by S. D. Perry
“You don’t think they have Lara?”
“No,” Jonah said. “I think they’re running around in circles looking for her, and she’s picking them off one at a time.”
“How?” Miguel asked. “I mean, why do you think so?”
Jonah stepped away from the edge. He still wore the Kevlar but had taken off the bloody black shirt he’d worn to fool the men who’d come. He picked up a water bottle off the ground, drank, passed it to Miguel.
“Lara, she’s… She grew up with a kind of legacy, I guess you could say, to find hidden things, artifacts. To keep them away from men like Dominguez. She’s had a lot of private instruction. And a lot of practical experience. Her father was an archaeologist, and worked against Trinity until his death. Her guardian after that was a treasure hunter and ex-Royal Marine.”
Miguel was fascinated. “So she just—she goes around trying to stop people from using these artifacts for evil purposes?”
“Not exactly. She just… she gets caught up in these ideas,” Jonah said. “She means well, but she also gets fixated, and won’t let anything stop her or even distract her from what she wants to achieve. She’s like a force of nature.”
Like before when Jonah had talked about getting better with a gun, Miguel got the impression that he wasn’t happy about what he was saying.
“So you’re not worried about her,” he said.
“Oh, I’m definitely worried. Any idiot with a gun can get lucky, and these people are trained. She’s not invincible.”
“You just… you seem so calm about it,” Miguel said. “I barely avoided pissing my pants about five times tonight already. You say you’re scared, but you don’t act like it.”
Jonah shrugged, sitting down on the rocks. “I’m working on my mindfulness.”
He said the word like he was using quote marks. Miguel couldn’t tell if he was kidding. He sat down, too. His legs felt rubbery.
The big man looked at the cenote and sighed. “She’s doing what she does. What she was born to do, maybe. I have faith in her, but yeah, it’s scary.”
Miguel continued to be impressed with how honest Jonah was, about everything. His clear respect for Lara boosted Miguel’s esteem for both of them.
“How did they even find us?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Jonah said. “I think they got to the guy who gave Lara the info about this place. That, or he sold us out. Harper definitely knew we were here.”
He nodded at Miguel. “When she gets back, we’re going to want to be out of here ASAP. Think you can sleep some more?”
“I seriously doubt it,” Miguel said. He was pretty wide awake from getting shot, adrenaline working its jittery way through his blood. His brain hadn’t processed much of anything since he’d hit hostage status, but he still felt good, even a little giddy.
“It may still be a while, is all,” Jonah said, then cleared his throat. “Listen, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate what you’re doing for us. You stepping up like you have, that’s a pretty awesome thing.”
Miguel grinned. “If you count not dying as stepping up, I’m your man. Although to be fair, you’re the only ones not shooting at me.”
Jonah smiled back at him. “We lucked into you, Miguel. You’re a good pilot and a good guy.”
Miguel was at a loss for words. When was the last time anyone had praised him so warmly, for anything?
When was the last time you did anything worth praising?
Jonah picked up on his awkwardness and smoothed it right over. “If you’re hungry, there’s some stuff in the duffel—trail mix, jerky, protein bars.” He wrinkled his nose. “I’d stay away from those, actually. Lara likes them but they’re disgusting. Like eating chocolate-flavored tar paste.”
Miguel realized he was hungry. They’d missed dinner, and apparently abject terror burned a lot of calories. He got up and walked to the bag on the ground in front of the trucks, fishing out several packets of food to carry back. Both of them ate, and it was probably the best food Miguel had ever eaten, the flavors electric, salty and sweet. The temperature had dropped to nearly comfortable, and the living jungle carried on its business, surrounding them with the whir and hum of life—chirps and squawks and rustling, a commotion of some animal conflict far south, a single mournful cry, rising and then fading.
Jonah watched the cenote patiently, the shotgun across his lap, and after he’d eaten he went back to not talking much. Miguel could feel his tension as the minutes passed, as bats came and went and the jungle resumed its buzz. He hoped that Lara was safe, and that she’d be back soon. He also hoped that she was every bit as good as Jonah maintained, and that Harper and his killers all got what was coming to them.
* * *
Mitchell found a sheltered hole and stripped off her vest and shirt. She ripped the poly blend into strips, leaning over so that the blood could drip from her mouth and throat. More blood ran down the outside of her leg, already puddling in her boot.
She stuffed a knotted strip into her mouth and bit down, forcing the fabric against the ragged holes where an upper incisor and the tooth behind it had been knocked out. She bandaged her throat and hip and spent a moment applying pressure to both, on her knees in the small, low hole she’d found, bent over to keep from choking. A white millipede nearly the length of her forearm crawled past her on the bare rock, its body rippling on feathery legs. She watched it disappear into a crack and waited for the bleeding to slow down. It took a few minutes.
When everything was only oozing, she reloaded her weapon and put her vest back on. She used handfuls of cold mud to cover her bare arms, smudging more of it into her hair and across her face. It felt good on her swollen mouth.
She shaded her light and left the scant shelter, listening for echoes of movement, then headed north, stopping to drink deeply from a perfectly clear pool, the cold water stuttering down her throat like acid and tasting of her own blood. Croft had taken a detour from the main passages but she’d definitely been heading to the northernmost exit from the maze; there was no other way out from this deep. Harper would be waiting there, if he hadn’t gotten lost. The commander was highly competent in most things, he led the team for a reason, but Croft was operating at a creative level—an artist of reaction and critical, timely thinking, a powerful instrument of her own will. Harper was a hammer and he was driven by emotion, as most men were. Not that there weren’t literally billions of feckless women. Both sexes were hampered by their crudest feelings, Mitchell felt, missing every nuance of their lives in order to scratch their itchy spots—sex, power, self-victimization, control. Wasted lives.
Mitchell found a long chamber with a number of openings. She turned off her light and hung at the center of the chamber, where she could hear the tunnels breathing. She didn’t have to wait long. Ahead of her, north and down, Harper fired multiple times—and Lara fired back. The commander shot again and then stopped, the echoes spinning around Mitchell and away…
And she heard a whisper of footsteps, Harper’s heavy, hurried tread, she thought, only because she couldn’t imagine Croft moving so recklessly. Was he limping? The steps were faint and faded quickly.
He’s chasing her, or thinks he is. But where is she going? If the climb out was as steep as the Trinity map indicated, Lara wouldn’t be able to attempt it with someone on her tail. Would she try to go up where she was, or turn back south, access the upper tunnels farther along the maze?
Harper’s performance was dismal. He’d had no contact with Mitchell; for all he knew she was dead. If he was behind Croft now and she climbed up, that meant she only had to go through Sergei to get out. Sergei was definitely outmatched. He could shoot, but that was all.
Or maybe she’ll find her own way out, a vent or a crack somewhere. The rest of the Dozen were killers, but except for the tempestuous Reddy, they weren’t worth much when it came to strategy. Little Alanis had some sense but couldn’t lead. If Lara’s big friend was half as competent as her, they might alrea
dy have a problem. And if Croft got out somewhere else and went back for her people, the Dozen would be fucked.
It was moot, Mitchell planned to kill her, but meeting Lara had underscored for her how lacking Harper’s Dozen actually were. Harper had been at the top of the food chain for too long without challenge. Leading a team of wolves among sheep, he’d forgotten that there were other wolves.
No, not a wolf. Lara was something brighter and sharper. She had skill and a guiding intelligence that put every one of the Dozen to shame, painting them as thugs with guns. Only Mitchell could even see what she was, let alone hope to challenge her.
She’ll try to go up as close as she can to where she is. There weren’t a lot of options, most of the maze’s tunnels curved away from the climb, but she had to be in a hurry by now. Harper had probably chased her off her route.
Mitchell looked at her map. There was a good-sized chamber between where she was and where she thought Lara might be looking, one that intersected several of the maze’s layered tunnels. It didn’t connect to the top but it led to tunnels that would, eventually. An ideal place to stand and listen, a bigger web for Mitchell to sit at the center of, waiting for Lara to whisper along one of its threads.
Or she’ll fly straight into the heart of it. But you have to get there first.
She headed north and west, quickly, silently. She felt renewed, expectation silencing the cries of her damaged flesh. She was glad that she hadn’t had the opportunity to kill Harper. His inept pursuit might help push Lara right into Mitchell’s waiting arms.
* * *
Lara worked her way up, climbing from crack to passage, forced to stray farther from the well than she wanted; the tunnels of the maze had a tendency to dead-end every time she tried to veer back north, and her marks were the only ones this deep. Once she hauled herself up nearly four meters before the crack she was in became impassably narrow, and she had to drop back down.
Rasputin was looking for her, below her and to the north, a scuffle of steps that came and went. He had a limp; she could hear it in the hop-step of his gait. She did her best to keep the gap between them but was on high alert, aware that he might find a way up at any time. Three times she passed by chirping salamanders, but they were solitary, and none of them attacked; they scuttled away into the deep dark, tails slashing.
She was duckwalking through an east-veering rounded tube when she passed an oddly angled crack in the rocks, less than a meter high. She flattened herself to the rocks and looked inside. Nothing, a wall less than a meter ahead—but the stale air was heavy and cool, not stuffy. She edged inside, looking up.
A hole just big enough to climb into angled up from the smooth stone, bending north.
Lara marked the secret tunnel and started to climb. It was snug, but nothing she had to go into contortions over. A short curve and the passage opened into a—
Oh.
She stepped up into a small chamber with smooth walls. A neat line of glyphs was carved beneath a drawing like the one she’d seen at the other end of the dig, in the room marked with a circle—short lines of true, brilliant Maya blue in columns. There were more than thirteen in this painting, thin lines to either side of thicker ones. Five rows. The glyphs next to the ambiguous lines were the originals carved, no blurred lines, and were the same as those that had been written on the tunnel wall at the top of the site, but none of these were damaged. On the floor in front of the paintings was a small clay bowl, delicately carved with images she already knew too well: the Silver Box of Ix Chel, which she had seen in a mural in Mexico, and the Key of Chak Chel, something she had held in her own hands.
The room was unmarked and clearly deeper than Trinity had gone looking. They would have taken the beautiful bowl. Lara felt a rush of excitement, stepping in to look at the glyphs, careful not to disturb the bowl.
Walk, path, stars, follow, path, rings, sacred place, stones, something, message…
Lara took out her camera—unless someone was in the tunnel directly outside and looking for it, the flash wouldn’t be seen in the hidden room—the glyphs and lines as clear as if they’d been painted only recently, the words repeating in her mind.
Rings?
Lara considered the stacks of blue lines again… and thought of the pillars in the puzzle room. They had been painted with rings. There had been at least five formations that stretched all the way to the ceiling. Mateus had sketched them in his notebook, too. Not lines, rings.
Journey the path of the stars to follow the path of rings, at the sacred chamber of stones. A message is revealed.
The key to the puzzle. Lara wished she could stop and look at her photos, compare the line stacks to the ringed columns of the puzzle room. The back wall of that chamber had been covered in glyphs. Were the rings meant to physically indicate specific words, or was it a counting code?
She tamped her sudden enthusiasm, putting it away with her camera. The chamber was an incredible find but there weren’t any exits, and Rasputin was still looking for her.
And you let Mitchell go. It had seemed a reasonable idea at the time; she’d thought she’d been leaving… But she’d made the decision based on what she’d wanted, not reality, and now Mitchell could be anywhere. In almost every interaction with these killers, she’d chosen to turn and run for the exit. She couldn’t keep doing that and expect to make it out.
She climbed back down into the crevice and slid into the wider tunnel, one that relentlessly steered her farther into the maze. She had to be getting close to one of the large chambers that connected the inner passages; she would go up and try again.
Lara kept an arrow nocked, wary of announcing her passage with more gunfire, her senses tuned and open as she crept ahead. No more mistakes, not down here.
She had just reached a bend in the low rocks when she heard a salamander start to shriek, below her and a bit south—
—and five shots fired, no hesitation between them, stopping the animal’s cry instantly.
* * *
Where the fuck was she? He couldn’t hear Croft, couldn’t hear anything but lizards and bats and his own breathing, the drip of water, the festering crawl of insects in a vast and uncompromising blackness. Harper stopped in one of the endless curving tunnels and looked at his map, and his compass.
Where the fuck am I? The map was a quivering knot of meaningless lines when it came to the labyrinth, only useful if one knew where one was already. His fever to track Croft had been tempered by a growing disquiet as his rage dissipated. There were no markings this deep and he’d been choosing his route by instinct… Except, hadn’t he walked through this tunnel already? He thought he remembered the same stretch of rocks, the way they narrowed and then flared…
He put away the phone and started forward. He would go up, as soon as he found an ascent. Mitchell had been offline for too long, she could very well be dead, and his rush to catch Lara had been a misstep. He should have walked back out the way he’d come in, retreated immediately to the drop to prepare for her arrival.
He stepped over a dip in the rocks, wincing. His knee and ankle were swollen, his limp getting worse.
It didn’t matter. Sergei would be back in position by now, everyone else standing by at the drop. He would climb out and lead them, and they would settle with Croft in the open air, away from this hideous pit. They could dump her and her friends inside, set off one of the big charges, burn this site permanently.
Yes, good. And climb up where, exactly?
His headlamp dimmed very slightly. Harper tapped at it, a pulse of dread threading through his veins, knotting his gut—
—and a lizard screamed, not five feet away, hanging from the rocks where it had crept in close.
Harper brought up his Glock and fired, the first shot blasting it off the tunnel wall, four more rounds pulverizing its wet flesh, blood and tissue spattering up in hot flecks.
The slide locked back on the Glock, the trigger dead. He was empty.
Five rounds. He’d
fired in a panic, and just alerted Croft to his exact location. Over a fucking lizard.
Harper reloaded quickly. The light was definitely dimmer. He had to go up now, immediately. His phone had a light but it would burn through the battery in minutes.
He tapped on his mic, keeping his voice low. “This is Harper. Everybody fall back to drop point, repeat, fall back to drop point.”
No answer, of course… And it was dawning on him what a bad position he was in, that he’d willingly put himself into. He’d been so certain of their chances coming after her, he hadn’t considered that they might fail. That he might fail.
You haven’t failed, nor will you. You will force her surrender with the collateral, as was always the fail-safe. You only have to get out.
Harper hobbled past the bloody carcass of the lizard, visible, gory proof that he’d lost his composure, overreacted in a moment of fear. When he saw a tunnel that looked like it went up, he took it.
* * *
Mitchell had only just reached the entrance to the large, open chamber when she heard the shots. Below and south. It was Harper’s Glock.
Shooting at Croft? She didn’t think so. One of the cave animals had started to shriek right before the first shot.
Harper must have been startled. There was no telling where the target was.
So thinking, she moved into the big room carefully, turning off her lamp as soon as she was inside, only a sense of vastness before she was in the black, rock formations on the floor, water to the east. There were a few chirps and a stir of movement from one or more of the lizard-like creatures, the scratching of bugs, bats rustling high overhead. The small sounds echoed, the effect like gentle audio feedback, blurred and steady. In some distant tunnel north there was a stir of more bats; from the southeast, a lizard’s cry. Perfect. When she felt reasonably sure she was otherwise alone, Mitchell tapped the light back on, quickly assessing the chamber.
