomp. One leg was bent under him in a position even a yogi couldn’t manage, and the knife hilt protruded from the center of his chest. He didn’t move.
Cole said, “You know he was our last chance for getting out of here.”
“I doubt that, Mr. Thatcher.” Hawkes walked over, pulled his knife out of the body, and wiped the blood on a sleeve of the dead man’s shirt.
Cole felt his stomach clench and he turned away.
“Now switch on your light. Let’s go find that girlfriend of yours, and see if there really is any gold in here. We’ll follow that water.” Hawkes shone his flashlight on the stream that trickled across the chamber next to the wall.
“All right,” Cole said as he aimed his own light at what looked like a tunnel. “I guess we follow the yellow brick road. Get that? Yellow brick?”
“Shut up and start walking.”
The Cave in Ilocos Sur
The Philippines
December 7, 2012
The “tunnel” wasn’t quite what it looked like at first. The ground was uneven damp clay and the ceiling varied from so low he had to duck, to twenty feet above their heads. It was clear that a path had been worn at some point in the past, but the evidence of it was wearing away from the constant dripping moisture. The ground in the tunnel was at an incline, and Cole could tell they were descending in elevation. The stream that ran alongside the path grew larger the farther they went and, probably due to the remnants of the tropical storm, the water level looked higher than usual. Occasional rapids and small waterfalls filled the tunnel with the sound of rushing water and in places it spilled across their path.
Someone had once strung wire along the left wall of the tunnel. Maybe there had been light fixtures. The wire was still there along the ground, but whatever they had provided current to was gone.
Cole didn’t mention it, but he saw footprints in the mud in several places. The imprint looked like the familiar nonskid design of the soles of Sperry Top-Sider sneakers: Riley’s shoes.
After more than half an hour of picking their way over the remains of the slippery path, the tunnel started to open up. Their flashlights only penetrated twenty feet ahead, but the walls were definitely growing wider apart and the sound of their footsteps and their breathing wasn’t bouncing back off the close walls in the same way.
Cole said, “Looks like there’s another chamber up ahead.”
“Shhh,” Hawkes said.
But Cole was certain if Riley was in that chamber, she had already heard his voice. She’d had the warning she would need to take cover.
The second chamber was half again as big as the first one they had dropped into, and this one was full of boxes. They played their lights over the first stacked crates they encountered and when they came to the end of the stack, Cole realized there was a corridor through the stacks leading to the other side of the cave. He shone his flashlight down the corridor and Hawkes, who’d arrived next to him, did the same.
“Holy shit,” Cole said.
Their combined beams revealed a pile of bricks, which, though somewhat dull in color from the mineral deposits on them, were obviously made of gold. But the most startling vision was the dragon that seemed to be perched atop the pile of bricks. Its forelegs were raised in the air, talons spread, and its mouth opened in a wide snarl with fangs bared. It appeared to be identical to the dragon he found on the Teiyō Maru, only ten times bigger. Though it was streaked with stripes of varying colors from the relentlessly dripping cave, this dragon too was made of gold.
Hawkes stepped behind him and touched the tip of the sword to his back. Cole felt the prick as it cut his skin through his T-shirt.
“Put your hands on your head. Start walking.”
Cole set his flashlight on top of his head and clasped his hands over it. He started walking toward the dragon.
“Miss Riley,” Hawkes shouted, and his voice filled the cavern. “I know you’re here. I have the tip of a very sharp sword ready to carve out your friend’s kidney if you don’t come out quietly and show yourself.” He waited.
Cole heard nothing but their footsteps and the occasional plop as a drop landed in a puddle somewhere in the cave.
“Need I remind you how fond I am of playing with blades?”
Still no response.
When Cole got closer to the stacked gold bullion and the dragon statue, he saw that there were other aisles between the stacks of material in the chamber. They entered the clear area in front of the dragon, and they were at the hub with five corridors stretching out like the spokes of a wheel.
“Under normal circumstances, I’d be willing to take my time. Cut off, say, a finger at a time to coax you to reveal yourself. But I’m tired of your games. Come out now or your friend will die.”
When the silence dragged on, Cole said, “Maybe she isn’t here.”
“Shut up.” His voice was quiet but it sounded like he was barely holding back a torrent of rage.
“I mean, don’t you want to see if the submarine is still down there?”
Hawkes yelled, “I said shut up, you imbecile!”
Something hard smashed into the back of Cole’s head and drove him to his knees. When he touched the back of his head, his hair felt wet and sticky. “No need to get testy about it.”
Hawkes’s cowboy boot smashed into Cole’s side. He heard the whoof as his own lungs emptied of air and he fell forward. Cole’s arms collapsed, but he forced himself back up off the ground. He was on all fours, and by turning his head just a little he could see Hawkes holding a fancy ornamental sword. It was another dragon.
“Did you hear that?” Hawkes shouted. “It was the sound of your boyfriend’s ribs cracking. Now show yourself or I swear I will kill him.”
Cole wanted to come up with a clever line but he couldn’t get enough air to speak. He hoped Riley wasn’t there, wasn’t watching him on the ground unable to stand. He hoped she was safe.
The man walked around to the other side of him and this time he stomped down with the heel of his cowboy boot on the underside of Cole’s right foot. Cole groaned through gritted teeth. Even with his hiking boot, the man had broken at least a couple of toes.
“That groan you just heard was the sound of his toes breaking.”
Cole saw the man twisting and turning around, searching the cavern for movement. If she was there, she was remaining very quiet.
“Miss Riley, this magnificent sword is quite capable of beheading a man. And so am I.” Hawkes took a stance with one foot forward, the other back, and he began to raise the sword slowly in front of his body like a movement from tai chi.
Before the sword reached its apex, Cole heard what sounded like a whoosh of air and a short metal spear appeared through Hawkes’s neck and lodged there. The sword clattered to the ground while the man clutched at the spear, then fell to his knees. Bright red blood flowed down the side of his neck and bubbles foamed around the shaft of the spear. His mouth opened and closed, making gargling noises.
Cole crawled to the sword and began to push it away out of the man’s reach. Then he saw Hawkes fumbling for the knife in his boot. The man’s fingers closed around the hilt and all the while he was making those horrid gagging noises.
Cole grabbed the dragon sword and swung it, meaning to knock the knife out of the man’s hand as he pulled it from the boot
. The sword’s blade made a clean cut and both hand and knife fell onto the muddy cave floor. In spite of his own injuries, Cole scrambled back in horror until his back came up against the stack of gold bricks.
From behind him he heard a metallic clank. It was coming from the dragon statue. He pulled himself up to look over the top of the pile of bricks and saw what looked like a door drop open from the belly of the dragon. A pair of long brown legs emerged, followed by the most beautiful body he had ever seen. One hand held the speargun, the other her backpack. When her head cleared the beast’s belly, she wore a headlamp on an elastic headband above a face lined with worry.
Riley jumped off the stacked bricks, bent down, and threw her arms around him. “Are you okay?” she said into his ear.
He kissed her, then pulled back and looked at her face, trying to memorize every inch of it. Then he smiled. “What took you so long, Magee?”
The Cave in Ilocos Sur
The Philippines
December 7, 2012
Riley helped Cole to his feet, trying hard not to cause him further pain. She needed to put some space between herself and that thing on the floor. She wasn’t ready to deal with the ramifications of what she had just done. She had waited, not wanting to pull the trigger on the speargun until she had no other choice to save Cole’s life. She would focus on that.
They walked slowly down the aisle between the stacked wood crates, the canvas-wrapped bundles, and the fifty-gallon fuel drums. He had his arm across her shoulders and he was leaning on her for support, trying not to put any weight on his broken foot.
“You have to breathe,” she said. “I can hear you’re holding your breath.”
“It hurts too much to breathe.”
“I think the consequences of not breathing are worse,” she said. She turned to look up at his face and the beam of her headlamp swung from the path ahead of them to the piles of material that formed the walls around them.
“Wait,” Cole said. “Let’s just take a peek.”
The lid to the steel drum next to him was askew. Riley slid the steel disk to one side and bent her head forward. Her light shone on what looked like a drum full of beige rocks that varied in size from peas to a few the size of plums.
“Uncut diamonds,” Cole said.
“Really? They look so ordinary,” she said. She slid the lid closed but not before Cole pocketed one of the bigger rocks.
“Come on,” she said. “None of this stuff will matter a bit if we don’t find a way out of here.”
“What about the ‘back door’? Shouldn’t we try that first?”
“I already did,” she said. “Before you got here. Irv told me how to find it. I trotted back and came to a rock pile. I think the Japanese had time to blow that and bury the entrance before the guerrillas forced them to fire the torpedo.”
“Torpedo? What are you talking about?”
“Oh, I’ll tell you later. Once we get out of here. I’m almost afraid to ask, but what happened to Greg?”
“I think she’s okay.” He stopped, winced, and began to reach for his side, then thought better of it. “I gave her the sat phone and told her to go for help.”
“Good. She’ll call Theo. Cole, are you sure you’re okay to walk?”
He nodded and started moving.
When they got to the stream that flowed along the wall of the cave, they turned to follow the water. Just before leaving the big cavern, they passed four big crates with writing on them. In addition to the Japanese kanji script, there were the letters “UO2.” Cole pointed at the crates.
“Uranium dioxide,” he said.
Suddenly Riley wished he’d worn his personal dosimeter on this trip. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
At least it was downhill. They walked for so long, she had to pinch her nose and pop her ears a couple of times. Cole wasn’t talking. Just listening to the hitch in his breath every time he had to put weight on his foot was making her ache for him. Because every step was on the irregular slippery terrain, she was afraid he was going to fall and perhaps even puncture a lung.
Eventually, the sides of the cave began to look different, smoother somehow. She wasn’t sure what to make of it until she saw that there was a line and the wall above that line looked like the rest of what they’d seen, with crystalized mineral deposits on the surface of the mud. Below that line, the walls were a different texture.
She pointed and aimed her headlight at the wall. “Look at that line. I’m guessing it’s a waterline. I think this cave flooded up to here.”
“I think you’re right,” Cole said.
Soon their path appeared to level out more and the stream began to widen. Riley said, “This whole cave system was formed by this underground river. When they caused the entrance to cave in, it backed up the river and the cave flooded.”
Cole finished her thought for her. “So it follows that if the cave is no longer flooded, erosion and the pressure from within helped the water find a way out.”
“And all we have to do is follow the water.”
Cole took another slow, labored breath. “Easy for you to say.”
A few minutes later the walls of the cave opened up, and they walked into a cavern twice the size of the treasure cavern. Most of the floor of the cavern consisted of a huge lake. Riley reached up and covered her headlamp. A faint glow lit the water on the far side of the lake.
“Look at that,” she said.
He squeezed her shoulder. “Light,” he said.
Riley checked her watch. “It’s four thirty. This coast faces west. If the storm clouds have cleared out, there might even be sun out there.”
“Sun would be nice,” he said. “Very nice.”
Riley pulled her underwater flashlight out of her backpack. The light’s intensity was stronger than her little headlamp. She passed the beam all around the cavern. It was magnificent, with a dome at least seventy-five feet high.
“This has got to be close to five hundred feet across,” Cole said. “Unbelievable.”
“Look,” she said, shining her light on the wall on the opposite side of the lake. “The stalagmites hang down all the way up to there. Then they stop. That must be where the landslide closed off the entrance.”
“Riley, those are stalactites.”
“Okay, science guy. How do you remember which is which?”
“Easy,” he said. “Stalactite has the letter C in it for ceiling. Stalagmite has a G in it for ground.”
She rolled her eyes. “Okay, you win. Do you at least agree with me about the entrance?”
“Yes, dear.”
“That’s better.”
To their left, she discovered a long, narrow dock that was certainly not a natural formation. It had been carved out of the side of the cave by men.
“This must be the dock they tied the sub to,” she said. “So where is the submarine?”
She helped Cole step down onto the level surface of the dock and together they walked to the edge. When Riley pointed her powerful light at the water, it lit up the entire cavern with a pale turquoise light. There, just under the surface, was the long dark shape of a submarine lying on its side.
“Riley, say hello to the USS Bonefish.”
“Cole, it’s our only way out.”
They had been arguing for ten minutes. He didn’t think she could do it, and she was watching him grow more pale and sweaty by the minute. She was worried about other internal injuries, but even if he only had broken ribs and a broken foot, the pain must be agonizing.
“Riley, I don’t want you taking that chance. If you try it and you don’t make it, I couldn’t bear it. Let me try.”
“There you go again. Don’t you see how that’s the same kind of thinking that led you to stay away from me for four years? Cole, I’m a big girl.”
“Actually”—he put his hand against his bicep—“you only come up to about here on me.”
She glared at him. “This is not a joke.”
The
y were sitting on the end of the dock with their feet hanging over the edge as they discussed their options.
“There’s so little light coming through, I think that tunnel is very long and narrow.”
“If so, you’ll pull me out.” She opened her backpack and took out the coil of rope. Cole had given them each a hundred-foot coil. She uncoiled the rope and spread it out on the stone dock so it would run freely, and Cole wouldn’t get surprised by a tangle in the line.
She decided to keep the shorts on, but peeled off her shirt and shoes. From her backpack, she pulled out the mask and compact travel fins and adjusted the straps to fit.
She sat back down next to Cole, wearing only her shorts and her bra. She pulled on the fins. “Have you still got that topo map in a Ziploc?”
“Yeah, but the map won’t do you much good.”
“Hand it over. It’s the bag I want.” When he gave it to her, she pulled out the map and put her iPhone inside. The case it was in was supposed to be waterproof, but she didn’t want to test it out today. She sucked the air out of the bag and closed the double seal. She slid the bag into her underwear and patted her belly. “If the phone works, I’ll be calling Theo in about ten minutes.”
“Riley, I don’t like this.”
She picked up the rope and passed it around her waist. “I know you don’t, but you’ve got to trust me. Here’s the deal. If you feel one pull on the rope, it’s no big deal. Something just got hung up somewhere, okay?”
“All right.”
“But if you feel two sharp pulls, like this”—she demonstrated two yanks close together—“that means trouble, pull me out.”
“Two means trouble.”
“And if you get three in a row like this”—she pulled one, two, three—“that means I made it through to the other side. Got it?”
“Two means trouble. Three and you’re on your way.”
She smiled, leaned in, and kissed him on the cheek. “No heavy good-byes, buddy.” She picked up her mask and dive light and jumped into the water. “Give me a chance to warm up.”
Dragon's Triangle (The Shipwreck Adventures Book 2) Page 40
