Caravan of Thieves

by David Rich

  We pounded in our pitons and rigged our ropes. Blondie sent Toothless down first, then Pitt, then me. We stood around the backpack as if it were a magic lantern. Blondie reached out for it, testing the weight with a skeptical look. He found a hundred thousand dollars inside. I watched the others while he counted it.

  “What the hell is this?”

  “Knowing my father, I’d say it’s there so I’ll know to keep looking. Or maybe he spent the rest. I don’t know.”

  Blondie put the walkie-talkie to his mouth and spoke: “Found a pack with one hundred thousand in it. Come in.…” But he received only static. He tried again. He reattached the walkie-talkie to his belt and shined his light around. “Which way now?”

  Three choices presented themselves. To the left, a flat passage with a low ceiling, showing stalagmites and stalactites. To the right of that was a similar passage which, I knew, joined up with the first passage about three hundred yards along. After that, access ended in a sheer cliff. Off to the far right, the stream stretched through beautiful, twisting caverns. I had planted backpacks in all three directions, and weapons, too. I did not care how Blondie divided us up as long as he divided us up. “It could mean go this way. It could be a way of saying the money is not here.”

  “How could it be that?”

  “My father would be prepared for the possibility that I didn’t come down here alone.”

  The others were shining their lights around, hoping to spot another pack of money from where we stood. Blondie studied the walls. The moving lights made the surfaces flare and fade, sucking them into shadows, then spitting them out. “Okay, you two head down this way.” He pointed at Toothless and me. “You two take the passage next to us,” he said to Stallworth and Pitt. “I’ll follow the water. It’s fourteen twelve now. Meet back here in ninety minutes. And bring along anything you find.” He smiled, but his eyes were mean and dark and they settled on me.

  The blackness was complete, vacuuming up our lights and swallowing them so it felt as if we were not really moving forward. We caught snatches of what the cave looked like, strobed moments, none of the big illuminated glories of National Geographic. I stayed yards away from Toothless and slightly in front to let him keep an eye on me. It took him a while to notice the next backpack. He jerked his light away from the pack and took a few more steps while he decided how to get rid of me. I turned to him. “You okay?”

  “Creepy in here. Are yasureya know the wayback?”

  “Follow the left wall. When it curves right, stay with it. You’ll see the water.” I shined the light along the left wall, then over to him. He moved farther from the backpack. “Sort of odd, isn’t it? All that money just sitting in here, waiting to be picked up? It might have gone undiscovered. What a waste. I still can’t understand why my father didn’t just spend it.”

  “You gonnastart thatshit again?”

  “Admit you’re thinking about it. Admit it and I’ll shut up.”

  “Okay. I admit it. I thinkabout having somemoney.” He sounded humiliated by the admission, like a twelve-year-old acknowledging to his parents that he thinks about girls.

  “We could split what we find.”

  “You’renuts.”

  “You mean you won’t split with me? You want it all?”

  “I’m notstealing anything, so shut thefuckup.”

  “What about this? You were planning on stealing this.” I had worked my way over to the backpack. I hefted it up and held it out for him to savor. “If you won’t take it, I will.” And I ran ahead, around a spot where the wall jutted out forming a partition. I took my hat off and placed it on a rock so the light would shine in his eyes when he came around the bend. I crossed to the spot where I had left a Ranger combat knife and a 9 millimeter Browning automatic. The pistol went into my belt. The knife stayed in my hand.

  First came the two shafts of light from his helmet and his handheld lamp. His other hand held his pistol. The light in his eyes bothered him, but he turned away from it too slowly. I had the knife deep in his back before he saw me. I ground it in to make sure. The body dropped and rolled to a flat spot. The beams from the lamps crisscrossed like kliegs against the starless dark.

  I went to the body and tore off his shirt. The tracker was sewn behind his right shoulder in the same spot they had put mine. There was no need to be gentle in cutting it out. I extinguished his lights but left the body where it was.

  I followed the right-hand wall toward the merge with the next cavern, where Pitt and Stallworth were exploring. Their route was the most difficult and I was certain they had not come as far as I had. I tucked the backpack Toothless had found against the wall as added bait, then went back up the center path to meet up with them.

  I wagged my light and called, “There you are. C’mon…” They moved slowly toward me. “I think I know where the money is. C’mon.”

  “Where’s Tony?” Apparently, Toothless had another name.

  “He went back to get Blondie. The money’s this way. Have you found any?”

  “Did you?” Stallworth asked.

  “One pack,” I said. “Toothless took it back with him.” They looked at each other. “Well, he wasn’t gonna leave it with me. Let’s go.” I started away. They hesitated. “If you don’t want to, then just go back to the rendezvous. I’ll find it myself.”

  Pitt said, “How do you suddenly know where it is?”

  “I remembered. I saw a spot that I remembered and then it clicked in. He used to take me to a cavern down that way. The backpacks are marking the way. Suit yourself, guys. I’m going.”

  We found the pack I had tossed and that bucked them up. Stallworth got to carry it, and Pitt and I made jokes about this being the most money he ever touched and the heaviest load. By the time we reached the next cliff, they were well turned around. We shined our lights into the pit and at the walls.

  “I’m sure this is it,” I said.

  Pitt saw the rope ladder first; I had set it up on one of my visits during leave. From the bottom of that drop, a winding path led back up to the water source that Blondie was following. We waved our lights around some more and Stallworth spotted another backpack at the bottom. “That’s mine. I saw it first,” he said. Pitt shined the light in Stallworth’s face. “You best watch yourself, or you won’t be having anything.”

  “Who goes down first?”

  They decided Pitt would go first and I would follow and then Stallworth. I fell the last few feet and pretended that my ankle had twisted. While they attacked the backpack, I hopped around. When they looked back at me, my gun was aimed at them. “First, Pitt, you drop your weapon on the floor.”

  “Hey, now,” said Pitt. “You can share the money.”

  “Do it. Do it now,” I said.

  Pitt started to pull his weapon and Stallworth made a move at the same time. I shot between them and they froze. The noise sounded more like a cannon than a gunshot. “I’ll get you both before you draw. Now.” Pitt tossed his gun on the ground. “Stallworth…” He did the same. “Now turn off the lights on your hats and toss them over there. Now.” They looked at each other before complying. I herded them toward the rope and I moved in the opposite direction, toward the passage that wound toward the water. Holding the gun on them, I smashed their flashlights with my foot and did the same to the lights on their hats. The only light was from my hat. “Both of you lie down on your bellies.”

  “What the hell are you planning, man?” Stallworth wanted to know.

  “Would you rather I tied you up, drugged you, then beat the shit out of you for days until you died?”

  “Oh, man, how were we gonna get him to tell us anything? C’mon,” said Pitt.

  “Thank you. Get down on your belly while I think about that.” They did as they were told. I picked up their guns and the backpack of money. “Stay there. This is going to take me a few minutes.” I backed up into the passage, keeping a light on them until I reached the first turn. I took a quick look at what lay ahead
of me, then doused my lights and touched the wall and felt my way a few more yards. I waited. Both men yelled, “Hey.” The blackness was complete, a blanket as thick as the universe. I held on to my lamp tightly, then forced myself to relax my grip, afraid I was going to break the thing. Our eyes had been gouged out. Pitt and Stallworth argued in rapidly weakening voices about whether to try to follow me or to climb the ladder and try to retrace their path. Soon, even two thugs as dense as they were would be wondering how long eternity lasted.

  The longest I had ever been able to handle the cave in complete blackout was seventeen minutes, which felt like an hour. And I had the benefit of knowing I could end it.

  I followed carefully along another bend, then put on my hat lamp and crawled through a tributary, upward, until it opened to the next cavern. Pitt and Stallworth would lose what minds they had long before they fell into a hole or off a cliff. I did not care.

  32.

  With Blondie, there would be no whining or questions. At each bend, each turn, descent, or climb, I turned off my lamps and listened and watched for lights. I reached a long borehole that connected to the stream, opening into a large cavern. I knew the borehole was straight and had no other tunnels intersecting it, so I could make good time, even in the dark. But the lack of turns meant that my light would be noticed far ahead every time I turned it on.

  Blondie must have been doing the same thing. Out of the black and quiet, he said, “Just come out. I’ve found another backpack of money.”

  It sounded like he was in the cavern. “How much have you found?”

  “Fifty grand in the one I just found. How about yours?”

  “Haven’t counted it,” I said. “It isn’t mine.” Neither of us had to shout. The sound and the smell of the water were all I could sense in the dark. I pulled my gun and crouched. I placed my lamp about two feet to my right and tried to aim it toward his voice.

  “I wonder where the rest is.” He said it as if he were looking for the potato chips.

  “I know where it is.”

  “Are the others dead?”

  “Not yet,” I said. “How do we split the money?” I sounded less than halfhearted, not even able to make a facetious offer.

  “It’s not about the money between us, is it, pal?”

  “McColl won’t be happy about finding you with no money and no me.”

  “Too bad for McColl then. There’s bigger fish than him running the show. They’ll blame him, not me. It was his dumb plan to put the money in the ground.”

  I could hear him moving slowly to my right. If he went far enough, he would have an open shot at me. I had no shelter. I reached down and flicked on the lamp and jerked away from it immediately. He shot and the lamp went out. I shot. He yelled, “Damn it!” And I heard a soft splash, as if he had dropped the gun into the water. I moved like a blind man, arms out front, across to the other side of the borehole. When my hand jammed against the opposite wall, I flattened myself to the ground, held my breath, and listened: the water was stirring. Was he looking for the gun? I had never tested the depth of the water. I rolled toward the center and sprayed four shots along the waterline. I rolled back to the wall. If my shots hit, Blondie wasn’t telling me.

  If time, space, and light define each other, when you take one away, what happens to the others? I did not know if time was moving and I struggled to maintain a sense of where I was. My breath was too loud, echoing through the cavern like some insane yodel. My neck creaked, imitating a breaking branch, but brought out no fluttering bats. I waited.

  Too long.

  The spotlight hit my eyes and Blondie was just two feet away on my left side. The knife exploded out of the light. I rolled to shoot, but he kicked my forearm with his boot and my gun skittered into the cavern and toward the water. He came down with the knife. I rolled far enough to make him miss and I kipped up to my feet. His light faced the wall, bouncing off and showing the water, a pond still as ice, surrounded by thick, pale stalagmites.

  I pulled my knife and faced Blondie. He held up his knife. “It’s a Gerber Mark Two. You’ve seen ’em. You’ll see this one up close, too. You might even taste it. I like to cut out tongues.”

  He did not need to show off the knife to convince me he knew how to handle a blade. Under normal circumstances, his remark would have made me stick my tongue out, but I didn’t want Blondie to notice how dry it was.

  He moved closer to me. I backed up toward the water and went around a stalagmite. Its long shadow ran on behind me like a pipe into the water, where it faded to black. “Hiding? I see you,” Blondie said, still sounding relaxed. He strolled forward. When he got close enough to touch the stalagmite, he reached up and turned on his hat lamp. Blinded, I jumped back. His blade nicked my chin. He came forward in one hop and made a large sweeping try across my body. His momentum carried him to his left, leaving an opening. But if I had attacked the opening, he would have spun and caught my arm. “You gotta try, pal. You can’t kill me by hoping. Say aah.” He came forward and I backed up over a rocky patch. When he reached the uneven rocks, I stopped and slashed at him a few times. He stumbled but righted himself quickly. I stabbed at his gut. He cut my forearm and the blood ran down to my hand, making the knife slippery. I shifted it to the other hand. And in that instant, I spun and kicked him in the gut. He doubled over. I kicked again, getting him in the jaw. His helmet flew off and the light danced across the water like a romantic trail of moonlight over a summer lake. Time to run.

  Blondie had to keep his light on and that was all I needed because I knew exactly where I was going. To the right of the pond, a narrow opening stayed narrow through a dozen, exactly a dozen, twists and turns. I counted carefully. At the fourth turn, the ceiling hung low and I had to duck. At the end, the path widened and a column stood about twenty feet high, giving the circular room the feel of a Greek rotunda. To the immediate left was a small room. This is where I stored my gear.

  “Ready or not, here I come…” The faint reflection of his lamp bounced off the wall of the last turn. The light spread as he moved forward. It disappeared while he waited and listened. This wait seemed brief. But I noticed that my shirt felt sticky. I put my fingers on it. Then found the gash in the shirt and the gash in my chest beneath the shirt. I wiped the blood from my right hand onto my jeans and grabbed a Colt revolver. In my left hand, I held a high-powered LED flashlight that throws out more than seven hundred lumens. Blondie’s light came on again and he moved forward into the rotunda. “Come out, come out, wherever you are…” As he turned, his light moved around the perimeter of the chamber. He never saw me. My beam blinded him. He groaned and moved back. I shot his hand. The knife flew out with pieces of flesh. One hand and one stump jerked to protect his eyes.

  “Now,” I said. “Back up.”

  “Turn that off.”

  I admired the way he handled the pain. The light bothered him more than the loss of fingers. I held the beam against his face and stepped in to knock the helmet off his head again. “Back up.”

  He backed up three steps, then dived at me. I sidestepped easily and he crashed to the rocky ground, his groan echoing around the chamber. I kept the light on him. He stayed on his knees, one hand down, the injured hand pulled in to his chest, with his head hanging down. I could tell he expected me to kick him. But I did not kick him.

  “Get up.”

  He tried to grab my legs, but it was a blind gesture. He pushed himself up. “What do you want, pal? You want the money? I told you I don’t care. Let’s have a straight go of it, though. One-handed. I don’t mind. Put down your gun and your damned light. Have some pride, pal.”

  This was too messy to take any pride, and too satisfying. My complete dedication to revenge was not a revelation. The absolute lack of mercy did not cause me any guilt and would not later, but I was sure pride wasn’t going to fill the vacuum.

  “Get up. Get up and face me.” He did. Even in his posture of pain, he was getting ready for the fight. I used the light to
maneuver him where I wanted him. “Back up, three steps.”

  He held his damaged hand in front of his eyes as he staggered backward.

  “Stop, look behind you. Look!”

  He turned and I moved the beam so he could get a glimpse of the pit. I had never seen the bottom, wasn’t sure it had one. He looked back to me and I got what I wanted at last: his expression of utter terror.

  “Your choice,” I said.

  He barely took a breath before lunging at me. I emptied the Colt into his chest.

  33.

  I imitated Toothless mumbling into the walkie-talkie. “Fund the mney…prblems. Ned your help…”

  McColl came crackling back. “Roger. Got you. We’ll be there.”

  I muttered something unintelligible and slumped down in the shade of a boulder. The sun was calling me to lie down and relax. The wound on my forearm had dried, but the slash across my midsection was still oozing blood. I let the M40 rifle from my stash and the backpack of money slip from my hands. The bottle of water was too small. The sun was too exhausting. Hibernation obsessed me, and I knew just the cave for it. But the entrance kept moving away and the sun dogged me the way my light followed Blondie. The walkie-talkie had irritating habits: “Come in, come in, we’re nearby. Can’t spot you.”

  They were thirty feet below me, just visible beyond a crease. I must have been sleeping for half an hour. I tossed the transmitter I had retrieved from Toothless away from the cave mouth, then retreated inside. McColl directed Jessica to a ledge where she could get a good view and cover McColl as he worked his way up, obeying his trusty GPS. In his other hand, he held a Beretta M9. He stopped when the GPS told him he had reached the transmitter. He was confused.

  I spoke into the walkie-talkie: “Put your gun down, Colonel, or I’ll shoot Jessica. And I won’t miss.”