by K. T. Tomb
“Boysie Marlowe.”
Eze stopped, and with difficulty looked over his shoulder. “You say something boss?”
“I suppose you know of the legend, that a fortune of stolen Spanish gold and gems is buried in a secret location on Montserrat? It was rumored that a pirate told a farmer where it was, even left him a map in exchange for a ship so he could escape to South America. Legend has it that the treasure was never found, and the map disappeared over a hundred years ago. Hypothesize with me, Eze, my friend. What purpose, do you suppose, would a pirate have used a secret tunnel for? We had it under our feet all this time, and we never knew it.”
Eze considered for a moment.
“Well, if I was a pirate with a secret tunnel leading only God knows where, I’d probably hide something important at the end.”
Eze smiled broadly, he knew exactly what the Governor was thinking.
“If we catch up with this Chinese pissant and his stupid friend, ‘Michael Jordan’, and make sure they never leave this place, then we can find Captain Marlowe’s gold, and then, Eze, my friend, we can use that to maintain our business interests with the cartel. This could be just the break we need.”
Quincy was nearly salivating at the prospect, his heavy jowls masticating with excitement.
“We don’t have a moment to lose! We have to catch those men!”
Eze moved off again, frustratingly slowly. Quincy ground his teeth. He had to succeed. He had to kill Kang, and his sidekick. He had to get that gold or someone was going to die in the process.
Chapter Nine
Kang and Manny had not made the fast progress they had hoped. With only a cheap lighter to help them find their way neither of them had seen the plaque left by Captain Boysie Marlowe centuries before, and fumbling in the dark was not conducive to making a swift get away. As such, Manny had only his best guess that they were on the right path at all, and the intractable Kang was not helping his rudderless feelings. The man was impossible. Manny tried making conversation with him, but with no real responses. Inscrutable. Kang was also far too interested in what Manny was doing in jail in the first place, and was not forthcoming with any information as to why the Governor wanted him dead. The tunnels did nothing to help the atmosphere; horribly cold and stinking of feces as they were.
“Can you see anything?”
Manny had asked the question countless times. Kang was in front, feeling his way along the walls in the pitch black. They had decided to save the lighter fuel until they needed it. Manny wished he could see the treasure map now. He had tried committing it to memory, but he couldn’t remember the details other than “Look West”, which was a fat lot of good now, underground with no idea which way west was. In any case, Manny had decided that as useful as Kang was in a fight, he needed to get away from him. He had to get to the treasure, and he reasoned that anyone who took out opponents as easily and violently as Kang did was not exactly friend material.
“Stop!” Kang called from the lead. “I found something… hold on.”
Manny froze, as if he was playing statues as a child might do. He could see the lighter sparking again, and then a much larger flame filled the tunnel they were in. A spasm of fear ran through Manny before he realized what it was. Kang had found a crude torch on the wall. It must have been here for centuries, any fuel must be long gone, but the fabric wick was tinder dry and burned easily. Both men squinted, their night vision dissipating as their irises narrowed to protect their eyes from the unfamiliar light. Manny could see the passage was now wide enough for both men to stand side by side, so he caught up. He saw the reason why the torch had been placed here, instead of any further back. The tunnel forked just ahead, and went in two directions. By the light of the flame they could see another torch, opposite the bracket where Kang had obtained his. Manny pulled it free, and held it unlit.
“Light me?” Manny asked.
Kang looked at him, as if he was an idiot. Manny could feel his hackles rising.
“We should save the torch, we don’t know how long we will be down here. Two torches will also burn more oxygen.”
Manny considered the two passages.
“I think we should split up. Nice knowing you and all, but I have stuff to do. Alone. “
Kang was impassive, as usual.
“I think that’s a bad idea. We are undoubtedly being followed, and if they catch you, you will not survive.”
That cocky bastard! Sure, he was definitely the best fighter Manny had ever seen, but he could handle himself, too. Hadn’t he saved Kang’s ass as much as Kang had saved his?
“I don’t care what you think. What I have to do is for me alone. I have a mission.”
“As do I,” Kang replied, “and I guarantee you mine is far more important. I must get to the surface and get off this island.”
This was the most Kang had said about what he was up to. Manny couldn’t help himself for trying to find out more.
“Yeah, so you said, but you never say why. If you told me what was going on, maybe I could help you out, once I’ve done what I need to do and what I came for.”
Kang sighed.
“It is something far too dangerous for you to even know about, my young friend.”
“I’m not your friend! Friends tell each other stuff. We’re even. We helped each other get away from the cops, that’s enough.”
Kang smiled.
“But you, also, do not tell me why you are here. So perhaps you are right. Farewell, Manny McMillan.”
Manny scowled at him. Nothing seemed to bother this guy. Kang lit Manny’s torch.
“So, Manny. Which way do you go now? It would look foolish if we both decided on the same tunnel.”
Screw you, Manny thought. With no way of knowing which way was west, he’d have to take a guess at it. It obviously felt like the left hand tunnel would be west, but Manny knew that meant nothing. That only worked if he was facing north. It could be that ‘Look West’ meant nothing to do with the passages they were in, and that it referred something else entirely. It could be that he was wasting his time trying to find the treasure in the first place. He really wanted to be at home, penniless or not. Well, part of him did. The determination that had pushed him out his front door in New York still rested uneasily in his stomach. It wasn’t going to give in quite as quickly as Manny thought it might have. He decided to trust his gut instinct, and go left. With a curt nod to Kang, he set off down the thankfully much wider tunnel. If he hadn’t been in a mood at Kang for his flippant ways, he might have hung around long enough to see Kang make his way down the other tunnel, on the far wall of which, easy to see in the torch light, was another carved flagstone, this time bearing the inscription “West Tunnel”.
Manny felt good, now he was striking out on his own. He had a good feeling he was on the right track. This tunnel would surely lead him to the treasure, and then he could get off this island, and get back to the life he was born for; fast cars, faster women, and, maybe a holiday. Perhaps not to a Caribbean island though. This holiday had not turned out too well, judging by his aching ribs and mashed up face. He hoped that he hadn’t had his looks damaged too badly.
The tunnel forked again ahead, so he took out his map, and peered at it. It was almost impossible to read, and what he could read of it, didn’t help. LOOK WEST, and the curved line were still taunting him with their vagueness. Who makes a treasure map that no one can follow? He’d have to keep trusting his gut. He picked the right hand tunnel, and when that forked into three, he picked the middle one. That was a dead end, so he had to go back the way he came. This time, he picked the tunnel to his immediate left, effectively doubling back on himself from the dead end, at an acute angle. The temperature was warmer the further he went this way, which struck him as odd. With no sunlight at all down here, he and Kang had been freezing cold.
Kang. Unkind thoughts about the man surfaced.
“I bet,” Manny said to no one, “that guy is some kind of triad, on the run, and he p
issed off that Governor somehow. Jerk!”
As he spoke, he wasn’t looking where he was going at all, which was a near fatal mistake. His foot caught on what felt like rope, which gave way immediately. He tripped and went sprawling, which saved his life, as an iron spike, propelled on some kind of tension-loaded length of wood, hurtled through the air where his face had just been and smashed into the rock wall of the tunnel with a resounding crack. Manny raised his head, and had the wherewithal to snatch up his torch before it guttered out.
Picking himself up to his feet, he examined the murderous device. A rudimentary pulley system provided the tension, and the trip wire released it. Somehow it had survived the centuries, a legacy of Captain Marlowe. Manny had almost felt sympathy for the pirate when his grandfather had relayed the tale of how he had given up his treasure to try and save his skin, but that was before Marlowe had tried to kill him from across time.
He was about to press on, more carefully, when sharp, echoing cracks careened through the tunnel system. The strange distortion provided by the rocks confused Manny. He couldn’t place the noise at first and then it came to him.
Gunfire. It was coming from behind him if they were shooting at him, the Governor’s men must have found Kang. Manny wasn’t too proud to admit that his first instinct was to press on, and hope Kang could look after himself. Despite his better judgment, he couldn’t just leave Kang to die. He had saved his life after all, and that counted for a lot in Manny’s book, even if Kang was a smug jerk with mysterious plans. At a sprint, he retraced his steps until he found the junction where they had split up. Figuring that if there were any more of Marlowe’s traps in this direction they would have been set off or disabled by Kang or his pursuers. This tunnel was much easier going, leading upwards, and Manny could even see a faint light at the end. The gunfire was getting louder also. As he got closer, he slowed his pace. In the opening, a scant few meters away now, he could see the figure of a man, aiming and firing a shotgun from a kneeling position. An unconscious body lay next to him. Kang’s work, no doubt. Manny surmised that Kang had reached wherever this lighter place was, heard the soldiers coming up the tunnel, and decided to ambush them. This suggested at least he had managed to arm himself and was holding the soldiers off. Manny doubted that even Kang was fast enough to dodge bullets.
Manny crept up behind the soldier, who was still aiming down his rifle, and using the still lit torch as a club, beat him over the head. He didn’t catch fire, but the blow shook a flurry of embers into the man’s face, and he went down screaming. Manny struck another two handed blow, and he was silenced. Manny scooped up the man’s rifle, and peeked around to see where the other gunshots were coming from. As he did so, he marveled at where he was. It looked to him like a deep amphitheatre, like the one he had once visited in Greece, but evidently naturally formed, with a curved ceiling. Overhead, there was a small window to the above world, which let in the light of the moon, high in the sky. It must be about midnight. Had they really been in the tunnels for so long? As he looked around for enemies, he saw a flushed pink man, from his build it was Governor Quincy, aiming a pistol down at a cluster of rocks on the theatre’s floor. He was high up, on one side of the natural steps in this strange place. High up, by the curved roof… the curved roof that, if you were to represent it in a simple diagram, you might draw as a long curve… In the theatre of waking… Marlowe… He had discovered it at last. Now all he had to do was stay alive long enough to find the bedchamber of Selene, whatever that was. Manny checked the firearm in his hands; a pump action shotgun, not much good to take out the governor so far away. A crack and a whining ricochet alerted him that he was spotted, and he dived for cover behind a rocky outcrop to his left. He chanced a look to where the Governor was still pumping rounds. Kang lay there, still alive, but with blood staining his filthy clothes dark crimson. He was firing a rifle himself, but one handed and his aim was way off. It was up to Manny to save him.
Chapter Ten
His position was hopeless.
Kang was too far to get to without Manny getting himself shot. There were three soldiers and the Governor himself to tangle with, and Kang was clearly quite injured. Manny was no warrior, but it looked like the only one here had been Kang. The volunteers were shooting like the unregulated militia they were, blazing away, shell after shell, and generally going well wide of the mark. Manny chanced his life, squeezing off a shot at one of the soldiers below him who was trying to get closer to Kang to get a clear shot. The recoil from the shotgun pumped into his shoulder, but the shot was low and to the right, kicking up a huge spray of dust and pebbles. The soldier scrambled for cover. The dust lingered in the air, and it seemed all wrong to Manny. Rock shouldn’t just implode like that. He didn’t have time to think about it, as the soldiers, caught between Kang and Manny, began suppressing them with a constant stream of fire over their heads. The three guards were backing away to get out of the way, edging back towards their leader. Quincy was screaming instructions at them, almost purple in the face from exertion and rage. Manny used the troopers’ temporary retreat to scoot round the curved wall opposite the Governor, bringing himself closer to Kang. He no longer had the dark tunnel behind him to hide from bullets but Kang was now a mere ten feet or so away and breathing hard.
Manny had seen enough cop shows on TV and action movies to know that he had been lied to by the silver screen his whole life. Getting a shot to hit its target while moving was nearly impossible.Rather than the steady hand that was perfectly lined up aiming down the sight, he found that both himself and the soldiers were just pointing in the general direction of each other and hoping for the best. Out of all the shooters, it looked to be Quincy who was the most skilled, getting much closer to Manny’s head with the pistol than the buckshot and solid shells of his guard.
Firing another couple of shells at the enemy who were now in deep cover behind more of the strange rock formations that peppered the chamber, Manny finally made it to where Kang was laying. His shoulder was a mess, but not as mangled as it would have been if he had been hit by one of the shotguns; Quincy had winged him with his pistol. Keeping his head down and poking the gun’s barrel over to point in the direction of the soldiers, Manny tried to think about what he could do for Kang.
“Manny, I’m ok. You should not have come back here.”
His breathing was halted with the pain of speaking.
“Like hell,” Manny said, “my Grampy’s ghost would have come after me forever if I let these assholes kill you while I got away.”
He forced a smile, but he knew it was unconvincing.
“Thank you, you are a brave man. We are in grave trouble, I fear.”
Manny turned back in time to see one of the soldiers trying to flank them to get a clearer shot. Manny didn’t even think about it. He aimed, not expecting to get anywhere near the target, squeezed the trigger, and felt the kick of the gun’s recoil. On the other end of the kinetic chain of energy the solid shot passed through the soldier’s cheek and exited the back of his skull in a spray of bone fragments, chunks of flesh and a red mist. Manny retched. Christ, what the hell had he done? He had killed a man; admittedly, one who was trying to kill him, but still. Another human being had died at his hand. It felt like he would never be happy again. He wanted to weep, to take back what he’d just done, but he knew that was childish.
“Never easy, the first time.” Kang said, simply.
A redoubled barrage of shots from the remaining soldiers and Quincy drowned out what Manny was thinking of saying, so he just nodded, slightly glazed-eyed and numb.
“Manny, I think I have an idea of how to get us out of here. Do you know where we are?”
“Kang, I don’t think this is the right time for geography class!”
Manny could well do without Kang being cryptic. Kang smiled through what must be considerable pain. “We are in an ancient magma chamber, or possibly the result of a sub-surface pyroclastic surge that blew out the earth. Did you notice ho
w the bullets are destroying these rock formations so easily?”
Manny didn’t exactly know what a pyroclastic surge was, but he knew where magma came from. The rocks and stalagmites were not very durable, as was evidenced by the cloud of hanging dust that was mixing in with the gun smoke and the innumerable fragments strewn along the chamber floor.
“So what?” he asked Kang.
“So, the rocks are fragile; the ceiling is fragile too, I would bet.”
Manny looked up, to where the small window to the sky was. From his new position he could no longer see the moon overhead, the angle now displaying a bright, dense patch of the Milky Way. Manny was struck for a moment by its beauty; light pollution concealed almost every star back home. He knew what Kang was getting at, If they both fired at the ceiling of the chamber, there was a good chance it would collapse, and end the shootout. The face of the man he had just shot flashed in his mind’s eye, that expression of determination he’d had as the slug from Manny’s gun took off half his head. Manny scrunched his eyes closed and kneaded them with his palm to shake the nightmare.
“Kang, if we shoot the roof, won’t that bring it down on our heads too?”
Kang actually smiled.
“Yes. But we are sheltered a little under here. The rocks are not as dense as granite, so we’ll be fine. Our only other option is to wait until we run out of shells, and then you can get beaten to death and I will bleed out; the bullet went straight through my shoulder, if the fighting stops, we can bind the wound If the fighting continues much longer, we are both dead. I do not think you are lucky enough with that gun to take out these three men by yourself.”
Manny had no desire to kill anyone again. He knew he would be haunted for a long time, probably forever, by the face of his victim. The guy was just following orders… with a force of will, he kept his focus in the present, and checked his gun.
