Veyron said, “Only in this case, it’s a subterranean volcanic tunnel, a hundred feet below the seabed, in an area where the last living person to enter ran away complaining about Skinwalkers haunting its abyss.”
To Sam it appeared more like a predator than a mine shuttle, but given the terrain they needed to navigate, it might just be just what they were after.
He shook his head and smiled. “All right. Let’s load up the equipment and go find that boring machine.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Tom climbed into the Humvee.
He searched the dash for a keyed ignition switch. There was none. Military Humvees didn’t have any. Instead, a three-position lever controlled off, run, and start. He flicked the lever toward start and the brutal 6.5 L turbo diesel grunted into life. He grinned like a kid suddenly being given the keys to a tank. He pushed the gear-lever into drive.
Next to him, Sam sat quietly, as though he was trying to remember why he suggested such a ridiculous notion as driving the Humvee down into the sinkhole in the first place. Both men wore their DARPA-produced thermal suits, in case the temperatures down below suddenly became less than hospitable. In the large storage hold between the two front seats were a pair of face masks and ultralight carbon fiber air tanks. They weren’t taking any chances. If the air quality changed farther down the tunnel, they would be prepared for it.
Tom held his foot on the brake and revved the engine. “Are you ready to descend into the lava tube?”
Sam made a thin-lipped smile. “Not really, but I’m not going to feel any better about it by waiting around.”
“That’s the spirit!” Tom said.
He released the clutch and the Humvee crept forward. Tom made a quick lap of the crushed stone path that circled the edge of Big Diomede Island until he was confident in the large vehicle’s dimensions and awkward controls.
He stopped the Humvee at the entrance to the main descending boring tunnel and switched on the powerful headlights. The dashboard lit up with the soft red glow familiar in military machines that were designed to be used in darkness.
“All right, here we go.”
He turned the Humvee into the tunnel and slowly drove down the initial ten-degree gradient of the first bore tunnel. Two miles in, the gradient increased to twenty degrees. The Humvee didn’t even complain. It was designed for steep approach and departure gradients of sixty degrees.
Tom spotted the gaping hole in the ground up ahead, where the massive boring machine had punched through the top of the volcanic dome and fallen through. He slowed the Humvee and brought it to a complete stop. He pulled up the park brake and switched the engine off. With the gear in neutral, he shifted the transfer case into low range and started the engine again.
He asked, “How’s our air quality?”
Sam glanced at the Parallax MQ-2 monitor and KGZ-10 oxygen sensor. “We’re good.”
Tom nodded. He released the clutch, and the Humvee crept toward the dark opening where the ground disappeared. The front tires met the small mound of rubble at the entrance. The hood lifted upward as the Humvee mounted the stones undeterred, and a moment later, the hood dipped – as they began their steep descent into the obsidian abyss below.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Sam gritted his teeth and held his breath.
It felt like one of those poorly developed theme park rides – a cross between a rollercoaster and a make-believe safari experience – only in this case, there were no rails to keep their vehicle from rolling off the edge. His seatbelt webbing dug into his waist and shoulder, as gravity tried to wrestle him from his seat. The engine grunted with restraint as it refused to release the four wheels from the confined speeds of their low range gearing. Through the windshield the headlights revealed a cliff-like slope with no ending. Thirty feet to their right, the gradient looked more like a sheer cliff.
Sam said, “Keep it light on those brakes. The last thing we need is for one of the tires to lock up, and send us tumbling down this damned lava tube.”
Tom smiled. “Relax. This thing was built for this!”
Sam gripped the edge of his seat until the whites of his knuckles showed his all too obvious fear of death. He doubted very much that the original engineers from General Motors had anything like the sloping volcanic tunnel in mind when they built the Humvee, but he decided now was not the time to interrupt Tom’s confidence.
Ten minutes later, the Humvee’s hood leveled out and they were back on horizontal ground. Tom brought the vehicle to a stop, switched off the engine and went through the process of changing the gear differential back to high.
When the process was complete, he started the engine again, and continued down the horizontal tunnel. The ancient lava tube was nearly eighty feet high and wide enough to fit three Humvees. Even so, Tom kept the speed below ten miles an hour.
They drove on slowly for thirty minutes before the previously straight tunnel took a major left turn. No sign of the drilling rig. Beyond that, it dipped lower, and the character of the tube began to change. A few miles further on, they encountered rubble in their path, and stalactites hung from the ceiling.
“I wonder what could have caused it to alter its path so radically.”
“Older rocks, probably,” Sam answered without much thought.
“Rocks?” Tom queried.
Now Sam put forth his theory of how the tubes had formed. “You know the Kookoligit Mountains area is a shield volcano. These lava tubes were probably formed at the time of the eruptions that created them, wouldn’t you agree?”
“Sure. Whatever you say.” Tom grinned.
“Well, the geologist told me this area is thought to be one of the last above-water vestiges of the land bridge that connected Asia and North America. He said it’s characterized to the west by Cenozoic deposits, and to the east by older Paleozoic and Protozoic deposits. I figure when the lava intruded between the strata to form these tubes, it ran into a different layer, maybe one that turned it, and ran along the seam between the layers for a while. What do you think?”
“I think it’s as good a theory as any. What do I know?”
It was Sam’s turn to grin. “You know more about caves than anyone else I know.”
Tom shrugged, as though it was merely academic. The tunnel would be whatever it was, and that was it. The tunnel leveled out again, and Tom increased their speed to thirty miles per hour, although it was open enough that he could have gone much faster.
Twenty minutes later Tom jammed on the brakes.
In front of him, a series of twelve-foot-high stalactites had been broken by the slow-moving boring machine, and now littered the tunnel in an awkward mix of stony fragments, like oversized pick-up sticks.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Sam got out of the Humvee and studied the splintered heap of stalactites. Tom followed him, and squatted down in front of the military four-wheel drive so he could study the approach to the large rocky outcrop.
“Do you think the Humvee could mount this?” Sam asked.
“Not a chance,” Tom replied, looking up at their obstruction. “But we could probably pull a few of those stones down with the winch. We wouldn’t need to shift them much to make a rocky step that the Humvee could overcome.”
“How many hours do you think it will take?”
“A few. That’s for sure.”
Sam glanced at his wristwatch. It was nearing midnight. “Let’s make camp here for the night. Get some rest and we’ll work this problem in the morning.”
“Sounds like a good plan.” Tom grinned. “Want to take a short stroll on the other side of those rocks?”
“Sure. Why?”
Tom made a wry smile. “I have a gut feeling that we’re getting close to the end. I hate the thought of camping overnight only to find out in the morning that the boring machine’s just on the other side.”
“All right. Let’s be quick though. I’m kind of beat.”
They climbed the barricade of s
talactites and continued further south on foot. Both men carried heavy backpacks that were filled with essential supplies, such as basic medical equipment, ropes, and their breathing apparatus and carbon fiber air tanks.
The tunnel continued on a relatively steep descent. Thirty minutes in, Tom stopped. And looked up at a large series of wet stalactites. “Dude, this isn’t good. This means there are fissures above us that are letting in seawater. Now I am nervous.”
“I’ve never seen you nervous about stalactites before,” Sam observed.
“We’ve never been twenty miles from the way out of the cave and under hundreds of feet of ocean with no way of knowing what’s above us before,” Tom retorted. “Even with our dive tanks, if this thing floods, we’d never be able to swim twenty miles on the air supplies we have.”
Sam didn’t bother to remind Tom of their previous explorations below the sea bed, or that the tube they were following most likely intruded into a stable layer of sedimentary Cenozoic strata over six miles in depth. He didn’t even bother to mention that the water above that was hardly hundreds of feet deep. Even the relatively shallow depth of probably 100 feet of sea above them would kill them with its initial downward pressure well before they would drown.
“How far do you want to go?” Sam asked.
“Not far. I’m dog-tired,” Tom admitted.
They quickly returned to the rubble pile and the Humvee. Tom found a little sand to cushion his ground mat, and was lying face-up on it, his eyes closed.
“Is it my turn to cook again?” Sam mock-whined.
“Cook or don’t cook. I don’t care, and I’m too tired to eat.” Tom switched off his headlamp and pretended to snore.
Sam found a spot a little farther back and laid out his ground mat, then sat on it and dug in his pack for a meal of jerky and granola. The gourmet freeze-dried meals Genevieve had packed for them would require lighting the compact gas burner and using some of their precious water. He supposed they’d make it back before they’d resort to those.
Sam didn’t know whether it had been minutes or hours since he’d fallen asleep when he woke to Tom shaking him urgently.
“Sam, come on, wake up, buddy.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Smell that?” Tom asked.
“No, what?” Still groggy, Sam struggled to understand where he was, why it was so dark beyond Tom’s helmet light, and what could possibly cause Tom to panic.
“Salt water, and something dead.” Tom’s voice was grim.
The words penetrated Sam’s fog, and he shook off Tom’s hand. Becoming more alert by the second, he sat up and grabbed his own helmet, turning on its light.
“Where’s it coming from?” he asked.
Tom shook his head. “I can’t tell, but it wasn’t in the air when we went to sleep.”
“Okay, well, we know it isn’t in the main tube,” Sam suggested.
“We don’t know that,” Tom replied. “I had a bad feeling about that tube after we turned the bend. What if it’s caved in, and the water’s rising?”
“If that’s the case, I’d think we’d be wet,” Sam argued. “We’re at the same level here as the main tube where it opens to this one.”
“We may well be wet before long. We should get out of here, if we can.”
“Okay, let me just get my gear packed.”
Spooked by Tom’s urgency, Sam scrambled up and followed him. He risked a look back toward the bend in the main lava tube, but saw no water.
“Tom! Wait! Hold up,” he called.
Tom took another couple of steps and then came to a halt and looked back.
“Look, Tom. No water,” Sam called. “Let’s go back and see if it’s coming up the rise, or not. We’ll have time to outrun it.”
“Don’t count on that.” Tom’s slow steps betrayed his reluctance, but he walked toward Sam anyway. “If the rock above collapses, these tunnels will be filled with water faster than you can blink an eye.”
“So, we know the lava tube hasn’t caved in.”
“What makes you so confident?”
“Because we’re not wet yet.”
“You’re right.” Tom smiled. “Let’s continue down the tunnel. We must have been closer than we thought to the end.”
They walked quickly, ready to turn and run if they spotted the smallest trickle of water. But even after reaching the bend and walking to the edge of the section where fallen rock and stalactites cluttered the cave, they saw no water. But now he smelled what Tom did – salt water, and the stench of death.
“What the hell?” he asked, expecting no answer.
In the main tube, they’d been walking side by side and fully upright. Now Tom fell in behind Sam and they continued single-file. They’d gone only about three miles when Sam stopped abruptly, causing Tom to nearly crash into him from behind.
“What?” Tom asked.
“Are you seeing this?” Sam’s voice was filled with wonder.
He didn’t know when the character of the cave had changed. Hadn’t noticed that they’d emerged from the lava tube into the sedimentary rock. But before him lay an underground grotto unlike any he’d ever seen before. The dome of the cave was vast, like a cathedral, but on a scale that he wouldn’t have believed if he hadn’t been looking at it. At his feet, a still pool of water that looked like malachite in the light of his helmet lamp. Not a ripple marred its mirror-like surface.
Sam shined his flashlight across the water.
Fifty feet into the subterranean lake he spotted the circular features of the giant boring machine. It had pulled itself along the entire length of the lava tube only to be eventually stopped by the soft base of the shallow lake.
Tom removed his backpack, caught his breath and said, “Let’s see what’s waiting for us inside.”
Sam could guess what gruesome find was waiting inside the boring machine. “All right.”
He doffed his pack, and waded out after Tom.
The water was warm, approximately eighty-five degrees Fahrenheit. A very comfortable temperature for a swim, even without a wetsuit. The water was no more than knee-deep.
“An underground spring must be warming the water,” he called.
“Makes sense,” Tom said. “Hurry up, will you. What’s taking so long?”
Sam quickly caught up in the shallow water. When he reached Tom’s side, his friend immediately waded farther out. Sam was peering into the water, wishing his light wouldn’t reflect off the surface, as Tom approached the edge of the boring machine.
In front of him, Tom swore loudly. “You’ve got to be kidding me!”
Tom’s shout brought his head up with a snap. “What is it?”
Beyond the boring machine, almost at the limit of Sam’s vision, something huge lay on its side in the water. Tom’s incredulous cry echoed off the cathedral ceiling far above them. Listing heavily to its portside were the broken remains of the Gordoye Dostizheniye.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Ignacio, Southern Ute Reservation
Brody stood mute with misery while Jenn laid into the officer manning the front desk at the Ignacio police department.
“What do you mean, it isn’t your jurisdiction?” Jenn shouted.
“I’m sorry, but Cloud Ranch is outside the city limits. You’d need to talk to the tribal police, but the crime is outside their jurisdiction. They’ll pass it to the FBI.”
“I don’t care who they send, just tell me where to report what we’ve found,” Jenn said, making an obvious effort to control her temper.
“Well, it’s not that easy,” the officer said, leaning back in his chair. “I can make the call, but you might as well go home. They won’t be in any hurry to take your statement.”
Jenn put her fists on her hips, standing with arms akimbo like every woman has done at one time or another when faced with male stupidity. “And why not?”
Brody knew that tone. It spelled danger, but the officer seemed oblivious to his imminent peril. “Do
you know how many officers they have, and how much territory they cover? And how many drug reports they get every day? They don’t have time to investigate all of them, and they don’t have jurisdiction to prosecute, as I said. The FBI is spread too thin, too. Unless we hand them a neat little case, all wrapped up in a bundle, they’ll decline to prosecute because nobody out here is getting hurt. They’re more concerned about the victims in the city than any of us out here on the rez.”
“That’s absurd,” Jenn sputtered. “What about the white guy who disappeared? Are they interested in him?”
“That’s another kettle of fish,” the officer explained. “White guy. No Indian has any jurisdiction at all. It’s a Federal case, and you don’t know he’s dead. You don’t even know if he’s been kidnapped. If and when you find his body, let us know if it looks like foul play. Then maybe the Feds will take an interest. Or maybe not. That’s the way it is,” the officer said, shutting down further argument. “Go on home. Someone will be out to take the report in a few weeks, maybe.”
With two spots of red coloring her cheeks, Jenn whirled and nearly ran down her brother. “Come on, Brody. We’ll have to deal with it ourselves.”
“Deal with what? Malcom’s disappearance? We can’t go looking for him in that cave system. I don’t know about you, but I’m not anxious to run into Mexican cartel members armed with guns.” Brody spat on the ground. “Let Ben decide what to do. I’m done with it.”
“I thought Malcom was your friend,” Jenn reproached him.
“He was okay. I don’t think I’m ready to die for him.” Brody had heard enough. Skinwalkers were one thing. Armed cartel members were another.
As if she’d read his thoughts, Jenn asked, “How do you know it’s a Mexican cartel? Maybe it’s one of us. I mean the tribe. Pretty sure it’s no one on the ranch.”
“Come on, Jenn. We may live out in the middle of nowhere, but we get TV. Internet even. Sinaloa is active everywhere in the Southwest. Other cartels from Mexico, too. We’re between two of the major smuggling routes from Juarez.”
The Sam Reilly Collection Volume 3 Page 36
