Sinkhole

by Deborah Jackson

“Man?” said Mark, puzzled. “Is it that guide, Cascades?” Mark suppressed a scowl as he thought of the man. Hard, lean, with a self-satisfied smirk. He was always at Kat’s side, as if he was cemented there. What else had they been doing besides caving, he often wondered?

  “No, Doctor. It’s a man called Frank Harding. He says your wife might be in trouble.”

  Mark looked up from the screen. His hand moved the merest fraction, but it was enough to spin the sub onto its side and dash the micro-gripper into the wall of the artery. The ultrasound device chewed at this new obstacle, and on his screen Mark saw the sub suddenly explode through a gash. He felt his throat constrict in panic as he desperately tried to maneuver the sub backward. What had he done?

  “Pressure’s dropping, Doctor,” said Angela, her voice edged with anguish. “She’s starting to fibrillate.”

  “So much for miracles,” said Ames brusquely, shoving Mark aside. He snatched the scalpels from their tray and sliced into the woman’s chest. Quickly Mark ripped off his VR gloves and held out his hands to Angie for some sterile ones. Then he stepped in to assist in the quick invasion of the woman’s chest cavity, but Ames wasn’t about to give him even that much.

  “Get out,” he barked. “You’ve done enough.”

  “It wasn’t the sub,” Mark protested. “It was the interruption. I’ve never made a mistake like that before.”

  “I don’t care if it was the goddamn President on the line,” said Ames. “You want to revolutionize surgery, you’d damn well better keep a cool head. You’re finished, Delaney.”

  Mark backed away, struggling to keep the anger and anxiety from exploding. He’d devoted his life to this new device and they were quashing it before they’d even given it half a chance. He wanted to plead with them to reserve judgment. But instead, he sucked in his breath and said nothing. Stripping off his gloves, Mark spun on his heel and slammed out of the operating room. In the anteroom, the nurse at the desk was clutching the phone, her eyes weary and a little frightened.

  “I’m sorry, Doctor,” she said.

  “Don’t ever interrupt me during an operation!” he shouted.

  She cringed, and he instantly regretted it. “I’m sorry,” he muttered.

  “It was just . . .” She hesitated.

  He met her eyes.

  “Your wife. The man sounded troubled. I thought you would still want to know, even after . . .”

  “Even after?” How much did she know? How much did they all know?

  “I mean, even though you were in surgery.”

  She looked down, but he still caught a fleeting look in her eyes. It wasn’t fear. It was pity.

  He took the phone from her trembling hands and barked, “Dr. Delaney.”

  “Hey, Doc. I’ve been waiting a long time.”

  Mark was surprised at the note of impatience in the caver’s voice. The invariably carefree Kentuckian Frank Harding, a Mammoth Cave tour guide earlier in his career, had hooked up with Kat’s group of explorers a few years ago and now tagged along on every expedition. Mark had asked him to keep tabs on Kat ever since her illness. Usually nothing rattled the man.

  “I was in surgery,” said Mark.

  “Right,” said Harding. “Well, you told me to call at any time if I thought your wife might be in over her head. I think she is.”

  “What the hell has happened now?” asked Mark. “Has Kat broken her ankle again? Does she need a dramatic rescue? Or, let me guess, she’s stepped on one too many toes and landed in jail for a few days?” Nothing that hadn’t happened before.

  “No, Doc. She’s not in jail.”

  “Then what.”

  “We lost contact with her over the radio.”

  “So haul her out,” said Mark.

  “Well, it’s a little more complicated than that. She’s missed three call-ins. That’s never happened before. It could just be that the radio was damaged, but then she’d be making her way back and contacting me on one of the relays. Or . . . there could have been an accident, and no one on her team is in any shape to call. They might need some medical assistance. And there’s no one here I can hire to help get them out.”

  Mark felt a chill flitter down his spine. “Why not?”

  “Well, the natives are a little skittish about entering this cave. There are no experts for hire, either. Even the other men monitoring the team’s progress are bugging out. There’s nothing more I can do. She’s too deep for me to just haul her up on my own,” said Harding.

  “Deep?” said Mark, now extremely puzzled. “She was just going on a short trip through some sinkholes in the Yucatan. How deep can she be?”

  There was a loud swallow on the other end of the line. “Doc, your wife isn’t in the Yucatan. She told me not to tell you.”

  Mark paused, trying to digest what he was hearing. She’d lied to him. After he’d noticed the sharp jolts of pain in the morning. After he knew that she was sick again. She’d gone on another monumental journey into the bowels of the earth.

  “How deep?” he asked.

  “The deepest,” said Harding.

  Chapter Three

  Kat flinched at the sharp penetration of light as she tried to open her eyes.

  “Kat?” asked a voice from beyond the light.

  “Mark?” she called, feeling disoriented.

  “Kat, it’s me, Ray.” A strong hand clasped her arm. She felt his breath whisper over her face. A shiver passed through her as she realized who he was and where she was.

  “Oh,” she murmured. Struggling against a riptide of nausea, she tried to sit up. She must have passed out.

  Mark? What the hell was she thinking?

  “Kat, what’s wrong?” asked Megan. At first appearing as a series of multiple brunettes, she gradually became one as Kat’s eyes found some focus. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “Sort of.”

  “Are you injured?” Ray leaned closer, clearly a single image, clearly a single superb image. His dark eyes swept her body as his hand gently prodded, which did little to ease her discomfort.

  “It’s nothing.” Kat shoved his hand off her belly. “Dehydration, probably. I just need some water.”

  “Okay,” he said. She could hear the hum of a zipper behind her and a water bottle was deposited in her lap. “Drink.”

  With shaky hands she flipped the cap and raised the bottle to her lips. The fluid was cool and soothing to her parched throat, anesthetizing, and she felt some strength return. She looked around, absorbing the close walls and baroque cave formations.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I guess I gave you a scare. I’ll be fine now.”

  To prove it to herself as much as to them, she staggered to her feet. Ray reached out and steadied her with a bracing arm. Her legs felt like sponges, but even so, she should shrug him off, push him away. But she didn’t.

  “I’m sorry for calling you Mark, too.”

  “Now that I’ll have a hard time forgiving,” he said.

  By the brittle tone in his voice, she knew it was true. But she’d given him no reason for it, had she?

  “Well,” said Pete, disrupting the tension. “I suppose we should investigate the tunnel over there, now that you’re all right, Kat. We need to find out if there’s another route to the surface, before we run out of air or batteries. And we might discover some unusual specimens while we’re at it.”

  Ray’s arm tightened around Kat’s shoulders. “I think we should let Kat recuperate first.”

  Pete rolled his eyes and folded his arms over his chest. “She looks fine to me.” He backed up, crunching through feathery gypsum crystals, and plopped down on a rock.

  Kat could feel Ray’s muscles contract, his grip become almost painful. She knew he was ready to choke the man. She’d had to hold him back earlier when Pete had shouldered through a field of 50,000-year-old soda straws, snapping them like dry twigs. Normally she’d have let Ray dispense cavers’ justice, but unfortunately Pete was a necessary evil. His
employer, Spore, Inc., was only willing to fund their expedition if they had an inside man—their own microbiologist—along. Like Kat, they were interested in nanobacteria—microorganisms less than 0.2 microns in size. These microorganisms had been proven to exist in hot springs, in volcanic eruptions on the ocean floor, and in deep caves. Some had even been discovered on Mars. Spore was interested in their potential to cure disease. NASA, Kat’s former employer felt they might be the precursors to life on earth. But there had been too many bureaucratic hoops to jump through before NASA would give her the necessary backing for this expedition. She couldn’t wait for them.

  “I am feeling better.” She touched Ray’s arm, trying to defuse his anger. “Just give me a few more minutes.”

  “Hours,” said Ray sternly. He rubbed his neck with his free hand, stroking the two small moles that he often fingered when frustrated.

  Hours? she mouthed, prepared to do battle, when Megan interrupted. “Kat, you really do look pale. I don’t mind waiting at all. In fact, I could use a little rest after that crazy bit of bodysurfing.” Her voice quivered, emphasizing her point.

  Pete scowled. “Bunch of babies,” he muttered.

  “You’re not tired, Pete?” asked Ray.

  “Not a bit.” His sharp eyes connected with Ray’s, a macho challenge clearly evident in them.

  Ray didn’t bite. “Well, I am,” he said. “It won’t get us out of here if one of us ends up collapsing because she or he doesn’t know her or his limits. Besides, the virgin passages can wait a few more hours. They have for thousands of years.”

  Pete’s eyes narrowed. “Virgin passages,” he said. “There might be some over there. There are hardly any here.” He eyed the women, smirked, and strode toward the gap, taking a flashlight with him.

  Had Kat been her usual energetic self, she would have thrown something at him, something that would inflict major impact but minor injury, like a snowball or, as availability dictated, a soft porous rock. The contraction of Ray’s jaw suggested that he felt the same way, but Megan had the fiercest reaction. Twin scarlet splotches erupted on her cheeks and her hands curled into fists. She shrieked, “You bastard!” grabbed her pack, tore the light from Ray’s hand, and blundered after Pete. She paused only long enough to strip off her dive suit before hunching herself into the tunnel.

  Kat felt Ray’s arm loosen around her. His body jerked toward where Megan was disappearing into the tunnel with the last wisp of light, but it seemed he sensed Kat’s weakness and was reluctant to follow.

  “Go after them,” she encouraged.

  “No,” he said. “They’ll be back.”

  As the last particle of light winked out, Kat felt her throat constrict. The utter completeness of the darkness, as impenetrable to the eye as the far reaches of the universe, was still unnerving, even after all these years of caving.

  “We should take out another light.”

  “Batteries are low,” said Ray, easing her down to the ground with his arms. “We’ll just have to wait till they come back. At least they know where we are. And if that idiot, Pete, gets lost, c’est dommage!”

  “I’m not worried about Pete.” Kat chewed on her lip. “It’s Megan.”

  “I know.”

  “Oh, why did I have convince her to come on a deep cave expedition? There was plenty on the surface to keep her busy for years. Beyond the initial penetration, there’s nothing for someone with her expertise down here.”

  “I like the way you say that,” he said. “Initial penetration.” His hands stroked her shoulders and slid down her arms, stealing her breath.

  “Ray, I’m serious.”

  “So am I.”

  “Dammit.” She shoved away from him.

  Ray sighed. He didn’t attempt to pull her back. “Why, Katrina? Why are you still loyal to him? He betrayed you when you needed him the most.”

  “You . . . you don’t understand. It was partly my fault too.”

  “How could it be your fault? You were sick. You needed support. Ma chére, you needed your husband. And where was he? In the arms of une salope—bimbo, I think you call it. I still can’t understand how you could have forgiven him.”

  “I haven’t,” she whispered. “Ray, we shouldn’t be discussing this right now. We have more pressing things to worry about.”

  “And when will we discuss it?” he asked.

  Kat stared into the darkness, trying to bore through it to see his bronze French/Haitian face, or even the contrasting whites of his eyes. Why did he have to be so . . . appealing . . . annoying . . . accessible? “Never,” she said. “You’ll only wind up getting hurt.”

  “Kat, I’m not worried about being hurt. I spent five years in the Middle East covering Al-Qaida stories and diving away from suicide bombs. I’ve circled the globe chasing hurricanes. I’ve penetrated the deepest caves on earth. I know all the risks. I’m more than willing to take a chance on you.”

  “But you shouldn’t. It’s the timing. You don’t understand, and I can’t explain it.”

  “Merde,” he muttered. “I’d understand more than that bastard husband of yours. Kat, please . . .”

  She reached out and pressed his lips with her fingers. “No.”

  He shoved her hand away and took a deep breath, as if he intended to pursue the conversation further, so she abruptly changed the subject. “I hope they find another passage before we drain our batteries. Our tanks are running low on oxygen too. We can’t handle too many more sumps.”

  Ray didn’t answer. He seemed to be sulking.

  “I’m still worried about Megan,” she said.

  “Megan’s a big girl,” he snapped.

  “Did you see the way she reacted when Pete made his snide comment? I know she’s had some problems with men in the past, but I thought she was over it. Now I’m not so sure. Maybe there’s still something wrong with her.”

  “So what?” he said. “There’s something wrong with all of us.”

  The words jammed down Kat’s spine like a shard of ice. Did he know? Did he suspect that she was ill again, and her sudden trip into this cave was really about looking for a miracle? It sounded irrational even to her.

  A scrabbling noise interrupted her thoughts—a pebbly, scraping sound coming from the far side of the chamber. Then a jittering speck of light appeared through the gap in the rock.

  “Kat!” called Megan. She raced in, spilling light over the massive columns, over cave bacon dangling from the ceiling in brown and amber strips and cave pearls nestled in wet pockets of limestone near the wall. The light bounced off the lapping water from the sump and teased the silver from Ray’s hair. He was looking at Kat with a brooding pout.

  What was wrong with her? Any sane woman would be unable resist this man. Of course the possibility loomed in front of her that maybe she wasn’t sane anymore.

  Kat ignored the look and focused on Megan’s flushed face. Had she just stumbled onto the mother lode of lost Mayan artifacts? Or maybe, Kat thought with a flare of hope, she’d come across a carpet of bacterial specimens.

  “You’re not going to believe this,” she said.

  Chapter Four

  Mark stared uncertainly at his duffel bag, trying to determine what he should take along on a spelunking nightmare. He was in his inherited three-story house in Rosedale, the “old money” section of Toronto—a faux Victorian mansion with gables, elegant white trim, and lofty rooms delicately ornamented with antique furniture. Throughout the trip home in his Mercedes from the congested downtown core of Toronto, up Yonge Street where a battery of homeless people stretched their hands out, and onto the packed freeway, Mark had been on autopilot, hardly swerving in time to avoid a semi when it abruptly changed lanes. He couldn’t stop going over Harding’s words.

  “I can’t do any more, Mark. The area’s too remote, with too many . . . hazards. If you want to help her, you’ll have to find someone on your own.”

  It was inconceivable that Harding was abandoning Kat. Wasn’t th
ere a code in the Caver’s Handbook? Never leave a man behind? Or in this case, never leave a stubborn scientist to her own obsession? But Harding had done just that. There was something fishy about this cave.

  After he’d hung up, Mark had called every caving expert he knew. No one had the time, or if they did, they weren’t willing to venture as deep as Kat had. He would have to travel to Mexico himself and somehow find a guide who’d be willing to take him into the cave. Harding had sent him a map of the location via email, so at least he had that much information.

  Mark shook his head in frustration. Now he had to pack for a caving expedition, something he’d only done once for an amateur trek. Of course he’d seen Kat do it numerous times, packing sturdy hiking boots and thick woolen or polypropylene socks. She had a closet full of knee pads and elbow pads, along with khaki overalls that made her look like a garage mechanic. She also had nylon rope, winches and bolting equipment, dive lines and tanks and custom-made rebreathers. Just the thought of everything she needed in order to crawl around in a bat-infested cave was dizzying. But now he’d have to do it, too. Not only was he venturing into an underground crawl space, just as in the dreams that still haunted him, but he was going into the deepest well ever known. He must be mad. All this for a woman who’d crippled the last ten years of his life and probably trashed his career into the bargain, just in the last few hours.

  How could he do it?

  How could he not?

  This was Kat. Katrina Delaney, formerly Katrina Trechak, the striking microbiology major from his Harvard class. Some of the blue bloods at Harvard wouldn’t give her a second glance because of her Russian immigrant parents—the pedigree wasn’t right for them, even though she’d been born in the U.S. He had no such qualms. Although his parents had pushed him toward medicine when his heart cried out for engineering, they had never interfered in his love life. They’d sent him to the most prestigious university in North America, something their multimillion-dollar advertising firm had allowed, on the proviso that he study medicine like his grandfather. Otherwise there would be no trust fund. But they would never step in where women were concerned—not unless he came home with a prostitute. So when Kat sat next to him in his microbiology class, his cardiac rhythm threw in an extra beat. She wasn’t the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen—despite swirls of auburn hair, creamy skin, and luscious ruby lips, her nose was a trifle too prominent and her widow’s peak came down a bit low. But her eyes compensated for that. Deep, vibrant, and intelligent.