Eight
Mid-Ohio
July 8, Tuesday late afternoon
“How long has he been missing?” asked Marina Alexander, her attention not on the grave-faced sheriff to whom she was speaking, but on the cave opening looming next to them.
From the looks of it, at least initially, she’d be able to stand upright inside, but she also knew that the cave turned into a labyrinth of narrow, twisting tunnels that burrowed down into the earth.
Named Turncoat Don after a Union soldier who hid inside for three days then escaped to the South and enlisted with the Confederate Army, the cave was such a dangerous warren of tunnels, waterfalls, and streams that the opening could only be accessed if you had the key to a metal door that had been fitted over the cave’s entrance. Unfortunately, Benny James and four of his friends had obtained the key—by fair means or foul, Marina didn’t know—and now he was somewhere lost in the maze deep within the earth.
“More than three hours,” replied Sheriff Tanner, his wrinkled face settling into more lines of tension. “It’s our good luck you and your dog—and your team—were here in the area and heard it on the scanner. Would’ve taken a coupla more hours to get another search and rescue team over here.”
“We can’t promise miracles,” Marina replied, patting her waiting German Shepherd Dog on the head, “but Adele here has just finished her hundredth hour of SAR training, and she’s raring to put it to use.” She flashed a smile then tightened the chin strap that held her helmet firmly in place. “Bruce? Kylie? You with me?” she called to the other two members of her team.
They’d been sharing a ride back to Michigan from a caving expedition in Northern Kentucky—for fun and training for Adele instead of work—when Bruce heard the report on a police scanner app he listened to on his phone. Usually he paid attention to the scanner in order to avoid traffic slowdowns, but in this case, instead of a notification about an accident or construction, a bulletin had come out about a caver lost inside Turncoat Don and the call for help from the authorities.
“Always,” said Bruce, brushing lightly against Marina as he patted Adele on the head. “She’s such a beauty.”
“She’s young yet, but very eager. And super smart,” Marina replied, thinking of her beloved Boris with a sharp pang. The German Shepherd was eleven now and just couldn’t do what he used to when it came to search-and-rescue work. She’d had to leave him at home back in Ann Arbor, but before she left, she’d promised him they’d go on a mission together soon.
She would set it up so he’d have a challenging time, but not too challenging for his arthritic hips and fading hearing. Anything so he could get his tennis ball as a reward. Chomping on the rubbery sphere as he dared her to try to tug it away from him was his favorite thing in the world.
Blinking back a surprise sting of tears, Marina looked down at Adele. The dog’s pretty, narrow face was upturned and her eyes were trained on her mistress as she waited not so patiently for something to do. Her eyebrows were dark and expressive over intense honey-brown eyes. She was Boris’s great-great-grandniece, and the two had bonded well, although Boris definitely made certain Adele knew the pecking order. So to speak. Although Adele had a sharper, more elegant face than her older relative, Marina fancied she saw a lot of Boris in the two-year-old girl.
“Ready, Adele?” she asked, and the dog—who’d sat still and unmoved even during Bruce’s attentions—alerted into a tight, quivering mass whose eyes went bright with anticipation as they locked on Marina.
“All right, let’s do this.” She led her team into the opening of the cave, then took the sock Mrs. James had given her and held it in front of Adele’s nose. “Find Benny!”
The dog, who was equipped with a red harness boasting reflective strips and a small glow light on the back, bolted into action as if she’d just been released from a tight leash. Her nose bopped to and around the ground as she sniffed around in circles, then, once she caught Benny’s scent, it moved up and around and back to the ground again in a familiar arrhythmic pattern as she picked up and followed the boy’s scent.
Marina well knew how dogs’ noses worked to find and filter through the stew of smells that constantly assaulted them. As each person moved through the environment, they threw off a cone of scent that left rafts of cells and bacteria wafting behind, imbued with their personal smell. Adele and other trailing dogs checked the ground and other surfaces where the rafts fell, as well as the air—where scent also hovered—as they followed the particular smell they were asked to track.
Marina stepped inside, turning on her headlamp, and was immediately embraced by the familiar cool, clammy scent of the earth’s interior. She smelled sulfur, rust, and dampness. The walls of the cave were pale gray-brown, rough on the ceiling but smoother on the sides where, for centuries—perhaps even millennia—countless hands had touched the stone as humans (including Turncoat Don) made their way into and through the passage.
Adele started into the leftmost of three passages that led to the depths of the earth and the cave, and Marina followed her working dog.
Sheriff Tanner had provided them with maps, and as Bruce and Kylie trailed behind, the beams from their own headlamps bouncing around in the dark tunnel like spotlights at a furniture sale, Marina checked her map and discovered that this tunnel was known as Lefty’s Cleft. Lefty’s appeared to lead to a large cavern about a half-mile in that had a stream running through it, and about ten different tunnels branching off from the vast open area.
As always, Marina was happy to be inside the sharp, cold environment of the earth’s passages, but she wouldn’t be spending time admiring the variety of speleothems they’d likely encounter within. A young man’s life was at stake. It was up to her and Adele and the rest of the team to do what they could to save him.
Fifteen-year-old Benny James and four of his friends had gone into the cave early that morning. They’d gotten separated, and he hadn’t come out.
When Marina and her friends arrived, a group of four other teens had been sitting pale-faced and green around the gills next to the police car and ambulance with their parents standing around like sentries. Marina knew the teens were in a heap of trouble, even barring what happened with Benny, because somehow one of the boys had obtained the key to the cave door—which was only supposed to be given out to those who’d reached their majority and who signed a release. Which, obviously, none of them had done.
“Good girl, Adele. Find Benny,” she said again as the dog paused to look back at her. Adele darted away at this encouragement, nose once again bouncing from the cave floor to the air, and along the flowstones on the sides of the tunnel walls and back to the ground again.
“Sorry about the busman’s holiday, guys,” Marina said, taking advantage of the fact that she could still look over her shoulder before the tunnel became too close and tight to turn. At least she was still upright.
Kylie was just behind her, and Bruce’s taller form loomed close behind the younger, very petite woman.
Marina had been working on SAR—search and rescue—missions with Bruce for years, and there was absolutely no one else she trusted more with her life, those of her dogs’, and that of whomever they were on a mission to find, but she was a little apprehensive about their third companion.
Kylie was like Adele—young and eager—and she had far less experience than Marina and Bruce. But she was also small—barely five foot two and around a hundred pounds. Because of the nature of cave rescue, it was important for a well-rounded team to have a more petite member who could more easily crawl and maneuver through tight spaces—which was often where people got stuck.
Of course, someone Kylie’s size wouldn’t have the strength to forcefully extract someone who was stuck, but she could scout the area and offer initial assistance to the victim. If she couldn’t help them get free, then she could offer water, first aid, or blankets to a victim, then move away for the larger, stronger members to do the brute work, using ropes, pulleys, an
d other extraction tools as necessary.
“No problem,” Kylie replied cheerfully. “I’m really glad to be getting my feet wet this way.”
Marina hoped the young woman didn’t literally get her feet wet, which was a very real possibility in a cave known for gushing water flows.
“Whither thou goest and all that,” Bruce said jovially in his deep voice, which echoed gently around them. His headlamp was tall enough that it beamed over Marina, its light joining with the stronger one shining from her helmet. “We’re a team, aren’t we?”
They were a team, Marina agreed, but not in all the ways Bruce wanted them to be—which was another reason she’d invited Kylie to join them on the trip. Bruce had separated from his wife almost a year ago, and their divorce was due to be final at any time. Marina wasn’t certain what was going to happen after that, but she knew she wasn’t interested in any sort of serious relationship with Bruce. Not now. And probably not for a long time, if ever.
Her feelings—or lack thereof—could cause a serious rift in their cohesive team. Before now, the wedding ring he’d worn had worked as a sort of barrier against anything more than professionalism. But now, things had a completely different feel.
Ahead, Adele gave a short, sharp bark, and Marina tucked the map inside her innermost pocket, trusting that Bruce would manage the navigation and mark their trail with small plastic flags so she could handle the dog.
The short yip was Adele’s check-in, to make sure her handler was still with her—still playing the game of search and find.
“Good girl, Adele! Find Benny!” And then Marina cupped her hands around her mouth and called, “Benny! Benny James!”
Her shout echoed and bounced around them, but Marina didn’t hear any response. Still, Adele’s testing bark indicated she’d found something that kept her on the trail.
The tunnel narrowed enough that Marina, who was five foot six and slender of shoulder, had to duck and twist to the side for a few steps as she followed in her dog’s path. The tunnel tightened and widened in turn as it curved and bent, and Marina had to hold her breath, bend, turn, and edge gingerly in order to get through in places. “Cleft” was an appropriate name for this narrow, twisty passage of golden-brown rock.
She hoped Bruce would be able to make it through—though for a big man, he was surprisingly adept at maneuvering through tight places. He was six feet tall and nearly two hundred pounds of muscle—extremely helpful when it came to needing bulk and strength for a rescue, but not so much in tight channels like this one.
Yet, despite the inherent dangers of being in a cave—winding, narrow tunnels, unexpected water streams and flash floods, labyrinthine passages that all looked the same—Marina felt completely at home in this sort of embrace from the Earth.
There was so much beauty here, in the womb of Gaia. Color that ranged from crystal to rusty brown to bluish-gray to pale yellow. Texture that was soft and bubbly or spiky and stiletto-like, or rippling and draping in appearance—all formed from mineral deposits.
When she stilled and listened, removing a glove to put her bare hand on the walls or floor of these interior spaces, Marina swore she could feel the heartbeat of Mother Earth.
She’d always been drawn to the inside of the Earth, and she’d been a caver for many years before she learned about her family’s heritage and the fact that her father and grandfather were the leaders of a small, secretive tribe that honored and worshipped Gaia. They were called the Skaladeskas and had lived in the Taymyria region of Siberia until five or six years ago.
It seemed Marina’s attachment and love for being underground and within the depths of the Earth were obviously ingrained in her by her ancestors. It was as close as one could get to the entity—the living being most called Earth—that had, according to tradition, birthed her grandfather Lev.
Gaia, I’m here.
Marina said the words strongly in her mind as she pressed a bare hand against the bumpy, wet wall, pausing for a moment to allow the Earth’s energy to vibrate gently into her palm. I feel you.
And she did: she felt the gentle, subtle, living tremor that was Gaia’s response to her daughter’s acknowledgement.
Adele barked in the distance.
“She’s found something,” Marina said, shoving her hand back into its protective glove as she picked up the pace—still careful, but with a little more speed. “Good girl, Adele!” she called.
“All right, I’ll—” Whatever Bruce was about to say was cut off by a feminine oof! and a sharp cry of pain from Kylie, followed by a rattling thud.
She bumped into Marina from behind as she tumbled, and Kylie’s headlamp clanged brutally against the stone. Its light instantly popped into darkness. “Ow,” Kylie said, her voice tight. “That hurt.”
“You all right, Kylie? Bruce?” Marina felt a little agitated as Adele continued to bark in the distance. The dog was trained to stay with the find until her handler arrived or commanded her otherwise, continuing to alert until help appeared. The urgent barking echoed through the cavern, adding a desperate layer to the situation.
“I’m good,” Bruce said. “Looks like you went down pretty hard, Kylie.”
“I think I turned my ankle,” said the young woman, her voice thready with pain. “Stepped down wrong on a stone. Ouch. I felt a yucky sort of pop, so it might be a tendon or something.”
“All right, we’ll get you out of here,” Marina said as the dog continued her alert barking in the distance. “Bruce, can you help her out? I’ve got to get to Adele.”
“I think my lantern went out too,” Kylie said. “I can’t put any weight on my ankle. I’m sorry.”
“I’ll call back to the ground and let them know we’ve got a casualty and we need help,” said Bruce, who already had the radio the sheriff had given him in his hand. “Kylie, you can lean on me and we can start to make our way back.”
“I’m on my way to Adele,” said Marina, adjusting her chin strap once more. Kylie’s bump had knocked it a little askew. “Sounds like she’s found Benny.”
Bruce said sharply, “Just wait a few, Marina—I can go with you after we get Kylie out—”
“It’s not far—I can hear Adele,” she said, talking over him. “I’ll be fine.”
Yes, safe caving rules required no one going in alone—three people minimum must stay together all the time, unless one of them were injured—which: case in point. “Tanner and his team will be in here shortly to help you get her out. I need to see what Adele’s found.” And what condition Benny James was in.
“I can wait here by myself,” said Kylie. “You can go on with Marina.”
Marina looked at Bruce over the slumped girl’s head. Their eyes met and he grimaced, but the message was there: he’d stay with the less experienced caver, who was more likely to have problems staying warm in the chill temperature. Marina would go on to find her dog.
“I’ll be right behind you,” he said firmly, holding her eyes with his. “As soon as I can. Be careful.”
Nine
Central Ohio
Tuesday afternoon
Randy Ritter jounced along in his rig. The highway rolled out in front of him like a silver-gray ribbon, curving then rising and falling then curving again.
The thunderstorm was more than thirty minutes behind him—it had been more bluster than anything else, he’d happily discovered—and there was even a chance he might make it to Tier 1 Truck Stop before ten p.m.
But until then, it was just Randy and the open road, filled with possibility and adventure, solitude and routine.
That was the reason he drove long hauls. He liked being alone with his thoughts, and when those weren’t enough, he’d listen to the latest audiobook by Lee Child or David Baldacci. The stories gave him something to think about during the hours of endless road.
Like now, when he was heading west here in middle Ohio. Flat, yellow, and empty were the farm fields that rolled on by as he cruised along. Too bad the windows had to be close
d so he could hear the audiobook story—which was about one of the badass men who saved the world every other week. It was ridiculous how often the nation, the world, even the solar system was at risk in those tales, but the thrillers and adventure stories held his interest during the long days.
Randy had thought more than once he should write a book like that. He had plenty of time to think up a plot with all these hours alone, trundling along. He’d come up with a few already, based on “what if” thoughts he’d had over the years.
What if a rig like his stopped to pick up a hitchhiker (not that Randy would ever do something like that) and the hitchhiker turned out to be a radioactive zombie?
What if a tractor was parked at a truck stop, and four days later a dead body was found in the sleeper section—and the corpse wasn’t the driver?
What if a guy was hired to drive a load across the country and he was hijacked along the way—only to find out the load he was hauling was uranium? Or dead bodies? Or the president of the United States?
Or his body?
That would be a story.
He smiled to himself. He could give Baldacci or Rollins or Cussler a run for their money if he just had the time to sit down and write out the words. Maybe one of them would want to buy his idea and write it themselves. He scratched the sparse hair on his head and adjusted the visor overhead, for the sun was just about to that place where it shone directly between the bottom of the visor and the top of the horizon—right in his eyes.
And his mangled, four-hundred-dollar prescription sunglasses hung uselessly from the visor.
How did those glasses makers get away with charging so damned much money for a pair of specs? It was highway robbery, it was, and Randy and his wife didn’t have eye insurance to help cover the costs.
He sure as hell wasn’t looking forward to telling her that he’d stepped on his four-hundred-dollar sunglasses. Not at all.
Good thing he wasn’t going to be home for another four days—had to finish this haul to Louisville, then pick up another and take that one to Nashville. That’d give him time to come up with a good story that didn’t include his klutziness. Maybe Bill Nodd would have some ideas.
Sanskrit Cipher: A Marina Alexander Adventure Page 7
