by Greig Beck
*
“Stay back.” Yang held up a hand. His men stopped their forward rush immediately. All eyes were on the bucking body, flames shooting from the wide-open mouth and nose. The orange and blue tongues had leaked down over the neck and across the head, and the short-cropped hair of Liu Yandong had singed away, adding to the oily smoke rising to collect under the cave ceiling.
Yang walked forward alone, his flashlight in one hand and revolver in the other. He saw the puddle of squirming excrement, and also the frying worms that exited the dead man’s mouth to curl up on the dark sand.
He grunted and holstered his weapon. He clicked his fingers and pointed at two of his soldiers. “Bury that, it will suffocate us if it burns much more.” He half turned and then looked back.
The men rushed forward to kick the black sand over the body, extinguishing the flames within a dark mound. Yang sauntered towards the cave wall of tumbled boulders, Liu Yandong already forgotten. He put his hands on his hips, surveying the blockage, before turning.
“Professor.”
“That man,” – Shenjung looked panicked – “those men, something infected them, from the water. It must be avoided.”
“And how do we do that? Fly across it?” Yang’s gaze turned quizzical. “Are you sick?”
“Huh? I am not,” Shenjung replied, feeling his torso.
Yang shrugged. “No, you’re not, and neither am I. Han Biao died because his wounds got infected. Liu, because he drank from the stream, when he was warned not to.”
“Liu committed suicide. Horrible.”
“Horrible?” Yang exhaled evenly through his nose. “No, brave. He was a true PLA warrior in his soul. We never surrender, we fight on, past fear, past pain, past all adversity.” He half turned, raising his voice. “Liu chose to fight his inner demons – to the end.” He raised a fist, lifting his voice. “When we face adversity, when we come to a barrier, we do not tremble or wail. We show them that we are harder, stronger … even than stone.”
Yang had his fist still in the air, and held his smile. In the darkest corners of his mind, he wondered if he became infected, whether he would end himself like Liu, or whether he would run screaming into the darkness. In that instant, he resolved that his men would never know. While he remained brave, or at least looked it, then they would hold together as well.
A demonstration of his resolve then. He looked from the men to the tumble of huge boulders, and then pointed. “Blow it up.”
“What? No!” Shenjung Xing waved his hands. “This is not a good idea. The blast could bring the entire cave down on us.”
There was silence as the soldiers’ eyes slid from the scientist back to their captain.
Yang stayed calm. “And what would you have us do, Professor? Go back to … where? Maybe wait here until we all have a belly full of worms? Or perhaps simply sit down here and wait until the wall erodes away by itself?” He scoffed.
“There must be another way. The risks …” Shenjung pleaded.
“Yes, the risks. There are always risks. And men like us are not afraid to face them, so men like you can sleep safe at night.” He turned and clicked his fingers. “Proceed.” Yang started to walk quickly back down the dark cave. When he and Shenjung were a hundred paces back, he stopped and turned.
His soldiers scrambled over the tumbled boulders, planting fragmentation grenades into crevices at a strategic position of the wall. They turned, waiting.
Yang nodded, and the men danced from grenade to grenade pulling the pins and then scrambling down, having mere seconds to try and get to safety. Yang backed everyone around the corner.
The explosion was near deafening in the enclosed space, and the shock wave thumped past the men who were crowded in close to the wall of the tunnel. The monstrous echo was like a titanic drumbeat pulsing away down the cave. They waited, no one moving. Seconds passed, and the echoes had now fallen away to silence.
Yang was first out, waving a hand in front of himself to try and dispel the floating rock dust. He coughed. There was the sound of rocks falling into water, but the air was so choked with dust that visibility was down to a few feet.
“Hold.” Yang knew the dust would settle soon. He turned to the stream and lifted his flashlight. Through the gritty mist he could see its black sinuous surface was no more like an oily sheet of glass, but was now moving, and fast. He smiled, open, I win, he thought.
He was about to order the men forward, when he paused. There was a creaking sound, like the splintering of wooden boards. He stepped out, holding up his light. The air was clearing, but he still couldn’t make out the end of the tunnel. He turned, sighted on one of his men, and then motioned with his head. “Go and look.”
The young soldier nodded once and sprinted forward. He was soon swallowed in the foggy dust. Yang waited.
“Clear.” The voice floated back. “More tunnel, sir.”
Yang looked at Shenjung, feeling both relieved and vindicated. The professor was frowning as he looked at the stream. The water sizzled, popped, and jumped and he stared hard at its surface. At first he assumed it was something underneath pushing upwards, but the more the air cleared, the more he saw that instead, it was something dropping down from above. He lifted his flashlight beam to the ceiling of the cave. A dark crack had opened, no, was still opening, and unzipping down the length of the tunnel.
Shenjung pointed at the ceiling, and Yang screamed a single word. “Run!”
He turned and sprinted towards the newly cleared cave end with Shenjung and his men following him instantly. They clambered over the broken stones, and the water, now free, jumped and swirled as it kept pace with them. There came a huge splash from behind them, and some of his men yelled with fear. Yang didn’t turn, knowing it was probably a rock falling from the ceiling. There came more pounding splashes, then the roar of a giant and the sound of boiling, rushing liquid.
Yang leapt over another boulder, sprinting hard. There must have been another cave stream directly over this one. The explosion had ruptured its bottom, and the streams were about to merge – right on top of them. He put his head down and ran harder.
The growing roar was a living thing that shook the cave around them. The water was an oncoming train, and its speed was about the same. They never had any hope of outrunning it.
Seconds later, Yang and his men were like rats in a drain, snatched up and flushed away in the current. They tumbled down a dark pipe towards a destination that was out of their control.
The water boiled around Yang, pummeling him, throwing him from cave wall to ceiling and then to floor. He tried to keep his eyes and mouth jammed tight, praying that none of the horrifying worms would find their way inside him.
In the inky black water, he struck another body, hard. He went to snatch at it but it was already gone, and in the next instant a massive surge threw him so violently into a cave wall, that he was momentarily stunned.
His lungs were going into spasms, and involuntarily, he opened his mouth wide to drag in a huge breath of air. But instead, the gritty coldness that surged down his throat and into his lungs brought him back instantly. He screamed out the last air in his lungs, and spewed the bile in his gut along with the water. The next thing he knew he was falling through space – falling, falling.
It is over, he thought, just before the impact.
CHAPTER 40
The thumping explosion was felt milliseconds before it was heard. Grenades, Casey thought, reacting first, yelling out to her team and diving. She took Aimee and Soong with her as she crashed to the wall of the cave chute they were descending in. Dust and debris rained down on them as the shock waves pulsed through the stone, and then raced past them.
They stayed down, hugging the rock for a second or two more, before Casey lifted her head.
“Gimme a source, big guy.” She spat and blinked away grit, and then shined her light up at the ceiling.
Rinofsky held up the scanner, first one way, and then the next. “Speed of t
he tremor wave, and echo duration, gives us a source of about two klicks southeast. With a downward inclination of twenty-five degrees.” Rhino pointed. “Down and that way.” He looked at Casey. “Got to be our Chinese friends.”
Casey stood slowly. “Looks like they decided to clear some blockage, huh? Great idea under freaking miles of stone.”
Dawkins coughed and wiped his mouth, spitting and grinning, and displaying his chipped tooth again. He got to his feet. “Maybe they ran into something they could only fight with explosives.”
“Well,” Casey said, and dragged Soong to her feet. “Whatever it was, I wonder if they achieved little more than a free burial.” She must have noticed Soong’s disapproving expression, and shrugged. “Ah, whatever.”
Aimee dragged a sleeve across her eyes. “We’re probably moving parallel to them. Maybe we can intersect if we find a conjoining tunnel. Provided they made it through.”
Casey held her flashlight in the air. “Interesting, look …” She nudged Aimee. “The dust, it’s moving.”
Aimee watched the floating specks within her own beam. The tiny motes should have been settling straight down to the cave floor, but instead they gently floated towards the dark end of the cave tunnel.
“Air movement,” Aimee said.
“Gotta be a good thing, right?” Casey’s brows were up.
“Better than a dead end, boss,” Rinofsky said, smacking Hagel on the shoulder, and raising a puff of chalky dust.
“Got that right. Let’s move ’em out.” Casey turned to Hagel. “Lieutenant, take point, fifty paces out.”
Hagel hesitated for a moment, and then spun and jogged off into the dark.
Aimee grimaced. “We shouldn’t split up.”
Casey half grinned. “Nah, he enjoys his own company.”
*
They eased around through a narrowing in the cave, and Aimee saw the glow from Hagel’s light. The man stood silently, pointing his beam to the floor.
He lifted an arm and pointed to their flashlights. “I don’t think you’ll need those anymore.” He switched his own off, and then stood aside, holding out an arm and half bowing, like a maître d’ showing guests to their table.
Casey kept her light on, and moved past the young HAWC. “Holy – fucking – hell.” She immediately pushed her gun up over her shoulder and stood with hands on her hips, grinning. “It’s all true.”
Their cave ended, and they found themselves high up on a cliff wall. The hint of light that Hagel had first seen gradually turned to a twilight blue from the ceiling – a ceiling that traveled away for as far as their eyes could make out.
“Glow worms,” Aimee said. “Permanent twilight, but be careful with loud noises, or they shut down.”
Rinofsky snorted, elbowing Ben Jackson in the ribs. “I didn’t believe it could be real. I mean, I read it, but never thought …” He shook his head. “It’s so goddamn huge. This ain’t no cave.” He grinned. “It’s a world.”
“A world beneath the world,” Jackson said softly.
Aimee pointed. “That’s the sea in the distance.” Before the colossal cave curved away with its own horizon dipping from view, there was the glint on a flat surface that hinted at water. Aimee stepped forward to peer over the edge. “We weren’t here before. I don’t remember there being a jungle. We never traveled over the other side of the sea. I guess this is what was over there.”
“Well, it sure wasn’t in Hunter’s report,” Hagel said sourly.
Casey used a scope to look out over the landscape. “Nothing on visual. Blake, where’s our signal source?”
Blake read from his scanner. “Got it, loud and clear – five miles due east.” He looked up and frowned. “But that would put it near the water at that far rock face, or maybe, in the rock face.”
Casey exhaled through compressed lips. “Must be on the shoreline, then … still hidden.” She turned. “What, you thought it was going to be easy?” She lifted her scope again, moving it over the jungle. “If our Chinese friends survived, I’m betting that’s where they’re gonna end up.”
Rinofsky also waved a small box over the edge. “Whoowee, I’ve got so many life signs, I might as well be pointing this at the San Diego Zoo.”
“Great.” Casey turned to Aimee. “Good to be home?”
Aimee shook her head, her eyes focused on the water in the distance. Casey leaned out over the edge, and then whistled. “That is one helluva long way down.”
Hagel stood beside her, also leaning out. “Stuck up on a cliff wall.”
Franks looked up. “Make that, in a cliff wall.”
They were about half the way up the sheer wall of granite, with about a thousand feet to the jungle below. Further along the wall waterfalls fell slowly, most turning to mist before they ever struck the ground. Some had huge torrents pouring out and turning into rivers that wound their way towards the sea in the distance.
“Grab my belt.” Franks began to lean out even further, and Hagel hung on so she could gain an extra few feet.
Aimee watched as Hagel’s lips curled just a fraction, and saw Rinofsky look hard at him from under lowered brows.
“Okay,” Casey said, and Hagel pulled her back.
“Going to be tough, but doable.” She walked a few feet into the cave mouth and into the center of the group. “This wall is Swiss cheese. It’s riddled with holes and caves. It’s a sheer cliff, but with all the pockmarks in it, I reckon we can lower someone down to the next cave. Some places we can scale down.” She bobbed her head. “I’m sure we can ease the non-climbers down a bit.”
Jennifer Hartigan briefly stepped forward, before quickly stepping back. “I don’t think I can do that.”
Hagel nodded and confected a concerned look. “Good idea, you wait here for rescue team.” He lifted his brows in surprise. “Hey, I just remembered; we are the rescue team.”
“You can do it,” Aimee told her. “I’m scared witless of heights, but I’d be more worried about staying behind if I was you.” She turned to Casey. “Have we got enough rope?”
Big Ben Jackson shook his head. “I got nothing. Dawks, Jennifer?”
Both Dawkins and Jennifer shrugged.
“We’ve got a hundred feet, from each of us,” Casey said. “That gives us four hundred; maybe just enough.”
“Ah, boss, make that three hundred.” Rinofsky grimaced. “I never recovered mine.”
“What?” Casey’s brows went up. “You can fucking climb like a mountain goat. How the hell did you not recover that loop?”
Rinofsky hiked massive shoulders, looking pained. Aimee could tell he was concealing something.
Franks ground her teeth. “I ought to make you go back and get it. Why didn’t you climb back up like you were ordered? And why the fuck didn’t you even tell me?”
“Ah, shit.” Rinofsky stared off into the dark momentarily. “There was …” He grimaced. “There was something, ah, there was something that had hold of it. And I saw …”
In two paces Casey was in front of him, grabbing his arm and turning the huge man around, her eyes blazing. She grabbed his suit front and dragged him further into the cave and away from the others. She hung on, pulling him close, near nose-to-nose.
“Listen mister, you came back from the chute white as a fucking sheet. What the fuck happened back there?”
Rhino shook his head. “Bad shit.”
Casey gabbed him with both hands and shook. “Soldier, what … did … you … fucking … see?”
Rhino yanked himself from Casey’s hands, and held fists up on each side of his head.
“I dunno, I dunno what I saw. Something … nothing.” He looked up, his expression pained. “When I got to the bottom of the chute, I think there was someone still up at the rim.” He shook his head again. “They were just fucking with me.”
“Someone? Someone was just fucking with you? What the hell does that mean?” Her voice seethed with fury.
“Jesus.” He grimaced. “They pull
ed the rope up, slow like. And …” He grinned, confused. “And they rolled a freaking head down at me.”
There was a snigger from out of the dark. “Did you just say, they rolled a head at you?” Hagel, now listening, brayed with laughter. “Goddamn, now I’ve heard everything.”
Casey ignored Hagel to stare for several more seconds into Rhino’s face. “Ah, for fuck’s sake, you big moose. You thought this was best kept to yourself?” Casey’s teeth were bared as she stared up into the face nearly a foot above her. “Someone is jerking you round, and you run like a school kid? I oughta make you …”
She walked off a few paces before coming back in and glaring up at him. The big HAWC’s face was twisted in agitation. At last she just shook her head.
“Fuck it, we’re outta here.” She looked at each member. “We need to be down, and fast.”
Aimee took another peek over the edge and blanched.
Casey half smiled. “Now’s the time to stomach some risks.” She showed her teeth. “Because we don’t really have a fucking choice.”
She turned to walk back to the edge and then leaned out. “Unfortunately, the first part looks like it’s a real kicker with few handholds, then a straight drop for about eighty feet down to the next cave. Means we’re gonna lose a third of our rope straight up.” Casey eased back. “Blake.” She turned. “Find me a tie off.”
Blake quickly removed a rope from his pack, and found a jagged tooth of granite jutting from the cave floor. He tied it off and then tossed the end over the cliff edge. He then stripped off his backpack, and placed it on the cave edge, just under the rope.
Casey looked down, judging distances for a few seconds. She picked up the rope and yanked it a few times. She didn’t bother tying herself off, but instead turned and gripped the rope tightly, her heels now over the edge.
“Rhino, make sure people who need to be secured, are secured.”
The big man nodded. “Got it.”
Casey eased out. “Give me five to check the next cave and make sure there are no surprises.” She grinned. “And if there are, well, you all try another route.” She winked at Jennifer and began to walk backwards.
