MESMERIZED, MICHAEL STARED at the apparatus. “Some kind of winch assembly lowered that. Doubtless it pulls it back up again.”
“Michael.” Molly pushed at him. “We’ve got to go.”
They could hear men shouting through the door. “In there!”
“There’s nowhere to go out of that room!”
Michael switched off his torch, put it in his pocket and formed a stirrup with his hands and nodded at Molly. “Up you go, love.”
“Michael.”
“No time to argue.”
Molly stepped into his hands and he boosted her up. The light went with her. She pulled herself over the edge and through the hole, and only then did Michael realize that he might have just delivered her to her death. “Molly?”
She stuck her face back through the opening. “There’s another passageway. Hurry.”
Michael formed a stirrup again and lifted Lydia, as well. Molly helped guide the younger woman through. As soon as her weight was out of his hands, Michael leaped up and grabbed the lip of the opening. He hauled himself up just as the door burst open and lights flooded the room below.
Draghici yelled curses. “I know you’ve got a gun, Michael Graham. If you give it up, I’ll let you and your missus live.”
Not bloody likely. Michael stood inside the passageway and took out his torch, adding its light to Molly’s.
Three passageways loomed before them, none of them natural.
Michael took a deep breath. “God, I do so hate Charles Crowe.”
“Which way?” Molly scanned the walls with her torch.
“I don’t know.” Michael stepped forward. “I’ll go—”
“To the right. It’s as good a guess as any, and I won’t have you taking every risk.”
Before Michael could dissuade her, Molly disappeared into the passageway on the right. Lydia followed her immediately, then screamed.
Panicked, Michael peered into the narrow tunnel, expecting another skeleton. Instead, he saw only Molly, with Lydia nowhere in sight.
“She fell!” Molly’s face was ghost-white.
“Michael!”
Glancing down, heart banging at the back of his throat, he saw Lydia revealed in his torchlight. She clung desperately to an outcrop of rock that hung over an abyss.
Lowering himself on one knee, Michael caught hold of her wrist and pulled her up.
As they soothed the shaking woman, Draghici’s voice below drew Michael’s attention.
“Did you hear me, Michael Graham? I’ll not be asking again.”
They returned to the opening.
“Two passages to go.” Michael gave Molly his torch.
“I don’t see another secret door.”
“We didn’t see the last one, love.” Michael tracked her movements and at the same time watched for activity through the hole to the lower room.
“Or the drop-off.”
“That was a nasty bit of business, and I’m sure we can only expect more of the same.”
“Charles Crowe was a very sadistic man.”
“Couldn’t agree with you more. Shine the torch a little to your left.”
Molly did, and Michael spotted a small lever jutting from the wall. There was no reason to hide the door’s operations up here. He hoped it would allow them to close the entrance before Draghici and his gang discovered it. He pulled the lever and the machinery ground away again.
More rapidly than it had lowered, the trap door rose. The long rods pulled up into a metal structure bolted into the stone walls around it. Michael thought about that. “It’s counterweighted, but easier going up than down. That’s interesting.”
“What’s interesting about that?” The light darted about as Molly continued searching.
“If the mechanism failed, or was jammed somehow, no one below would be able to climb up into this area.”
“So Charles Crowe and his treasure would be safe from anyone looking for it?”
“And perhaps from his crew. I’m sure they were an avaricious lot themselves. Like tends to attract like.”
“That’s why we’re together.”
Michael smiled at her through the darkness.
The door continued to rise as Draghici and his men realized what was happening and looked up. One of them caught hold of the circular plate and hauled himself up.
He can’t make it, Michael thought. There isn’t time. Stunned, he watched as the man scrambled onto the platform. Michael lifted the pistol.
The man pointed his own gun at Michael as he tried to gain his footing on the plate. Before he could draw up his legs completely, the platform closed on his thighs like the jaws of a monstrous beast. Flesh pulped and bone cracked. The gypsy screamed in agony and dropped his weapon.
Lydia gave a cry and turned away. Molly averted her face.
Even though the man meant him harm, probably would have killed him, Michael shoved his pistol into the waistband of his pants and grabbed the trapped gypsy’s arm. Although he pulled as hard as he could, the man didn’t budge. The stone held tight but mercifully the mechanism had stopped for the moment.
“Draghici!” Michael had to yell over the man’s screams. “Draghici!”
“I hear you, Graham.”
“Your man is caught. There’s a release down there.”
Lydia stared at Michael. “No. You can’t tell them.”
Michael turned on her, angry because he felt so helpless. “I can’t let him die.” And I can’t get us out of here. He raised his voice. “Over by the door. Near the bottom on the right-hand side.”
The trapped man went slack. At first, Michael thought he’d just passed out from the pain, but when he put his fingers against the fellow’s throat, there was no pulse. Swallowing the sudden sickness that pooled at the back of his own throat, Michael peered through the narrow gap between the platform and the floor.
Draghici was on his hands and knees at the wall, shoving the bricks with both hands. “It’s not working!”
“It’s too late. He’s dead.” Michael stared at the blood spilling into the lower room. Droplets splattered on the group below.
“Your fault, Graham. You killed him.”
Ignoring the accusation, Michael turned his thoughts to survival and started going through the dead man’s clothes. He took the pistol equipped with a minitorch, then took a full-size torch from the man’s coat.
“Find something to pry that rock open,” Draghici ordered his men below. “Do it now.” The gypsy leader stood up and tried his mobile. Evidently there was no signal because he cursed and shoved it back in his pocket. Michael wondered who Draghici was calling. The ransom demand for Lydia had surely already been met by Aleister.
Michael turned to Molly. “Draghici’s got men outside the caves. Probably in town.” Even when they got top-side, they wouldn’t necessarily be safe.
Michael finished searching the man’s clothes. There was a mobile under his shirt, tucked into his waistband. Michael took it, powered it on and checked the battery. It was nearly fully charged.
“A bit of luck with the mobile.” A quick glance at the signal bars confirmed that he was as unfortunate as Draghici. “But no luck on a connection.”
“Look out!” Lydia pointed at the gap in the floor.
One of the gypsies had climbed up and was pointing his pistol through the opening beside his companion’s dead body. Michael stood, took a step and stomped on the gypsy’s hand. Bones cracked and the man yelled harshly. The gun slipped free and slid through the gap as the man tumbled backward.
Two other goons thrust their hands through the hole, as well, and Michael turned back to Lydia and Molly.
They still had a decision to make and no time to make it. “This way.” Molly pointed to a carved single line on top of the entry. “I’ve got an idea.”
Once they were inside the tunnel, Michael took Lydia by the hand. Shots rang out in the chamber behind them and bullets ricocheted from the walls. Thankfully the passageway was angled just enough to deflect the rounds.
Michael trained his torch on the tunnel ahead and tried not to think of the deadly things that could spring up and catch Molly unawares. Nearly fifty yards farther on, the passageway opened wide enough to present two more tunnels, once more side by side.
“Not again.” Panic began to eat at his resolve. The cloistered feeling of being trapped underground closed in on him.
“Michael.” Molly suddenly stood in front of him.
He focused on her and made himself calm.
“Are you listening?”
“Yes.” His voice didn’t sound like his own, and it echoed down the tunnels.
“I need you to take a breath.”
Michael did. It was easier doing that with her watching him, but the terror still threatened to overwhelm him.
“You need to be thinking clearly while we do this.”
He nodded.
Smiling, she put her hands on both sides of his face and held him. “During our years together, I’ve seen you do amazing things with that near-photographic memory of yours. I’ve watched you walk into a room full of strangers and leave with the names of every person in that room, even if you didn’t talk to them.”
He focused on her, but didn’t know where she was going with this.
“If I asked you to, do you think you could sketch the six sides of that cube? The one that you and Rohan made that showed the tunnels beneath the town.”
“Molly, I don’t—”
She placed a hand on his mouth. “You found a way to break into this prison. I think I’ve found a way to break out. But I’m going to need your help.” She reached into his pants pocket and took out the leather-bound journal he’d found on the dead man. “Draw the six sides of that cube, Michael. Do it now.”
Curbing his frustration, Michael opened the journal and started drawing. He made the lines neat and precise. “I still don’t see—”
“Patience. Trust me.”
Down the tunnel came the sounds of metal grating against rock. Draghici and his gypsies must have found something to use as levers to pry open the platform or maybe they were trying to simply break the stone. Either way, they were coming soon.
He concentrated on the images he was drawing, sliding the pencil point deftly across the page.
“Put each side on its own page,” Molly directed him.
Michael finished with the first side and went to a new page.
Finally, he was finished. He looked up at her. “You want to explain to me what that was about?”
“You saw the symbols Charles Crowe carved into the floor?” Molly was so calm he couldn’t believe it.
Draghici’s gypsies had evidently given up getting the platform to lower any farther and now worked at battering it to pieces. The blows rang and echoed through the tunnels.
“Of course I did, but what—?” Then he remembered how she’d pointed out the line over the door. “That marking let you know which tunnel to take.”
“Yes. They’re a numbered sequence, Michael. The sides of the cube are numbered, too.”
Michael stared at the six images he’d drawn. One line, two lines, the triangle, the square, the pentagon and the hexagon. Finally, in that order, he saw the correlation that had been nagging at him. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.
“I think each of those cube faces is part of the map that leads to the treasure room.” Molly tapped the first page with her finger. “This is the juncture where we are now. See how this line runs along, then dead-ends?”
“Yeah.” Feeling more hopeful, Michael nodded. “Yeah, I see it now. Don’t know why I didn’t get it before.”
“You did. You just didn’t know how it worked.”
Michael counted the twists and angles. “Five turns, then we should find a door marked with two lines.”
“Right.”
Behind them, they heard the stone break. Sections of the platform slammed against the rock floor.
Draghici roared up at his men. “Can you get through there yet?”
“It’s big enough—”
“Then go after them. The rest of us will be along soon’s we get the way clear.”
Molly flickered her light toward the two tunnels. “You’re going to have to lead us.”
Elated, Michael kissed her. “Did I ever tell you how smart and beautiful you are?”
“Yes.”
“Well, it can’t be often enough.” Michael pointed his torch toward the passage on the right and started down it.