BRAINRUSH 02 - The Enemy of My Enemy (15 page)

“Watch your steps,” Tony said over his shoulder as he maneuvered around a jagged outcropping. His voice sounded hollow between the rocky walls. He’d been furious that Jake had fooled him so easily, but he’d buried his anger quickly, honoring his friend’s sacrifice and fixing his mind on the task at hand. It was his job to make sure the group wasn’t anywhere close to the house if the satchel charges went off.

After several minutes the passageway leveled off. The air grew moist and Tony heard the flow of water ahead. Ten paces further and the tunnel exited into an airy grotto. It was so large that its walls disappeared beyond the reach of his flashlight.

Sarafina gasped.

A twenty-five-foot-wide river split the space. Its smoothly undulating surface shimmered beneath Tony’s light. Gravel crunched underfoot as the rest of the group moved forward to absorb the view. Their flashlights panned the space, causing ominous shadows to dance across a forty-foot-high ceiling that bristled with colorful stalactites. Some of the larger ones had joined with stalagmites to form an endless row of crude columns on the opposite side of the emerald river. Small clusters of crystalline quartz jutted from the rock walls, twisting the beams of light and separating them into a rainbow of colors that flickered against the stone.

Max rushed to the river’s edge and sniffed the water. It must have passed the nose test because he lapped it in a long drink, his tail wagging at full speed.

Tony lowered Sarafina to the ground.

“Be careful,” he said. She ran over and motioned for Becker to lower Josh as well. The boy’s face was filled with apprehension.

“It’s really cool, Josh,” she said softly. “Let me show you.”

She took his hand and carefully escorted him to the river’s edge. She painted the scene with her words.

Everyone paused for a moment to listen to her artful description of the ancient underground world that surrounded them. Watching the two children triggered a new round of worries in Tony about his family. He said a prayer for their safety.

When Sarafina was finished, Josh inhaled deeply.

“It smells like Pirates of the Caribbean,” he said.

“You’re right, pal,” Tony said. It was his kids’ favorite attraction, and he was relieved that Josh latched onto a happier memory in the midst of this nightmare. “And we’re going for a boat ride just like at Disneyland.”

Two inflatable four-man rafts were tied off on the narrow shoreline. Their ends bobbed at the river’s edge. Tony and Becker had prepped the rafts the day before, loading them with life jackets and emergency gear. Papa, Jake, and Tony had brought the gear on a previous visit and navigated down the river to the exit point. It was a quarter-mile away.

Marshall picked up on the need to keep the mood light. He began singing the Pirates theme song, “
Yo ho, yo ho, the pirate’s life for me..
.”

When he stumbled over the next verse, Becker took over. “
We pillage, we plunder, we rifle and loot, drink up, me hearties, yo ho
,” he sang, waving his free hand as though it held a mug of ale. “
We kidnap and ravage and don’t give a hoot, drink up, me hearties, yo ho.
”

Everyone joined in the chorus. “
Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate’s life for me.
” Their voices echoed off the canyon walls.

Becker kept the song going. Tony grinned at the fact that the tough Aussie knew all the words. The release of tension in the group was palpable. It was just what they needed at the moment.

Tony used the distraction to get everybody outfitted for what lay ahead. He handed out life vests one by one. Caving helmets were next. Each had a fully charged LED lamp affixed to it. He added his burly voice to the chorus, “
Yo ho, yo ho…
”

Though the adults exchanged worried glances, they kept the song going for the sake of the children. Lacey and Marshall helped them with their gear.

After donning his own gear, Tony picked up the two remaining vests. Like the others, they each had a bright yellow cylinder the size of a soda can strapped to the front. The clear rubber mouthpiece on top of the can provided up to thirty breaths of emergency oxygen. He leaned them against the wall of the cavern. Whatever Jake planned to do up above, if he and Francesca made it down here, they’d need the vests to float down river without a raft.

He hoped like hell they’d get a chance to use them.

**

Becker, Bradley, Josh, and Marshall piled into one of the boats. The boy clung to his teacher’s side. Max jumped in and Marshall pressed him to the floor near his position at the front. As soon as he took his hand from the dog, Max sat back up. Marshall urged him down again. Max popped back up. Relenting, Marshall let Max settle in with his front paws on his lap and his head on the bow. Lacey and Sarafina huddled together in the lead boat with Tony. The entire group stared into the blackness beyond the reach of their lights. No one was singing.

It seemed as if everyone took a collective breath when Tony and Becker pushed them from the shore. The slow current grabbed the boats and pulled them downstream. Neither raft had an outboard motor. Tony and Becker steered with paddles from their seats at the stern. Marshall and Lacey had paddles in hand, but they wouldn’t be required on the short ride. Between here and the exit point, the river flowed with a gentle ripple.

“Beck,” Tony called out to the raft behind him. “The river splits at the end of this cavern. We take the right fork. After that, our landing point is about three hundred yards on the right. We’ve posted a string of luminescent flags on the wall to mark the spot.”

“Right-o, Cap’n,” Becker said in his best pirate drawl. After a moment, he added, “Just out of curiosity, what happens if we take the left fork?”

Tony glanced over his shoulder at Becker and gave a subtle shake of his head. With the children hanging on every word, he wasn’t about to relay what Papa had told him—that the few people who had ventured down that fork had never come out the other side.

He focused his attention ahead, steering the raft along the right edge of the river. He hummed the chorus to the pirate song.

The deafening explosion behind them fractured his nerves. Tony felt a rush of air just before the shock wave hit his back like a Mack truck. The wind was knocked from his lungs, the paddle flew from his hands, and he somersaulted into the water.

The life jacket pulled him to the surface, and he bobbed alongside the spinning raft. The cavern rumbled all around him, shaking like an 8.0 quake. Stalactites split from the ceiling and speared into the water. One of them impacted not three feet from his head. Smaller pellets clattered off his helmet. A huge slab of limestone separated from the nearby cavern’s edge and crashed into the water like a calving iceberg. Heavy splashes emanated from the darkness all around them.

“Tony!” Lacey shouted.

He looked up to see Lacey’s face in the beam of his helmet lamp. She leaned over the edge of the boat with her hand extended. He grabbed her wrist and steadied himself against the side of the raft. Another deafening rumble and a huge wave cascaded over them, sucking Tony’s head under water. Lacey’s grip tightened. Her nails dug into the flesh of his wrist. He surfaced and coughed water from his lungs. He caught a brief glimpse of Max paddling desperately past him in the sudden rage of water. Like a huge breaker rushing to shore, the wave raced onward and vanished into the blackness, taking the dog with it. Tony feared the worst for the poor animal. With a grimace, he reached up with his free hand and grabbed the rope that was looped along the top edge of the raft.

He was about to heave himself upward when the water calmed. He felt his feet drag along the river bottom and in a matter of moments both he and the raft came to a lurching halt. They rested on a sprawling bed of polished river rocks that suddenly had less than three inches of water flowing over it.

“What the hell?” Tony said as he pushed himself to his feet.

Lacey and Sarafina peered over the edge of the raft. Their eyes widened in dismay. The second raft had come to a rest ten paces away. The rest of the team was cocooned safely within its confines, huddled together under Becker’s watchful gaze. A catfish flapped in a small pool of water beside them. The river was gone.

Tony looked past them upriver. “Shit,” he muttered.

The entire ceiling of the cavern had collapsed under the force of the explosion above. Thousands of tons of earth and limestone had mixed with debris from the hundred-year-old structure. It filled the cavernous space from wall to wall, damming the river behind it. Pale moonlight shone through a new vent in the ceiling.

He jogged upriver to get a closer look, dodging around broken stalactites and splashing through puddles. “Get everyone out of the rafts and up to the shoreline,” he shouted as he passed Becker’s boat.

“What’s happening?” Josh screamed. “Where’s Max?”

Tony ignored him and kept moving. The beam from his helmet bounced across the riverbed. Twenty paces later the dam towered before him. Tony’s worst fears were confirmed when he saw water bubbling through the mud wall. The sodden earth would soon succumb to the mountain pressure of the water behind it. A chunk of debris punched outward from midway up the dam. The gurgle of water that replaced it widened to an angry, spitting stream.

Tony spun around and ran like hell. The river would not be denied. Streams could grow to torrents at any moment and blast through the makeshift dam, pulling mud, stone, and debris along with it. Anything in its path would be obliterated.

**

Tony and Becker scooped up the children and the group raced toward the end of the cavern.

“How much further?” Marshall asked. The team’s emergency pack bounced on his shoulder as he jumped over a boulder.

The water level in the center of the riverbed continued to rise. The previous trickle had grown to a fast-flowing creek. Running past a row of twisted limestone columns, Tony glanced up and noted that the cavern’s ceiling was beginning to slope downward.

“The split’s just ahead,” he shouted. “From there it’s a couple minutes to the exit.”

Five paces later the group came to a stop. The beams from their helmet lamps panned the sight before them. Tony’s heart sank. The entrance to the right fork—and safety—had collapsed during the explosion. The stream boiled and splashed against the limestone obstruction before coursing with growing force into the center of the downward-sloping left passageway.

Max’s bark pierced the gloom. He bounded from the opening and spun twice around as if eager to lead the way.

No choice, Tony thought.

“Let’s go,” he shouted. He ignored the warning bells going off in his head and followed the dog into the darkness.

Chapter 28

Beneath the Sonoran Desert, Mexico

T
he tunnel stretched beyond the reach of their lamps. It looked like a smaller version of the expansive cavern behind them. There was a forest of stalactites suspended thirty feet overhead. Crystalline structures jutted from the walls.

The tunnel was about double the width of a New York subway. A wide trough ran down its center, much of it already underwater. The expanding stream twisted and turned as it stretched into the darkness. The loose silt along its edges shimmered under the beam of Tony’s lamp and he wondered if he was running over a fortune in gold dust. But he wasn’t about to stop and check. This tunnel was a deathtrap that could spring at any moment.

The stream of water widened a few inches with every step. Small rooster tails began to form over some of the larger rocks in its path. The flow would soon be impossible to ford.

“Hug the right wall,” Tony shouted to the group behind him. Josh pressed against his chest, supported easily by Tony’s left arm as he clung to Tony’s neck, humming the pirate theme song. Josh’s voice caught with each of Tony’s steps. Max scampered beside them, occasionally glancing up as if to ensure his master was safe.

The path sloped downward, the walls narrowed, and the stream picked up speed. Tony prayed for a path that would lead them to the safety of the right fork. He scanned for any sign of an opening. That’s when he noticed the wavy line of discoloration that suddenly appeared along the base of the wall. It angled upward as the passage continued to narrow. Within ten paces the line was at chest level.

He panned his light across the other side of the cavern. He grimaced when he saw the matching delineation along the far wall. The water line had been created when only half of the river had traveled down this course. What would happen when its entire volume was forced through these confines? 

He scanned the ceiling. The longest of the stalactites hovered just fifteen feet overhead. Would the torrent rise above that when the dam burst? If so, they’d be shredded to the bone.

He picked up his pace. “Keep it moving!” he said over his shoulder. He searched the gloom ahead, but there were no ledges, no beaches, no signs of an exit. If anything, the tunnel seemed to narrow further. Whether he liked it or not, it sure as hell looked like they were going for a swim.