11
Lee’s panic subsided. He sat on the edge of a cavern of unknown size waiting for his vision to adjust. Nearly five minutes passed and he began to notice strange things as he glanced around. An infinite number of shades of black existed between darkness and total darkness. Only prolonged exposure to darkness in a cave without a light could teach him that. But he wasn’t completely without light, because—
It came from above. Light was shining down. It drew his gaze upward to its source. If it wasn’t light, it was at least one of those lighter shades of black.
When Lee tilted his head to look upward, he detected a faint light high above. Hoping to see the sides of the chimney wall, he lowered his gaze, permitting his eyes to readjust to the darkness. As he waited a small down draft tickled the hairs on the back of his hands and neck. A puff of slightly fresher air descended upon him. Air from the land of the free. The place he must take Jennifer.
After a few seconds Lee could distinguish the lower part of the cavern walls. This cavern was large, at least fifty feet across. He moved carefully to one side and began examining the wall. He surveyed the lower portion. They could climb it easily, but the mid and upper portions were shrouded in shadows. A faint hope began growing, but two nagging questions remained. Could they make it to the top? If so, could they actually climb out?
If this represents a way out of this cave for Jennifer, please show me, God. There’s no way I would try to take her up this wall unless I know it’s a way of escape. The climb would terrify her, or worse. Please give me some direction.
****
Abdul followed close behind Ratib, who carried the flashlight. Moving deeper into the bowels of the limestone spire, the three continued to track their quarry. In a couple of minutes they approached a place where the tunnel widened.
This must be the place.
Abdul pulled Ratib to a stop. He brought the three of them into a huddle. “When we enter, find them with the light, Ratib. Maram, be ready with your weapon. When I signal we will enter.”
On Abdul’s cue the three stepped into the small cavern. Ratib swept it with the light. But what Abdul saw disturbed him. “The cave goes no further. They could not have disappeared. Give me the light, Ratib.”
They could not lose these two. It would mean losing access to data for all of National Aerospace’s weapon systems. Anger threatened to cloud his thinking. He took the flashlight and explored every nook until all that remained was a narrow slit near the cave floor in the rear left quadrant of the cavern. He pointed at the spot. “Be quiet and listen.”
After a few seconds Ratib pointed towards the narrow opening near the floor of the cave and nodded. Ratib’s hearing was sharper than his. Smiling now, Abdul knelt and bent low. After placing his face on the cave floor, Abdul shined the flashlight into the narrow opening under the rock.
****
Lee had prayed about climbing the chimney wall, but so far God hadn’t—he gasped when a hand grabbed his shoulder. He whirled to defend himself. A soft hand gently touched his face. He heard rapid breathing.
“I slid through because they’re in the cavern. I don’t think they saw me slip out.” She wrapped herself around him as if she wanted to merge with the space he occupied.
Lee could feel her arms trembling and her body convulsing as Jennifer tried simultaneously to catch her breath and stifle her sobs. He held her until the sobbing subsided.
They could afford no more time. “Well I guess we can consider the backup plan invoked,” he whispered.
Jennifer still clung tightly to him.
“What backup plan?”
“Yours. I’m just thankful you convinced me to slide through Claustrophobia Cleft to find this cavern, or we would be—well, I’d hate to think where we would be. Did you say they had a light?”
“Yes, the beam almost hit me as I slid under the overhang. Lee, I think you’d better tell me the rest of my backup plan. All I remember was slide under that big overhanging rock. That’s not going to cut it here.”
Good. Some of Jennifer’s spunk is returning.
She would soon need all of it.
“Come on, let’s go.” He pulled her towards the cavern wall.
“Go where?” She whispered, resisting his tug.
“You may not believe this, but I asked to be shown a safe way out of this cave, and then you grabbed my shoulder. I wanted to be convinced this was the way to go, or I wasn’t going to take you there. Well, I’m convinced.”
Lee stopped and faced Jennifer.
She clamped her hands onto his arms. “Take me there? ‘There’ is beginning to sound ominous. Where is ‘there’?”
He put his hand under her chin and gently lifted. “What do you see?”
“Oh, Lee, there’s light up there…but I can barely see it.” She sounded excited, but her grip on his arm tightened until it threatened to cut off his circulation.
He could feel her trembling again before he withdrew his hand.
A climb to who knows what, in near total darkness, was going to tax her to her limits. But her limits had surprised him several times. Perhaps they would again.
“As far as I was able to see, Jenn, the chimney wall looked very climbable.”
She became completely still. “How far was that?”
This wasn’t a time to get into specific heights. “About one-fourth of the way up.”
“One-fourth of what? You’ve seen I don’t do well with heights—acrophobia.”
“OK. I won’t tell you how high and you won’t be able to see anything below, only the light ahead of us where—”
“That’s not funny, Lee.” She whispered more loudly than was prudent.
“Sorry, but—”
“I don’t like buts, Lee.”
“But, Jenn, this is where we finally get out of the cave and get help. We’ve already lost the better part of a minute. C’mon. I’ll climb with you each step of the way. We’ve been shown the way out, but we’ve got to choose to take it.”
Jennifer kept a firm grip on Lee’s left hand while he led her to the base of the chimney wall. Before they started their ascent he needed to warn her about what waited a short way up the wall—something ladies might not tolerate well. “Jennifer, you—”
“What happened to Jenn?”
“This is more of a Jennifer message.”
“You said this was a way out. It’s beginning to sound more like a ‘but’, introducing something unpleasant.”
“You could say that. Just be extra careful after we’re up”—he stopped himself before adding the words, twenty-five feet—”after we’ve climbed for a couple minutes.”
“Be extra careful? How?”
“Just be careful because that’s where the slime from algae, fungi, and bacteria starts. It will get a bit slippery. That offensive odor you smell…it will get a lot worse.”
“Just start, Lee. I don’t want to hear any more about the chimney except what’s at the top—light, freedom, and safe—”
Jennifer gasped as a beam of light shattered the darkness.
It glared from the slit under the rock leading to their cavern. With it came muffled voices. Excited voices.
Lee grabbed her arm, stepped up onto a ledge three feet above the cave floor and yanked Jennifer up beside him. Less than a second later the light beam sliced through the spot where their feet had been.
He leaned into her ear. “We’ve got to move quickly,” he whispered. “Faster. Go. I’m right behind you.”
They scrambled up the rock wall at breakneck speed.
Twenty feet up the wall Jennifer paused for a few seconds. She was breathing hard.
“Jenn, they may try to enter this cavern. We have to get to the top before they can get in.”
He didn’t have the heart to tell her they had a least fifty more feet of vertical climbing to reach the top. It didn’t appear likely that they would make it before—
“Stuck.”
They heard the word distinctly, though it came wrapped in a thick accent Lee couldn’t identify. He might have laughed under other circumstances, but right now “stuck” was the only thing between them and being blown off the chimney wall by automatic weapons.
“Jenn, keep moving as fast as you can, they’re—”
“I know, stuck.”
They reached the worst of the algae and the smell ripened. The cave had a bad case of halitosis. The wall became slippery and the goop stuck onto Lee’s hands.
Jennifer’s foot slipped. She started sliding down the wall.
Lee reached for her, but she caught herself on her previous foothold. His heart pounded.
Jennifer began panting. Was she hyperventilating?
They had to change their climbing strategy or they’d never make it to the top.
“Let me guide your hands and feet now. Ignore the odor.”
He moved up, surrounded Jennifer, and placed his hands over hers. They climbed moving their hands synchronously to new holds. After reaching them Lee wiped away the slime before it could lubricate Jennifer’s fingers. He found new footholds and guided her feet onto them. This kept Jennifer relatively safe, but they were climbing far too slowly to reach the top before the goons entered the cavern. They needed “stuck” to last a while longer.
Below them came furious grunts and wild motions of the light beam as the gunman tried to get unstuck from the jaws of the giant rock vise that nearly clamped on him. Loud cries came from below.
They still needed to climb twenty or thirty feet to reach the top, but the sunlight seeping into the chimney gave them better visibility. There was less slime. But his mind raced searching for a solution to what looked more and more like an intractable problem. How to avoid becoming targets on a wall.
Jennifer turned. “If they get through we’re sitting ducks on this wall.”
She just had to say that.
He didn’t reply.
A bright yellow oval flashed onto the cave wall opposite them.
Jennifer gasped.
“Stuck” was over. Though the light shone on the opposite chimney wall it might expose them at any moment.
Lee glanced up at the cavern wall then placed his mouth close to Jennifer’s head. “Quick. Move up to your left…about ten feet.”
She immediately made the adjustment. Climbing with more confidence now she scrambled upward to where the light from above created a shadow. Some irregularity in the wall.
As they approached it he prayed it was enough to stop light, bullets, or both.
The yellow oval systematically explored the chimney walls from bottom to top. After each pass up the wall it moved one position in a counterclockwise direction.
Lee hoped all the people below had their eyes fixed upon that oval. If even one stopped following the bright light and let their eyes adjust to the diffuse light illuminating the rest of the cavern they would see Jennifer and him on the wall of the cave.
Fortunately, the goons started at the north wall, opposite their position. The light’s vertical sweeping progressed through northwest to the west wall. When it approached the south Jennifer broke free of his protective cage around her. She scrambled to the protrusion on the cavern wall.
He looked down. The yellow oval shone brightly on the base of the chimney directly below them. He watched it move slowly upward. He glanced up at Jennifer.
She was gone. In a second or two, Jennifer’s head popped out from the cave wall. She had found a place to hide.
He climbed at a near sprint to reach her.
The light moved steadily upward. It slowed as it approached his feet.
A loud click reverberated through the cavern. Someone loaded a cartridge into the chamber of a gun.
His body tensed. He expected to hear shots. To feel bullets tear through his flesh. He tried to keep moving—anything to spoil their aim.
The shots hadn’t started.
Something, or someone, delayed them.
Jennifer looked down at him. In the diffuse light the whites of her eyes shone brightly, completely encircling her pupils.
He leaped to a foothold near her.
She grabbed his left wrist. An incredibly strong arm pulled him into a slit in the cave wall.
How did she do that?
“Get in here.” Jennifer’s voice, though it was a whisper, sounded as if it came from a wild animal, full of fury.
She hooked his neck with one arm and grabbed a handful of his jacket with the other hand. In one violent jerk she jammed him into the crevice beside her.
His body pressed tightly against Jennifer. Something about the law of the conservation of matter flashed through his mind followed by an accusation against Jennifer for violating it. This small woman continued to amaze him with her resilience and her heart.
The flashlight’s oval beam now moved beside them. It illuminated the fingers on his right hand when it passed by on its way to the top of the chimney.
Lee jerked his hand into the crevice, but the light beam jumped back to the place his hand rested a second before.
Jennifer’s breathing grew louder. Then it stopped. She was holding her breath stifling the sounds of her terror.
His chest still heaved uncontrollably from the exertion and the panic.
As the light repeatedly searched the cave wall around them Lee worked his left hand into position to pull Jennifer’s head onto his shoulder.
She was breathing again.
He could feel her body convulsing as she struggled to stop her sobs. He leaned his head onto hers and whispered, “It’s OK, Jenn. It’s all OK.”
Was that really true?
It had to be.
Providentially, Jennifer had found a slab of rock nearly twelve feet high and four feet wide. It had broken loose at its base and twisted at an acute angle to the flat cave wall. The triangular slit behind it contained hardly enough space to hide one person, let alone two. Regardless, it was enough to save their lives…for the moment.
The oval light began moving up the chimney wall again in its methodical manner.
His sigh of relief was choked off when the light jumped back down the wall.
It stopped on the twisted slab of rock sheltering them. Clearly, their hiding place was under scrutiny.
Jennifer’s voice came softly…pleading, “Oh please, God, no.”
If that was Jennifer’s first prayer, he hoped it got through. If it did, and if they somehow survived this ordeal, he suspected many more prayers would follow. That was his hope—a hope that demanded a response.
Please, God, listen to Jenn.