She grabbed the small backpack she’d brought along and hopped down onto the ground, walking low to avoid the blowing wind of the rotors overhead.
Emily looked a little stunned.
“I like her,” Jim said as he flipped a few switches and knobs, bringing the chopper to a rest.
Sean’s former partner rolled her eyes while he chuckled under his breath.
Jim stayed with the aircraft as they made their way over to where Adriana was unpacking some thin climbing rope, rigging, and a few harnesses. She’d already set up a long stretch of rope across the dusty ground. She reached out her hand to Sean with a harness dangling loosely from it. “I think I’m gonna pass on this one,” Sean said as he put both hands in the air.
“I wasn’t asking,” she replied slyly and tossed him the harness.
He snatched it out of the air out of reflex but looked at the thing like he’d just caught a bag of snakes.
Emily grabbed the last harness from the Spaniard and began to slip one leg through the loops and then the other.
Wyatt reluctantly copied what the two women were doing. “What are we going to anchor the rope to?”
Ignoring him, Adriana removed a small bolt gun from her bag and walked purposefully over to the cliff’s edge. She lay down on her stomach and stretched the tool out over the precipice and pressed it against the rock wall. A muffled shot sounded then repeated as she moved the bolt gun slightly to the left.
“Oh,” Sean said, resigned to the fact that he would indeed be going over the edge of the cliff, whether he wanted to or not.
He struggled to slip the harness on over his khaki pants. “I’ve never done this before,” he confessed sheepishly.
Adriana smiled with a raised eyebrow. “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of you.”
He wasn’t sure how to take the comment, and it did little to suppress his apprehension. She stepped over to him and grabbed a loose part of the harness webbing and tugged it sharply, tightening the rigging.
Emily just shook her head slowly at the sight, having already finished up her harness adjustments. “Not a word out of you,” he said to Emily, looking awkward the whole time as Adriana completed her work with his device.
“I wouldn’t think of it.”
The late afternoon sun gleamed off of Villa’s creamy skin. A light gust of wind rolled across the desert, flicking her dark hair back a little and causing it to dance around her ears and neck.
“We should hurry. The sun sets early this time of year, and it gets cold very quickly.”
Sean turned and gazed to the west. They probably still had a few hours, so time wasn’t going to be a problem. If everything went according to plan.
Angela watched the group with her binoculars from behind a small rock formation. Her team was well hidden, though at one point she had noticed Wyatt pause and look in their direction. James was right behind her trying to peek over her shoulder. So much like a child. From the looks of it, the group she was observing appeared to be gearing up to repel down the side of the canyon.
What had they found? Angela kept the thought to herself. She wasn’t sure, but she knew what their orders were. Observe only.
The Prophet had been clear in his instructions, though she wasn’t sure why he’d changed their course of action. Perhaps he was losing faith in them. Or maybe the man hadn’t been unable to decipher the location of whatever it was he was looking for and these people were going to lead him to it. It was a plan that had worked before, she supposed. But Angela doubted it would work that way again. Sooner or later there was going to be another confrontation.
Sean had seen the glint of glass off in the distance. He’d assumed that the people who’d tried to kill him in Vegas the night before had decided to see what they were doing before moving in. Even out in the desert, there weren’t a lot of places to hide from the curious eyes of the canyon tourists. The hit squad was probably hanging back, waiting until the moment was right.
There wouldn’t be any mistakes this time. Not like last night. He didn’t voice his concerns to the others.
The information center was still within view, though it was far away. And their presence on the cliff’s edge was known by some of the local authorities, informed on the radio by Jim before they touched down. Still, it was disconcerting not knowing what move their pursuers would take next.
Sean watched as Adriana ran the rope through her harness clamps and casually stepped over the cliff’s edge. She pushed out with her feet and disappeared into the canyon.
Emily stepped closer, far less afraid of the dangerous precipice and watched as the Spaniard repeated her repelling motion like a pro. About twenty feet down she stopped and leaned in toward the cliff face, peering at something. “What do you see?” Emily yelled down.
“It is a cave entrance.” She swung herself down and into the opening. A few seconds later she poked her head back out. “There is a lot of writing on the wall. This must be the place!” Adriana yelled up.
“What did she say?” Sean asked as he stepped uneasily toward the edge. He crouched at the knees in a feeble attempt to maintain his stability.
Emily turned and raised both eyebrows at the site of Wyatt squatting near her. “She said this is the place. Said she found some markings in the cave opening.”
“You sure you want me to go in there?”
The look she gave was answer enough, but she said what he needed to hear anyway. “You’re going to tell me that Sean Wyatt is going to pass up a chance to go into an ancient cave where there may be treasure that hasn’t been seen in probably several thousand years just because he’s afraid of heights? Maybe I was wrong about you.”
He grabbed the rope from her and laced it through the braking contraption the way Adriana had showed him before. “You know what you are?” he asked as he eased unsteadily toward the lip of the canyon.
“A woman?”
Another slight gust picked up as he leaned out over the drop below. Chills went through his body as he made the mistake of looking down. They must have been a few thousand feet up, and the drop made his vision blur for a moment. He clenched his teeth, gripping the braking device with all his might. “Manipulative. But same difference.” With that, he released the brake and started inching his way down the rock wall.
Chapter 32
Bandelier National Monument
They were in a fix, and Tommy knew it. He and Will had been cornered in a man-made cave at Bandelier National Monument. They’d gone there to look for clues, but what they’d found was trouble. Will was running out of ammo, and there was no way to tell how much ammunition the other guys had. Tommy figured it was more, though.
He struggled with the stone for a few more seconds trying to fit it into the round impression in the wall, but it wouldn’t seat properly. Then it hit him. The oddly colored notches in the stone were additions. Frantically, he began searching his backpack. A few seconds later, he pulled a small pocketknife from it. With the butt end of the tool, he started chipping away at the lighter-colored areas of the stone. As he suspected, the softer material broke away after only a few knocks. Quickly, he repeated the process on the other three marks.
Again, Tommy slid the stone into place inside the recessed wheel in the wall, matching the notches with the gaps he’d just created. This time, it fit perfectly flush against the back of the ancient mechanism. He gripped the stone tightly and began twisting counterclockwise. To his surprise, the thing moved fairly easily. Deep within the walls, a new rumbling began. All of the pieces from the ceiling had fallen, creating an odd maze of huge stone pillars in the room. Some were taller than others. The ground shook more and more violently. Then he realized something was moving beneath him. In what could have only taken a few seconds, the floor shifted and then dropped away beneath him.
Will heard the noise and looked over to the corner where Tommy had been toiling furiously. He was gone.
It took Sean about five minutes to do what Adriana and Emily were able t
o do in less than thirty seconds. He had slowly eased his way down the face of the canyon wall, careful not to make any sudden movements. Once inside the lip of the cave, he pressed forward quickly, but Adriana stopped him short, blocking his path.
“I wouldn’t go too far in there if I were you.” She pointed her light into the darkness and revealed a deep, circular hole that seemed to go down forever.
Sean simply crumpled down to the ground, shaking his head. “I can’t believe I let you two talk me into this. Why couldn’t this thing be down in an underwater cave or maybe in the plains somewhere?”
She simply shook her head at him.
A few moments later Emily had joined them and cast Sean a degrading glance, chastising him for being fearful. “Walk it off, soldier.” She shone her own light down into the deep pit. “Looks like we got more to do.”
He simply returned Emily’s jab by squinting his eyes at her as if he was just fine sitting on the sandy stone floor.
“I’ve been trying to figure out how we get down there,” Villa spoke up, returning from the edge of the cave. She’d been busily tidying up the ropes for the return trip back up to the helicopter. She pointed to some odd engravings on the wall just above Sean’s head, and he stood up carefully to look at it, still unsteady with his environment.
“Can you read it?” Emily asked.
He shook his head. “Only a little bit.”
His finger traced the outline of the engraved stone symbols that were so common in North Africa but extremely out of place in the United States. He scanned the wall with his eyes, trying to fit all the pieces together.
Adriana stood behind him, watching as he tried to decipher the ancient text.
“Looks like it says something about an eye and the afterlife, I think.”
“It says the eye of Akhanan can be the path to death or the stairway to life,” Adriana interrupted him. “And that only the righteous may have eternal life.”
Sean and Emily gazed at her, slightly amazed.
“I was getting to that,” Sean stammered.
Starks raised both eyebrows. “Sure you were.” She turned to Adriana and asked, “So what does it mean?”
Adriana stepped curiously over to the pit again and shone her light into the vast, deep darkness. The thing seemed to literally go on forever. An intense look on her face showed she was trying hard to work the riddle out in her head. As she spun back around, her flashlight passed over something at the corner of where the wall ended and the big hole began. She stepped over to get a closer look and realized what she was seeing. On the wall, a stone panel with twelve slightly raised pieces were positioned around at eye level. She gazed at it in wonder as she traced the outline of the ancient script with her index finger. The other two came near to see what had gotten her attention.
Sean kept one hand on the cool wall, bracing himself in case some unseen force pushed him toward the pit.
“What is it?” Emily wondered out loud.
Adriana answered by shining her light away from the panel and around the corner into the dark.
A narrow ledge came into view that seemed to wrap around the left side of the huge shaft. It was difficult to see the other side, but as she followed it around the wall with her light, it came to an end at what looked like a doorway.
“So what do we do?” Emily asked.
“I think we go climb back up and get more rope, more gear, and come back down here tomorrow to see how far down we can get in this thing. In fact, maybe we could bring someone instead of myself to do that part of the search.” Sean looked hopeful. Just as he finished his sentence with a childish grin, an odd sound came from outside the cave entrance.
They watched in horror as one rope and then another whizzed by, falling downward into the depths of the cliff. Adriana made a break for it and dove out, recklessly trying to grasp the second rope just as it slithered over the edge and into the canyon depths below.
She lay on the dusty stone floor, her arm still outstretched. Sean ran over quickly and reached down and grabbed her hand, helping her up as she dusted off her tight black pants with the other hand. “What happened?” she asked.
Wyatt turned to Emily to see if she had an answer. Suddenly, a large object whooshed by the entrance, and Sean stepped to the edge to see what it was. Their pilot’s body tumbled through the air below. Sean turned away as it neared the rocky bottom below.
Emily had seen the body as it passed by the entryway and rushed over to look down. Sean grabbed her, but she wrestled him away in time to see Jim Caldwell hit the bottom. She shook violently. “No! No! No!” was all she could get out.
Sean pulled her away from the edge and put his arm around her. He’d worked with her a long time. Emily was a brilliant woman, but not cut out for fieldwork. She’d always been a more administrative type. She handled herself well enough in tough situations, but having to keep on full alert all the time had worn her down. Just like it had him.
A solitary tear had formed in the corner of her right eye. Several minutes went by before Emily began to calm down. She took several deep breaths and tried to steel herself against her emotions. She hadn’t been a field agent in a long time, but it wasn’t the first time she’d lost an ally in the line of duty. It probably wouldn’t be the last.
Sean broke the long silence. “Em, we need to go.” She nodded, and the three trudged slowly back into the cave.
Will fired off one of his last three bullets then dashed over to the hole where Tommy had been sitting only moments before. He shone his light down into the darkness and saw that there was a rushing stream of water but no sign of Schultz. The drop down to the small river looked to be about fifteen feet. He looked back in the direction of the two enemies and decided he’d rather take his chance with the underground river. Something caught his eye in the wall just over the hole. Will realized it was the stone disc and carefully reached over and pulled it out of the indention in the wall.
Will gave one more quick glance back toward the assailants. One of the men had moved into the open and was rushing his way. He raised his weapon and squeezed off one quick shot. The bullet sank into the target’s mid-thigh, sending the man to the floor in a crumpled heap. His partner glanced around from a position behind one of the large columns that had fallen but stayed put. Satisfied he’d done what he could, Will jumped down into the cold, flowing water below.
Carlson watched from behind the large piece of fallen rock as his quarry disappeared into a large hole in the floor. The man had fired off one last shot, dropping his remaining agent. Quickly, he stuck the gun around the front edge of the column and stepped out, waving the weapon around methodically just in case. His man was lying on the ground, clenching his left leg about six inches above the knee. “Can you make it?” he asked, feigning concern.
The agent looked up and nodded, knowing what the other answer would result in. He’d already seen what his boss was capable of and wasn’t in the mood to die in a desert cave.
Hunter reached down and offered him a hand to stand up. The agent hesitated momentarily then reached up and accepted the assistance. “You gonna be able to walk?” Hunter asked.
He nodded again. “Yeah. The bullet’s in the meat of the leg. I’ll be fine.”
“Let’s go after them, then.” Carlson said as he pointed to the hole in the floor.
The man gave a quick nod and started hobbling toward the other side of the room. He knelt down and shone his light down into the rushing water below and around the dark surroundings of the underground river. “Looks clear to me,” he announced over the sound of the flowing water.
“Good,” Hunter replied. Then he raised his gun to the back corner of the man’s head and squeezed the trigger. Dark red fragments splattered the cavern wall, and a moment later the body of the agent dropped into the gushing stream below. If anyone was down there, they would have made it known when the corpse dropped.
Hunter shone his light down into the subterranean tunnel and, satisfied tha
t the coast was clear, jumped in.
The cold mountain water had initially shocked Tommy, but it was carrying him away from trouble—or so he hoped. He had no idea where the underground river was taking him. It was shallow and almost moved him along like a lazy river at a water park. Fortunately, his light was waterproof so he could see around the passageway. He’d been able to right himself as he floated along downstream. There wasn’t much to see, just carved-out rock for the most part. It was hard to tell whether the place was natural or man-made.
The cavernous room they’d just left clearly had manmade components to it. He was amazed by the constructive ability of the ancients to build such elaborate and large-scale things. At the moment, though, he was more concerned about where he was going. As he peered through the darkness in front of him, something terrifying came into view—or disappeared from view as it were.
The river seemed to drop over the edge of an underground waterfall. Swimming against the current would be impossible. The only thing Tommy could do was brace himself and hope the drop wasn’t a big one. He neared the edge and pulled his legs and arms in tight, preparing for the fall. The sound of crashing water grew louder as he got closer. The moment he went over the lip of the river’s end, he felt the air below him open up. Instinctively, he kicked his legs back and forth, wondering when the fall would end. It only lasted a few seconds before he hit the churning water below. He sank deep into the black pool of liquid until he felt the bottom. Frantically, he pushed hard off the floor with his feet and shot toward the surface. His head emerged, and he took a big, wet breath of air. Quickly, he searched around the area with his flashlight and spotted what looked like an underground beach where the water met land.
Tommy paddled hard and soon found himself staggering up onto the sandy earth. He hunched over with his hands on his knees, gasping for breath. Out of the corner of his eye he caught movement on the ceiling. Another flashlight was bobbing around. Someone was coming down the river.
Adriana walked back over to the corner of the short corridor and stretched out, wrapping her foot around to the ledge.
Sean Wyatt Compilation Box Set Page 41
