by Cindy Dees
Jeff grappled at the slimy rocks, seeking a handhold. Finally, he found one and dragged himself onto it. He reached a hand down for Jennifer and pulled her up beside him. They lay on the boulders panting for several minutes.
“Now what?” he asked when he’d caught his breath.
Jennifer rustled in her pack and came up with a pair of binoculars. “Now we find that cave.”
Recalling the maps from earlier, he tried to picture the various openings in front of him depicted on paper. There was one cave that led directly into the underground tunnel complex about halfway along this stretch of rocks. It had been annotated as being twenty feet or so above the shoreline at high tide.
“What’s this tide?” he asked.
“About halfway to low tide.”
Drat. The lower the water line, the farther they would have to climb. “Do you see that cave we talked about this afternoon?” he asked her.
“I see about six caves that could be the one we’re looking for,” she muttered.
“Well, pick one and let’s go for it. I don’t like being exposed like this. Your boys are going to turn their satellites on themselves and spot us if we’re not careful.”
She sighed. “Good point. How about that far cave up high?”
He looked where she pointed and winced. She’d chosen the highest cave and likely the most difficult one to reach. “Done.”
They had donned their climbing harnesses and safety checked them before they ever left the house, for which he was grateful now. He slung a coil of climbing rope over his shoulder, grabbed a hammer and a fistful of crampons and carabiners, and started to climb. With his strength, he was the obvious choice to be lead climber.
Hauling himself up by raw force, he made slow progress up the cliff face. The good news was the weathered stone had tons of cracks and crevices that made for great hand- and toeholds. The bad news was the stone was brittle and he had to choose extremely carefully where to hammer in anchor points for the climbing rope.
Bit by bit, he created a trail for Jennifer to follow. She wasn’t a half-bad free climber, but when she reached the last part of the climb—straight up a vertical face in a technical climb, she began to fatigue. He gained the ledge in front of their target cave and lying flat, reached down to haul her up by the rope. When she was an arm’s length below him, he reached a hand down to her. She grabbed it and he pulled her up and over the edge in one massive heave of bunched muscles.
“Handy to have a guy as strong as you around,” she panted.
He nodded as they caught their breath for a few seconds. “Ready to press on?”
She nodded and started to climb to her feet, but slammed back to the ledge as the thwocking of a helicopter abruptly overwhelmed the sounds of the ocean below. He rolled for cover fast and she followed.
“Thank God,” she murmured when they were safely inside the pitch-black space. “Brady believed me.”
“Even if he didn’t believe you, he’s got no choice but to act on the warning. Maybe it pulls a bunch of guys out of the facility and makes our mission easier.”
“Not likely.” Her voice floated out of the darkness. “They’ll be on high alert and have wandering guards both inside and on the surface. It’s going to be a nightmare to get past them.”
“We’ll figure something out,” he replied encouragingly. The first order of business was to see if they could even get close to the developed portion of the complex via these unused tunnels.
He helped Jennifer stow the rope, crampons and carabiners she’d collected as she came up the cliff behind him. They dared not leave their climbing rope behind as evidence for Brady, nor as an easy aid to the Chinese intruders to finding this place.
“Here’s hoping I chose the right cave,” Jennifer mumbled. “I’d hate to have to do that cliff with helicopters out there.”
No kidding. He followed as she turned on a flashlight and pointed it toward the rear of the cave. The total blackness was broken only by the thin beam of her flashlight. He pulled out his own light and flashed it at the uneven floor.
The cave elongated into a rough tube. Millions of years ago, hot magma would have flowed toward the sea, melting its way through the softest rock until it found the quenching waters of the primordial ocean. The two of them weren’t the first humans ever to set foot in this tunnel, but it felt like they were. A sense of wonder overcame him.
Jennifer pulled up short. “Rock fall,” she announced. “Blocks the tunnel.”
“Lemme see.” He moved past her in the tight tunnel to examine the pile of boulders. “I think I can move these. But you’ll need to stand back so I don’t roll one down on you.”
“Are you kidding?” she exclaimed. “Those things are huge!”
“Hello. Man who lifts small trucks here.”
She laughed reluctantly. “Even you can’t move some of those.”
“You’d be surprised. And I don’t have to move them all. If I can create a minor avalanche, the weight of the rocks and gravity will move some of the others.”
“A good plan, in theory.”
She stepped back as he put theory into action. It took him a few minutes, and even he had to shove and pull for all he was worth, but he did, indeed, dislodge enough of the medium stones to force a few of the biggest ones to roll down the pile and out of the way. An opening beckoned at the top of the pile.
“If I can squeeze through, we know you can make it,” he told Jennifer.
“And if you get stuck? Will I be able to pull you out?”
“You can always go back to the house and get some butter to grease me up and slide me right out.”
“Not encouraging,” she grumbled as he wedged himself into the narrow opening. For a few seconds, there, he thought he might stick. But he pushed and pulled with his mighty strength and popped through on the other side of the blockage. Jennifer passed the packs through and then wiggled past the block to join him.
“Onward,” he muttered.
“Hoorah.”
Time became wildly distorted as they made their way farther and farther down the tunnel. Whether or not this was the tunnel depicted on Lucy Gray’s map was anyone’s guess. But the thing clearly did lead deep into the heart of the island. Only by checking his watch periodically, did he get any sense of the night passing outside.
It was a little after midnight when Jennifer exclaimed quietly from in front of him, “We did it!”
“What did we do?”
“This tunnel dead ends into a cinder block wall. We’ve found the edge of the H.O.T. Watch facility.”
“Do we go ahead and break through the wall, or do you want to change the plan, based on the new wrinkle topside?” he asked.
She stared at him, looking like a little girl beneath her yellow hard hat. “I don’t know. What do you think?”
Wow. That was a first. Jennifer Blackfoot indecisive? He considered the wall before them. “What if we make a little hole and take a peek at what’s on the other side before we make a final decision?”
“Can you do that? Make a peephole, I mean?”
“My dear, I’m an artist with a pickax. Of course I can.” He hoped. Whether he could actually strike the wall lightly enough not to bring the whole thing down was another matter entirely. He stepped forward and tapped on the blocks gingerly near one corner of the wall. Nothing happened. He struck a little harder. Still no progress. Gritting his teeth, he gave the wall a mighty whack and a three-foot-long, zigzagging crack appeared along the mortar joints.
“Jeez. Don’t knock the whole thing down,” Jennifer exhorted.
He went back to tapping and chipped away a little piece of the cinder block. He kept at it, and eventually he waved her forward toward the hole he’d made. “You’ll have a better idea of what you’re looking at than I will.”
She slid past him, her luscious body rubbing against his on the way. He would never get enough of that woman.
She peered through the hole for just a few seconds. “W
e did it. Armory’s down the hall to the right. Utility room with access to the air vents is about fifty feet down on the left.”
“Any sign of guards?”
She shook her head.
“Want to break through now?”
Another negative shake of her head. “Let’s wait for a guard patrol to pass and then go. It’ll give us the most time before someone comes back this way.”
Logical. “Let me take a few more whacks at the wall while there’s no one in sight and soften it up a little.”
He swung the pickax at the wall being careful not to hit her as she peered through the hole.
“Stop!” she hissed.
Someone must be coming. He waited in tense silence until Jennifer let out a long breath and signaled him to continue. He winced at the booming sounds of his blows echoing through the tunnel. Might as well make all the noise short and sweet. He swung with all his strength, and in a matter of seconds, the wall crashed into the hall beyond. They’d done it. They were inside. So close to the bastard who’d killed his men he could taste it. He clambered through eagerly after Jennifer, who was already sprinting down the hall toward the armory.
She punched in a series of numbers on a pad beside the door and a green light illuminated. He followed her down a long aisle of tall shelves to where blocks of C-4 were neatly stacked like bricks. He threw as many as would fit into the bag he’d brought for the purpose.
“Time,” Jennifer bit out. She’d estimated they would have thirty seconds in here before they had to get out and hide from the security patrol that would come to check on the late-night entry into the armory.
He turned and ran for the door. He dived left into the hall and ran for the utility closet with Jennifer on his heels. Again, they stopped while she punched in a security code and then jumped inside. Just in time, too. The door had been closed maybe five seconds when footsteps pounded past. Shouts outside indicated the broken wall had been spotted.
Jennifer pulled a key ring out of her pocket and manually locked the door. Funny how a good old-fashioned double-action dead bolt could trump all of today’s fancy electronic gadgets.
“When they check the doors, the pad outside will detect the dead bolt and show itself to be locked down.”
“God, you’re good,” he muttered.
“I told you. I know this place like the back of my hand.”
He moved away from the door toward the big, galvanized aluminum duct running up the back wall of the tiny room. The vent was nearly three feet wide and just as deep. But then, it was ventilating an entire mountain.
“Any idea how we’re going to get the lower levels to set up our explosions now that there are soldiers running all over the place looking for that Chinese team?” he asked after more footsteps pounded past.
She eyed the vent speculatively. “We’ve still got our climbing gear.”
He eyed the vent dubiously. “I’d barely fit in that thing.”
“Which is why no one will think to look for us inside it.”
“I don’t like it, Jenn.”
Another set of shouts disturbed the silence outside. She shrugged. “Well, then I guess we’ll have to take our chances with all those soldiers running around. Did I mention they have orders to shoot to kill intruders?”
And that was how he found himself dangling from a rope inside an air shaft, his shoulders brushing both side walls, and testing the limits of his tolerance for small, enclosed spaces.
Jennifer pulled the cut portion of the ductwork back into place behind her, plunging the shaft into blackness. Her voice drifted down to him, “Okay. Let’s go.”
He turned on the light mounted on his hard hat and eased downward slowly. His foot banged the wall and he winced at the booming echo. For the most part, they managed the descent in silence. They only had to drop down around twenty-five feet—two stories—but it seemed to take forever. Finally, a vent cover came into sight.
Jennifer peered through it cautiously. “This is it. The bottom level.”
Awkwardly, he used his big knife to slice through the galvanized aluminum sheeting. But eventually, he tumbled through the hole in an undignified heap. He helped Jennifer climb off her rope a little more gracefully. They moved over to the door of a utility room much like the first one.
“Ready to do this?” he asked her grimly.
“As I’ll ever be. Let’s go blow ourselves a volcano.”
Chapter 16
Jeff’s patience was strained as they waited for a patrol to pass by outside. It took nearly fifteen minutes, which was good news. The less frequent patrols down here would give them more time to maneuver. Jennifer nodded and they slipped out into the hall. Unfortunately, they had to travel in the same direction as the patrol, and the two of them proceeded cautiously.
Jennifer peered around yet another corner and slammed herself backward into him without warning. She signaled for him to run and he did without question. She passed him by and dived into a side passage ahead of him. He did his best to pant quietly as the patrol passed back by, heading the other way.
Jennifer slipped out into the hall again and they retraced their steps. The number pad she stopped at this time also had a gel handprint reader. And when they slipped inside the unmarked door, Jennifer had to pass a voice recognition test and a retinal scanner.
But finally, a second door opened. And then he saw the reason for all the security. They were standing on a catwalk overlooking a pair of massive steam turbines. H.O.T. Watch’s power plant.
It didn’t take them long to locate the steam outflow vents. But it did take them a while to find a spot where one of the steam-filled ducts ran close to a cool-air outflow vent that sent stale air to the surface. Thankfully, the turbine attached to the steam duct was currently offline during this low-power-demand period of night. Which meant viciously hot steam was not flowing through the duct at the moment.
“I think this is as good as we’re going to get,” he murmured to her.
“Agreed.”
These ducts were made of heavy gauge aluminum, and even his hands were aching by the time he sawed through the thick metal of each. He pulled out a tarp made of a special heat-resistant polymer that Winston Plastics had invented a few years back. Using duct tape, he joined the two holes together. The next time this particular steam turbine came online, a column of hot steam should shoot the air vent to the surface.
Jennifer had to go through much the same protocol as before when they backed out of the power facility.
“Won’t someone upstairs see that you’ve come in here?” he asked, eyeing the various scanners doubtfully.
“If they’re looking for it. Had we tried to get into the nuclear bunker, now that would have set off alarms like crazy.”
They paused at the hallway door, listening for movement outside. Jennifer grinned over her shoulder at him. She was enjoying this? Oh, yeah. She was one woman in a million.
“Ready to make this place shake, rattle and roll?” she murmured.
“Let’s do it.”
They headed out, dodging yet another patrol, and made their way to the farthest reaches of the complex. They crouched at the end of a hall at another cinder-blocked wall marking the end of the H.O.T. facility.
“Let’s set a charge here,” she whispered. “If the maps are accurate, there’s an old cave on the other side that smugglers used. It’ll lead to several more good tunnels for explosions.”
Jeff passed her a block of C-4, and she commenced slicing it efficiently into smaller chunks and daisy chaining them together with slow-burning igniter cord. The trick was not to create one massive explosion, but rather a long series of small explosions that would simulate the long, rumbling movement of an earthquake.
At the end of the chain, he attached a full brick of C-4. It would punch through the cinder block wall much more quickly than he ever could and would blend in with the rest of the explosion. It took them nearly a half hour to set the charges. But thankfully, this off-the-bea
ten-track little corner of the facility didn’t garner any security sweeps.
Finally, he and Jennifer backed around the corner from their handiwork. They put in earplugs and pressed their hands over their ears, and she stepped on the small remote control with her foot.
Boom-boom-ba-boom-boom. Boom.
A choking, gray cloud of dust filled the air until he couldn’t see his hand in front of his face. A hand grabbed his arm and he reached for Jennifer. They felt their way forward through the mess and he stumbled on chunks of rock and debris on the floor.
He used his free hand to feel his way along the wall. Suddenly, nothing but air met his seeking hand. A tug on his sleeve and he veered into the ragged opening. He nearly fell over the knee-high remains of the wall, but then the air cleared enough to see. They’d stumbled into a cave maybe a hundred feet long and twenty or so feet wide and tall.
“Hurry,” Jennifer urged. “That explosion will definitely bring people to investigate.”
They picked their way across the uneven floor of the cave toward a series of tunnels branching off at the far end. He watched, perplexed, as Jennifer pulled out a piece of chalk and made a mark just inside the opening of one of them. She backed out and headed for the next tunnel over.
“What’s that for?”
“Misdirect. It’s standard spelunking practice to mark your path with chalk so you can retrace your steps if you get lost.”
“You’re an evil woman. I like the way you think.”
“And don’t you forget it,” she murmured half under her breath. “C’mon.”
The tunnel turned out to be relatively large and smooth-floored, and they risked a jog down its length. Jennifer paused a few minutes later and pulled out her cell phone. She pulled up the maps she’d photographed earlier and the two of them conferred on their location. When they were certain this tunnel led to several other ones, they laid another set of charges like the ones before. But to this batch they added a timer set to go off in an hour.
