F Paul Wilson - Novel 03 (16 page)

           
 
He hurried toward her as quickly as he dared
but she was back on the ledge and on her feet again by the time he reached her.

           
 
"What happened?"

           
 
Pale, panting, she leaned against the cliff
wall, hugging it. "I slipped, but I'm okay."

           
 
Suddenly he was angry. His heart was pounding,
his hands were trembling . . .

           
 
"You almost killed yourself, dammit!"

           
 
"Sorry," she said softly. "That
wasn't my intention, I assure you."

           
 
"Just slow down, will you? I don't want
to lose you."

           
 
That smile. "That's nice to hear."

           
 
"Here. Let me slide past you and
I'll
lead the way."

           
 
"Not a chance. I'll take my time from
here on up." She held up two fingers. "Promise."

           
 
Carrie kept her word, taking it slow, watching
her footing, with Dan close behind. They reached the summit without another
mishap. He glanced around—no one else here, and no place to hide.

           
 
"Oh, Lord," Carrie said, wandering
across the top of the
tav
toward the
far edge. "Look at this!"

           
 
Dan caught up to her and put an arm around her
shoulders, as much for a need to touch her as to stop her from getting too
close to the edge. The sun cooked their backs while the desert wind dried the
sweat from the climb, and before them stretched the eastern expanse of the
Midbar Yehuda,
all hills and mounds and
shadowed crags, looking like a rumpled yellow-brown blanket after a night of
passion, sloping down to the lowest point on earth where a sliver of the Dead
Sea was visible, sparkling in the late afternoon sun.

           
 
Breathtaking, Dan thought. This almost makes
the whole wild-goose chase worthwhile.

           
 
Together they turned from the vista and
scanned the mini-plateau atop the
tav.
It
ran two hundred feet from the front lip to the rear wall, and was perhaps a
hundred and fifty feet wide. And against that rear wall, to the left of center,
was a pile of rocks.

           
 
Carrie grabbed his upper arm. He felt her
fingers sink into his biceps as she pointed to the rocks.

           
 
"Oh, God, Dan! There it is!"

           
 
"Just some rocks, Carrie. Doesn't
mean—"

           
 
"She's there, Dan. We've found her! We've
found
her!"

           
 
She broke from him and dashed across the
plateau. Dan hurried after her.

           
 
Here it comes, he thought. Here's where the
roof falls in on Carrie's quest.

           
 
By the time he reached the pile, Carrie was on
it, scrambling to the top. The pile was about eight feet high and she was
already at work pulling at the uppermost rocks to dislodge them.

           
 
"Easy, Carrie," Dan said as he
climbed to her side and joined her atop the pile. "The last thing we need
is for you to slip and sprain an ankle. I have no idea how I'd get you back
down."

           
 
"Help me," Carrie said, breathless
with excitement. "She's just a few feet away. We're almost there! I
can feel
it!"

           
 
Dan joined her in dislodging the uppermost
rocks and letting them roll to the base. The first were on the small side,
cantaloupe-sized and easy to move. But they quickly graduated to watermelons.

           
 
Carrie groaned as she strained against one of
the larger stones. "I can't budge this. Give me a hand, will you?"

           
 
Dan got a grip on the edge of the rock and put
his back into it and together they got it overbalanced to the point where it
tumbled down the pile.

           
 
Dan saw even bigger stones below.

           
 
"We're going to need help," he said,
panting and straightening up. The sun was still actively baking the top of the
tav
rock and he was drenched. "A
lever of some sort. We'll never move those lower rocks by ourselves. Maybe I
can find a tree limb or something we can use to—"

           
 
"We've
got
to get in!" Carrie said. Tears of frustration welled in
her eyes as she looked up at him. "We can't stop now. Not when we're this
close. We can't let a bunch of lousy rocks keep us out when we're so
close!”

           
 
With the last word she kicked at one of the
larger stones directly below her—and cried out in alarm as it gave way beneath
her. Dan grabbed her outflung hand and almost lost his own footing as the
entire pile shuddered and settled under them with a rumble and a gush of dust.

           
 
"You all right?" Dan said, pulling
Carrie closer.

           
 
She coughed. "I think so. What
happened?"

           
 
"I'm not sure." The dust was
settling, layering their skin, mixing with their sweat. Even with mud on her
face Carrie was beautiful. Over her shoulder, down by Carrie's feet, Dan saw a
dark crescent in the mountain wall. "Oh, Jesus."

           
 
Carrie turned and gasped. "The
cave!"

           
 
Maybe, Dan thought. Maybe not. The only sure
thing about it is it's a hole in the wall.

           
But he knew it was the upper rim of
a cave mouth. Had to be. Everything else in this elaborate scam had followed
true to the forged scroll. Why not the cave too?

           
 
But what sort of ugly surprise waited within?

           
 
Before he could stop her, Carrie had dropped prone
and pushed her face into the opening.

           
 
"We left the flashlights in the
car," she was saying. "And I can't see a thing."

           
 
Quickly he pulled her back. "Are you
nuts?"

           
 
"What's the matter?"

           
 
"You don't know what's in there."

           
 
"What could be in there?"

           
 
"How about snakes or scorpions? Or how
about bats? It's a cave, you know."

           
 
"I know that, but—"

           
 
"But nothing," he said, pulling her
to her feet. "You keep your nose out of there while I go get the
flashlights."

           
 
"All right," she said reluctantly as
she allowed him to guide her down to the bottom of the pile. "Can't see
anything anyway."

           
 
"Precisely. So you just wait here while I
go back to the Explorer."

           
 
"Okay, but hurry." She squeezed his
hand. "Don't hurry so much you fall, but hurry."

           
 
Dan made the round trip as quickly as he
could, hugging the cliff wall all the way down, concentrating on the path and
not looking down. He did spot another cave in the far wall of the
canyon—probably where the fictional author of the scrolls supposedly had lived.
He reminded himself to check it out before they left.

           
 
The sun had continued its slide and the shadow
of the canyon's western wall had crawled three-quarters of the way up the
tav
by the time he returned to the top
with the two flashlights.

           
He stood there a moment, panting,
sweating from the climb, before he realized he was alone on the plateau.

           
 
"Carrie?" He dashed toward the rock
pile, shouting as he ran.
"Carrie!”

           
 
"What?"

           
 
Her head popped up atop the rock pile, smiling
at him, and as he clambered up the boulders he saw her lying on her belly with
her legs and pelvis inside the opening. She looked like someone half-swallowed
by a stony mouth.

           
 
"My God, Carrie, couldn't you wait? Get
out of there!"

           
 
"I'm fine." She reached a hand out
to him. "Flashlight please."

           
 
"I'll go first."

           
 
"No way. You didn't even want to
come."

           
 
Dan was tempted to withhold the flashlight,
make her climb out of there and let him flash a light around inside that hole
before she crawled in. But the excitement, the childlike eagerness in her eyes
weakened him. And after all, this was her show.

           
 
He flicked one on to make sure it worked, then
slapped the handle into her waiting palm.

           
 
"Be careful. And wait right there. Don't
go anywhere without me."

           
 
"Okay." Another smile, so confident
looking, but Dan noticed the flashlight shaking in her hand. She pushed herself
backward and slipped the rest of the way inside.

           
 
A chill of foreboding ran through Dan as he
saw Carrie disappear into that hole, swallowed by the darkness. God knew what
could be in there.

           
 
"Carrie? You there? You okay?"

           
 
Her face floated back into the light. "Of
course I'm okay. Kind of cool in here, and dusty, and it looks . . .
empty."

           
 
I could have told you that, Dan thought, but
kept it to himself. He'd give anything to make this right for her, but that was
impossible. So the least he could do was be there when the hurt hit.

           
 
"Stand back a little. I'm coming
in."

           
 
Dan slid down onto his back and entered the
opening feet first. A tight squeeze but he managed to wriggle through with only
a few minor scrapes and scratches.

           
 
Carrie stood a few feet away, her back to him,
playing her flashlight beam along the walls.

           
 
"You're right," he said, coughing as
he brushed himself off. "A lot cooler in here. Almost cold."

           
 
Quickly he flashed his own beam around. Not a
cave so much as a rocky alcove, maybe a dozen feet deep and fifteen wide, with
rough, pocked walls. And no doubt about its being empty. Not even a spider.
Just dust—dry, powdered rock—layering the floor. Only Carrie's footprints and
his own marred the silky surface.

           
 
What do I say? he wondered. Do I say
anything
—or let Carrie say it first?

           
 
As he stepped toward her, Carrie suddenly
moved away to the left.

           
 
"Look, Dan. I think there's a tunnel
here."

           
 
Dan caught up to her, joined his flash beam to
hers, and realized that what he had thought to be a pocket recess near the
floor of the cave was actually an opening into another chamber.

           
 
Carrie dropped to her hands and knees and
shone her light through.

           
 
"See anything?" Dan said, hovering
over her.

           
 
"Looks like more of the same. Tunnels
only a couple of feet long. I'm going in for a look."