It took thirty minutes to pry Mendenhall and Sanchez out of the engine room. They found the body of Lebowitz pinned underneath the mainmast where it had crashed onto the deck. Professor Ellenshaw had been trapped beneath one of the bunks in section six and it had taken a hacksaw to free him. Heidi Rodriguez had a nasty wound on her forehead and they had thought she wouldn’t wake up until she suddenly sat straight up and screamed that she was drowning. She had been found in section seven under an overturned stainless-steel table amid broken beakers and tech equipment. The bright floodlights from what remained of the deck lights lit the opening and surrounding dock and stairs that Teacher sat upon.
There was no sign of Jenks or Virginia. Danielle and Ellenshaw had shown up after they had freed the engineering section, and said they had been separated from the other two. Ellenshaw excitedly explained how Danielle had saved his life and almost killed him at the same time, by making him dive deep beneath the falls to keep from being crushed.
Danielle was now wrapping Heidi’s forehead with gauze from sickbay and talking softly to her. Jack took stock of the many bodies they had pulled out of the lounge and science sections, twenty-four in all. Ellenshaw’s two young assistants were lined up on the dock along with five of the Group’s security people, including Shaw and Jackson. Carl came up behind Jack and placed a hand on his shoulder.
“Jack, I checked the holes that were punched into us. Two separate charges, definitely explosive devices. We have scorching on the hull and it was bent inward. I would say a three- or four-pound charge, the same with the engineering section.”
The major continued to stare at the covered bodies and didn’t answer at first. Carl was about to speak again when they were approached by Danielle.
“I hope Sarah is safe,” she said.
Jack turned on her, his gaze demanding to know what she knew.
“Major, the beast took her when our section was flooded. She and I both were grabbed. I struggled free, but Sarah didn’t. I’m sorry.”
“Why would the animal come into the ship?”
“This may sound strange to you, but I had the distinct feeling it was trying to help Sarah and me; don’t ask me why, it’s just a intuition.” She turned away.
“Jack, are you all right?” Carl asked, rubbing his bruised legs.
“Will,” Jack called out, ignoring the question.
“Yes, Major,” Mendenhall answered from where he was helping to tend the wounds of Ellenshaw and Stiles.
Jack walked over to one of the glass windows that now had a crazy line of cracks through it. Using a flashlight, he smashed out the remaining glass. He reached in and pulled out two handheld radios from the communications compartment, and quickly checked the settings and charge. He tossed one to Mendenhall.
“I have a job for you, and it’s damned well dangerous.”
Mendenhall looked from Jack to Carl and smiled. “Yes, sir.”
Jack just nodded, never more proud of the man he had sworn to make an officer, then a thought struck him. “Staff Sergeant Mendenhall, you are hereby promoted to the temporary rank of second lieutenant, United States Army, as witnessed this day by—”
“Lieutenant Commander Carl A. Everett, United States Navy,” Carl said in all seriousness.
“And based upon pending approval and recommendation of the director of Department Fifty-six fifty-six, Dr. Niles Compton, you are hereby notified of said field promotion. Is that understood, Lieutenant Mendenhall?”
Mendenhall frowned. “Yes, sir, understood. Now, you’ve given me the sugar, so I guess I’m ready for the medicine.”
Jack took Mendenhall by the shoulder and steered him away from the others.
“Look, Will, I need you to go out there and get to high ground. That means finding some way out of the lagoon, and climbing out and up beside the falls. I don’t know if the radio will reach me in here but, once in position, you are to watch the lagoon. Dig up a set of night-vision goggles and report on secure channel seventy-eight; you’ll be speaking with a mutual friend of ours who’s call sign is Night Rider One and your call sign is Conquistador. You are to tell him that Operation Spoiled Sport is on and to fire at will, if and when you see an armed element reach the lagoon, either on land or by boat. We hope it’s by boat. You tell Night Rider to execute, execute, execute. Three times, you got that, Will?”
“Yes sir, three times, and then what?”
“And then what? Get your ass behind a big rock and hope that Mr. Ryan’s burned-up body doesn’t land in your lap.”
Mendenhall just looked at the major.
“Seriously, if Operation Spoiled Sport works, you stay down until you know it’s safe, and, believe me, you’ll know when that is.”
“Major, who are these men coming?”
“We have to assume they’re bad guys. Boris and Natasha picked them up yesterday, heading our way. They’re heavily armed, and Niles and the president can’t account for ’em.”
“Yes, sir, I’ll do my best.”
“Good luck, Lieutenant.”
The major was joined by Carl, as they watched their new officer load his radio into a large plastic bag and stuff it in his shirt.
“All right, Commander Everett, let’s get ready and see if we can find anyone alive in here.”
Sarah was just entering the small cave when the sound of splashing water sounded behind her, and she quickly backed out in time to see first Virginia, then Jenks, as they were lifted out of the water by the creature. It started walking, dragging the choking and puking duo across the hard rock. It deposited them in front of Sarah, then turned away and walked slowly back to the water, where it disappeared.
Sarah helped Virginia to her feet and hugged her. Then she helped Jenks struggle to one leg before he shook off her assistance and sat back down.
“God, am I glad to see you two,” she said, crying. “Come on, Virginia, I’ve got something to show you.”
“Don’t worry about me; it’s only broken in two places. Ain’t shit,” Jenks said, looking at his leg.
Virginia ignored the master chief for the moment and followed Sarah to the largest of the cave openings. Sarah pulled back the cover as she again held the torch inside. Virginia immediately rushed inside, careful to avoid the bubbling magma caldera in the center of the room.
“Helen Zachary?” She went to her knees and placed her hand on the burned and scarred face of her old Event Group colleague. “My god, what happened?”
The young man next to her moved and his eyes fluttered open. He reached down to place a hand in the small running creek that coursed through the wall of the cave, and then wiped his face. Then he started to sob, waking up the other nine people that were sleeping along the rough-hewn walls.
“Thank god,” he said through his tears.
“What happened, why are you here?” Sarah asked.
“The … creature, it brought us here. It’s been …feeding us, keeping us alive.”
“What’s your name?” Virginia asked.
“Rob, I mean Robert Hanson, I was … am, Professor Zachary’s assistant.”
“Well, you’ve done well in keeping your people together,” Sarah said.
“Kelly, Kelly, come here,” Robby said into the darkness of the cave.
As Sarah watched, a young woman eased forward and sat next to the crying assistant. She smiled at Sarah.
“God, are we happy to see you,” she said with tears welling up in her own eyes.
“We have to get her out of here,” said Robby.
“We’re here to get everyone out,” Sarah said.
“You don’t understand.” He reached out and took Kelly’s hand. “This is the daughter of the president.”
“What?” Sarah asked loudly, startling all those that had awakened and were inching toward their rescuers to make sure they were real.
“Knock it off, Robby; I’m no more important than anyone else here.”
“All right, all right, you can explain this little tale later,” said Sarah. “Right now, we plan on getting all of you out.”
Meanwhile, Virginia gave Helen a quick examination, not liking what she saw. The professor’s face was covered in lesions, and there had been massive hair loss. Her fever was so high that Virginia instinctively pulled her hand away after touching her forehead. There were black marks on her face and neck, and it looked almost as if her left eyelid had melted down over her eye.
“Good god, if I didn’t know any better, I would say this is—”
“Radiation poisoning,” Robby said as he failed miserably to be as brave as he wanted to be in front of the others and resumed crying softly while touching Helen’s hand.
“Radiation poisoning?” Sarah asked.
“The mine is full of uranium, enriched uranium, damned close to extremely hot plutonium. God, her fever is out of control,” he said as he felt Helen’s forehead for himself.
“These others, are they all right?” Virginia asked.
“Yes, scratches and frightened to death mostly. There are these animals that bring us plenty of fish to eat. But it’s as if they were keeping us here for a reason,” he sobbed. “At least the smaller one seems to keep the other creature away from us.”
“Other creature?” Sarah asked.
“Yeah, this one’s big, has no human characteristics like the smaller one. It hates anything that breathes air, the professor thinks.” Kelly looked down at Helen. “She thinks the smaller animal is wild, and lives in the lagoon, while the big one was bred from the creatures that worked the mine, worked at bringing the ore up. She thought they were used to keep the slaves in line. Keep them corralled in here. The damn Inca used both the Sincaro and animals to do what they knew they couldn’t—mine the hot uranium.”
“There is no such element in the natural world as enriched uranium ore; it’s an impossibility in the natural order of elements,” Virginia said as she checked Helen’s pulse. She closed her eyes and thought a moment, trying desperately to make sense out of this highly unusual moment.
“Okay, I admit the elements and the situation would seem to contradict the natural assumption of improbability,” she conceded as she reached out and took a palmful of water and spread it on Helen’s forehead. “We have uranium ore, heated to an extreme temperature by the seismic activity of the caldera … and remember, Sarah, we picked up unusually high concentrations of fluorides in the water of the lagoon, obviously released through the clay or other soil in this valley; thus, it is possible to breed that ore into—”
“Weapons-grade plutonium, free for the taking,” Sarah finished for her, remembering the light stands in the cave behind her and the graffito on the belly of Supay. “Jesus, everyone who entered this level of the mine is contaminated. If we don’t get out of here soon, especially them,” she nodded toward Rob and the others, “we’re all screwed.”
“That’s just about what the professor thought,” Kelly said, locking eyes with Sarah.
Jack and the others began hurriedly removing supplies from Teacher because she would never see the water again without Jenks here to supervise her much-needed repairs. She was too unsteady on the stone steps to delay in getting the supplies out.
Although they were eager to get moving into El Dorado to look for survivors, Jack and Carl set up some makeshift lighting on the massive dock the Inca had carved out of solid stone. The wonders it revealed were beyond belief. All the Incan gods were represented along the high walls and many columns. The tunnels and shafts were stacked one upon the other in a never-ending spiral heading toward the top of a giant indoor falls that cascaded toward the floor in the center of the great mine, its spray keeping the interior of the mine constantly damp. The pillars that lined each level were carved from solid rock. How many hundreds of years, or possibly thousands this shaft had taken to be excavated boggled their minds.
As they ventured deeper into the vast expanse of the pavilion and beyond the powerful lights and into shadow, they saw crate upon crate of stacked K rations, fuel drums, crated equipment, and other supplies. Each wooden crate was stenciled in black lettering.
“United States Army.”
Jack looked at Carl and raised his eyebrows. “Look at this.”
Arrayed against the stone outer wall of the main chamber were what looked like graves. Heavy stones were laid layer upon layer, creating a large bulge in the stone floor. There were twenty-three in all. Jutting stone markers protruded from the rocks at the head of each. On each was looped a small chain and on each chain was a single dogtag. Jack raised one and shined a light on it.
“Technical Sergeant Royce H. Peavey.”
“Well, I guess that explains who the Kilroy artists were. But what in the hell were they doing here, Jack?”
“This whole damn thing smells to high heaven. But we can’t speculate here; we have to get moving.” Jack took a last look at a group of Americans that had come pretty far to be left in a horrible place.
“I figure we start at the bottom of the mine first and then work our way up,” Carl said as he turned away from the seventy-year-old cache of military supplies and the men they were meant to feed.
“The canals?” Jack asked, as he started following Carl back to the smashed Teacher.
“I figure we can scrape up the scuba gear we need if you’re game, ground pounder.”
“You’re on, Commander Everett, after you.”
“You think Sarah is still alive?”
“I do, and I’m betting Jenks and Virginia are also.”
Carl glanced back toward the long-lost graves.
“Good thing you have the navy here, Jack; from the looks of it, you army types didn’t fare too well around here in the past.”
Farbeaux halted the group when he heard voices. He cocked his head to the right and then listened again. Nothing but silence greeted him as he hushed the men behind him. It had been over an hour since he had started the group down a steep slope in the tunnels. Farbeaux had figured the ramp used to be a slide of some sort that had been possibly used for removing slag and other unwanted material from the mine. The ramp, as steep as it was, connected with almost every sublevel as it coursed down through the mine.
Mendez and his men were really starting to grumble as they had passed vein after vein of gold, each deposit larger and wider than the one before it. He knew each of the fools, including Mendez himself, had taken their own samples and pocketed them.
Farbeaux saw their bulging pockets in his night-vision goggles and smiled, then brought out his satchel again to take another reading. The men behind him didn’t notice what he was doing because of their avarice. They were intent on picking up as much of the gold ore as possible.
He turned the machine off and then removed his goggles. He shocked the men behind by turning on a broad-beam lamp and shining the light on a very wide and very green-looking vein of ore that ran side by side with another of gold. He turned the miniature Geiger counter back on again, held out a probe, and the machine went crazy. It emitted what sounded like the clicking of a cricket. Farbeaux closed his eyes and then shut off the machine once again. He had found what he had come for deep inside the mine. After years of waiting and receiving the ore samples from his man at the Vatican, the chase and search for the diary of Padilla, suddenly now the lode was here, ready to be torn from the earth and sold to the highest bidder.
“What was that instrument you were just using, señor?” Mendez asked as he wiped sweat from his brow with a filthy handkerchief.
“This?” Farbeaux held up his satchel. “Well, let’s say it’s pointing me to the richest find of all, something you wouldn’t be interested in. But I will explain shortly; right now, let’s find that which excites you my friend, your gold.”
“But we have found enough gold to last a lifetime just on this winding ramp you discovered. Why even proceed further?”
“My friend, you can stuff your pockets until the very weight crushes your bones, or you can follow me into the lowest reaches and find it already mined, smelted, and possibly even stacked for you, ready to be shipped out. But I leave it to you—take what you have now and wait months while you try to get more equipment in here to mine the gold and possibly watch the Brazilian government take it before you have a chance to steal it, or you can follow me and find it all ready to take out. My way, you will at least have what you can ship out now. Not what you can stuff in your pockets.” He looked again at the meandering ramp, then faced Mendez again. “Which looks quite ridiculous, by the way.”
Mendez didn’t know how to react to the mild rebuke. He was beginning to hate the Frenchman. Farbeaux’s attitude since entering the mine had changed; it was as if he had received what he had sought and now treated his benefactor with disdain. As he emptied his pockets of the gold he had collected, Mendez watched Farbeaux continue down the steep refuse ramp. He would see to it that the man learned respect for him, as had many who had crossed him did in the past.
Farbeaux found the exit he wanted from the refuse ramp. The reading of his counter was almost pegged in the red. The ore was strongest down a wide hall that was marked by two columns, indicating an entryway into a broad corridor. The twin columns had the same carvings of the strange creatures that had marked those at the tributary’s entrance, but these gods were depicted in a squatting posture, as their massive arms and legs held up the top of the stone frame that guarded the entrance into the actual passageway used to remove the gold and other ores from the lowest levels.
The group continued down into the great shaft past the ancient trail as laid down by the Sincaro as they labored among whip lashes to bring the Inca their treasure. The canal running the length of the shaft had obviously been used to carry small boats attached by ropes, and used as an ancient conveying system. The men even found remnants of the small boats in areas of the excavation from shaft to shaft, very ingenious for the ancient time and efficient in their way.
One room just inside the stone entry that had been dug into the side of the shaft smelled of danger. Farbeaux shined his light inside and saw that the room held a small deposit of white sacks. One sack had disintegrated over the years and had fallen to the stone floor and broken open. The gold dust was unmistakable in the light as it gleamed and sparkled. He looked around the room and saw what appeared to be a fulcrum release. He also noticed small holes that lined the doorway which were currently dripping water. It was extremely hot in there. He once again shined the light on the lever, a small handle that jutted from the wall just inside the room, within arm’s length of the doorway.
“Have your men stay clear of this room,” he said, turning to face Mendez.
“I see what’s in there, señor. This is exactly the find we are here to exploit,” the Colombian challenged the Frenchman. “Jesús, Hucha, proceed inside and retrieve one of those bags for me,” he ordered.
Farbeaux stepped aside. “You have been warned, señor.”
Two men in the center of the long line stepped up to the doorway. Jesús stepped though tentatively and while Farbeaux watched, silently his left foot hit the false floor directly in front of the doorway as his companion followed him through. The stone at his foot slid down only a half an inch, barely perceptible even to Farbeaux who knew what to look for. The rectangle of stone settling into the floor triggered a small bronze pipe inside the thick tile. Small stone caps burst free from the doorway and several other spots inside the carved-out room with a loud pop, making everyone in the tunnel outside flinch at the gunshot-type reports. Jesús and Hucha were suddenly caught in a steaming-hot shower of water that must have run straight up through the magma chamber buried deeply inside the pyramid. They instantly fell to the stone floor, screaming and writhing. They rolled, but everywhere they tried to escape the roaring, searing steam, it found them from the many ancient nozzles inside. Farbeaux finally reached inside as his point was made about following his orders, and pulled down on the fulcrum release. The steam dwindled almost immediately to nothing.
“You knew the room was booby-trapped?” Mendez said accusingly.
“Yes, that was why I said for no one to enter.”
Jesús and Hucha were dead. One of the bodies didn’t seem to believe it, as yet it rolled over on its back, leaving the man’s face sticking to the floor. Their boots were melted off, and in several areas bone protruded from clothing.
“You have gone too far, you should have said something!”
“I did, I said ‘do not enter this room.’ ” The Frenchman looked down the line of Mendez’s men. “Please do as instructed and you will not end up like your compatriots. There are many pitfalls here that can and will kill you in many horrible ways.” Farbeaux glanced into the room at the now red and fleshless bodies; only their clothing had survived the liquid inferno that had engulfed them. “I believe seeing is the best teacher we can have. You have seen, now follow instructions,” he said coldly as he turned and continued down the trail.
The Colombians didn’t say a word because they could all still smell the boiled skin.
Mendez watched as Farbeaux stopped and studied the deep canal for a moment. He was very weary of the imperious way this man was acting within the mine. He was doubly worried because Rosolo had not caught up with them. He waved his men forward, not taking his eyes from the Frenchman.
Jack followed the more experienced Carl into the canal and out through the falls, looking around wildly for any sign of the animal that took Sarah. They followed the wall for almost sixty feet, started looking for a way in. They knew Sarah had detected several openings using the diving bell’s sonar track. Jack almost ran straight into Carl when he stopped suddenly. There, just a few feet ahead in the black water, Carl’s light was illuminating the creature. It was holding station in the lagoon by swirling its webbed hands in the water and lightly kicking with its feet. The dark eyes studied them for a moment and then it suddenly turned and sped off toward the wall. Jack grabbed Carl and pointed to where the beast had vanished into a small opening in the rock. They started kicking with their fins and made for the spot the animal had vanished into.
Unbeknownst to them both, another set of eyes had watched the creature and the officers as they made for the lower opening of the mine.
Captain Rosolo, having survived the attack by the very beast he had watched a moment before, turned and kicked in the opposite direction. Since the twin explosions of his limpet mines, he had taken his time to study the underwater layout of the lagoon. Now that he was finishing, he had become aware of company in the water and had watched as two of the Americans entered the lagoon from the falls.
Now he swam for the opening of El Dorado. He figured it was time to take out an insurance policy against both the American group and the Frenchman, which he would deliver with extreme delight.
Helen Zachary awakened and tried to open her eyes, but they were sealed shut with infection; additionally, her left eye was seared closed because of the extreme nature of the ore she had handled.
Jenks was having his leg tended to by three of the young women from the expedition who were happy just to be doing anything at all. The master chief kept smiling and reassuring the girls that others were there and undoubtedly looking for them, even through the horrible pain as they tried clumsily to set his leg. Every once in a while he would take a deep breath against the excruciating waves their touch produced, and then he would look up and wink at Virginia, who was proud of the way he tried to reassure all of them in the cave.
“That man, Kennedy,” Robby babbled and cried, “he came here because someone wanted him to make sure nothing like that ore was brought out of here. But it was he who took samples. It was Kennedy’s people that set off the dark one, the creature that lives in the pyramid; it attacked his team and then us when we tried to help. I don’t know why, but that thing acted as though it was here to stop anything from leaving this mine. I mean the ore; it wasn’t concerned with gold, just that damned ore. And then it was Professor Zachary who discovered why. She was actually communicating, well, in a rudimentary way with the smaller one, the one that’s hidden us since the other went berserk.”
“Why … not, we’re … related.”
Sarah and Virginia saw Helen was trying to sit up.
“Oh, don’t do that, Helen, don’t move, you’re very sick,” Virginia said, placing her hand on Helen’s chest and easing her back down.
“Virginia?” she whispered. “Do …you and … still …hate me?”
“Stop that, no one at Group—” She caught herself before she said it. “No one ever hated you, Helen, no one.”
A tear slowly trickled from Helen’s right eye and forced its way down her swollen cheek. “Niles,” she whispered.
“Dear, it was Niles who sent us,” Virginia whispered in her ear.
A sad smile came to Helen’s features as she lost consciousness.
“What did she mean when she said the creature and us are related?” asked Sarah.
Robby placed a wet cloth on Helen’s forehead and then sat back and explained. “Before the dark beast sank the boat and barge out of anger over those guys’ taking ore samples, Dr. Zachary ran a complete DNA sequencing on both of the creatures. There was not one difference between them, or us.”
“That’s impossible. From what I saw, that thing is an amphibian,” Virginia challenged.
Robby shrugged. “Doesn’t matter what you believe; those animals were once us. The doc said it chose to go back to the water, whereas we chose to stay on land.”
“You say she communicated with it?” Sarah asked.
“According to a wall diary of sorts, painted by the Sincaro, which the beast and its kind saved once upon a time from a bleak future, the darker species and its kind used to be slaves alongside the Indians. And they were the only creatures, human or otherwise, who could mine the uranium without becoming sick. The smaller ones, the doc figured, were wild, never tamed by the Inca, that’s why they have more tolerance for us than the dark one. The doc said the animals had a natural resistance but not a complete immunity to the ore. It had something to do with total immersion therapy, a natural way to fight radiation sickness. Since the creatures mined the ore underwater, they didn’t die as rapidly as us land walkers.”
“But what did the Inca need or even want the ore for?” Virginia asked.
“The doc said they used it to heat their giant smelting pots. She says they discovered it was more efficient than trying to use the natural volcanic aspects of the mine. No telling how many people were killed during their reign over this area. Pizarro might have had the right idea; who’s to say who screwed who?” he said bitterly. “The Sincaro weren’t sad their masters were conquered; I bet those creatures have been a sight happier also.”
“How many are there?” Sarah asked, actually concerned.
“Kelly, you were there when the professor transcribed her notes. What did she say about the number of animals?”
Kelly was haggard like the rest but she gave a smile that told Sarah she had a lot of courage. “She said that the animals are a long-lived species, but Helen thinks these two may be the last of their kind. The wild one, the green and gold creature, is very protective of all things in this valley. It saved us from starving to death.”
“But what—”
“Any further questions can be asked out here,” a deep, French-accented voice said from the cave opening, cutting off the question Virginia was about to ask. “So please, come out quickly, as my associate has stupidly pulled the pin on a hand grenade and is quite prepared to throw it in among you,” Farbeaux said as he stared at the stupidity of the move by Mendez.
They all stood with the exception of the injured professor and Jenks, who could only look around in frustration for a weapon.
“These guys aren’t with you?” Robby asked as he started to follow the rest from the enclosure.
“No, they’re not,” Sarah answered.
“Please, señor, find the pin and replace it in the grenade, quickly,” Farbeaux ordered, flicking his eyes from the motley group of survivors to the sour countenance of the Colombian.
Mendez scowled as he placed the silver pin back in the grenade. He tossed it back to one of his men and then faced the twelve raggedy people before him.
“Colonel Farbeaux, I take it?” Sarah asked.
“At your service.” The Frenchman actually looked pleased for a moment as he took in Sarah. “Ms. McIntire, isn’t it? How was Okinawa, my dear? A learning experience, perhaps?” He turned and told several of the men in Spanish to light a few of the torches that lined the wall.
Sarah didn’t answer, but she did wonder how this maniac had known she had been to Japan recently, then she thought she knew the answer. In her estimation, it didn’t take a brain like Niles Compton’s to figure it out.
Farbeaux smiled as he walked past Sarah and Virginia and leaned into the small cave opening. He frowned at the sight of Helen, then he straightened and returned to the group. Mendez and his men had found other torches and the area was alight with illumination that brought out the wall paintings and carvings into stark relief.
“Helen is seriously ill?” he asked.
“She’s dying, Colonel, so surely you don’t intend to hold us up here. We must get her to a hospital,” Virginia said, lowering her hands.
Farbeaux looked from the Americans to Mendez and closed his eyes.
“Please keep your hands in the air, señora,” Mendez growled.
“I will not,” Virginia stated flatly.
“Do as he says,” Jenks hissed from his place just inside the small cave. He was watching through the opening while lying on his side on the cave floor.
“Shut up, Chief, these people have been through too damned much; we’re taking them out of here,” Virginia announced.
“I’m afraid no one can leave here,” Mendez said as he waved his men forward.
Farbeaux reached into his satchel, removed a small bottle, and tossed it to Virginia. She looked at him quizzically.
“Potassium and iodine. It will slow the spread of infection, but I’m afraid by the looks of the professor’s condition it will do no good, though no harm, either. She must have received over five thousand rods, a rather massive exposure.”
Virginia angrily tossed the pill bottle back to Farbeaux.
“Shove them up your—”
“It’s far too late for Professor Zachary,” Sarah said, stepping quickly in between Virginia and the Frenchman. “But I’m curious to know why you thought to bring the one pharmaceutical that could help with a lesser exposure, Colonel.”
Farbeaux raised his left eyebrow at Sarah and then with the corner of his eye saw Mendez tense up.
“I suppose you wouldn’t accept it was a lucky guess, perhaps?”
“Not likely, Colonel.”
“I should also like to know why you would take such a medicinal precaution without informing your financier, señor,” Mendez said as he pulled a nine-millimeter Beretta from its holster and pointed it at Farbeaux. His men followed suit with their Ingram submachine guns. “Now I insist you tell me why it is you are really here.”
The Frenchman was about to respond when he saw the disturbance in the water. The wake was traveling very fast, obviously created by something just beneath the surface of the canal. Mendez saw his eyes flick from himself to something the Colombian could not detect.
The creature was suddenly there. It had exploded out of the water like a shot from a cannon. The first two of Mendez’s mercenaries never knew they were being attacked. Being the closest to the grotto, they were taken unawares backward into the roiling waters, as everyone present saw just a spray of water and a fine mist of red swirling where the two men had been only moments before.
Farbeaux didn’t hesitate as the mercenaries were snatched from the land of the living in a microsecond. He made a dash for the opening in the far wall that Sarah had discovered earlier. Too late, Mendez saw what Farbeaux was attempting. His slow reaction time seemed even slower in sharp contrast to the quick and violent death of two of his men. He fired wildly at the retreating Frenchman. Three nine-millimeter bullets hit to the right of the opening, missing Farbeaux by mere inches as he disappeared up the steep steps.
Just then, the beast came from the grotto again. A sudden swath of water accompanied the creature as it cleared the grotto wall by six feet, landing inside the circle of gunmen, who began firing. Sarah ignored the noise and gunfire as she seized this opportunity to grab for the Ingram of the man to her left. But just as she thought she would succeed at catching him by surprise, the Colombian sensed her movement and turned toward her.
Jenks tried desperately to maneuver his bad leg. The pain was so intense that he knew he only had a moment to react and help the diminutive army officer. As gunfire erupted only feet away from Mendez and his men as they defended themselves against the maniacal creature in their midst, Master Chief Jenks grabbed his shattered leg with both hands and with a howl lashed out in a sideways kicking motion that caught the armed man beside Sarah by both of his ankles. Jolted by the unexpected blow, the man fired his Ingram, sending rounds into the stone ceiling.
Sarah reacted almost as quickly, slamming her fist into the man’s upturned face as he was knocked off balance. He hit the floor right in front of the small cave opening, and Sarah let her forward momentum carry her down on top of him. Jenks was still screaming in pain as the two rolled into him.
As Mendez watched in horror, the beast before him swiped with long powerful arms at his men. Seven-inch claws ripped into their flesh and bone, and the heated air was instantly corrupted with blood and sinew. In shock at what he was witnessing, he blindly turned his Beretta on the bloody scene. He fired twice, hitting one of his men in the back. Then he panicked and ran for the doorway that he had just watched the Frenchman disappear into a moment before. Three of his men quickly followed their boss into the far wall.
Sarah had managed to gain control of the Ingram but the Colombian, merely stunned, was quick to recover from the blow of landing on the stone. As Sarah raised the weapon and tried to gain some semblance of aim from where she lay, another scream and a unlaced boot heel came crashing down into the mercenary’s face. Jenks started shaking badly after he had smashed his broken leg once again into the man. He passed out from the pain as Sarah screamed a shout of triumph and rolled free of the unconscious Colombian.
Robby, Kelly, and Virginia were trying their best to get the rest of the students out of harm’s way as bullets started flying in every direction from the firing of panicked men. Several rounds found their mark as the beast screamed and roared in pain. But that didn’t stop the huge creature as it reached out and grabbed the closest man still standing in its midst. It easily raised him above its head and tossed him like a stuffed doll into four others.
From her position on the ground, Sarah saw one of the men near her had expended his magazine and drawn a large, very lethal-looking machete from a long scabbard and raised it above his head. As it came down, Sarah pulled the trigger. Later she would be grateful for the three-round burst-of-fire setting on the Ingram because in her haste she depressed and held the trigger down. Two of the three rounds caught the man in the back as his machete came crashing down into the chest of the animal. The blade sank deep as the man’s forward momentum carried him into the enraged creature. Blood spewed out of the animal as it grabbed for the man that had hurt it so, and jumped with him into the grotto.
Sarah quickly sighted on the next man, concerned that her slowness might have killed the creature that had suddenly come to their rescue. As she was about to depress the trigger again a large boot slammed down on the short barrel of the weapon, knocking it onto the wet stone floor. She looked up; another of the remaining mercenaries was standing over her with his own smoking weapon pointed right at her head. Now that the animal appeared to be disposed of, the man clearly relished the power of holding the struggling Sarah beneath his boot.
Robby saw what was about to happen and came at the two. Another of the surviving men quickly swiped at Robby and sent him sprawling to the floor. Several of the panicked girls screamed as he skidded along the stone.
Sarah knew the master chief wasn’t likely to throw this man off his feet. But instead of being scared at her imminent death, she became angry as her attacker brought his hot gun barrel up to her face. Suddenly he jerked as a look of consternation crossed his face. His body quickly jerked again and then he fell forward, slamming face first into the cave opening and rolling dead onto the floor. Sarah felt the fine spray of his blood as it misted down her face. But her horror turned to amazement when two figures rose from the grotto. They were dressed in black wetsuits and advanced with two XM-8 light machine guns at an aiming position.
Now 5.56-millimeter rounds started to slam into the remaining men. Five of them went down without ever knowing they were hit, bullets neatly parting their foreheads. Three others besides the one that had almost dispatched Sarah managed to at least turn toward their sudden executioners. Going from a frightening animal attack to this new threat overwhelmed them; more XM-8 rounds easily found their mark. One man withdrew a hand grenade from his belt, pulled the pin, and was in the act of throwing it toward the new, human demons to attack them when he was also hit, the round glancing off his skull that sent him sprawling. The grenade hit the slick flooring and Virginia, thinking quickly, picked it up and threw it toward the canal opening to the outside. It hit the floor and bounded into the arched opening, where it detonated next to the right-side arch. The shrapnel burrowed into the soft, water-soaked stone.
Sarah, thirty feet from Virginia and the others, realized what was happening. They had been saved! The two figures rising from the water were close to being the best marksmen in the world. Jack Collins and Carl Everett were methodical as they went from man to man, dispatching all with neat shots to the head. Sarah knew they would take no chances in the environment around them and with the students in such close proximity, even while they would be ruthless in dealing with the remaining threat. Jack and Carl would never allow an enemy to survive to harm people again, especially where kids were concerned. The four remaining men who tried to run for the wall opening only knew the sudden slug of impact on the back of their heads as their bodies came crashing down to the ground.
“Clear!” the smaller of the two men shouted in the echoing and sudden silence.
“Clear!” the taller answered.
Jack and Carl moved their silenced weapons from side to side as they visually covered the interior of the cave around them. Everywhere their eyes went, the barrel followed. Several of the girls of the Zachary expedition screamed as one of the smoking barrels slowly pointed at them and then moved on.
“That’s it, Jack, they’re all down! The bad guys are down!” Sarah called out as she held one arm in the air.
Slowly the two men stepped from the shallows of the grotto. They had entered from the lagoon side right into the melee of the animal attack. They had watched the violence explode above them as the beast swiped and moved like greased lightning. They couldn’t tell who was being attacked or who was inside the large chamber they had surfaced into. After the beast disappeared, they quickly assessed the situation and Jack communicated with hand gestures what the plan would be. The former Special Forces operative and ex-navy SEAL had understood exactly how to proceed. Now they stepped onto the hot floor and surveyed the devastation around them.
“Goddamn, Toad, it took you assholes long enough!” Jenks said, grimacing in anguish as Virginia again tried to straighten out the mangled broken right leg.
“Chief, we thought that fish man may have got you,” Carl said as he examined the first mercenary Sarah had wrestled with. The man was surely dead.
The lieutenant commander stood as Jack and Sarah came back to the group. Carl safed his XM-8 and placed it on a snap hook on his weight belt. He unzipped the top half of his black wetsuit because of the extreme heat.
“I see you found some of the kids that we saw on the milk cartons, Chief,” he said as he took in the haggard group before him.
“Jack, Helen’s with them; she’s in there.” Sarah pointed.
Jack slowly removed his wetsuit hood, then went toward the small cave and bent down. He shined his light on the lone person inside. Helen Zachary moved, rolling her head toward him.
“Professor Zachary, I’m Major Jack Collins. Niles sends his regards and wants you to come home now,” he said as he stepped into the enclosure. He kneeled down and took her hand. Jack immediately recognized the nature of the sickness afflicting Helen.
She attempted to smile but failed through her obvious pain. “Give Niles … my apologies, I … don’t think I’ll be able to … promise anything,” she murmured and Jack squeezed her hand.
“I’ll tell him that you did what you set out to do, Professor. You proved your theory about a species unknown to us.”
This time she managed to smile, as Virginia entered the cave. The heat inside because of the lava vent made it almost unbearable, but still Helen shivered with cold.
“Don’t harm the creatures …they are the last of their … kind, there are … no more … mysteries left… let them be.”
Virginia quickly reached down and touched Helen’s head. The sad, trembling smile remained as the professor felt her touch.
“Tell … Niles …I love him …and …I’m—”
Helen stopped breathing and lay still. The smile had left her face as her last thought had been to try to apologize to Niles Compton.
“She’s gone,” Virginia said as she released Helen’s wrist. She took a deep breath and swiped angrily at a tear as it slid down her face.
Jack took Virginia’s hand and held it for a brief moment.
“How many of these animals are we dealing with, Virginia? Carl and I think there was one in the lagoon; it couldn’t have been two places at once.”
“I don’t know, maybe just two.”
“There are two of them?” Jack said, releasing her hand.
“Helen believed one is wild, but the other one saved us and attacked those assholes. The professor discovered its ancestors had worked the mine as slaves; the Inca may have bred insanity along the way to increase the beasts’ cruelty,” Robby said as he and Kelly entered the enclosure. His eyes welled up when he saw that Helen was dead.
“Hang in there, kid, this isn’t over yet,” Jack said as he drew his nine-millimeter from inside his wetsuit and tossed it to Robby, who caught it and looked inquiringly at the major.
Carl withdrew his own handgun and gave it to Sarah. “Collect a couple of those Ingrams and a few magazines; those guys won’t need them.”
Jack stood and made his way out of the ancient slave quarters. He was followed by Robby and the others. The major looked at the face of each student; these kids had been through so much. His eyes locked on Kelly; clearly she was all right. He took a deep breath, relieved that was one major concern out of the way.
“The professor would want you to be tougher for just a little while longer,” he said as he watched Sarah gather weapons from the dead men around them. “She died happy, so you remember what she did here in this place. Tell others about what she found, and make them believe with the same zeal and commitment she had. Make her proud. Now, before we attempt to get out of here, we need to know what’s happening, I and Lieutenant Commander Everett here don’t take kindly to surprises.”
Robby fought back tears as he left the small cave. “This place, it’s bad; no one can ever find this mine.”
Jack’s eyes went from Robby to Virginia, who moved to the master chief’s side.
“This place is contaminated, Jack. Its walls are shot through with uranium that has been naturally enriched, tons and tons of it. It’s very close to weapons grade,” Virginia said as she gestured around her at the gleaming walls filled with tritium. “It’s as if it came from a breeder reactor—impossible, I know, but Jack, it’s here and it’s starting to kill us all even as we speak.”
Jack quickly pulled Carl aside and they took a few steps away from the group. He whispered, “If that bomb is inside this mine at the ore level and it goes off, it’ll be the largest dirty bomb in the world. It would kill half of this hemisphere if it’s ignited by a thermal nuclear device.”
“And the hits just keep coming,” Carl whispered back.
Jack turned and found the face he was looking for.
“You, your name is Robby, right?”
“Yes, sir,” he said, stepping forward.
“Kennedy, the name rings a bell?
“Yes, sir. I think he knew about this place before we ever got here, don’t ask me how, but somehow he knew.”
“Son, did he have a case he brought along, about four feet long, three deep? It may have had a flotation device attached since you were going to be working near water. The case was more than likely yellow in color.”
“Yeah, he practically killed us looking for it after the larger creature sank the boat and barge.”
Jack reached into his wetsuit. He pulled out the release key that was attached to his dogtag, and showed Robby and the others. He didn’t have to ask as Robby’s eyes widened. Jack knew then that at least the professor’s assistant had seen the key before.
“This is an arm key for a military weapon. I can tell it’s been used because, once the key is turned in the device, a small, bulbous end breaks off and allows an electrical connection. Your Mr. Kennedy found the device and armed it. Now think, son. Do you or the others know where he did this?”
“We were separated; we never saw the case after the boat and barge were sunk.” Robby was starting to look desperate as he stepped forward with Kelly in tow and whispered to the major. “Sir, this is Kelly.” He looked around at the staring faces. “She’s the presi—”
“The president’s daughter; we know, son. Right now we have to get everyone out of here.” Jack looked deeply into the boy’s eyes. “Okay?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Now we have—”
Jack’s words were cut short as a loud cracking sound rumbled through the flooring of the enclosure.
The shrapnel from the grenade had penetrated the water-soaked limestone of the underwater opening and had created several faults that had slowly expanded over the last few minutes to the breaking point, until the pressure from the outside lagoon was too much for the ancient engineering to bear. The wall and arched opening gave way as one, and a torrent of water rushed into the quickly overwhelmed canal.
“Jack, that opening was engineered by the Inca to hold the lagoon at bay by a precise measuring of the opening against the pressure of the outside depth. The system has failed and can no longer hold the water back. Judging by the walls’ thickness, we have about three minutes before there’s no way out of here,” Sarah said as she started to push everyone toward the same opening Farbeaux had vanished into.
Jack leaned inside the smaller enclosure after tossing Virginia his XM-8. Then he grabbed the master chief and threw him over his shoulder.
As Carl and Sarah started to run with the others toward the stairs just inside the small archway, a loud crack could be heard. They watched in horror while a long fissure opened at the center of the wall, right through the ancient drawings carved by the Sincaro, effectively cutting the images right in two. The crack widened as it hit the small arch and, in a split second, it collapsed. Large stones from the opening’s interior rolled and crashed into the main chamber, making their attempted escape impossible. They all came to a sudden stop when the water slammed into their legs as it breached the top of the canal.
“Jesus Christ, this doesn’t look good,” Jenks hissed as he and Jack saw what had just happened.
For an exclamation mark to his comment, the grotto erupted, as the floor beneath cracked open and a geyser of lagoon water shot straight up, adding its volume to that of the failed canal opening. The group led by Carl and Sarah backed into Jack, Jenks, and Virginia.
Jack was shocked to see Sarah throw down the two weapons she was carrying and run toward the back wall of the excavated cavern. He saw her start to slide her hands along the wall as if searching for something. The water was hitting Jack’s knees and was rising fast.
“You didn’t happen to bring scuba gear for everyone did you, Major?” Jenks said upside down from his position slumped over Jack’s shoulder.
“Carl, give me that torch!” Sarah called out as the others looked on in utter confusion. Between Sarah’s yelling, the unbearable roar of onrushing water, and their imminent death, the students stood frozen is terror.
Carl grabbed one of the wall torches and tossed it to Sarah, who caught it deftly in one hand and then turned back to continue feeling the wall. It had taken her only a moment to realize they only had one hope of escape, and she was praying she wasn’t wrong. It had been the memory of her last classroom discussion that had spurred her to action.
Jack felt helpless as he watched, the weight of Jenks across his shoulder growing heavier by the moment. “Robby, you and Kelly and the others get over there and help her do whatever she’s doing!” he ordered.
Robby and ten others, including Kelly, ran for the back wall. They only had to wait a moment for Sarah to explain. The water was now at waist level, and Jack had to adjust the position of Jenks as the master chief’s head was momentarily dunked under the swirling onslaught.
“A depression, a varying thickness of stone, something that looks out of place on the wall,” Sarah shouted to the students over the sound of rushing water.
All ten of Helen Zachary’s grad students, now joined by Virginia and Everett, started feeling the wall, working their way around, some even ducking beneath the surface of the swirling rise to feel the stones underneath. Their time was dwindling rapidly. The water was now at Jack’s lower chest. The master chief had maneuvered up and was bracing himself by holding onto the neoprene rubber of the major’s wetsuit.
“Oh, boy, someone needs to pull something out of their tight ass, or we’re going to spend a long time here!” Jenks yelled out to the students.
Jack was following the students’ search when his eyes fell on an iron torch. It was lit but that wasn’t what caught his attention. It was somewhat larger than the others surrounding the chamber, and it had deep etchings around the base. As his eyes adjusted to its intense light, Jack made out the image of an eagle, or was it a hawk? Clutched in this large bird’s talons was the carved image of a man.
“Sarah, the torch!” he called.
Sarah looked up, momentarily confused as she turned toward the torch she was holding next to the wall. Jack, his hands full of the master chief, nodded toward the larger torch on the wall. She located what he was pointing at immediately and went to it. The water was now at Sarah’s shoulders, as it was some of the smaller students, as well. She quickly examined the carvings. Without warning, she reached up and pulled down on the iron torch. Nothing.
“Carl, here! Pull down on the torch. I think it’s a fulcrum release!”
“A what?” he asked as he waded toward Sarah, quickly followed by Robby.
“Pull, damn it, pull!” Sarah yelled as she hopped to keep her head above the water.
Carl reached up and pulled. Still nothing. Robby added his weight to it and yet the torch didn’t budge. Sarah was beginning to think she was wrong when, in a second effort by Robby and Carl, the torch swung down, its lit head dipping into the water with a sizzle. Sarah saw the stone just to the right of the levered torch suddenly slide up about three feet into the wall. She quickly swam over and pulled herself up.
“Carl, there should be a stone handle in the cavity. It only moves one way—pull it!” she said as her head slipped under the water.
He was torn between getting Sarah to the surface and doing what he was told. He reached for the opening in the wall just as water started entering the cavity. He felt around and his fingers hit on a slab that was sticking up. It was about ten inches in height and about six wide, and was made of stone, as Sarah had said.
“What in the hell … ?” he said as Sarah came up from behind and held onto his shoulder.
“Pull!”
Carl pulled and the ancient fulcrum release handle moved easily, as if it had been greased only yesterday.
A tremendous rumbling was heard even over the roar of water as a tenby-eight-foot section of wall opened to their left. It was immediately filled with water. Sarah shouted for everyone to enter the new, larger cavity. Carl helped the students inside, while Jack and Virginia struggled with Jenks as they slowly moved toward the wall. As they did, an eruption shattered the flooring as one of the caldera vents, ruptured by the cold water, exploded with a crushing thunder. Another vent farther away popped when the elements of fire and water could no longer tolerate each other.
Jack struggled and finally entered the opening just as Sarah started smashing a small stone to the opening’s right side. It was smaller than its surrounding neighbors, and Sarah hoped beyond prayer it was the right one.
Carl was telling the students to brace themselves against the far wall of the twenty-by-twenty-foot dead end they were now trapped in, and to rise with the water, just as Sarah screamed in frustration and stopped using her small hand. She pulled the Beretta Carl had given her.
“Hold your ears!” she shouted as she fired into the stone. The bullet struck and cracked it, and it fell into the swirling water. She dropped the gun and braced herself against the small opening she had created. “Thank God!” she yelled as she reached in. She quickly found the second fulcrum release and said a silent prayer that the Inca were as efficient at their engineering as she had always heard. She pulled the release.
Suddenly to the shock of all inside, they were hurled into blackness as the wall above the door frame slid down with crushing weight. The parting waters of the impact sent a torrent of water rushing at everyone, smashing them against walls and floor. Some, Jack and Jenks included, lost their hold and went under. In a split second, the world became quiet as they came to the surface sputtering and spitting. The waters inside the chamber soon settled and they were all left in the dark.
“Disneyland would love this little ride,” Carl said as he helped one of the smaller girls stay afloat.
“Everyone all right?” Jack called out.
There were yes and no answers but the major figured, if they could talk, they were alive.
“The ride’s not over, people. Let’s hope everything still works, or we just went from drowning to being entombed forever.”
As they listened the floor beneath their submerged feet began to rumble. Then a soft green glow started to illuminate the interior of the room. Chunks of tritium touched off by the brightness of the torchlight before the door slammed down had started the reaction it needed to gather its internal energy and start to brighten. Jack quickly found Sarah as the rumbling below grew to a fever pitch.
“This isn’t going to be pleasant,” she said as she locked eyes with him.
“What’s happening?” Virginia asked. She started to feel that the floor and the water around her were heating up. “What is this thing?”
“It’s what the ancient Inca used as an escape route in case of collapse. The mine must be sprinkled with them.”
“I don’t like the sound of this,” the badly injured Jenks said.
“Sprinkled with what?” Carl asked as he took the floating Sarah and held onto her.
“I think we’re in an elevator.”
“A what?” several people asked at once.
“An elevator!” Sarah shouted.
At just that moment the rumbling stopped and suddenly they heard a great hissing as the water around them became almost unbearable with heat. Then in an instant, an explosion rocked the chamber and all inside were pressed underwater as centrifugal force sent them all to the bottom.
Five thousand years ago, the Inca had feared being trapped in cave-ins far more than they dreaded any other possible disaster. Consequently, they had engineered the most ingenious escape platform the ancient world had ever devised. They had taken a naturally formed shaft that ran up and outward to the top of their excavated pyramid and had drilled a shaft beneath the flooring of the lowest cavern. Once reaching the boiling lava flow two thousand feet below, the Inca had capped the well at the cost of over a thousand slaves’ lives. The chamber had been fitted to precise specifications inside the naturally formed shaft, which had been smoothed to a finish that would have made any future stonemason proud. The seal formed a natural tube that was as close to airtight as humanly possible at the time. Sarah had heard a rumor of the technology advanced by the University of Southern California, following a large dig inside the ruins of the northern Yucatán site of Chichén Itzá. She had remembered the specifications—and now had prayed the Inca had gotten it right. They had.
The chamber was propelled up through the interior of the giant pyramid at eighty miles an hour, and was gradually building speed. The pressure buildup under the chamber had been unleashed when Sarah had activated the fulcrum release, and that in turn had brought down ten tons of iron weight onto the stone caps that had been sealed five thousand years before by the elevators’ original designers. The immediate release of so much pressure and steam just beneath the designed escape apparatus had no difficulty in forcing the stone chamber up and into the smoothed shaft. The only problem the Inca had failed to see was that of stopping. Even Sarah, the professor who taught her, and many others who had studied the system in classrooms across the globe were unable to figure out the problem. It was assumed that since the shaft and the chamber itself weren’t perfect, the pressure would eventually bleed off. But there was controversy in that lone theory. No one had been able to see any logical explanation as to how this could be controlled. In essence, they could be traveling in an express train with no brakes.
As the centrifugal force increased, all inside sputtered to the surface of the rapidly shallowing water as it was forced out of the minute cracks in the chamber. They could feel the speed gathering as the elevator roared upward into the unknown parts of the pyramid.
“Oh, shit,” Kelly said as she hugged Robby.
“I hate this!” the master chief announced.
Suddenly the chamber tilted, as the elevator started to climb the steep, inverted slope of the inside of the great pyramid. Everyone screamed as the angle changed and they lost their footing. Jenks screamed in agony as Jack lost his balance and fell, crashing them both to the floor. The angle of ascent finally stabilized as the enclosure made its way up toward the uppermost reaches of El Dorado.
“We’re slowing!” Sarah shouted.
Beneath the flooring of the chamber, the pressure was bleeding off the higher they climbed. The Incan engineers had calculated the length of the escape against the distance the pressurized wave could travel through the shaft, a simple formula that most would have considered impossible. And it would have been, even by the Inca, if several hundred Sincaro hadn’t been used as guinea pigs in its weight-to-pressure-ratio experimental development.
Without warning, a tremendous hissing exploded with ear-hurting sound through the stone walls of the chamber. Outside, as the elevator passed the third level from the top, another fulcrum release was ripped that opened a series of stone valves in the shaft. Steam and pressure was rapidly bled off in a calculated feat of engineering that was designed to evacuate the shaft of pressure that was left over after the push to the top. At the same time as the bone-crushing stop on the upper level slammed everyone once again to the floor, the passing chamber tripped a series of stone nubs that broke away and allowed spring-loaded logs, hewn and covered with amber thousands of years before as a preservative, to pop free of the shaft through drilled holes. Six of these shot out under the chamber and arrested it just as it rebounded off the stone ceiling.
The wall that had closed to seal them in broke free and crashed into a large chamber where the elevator had come to rest. Dust swirled about as coughing and crying could be heard. From somewhere high above, natural light filtered into the highest chamber of the pyramid as Jack quickly stood and pulled Jenks out.
“Quick, Carl, get everyone out!” the major shouted.
Now the others heard what he had, the splintering of wood coming from the shaft. There was a general panic as the students rushed, were pulled, or crawled out of the elevator as the popping and cracking became louder. Just as Sarah cleared the doorway, the elevator gave a huge lurch and then it quickly vanished back down the shaft in the swirl and vacuum of the air.
As they all looked at one another in turn, most still in shock at their double narrow escape, the silence seemed to be a blessing.
“I guess the brakes gave out,” Sarah said weakly as she turned over and lay on her back to stare upward at the intricately carved pyramid top two hundred feet up.
But of course it was the gruffness of the man in the most pain who broke the ice of terror that shrouded the company. Jenks sat up on one elbow and looked around.
“Goddamned Incans can’t design worth a shit!”