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Mendicino
Back inside the same cave they only recently left, Maddock and Bones made their way a short distance past the entrance and then stopped. They had left their rental car behind and run the short distance to the caves, not wanting the attention a vehicle might draw, and crept unseen to the cave.
Heads on a swivel, they watched and listened for any signs of human activity. Detecting none, Bones knelt and examined the cave floor where it joined the right side wall.
But he wasn’t looking for treasure this time. “I think this’ll work for the first trap. It’s one of my personal favorites. Keep an eye out while I get to work.”
Maddock agreed and Bones set about his task. The trap he had in mind was one he had learned as part of his Native American heritage. A simple design with formidable, though not lethal effects, Bones had already collected the raw materials he needed in the woods outside the cave. He unclipped a folding metal shovel from his small pack and used it to dig a wide hole a couple of feet deep. About halfway down the hole, Bones inserted a circular array of sharpened sticks into the dirt such that they held fast and were angled slightly downward.
Maddock peered into the hole with interest while Bones explained his handiwork.
“Good old Apache foot trap. The foot goes in, but it doesn’t come out. Not without a struggle, anyway. This won’t kill anybody, though. Worst it could do is break an ankle.”
Maddock nodded. “It’ll slow these guys down, and that’s what we need.”
“Apache,” Bones said with a grin.’
“If you say ‘jump on it,’ so help me...”
“You ruin everything,” Bones said as he selected a few of the leafy boughs from the pile he’d gathered outside the cave. “Watch and learn, Maddock. This would go faster if we both set the traps after this one.”
Maddock observed how Bones disguised the opening of the foot trap with leafy branches. Maddock noted that this close to the entrance, seeing leaf litter inside the cave wouldn’t be unusual, but that deeper inside it might actually attract attention.
Bones agreed. “Let’s just say that the foot trap isn’t the only one I know. I still think we can use the foot trap again, though. I did notice places where rains have washed debris further into the cave. But I’ll mix it up so they don’t get too comfortable with any one thing.”
“Sounds like a plan. I’ll make another one of these further in.”
“I’ll work a different section of the cave and meet you back at the vault chamber in...” Bones checked his watch. “Fifteen minutes.”
Maddock also consulted his timepiece before nodding. “Let’s not try to lead them right to the vault if we can help it. We need to see them enter, and we need them not to get lost on the way there. How about at the beginning of the menorah passage—ahead of the drawing?”
Bones agreed. “Makes sense. Okay, so see you in fifteen.”
“Don’t take a minute longer than that. Those guys are probably on the way right now.”
The two operators split up and set about constructing traps in different parts of the cave system. Fifteen minutes later, they converged at the designated spot near the menorah.
“All good,” Bones reported, slightly out of breath.
“Same here, I set two more foot traps.”
Bones nodded. “So now we wait.”
Maddock held up a hand for silence. As soon as Bones stopped talking, they heard a shout of surprise and a pained outcry, followed by hushed chatter.
“Sounds like they found the first of my foot traps,” Bones said, face expressionless.
More voices, soft but still carrying well throughout the subterranean system. Maddock pointed further down the corridor, away from the direction of the footsteps, and he and Bones soft-footed their way there.
Hiding behind a small outcropping of rock with their flashlights off, they had one foot trap between them and the intruders. Without knowing how many men had invaded the cave, however, it was a small measure of comfort. Maddock picked out at least three distinct voices as he crouched behind the jutting rock. Any thoughts he had of the men retreating after one of them fell prey to the booby-trap were quickly dispelled as the sounds of heavy footfalls grew louder by the second.
Bones put a hand on Maddock’s shoulder and held up three fingers. “Foot trap number two in three....two...one....”
Another cry of pain echoed off the tunnel walls.
“And we have a winner!” Bones finished.
“Let’s go!” Maddock sprung up and ran deeper into the main menorah passage, bypassing the right-hand tunnels until he was in front of the left-side one that led to the vault. He took one side of the passage, while Bones took up a low-profile position on the other. Looking back, they saw three men pursuing them down the passage, running fast and with much anger.
As the trio of marauders was almost to Maddock and Bones’ hiding spot, Maddock could see they were armed—each man carried a at least a gun in hand, a sheathed knife on a belt, and one man carried an automatic rifle slung over his back. He knew he and Bones would need to be extremely careful. Though he doubted Bones could have missed it, he made sure his friend knew the newcomers were armed by pointed to one of the weapons. Bones nodded in return, his eyes taking on that familiar look Maddock had seen so many times before—a look the Indian got when mentally prepping for a battle in which they were outnumbered and outgunned.
The flashlight beams of the intruders swept closer to Maddock and Bones’ positions. The men reached the side passage in front of them and paused to shine their lights down its open chasm. For whatever reason, they decided their quarry was not down that way and continued down the more inviting main passage, taking them right to Maddock and Bones.
Bones made the first move. His swiftness was disarming in and of itself, but the strength of his muscles combine with a practiced coordination took care of the rest. The man nearest to him made the mistake of turning his back to Bones, who promptly lashed out with a leg behind the man’s calf while simultaneously pulling him backward. He landed on his back on the cave floor, Bones extending him the courtesy of placing his foot on the exact spot where the back of the man’s skull was about to crash into the ground one second before it happened.
That didn’t stop him from stomping a boot down on his victim’s solar plexus, though. He needed him to stay down but didn’t want to cause him any lasting damage if that was left on the table as an option. He had some fleeting recognition of this man as being one of the priest’s henchmen who had paid them the little courtesy visit down at the river site. Yet he had no time to dwell on this fact, since one of the man’s compatriots now swung at him with a full-fledged haymaker. Bones ducked the right arm in a blur, catching Maddock out of the corner of his eye side-stepping a punch thrown by one of the other two assailants. Could the reason they hadn’t opened fire yet be that they wanted the treasure hunters to lead them to the exact X-marks the spot location of Alaric’s hoard?
Bones reached up and grabbed his assailant’s wrist after the punch missed, and pulled it down and twisted, sending the man sprawling while snapping the wrist with an audible pop. Bones watched him writhing in pain on the ground and, satisfied it wasn’t for show, he moved to the man. Quickly he knelt and frisked him, checking for weapons. He found a snub-nosed .38 and a folding knife, and relieved the man of them.
He heard the scuffling of feet increase in intensity behind him and whirled around in time to see Maddock enter into what looked like a boxer’s clinch with the fighter. Both men had their fists pressed into the other’s and continued to circle around. Maddock went for a quick headbutt but missed, and then his opponent tried the exact same thing, almost missing completely but grazing his left ear.
Bones sprung over and gave the man a solid kidney punch, dropping him where he stood. Again he went through the motions of patting him down, and again he did not come up empty. He handed Maddock a 9mm Luger and showed him a Leatherman Multitool, which among other things, featured a 3-inch knife blade. Maddock pointed away from them at that moment, at a fourth man fleeing away from them toward the cave exit.
“Let’s go!” Bones pocketed the multitool and ran down the main passage with Maddock toward the fleeing interloper. The corridor was a long one, and the two ex-SEALS passed the many side-passages in a blur. Their target moved at a considerably slower pace, not because he didn’t know he was being chased, but because he simply wasn’t that fast, and was completely unfamiliar with the layout of the cave to boot. Maddock got to him a half step ahead of Bones and launched himself onto the man just has his prey turned around to see how close his pursuers were getting.
Maddock used his foe’s body as a shield as they hit the ground. He heard his quarry grunt heavily with the impact, and then, as Maddock had counted on, Bones was also on him in a flash, securing his arms at his sides.
“I got him, you can get up,” Bones told Maddock, who promptly released his grip on the adversary and stood back a step. He looked around briefly, checking for additional men lurking in the shadows, but saw no one and so turned back to the man, whose face was being jammed into the dirt by one of Bones’ boots.
“Ease up, let me get a look at this fine specimen of humanity,” Maddock said. Bones stepped off the guy’s head, and the tackled one looked up at Maddock, who promptly flushed red.
“Romano!” Bones blurted out, unable to contain his surprise.
“Well, aren’t we the lucky ones? Looks like the head honcho decided to make a personal appearance.” Maddock looked angrier than Bones could ever remember seeing him. “I would have thought he would bring Lina as a guide.” He shook his head while contemplating her situation. No such luck. She could be anywhere now. He lifted Romano from the ground roughly and shook him by the collar of the leather jacket he wore over his cassock.
“Where is she?”
“If you ever want to see her again, you will let me go now.”
Maddock took on a stern expression. “That’s not how it works, Romano. You see, my friend the Indian, here, has this thing for...let’s call it persuasion. He’s always got these nifty tricks up his sleeve to help him persuade people. What have you got for us tonight, Bones?”
Bones took off his backpack and opened it. “Let’s see...I think I’ve got a bottle of petrol, a piece of string, and two sharp sticks. Right here...” He stuck an arm deeper into his pack.
“Okay, okay. I’ll tell you what I know,” Romano spat. He glared up at Maddock before turning his gaze back to Bones, watching his backpack carefully while Bones stared at him, awaiting his response.
“She’s in the dungeon beneath the castle.”
Bones laughed out loud, a bellowing chortle that bounced around the cave walls, making it seem even bigger than it was. “Stop telling fairy tales, the castle is a tourist attraction.”
To Bones’ surprise, Romano nodded. “That’s true. The dungeon entrance was sealed off years ago, but few people know you can get to it through the sewers. They use it as their headquarters.”
Maddock narrowed his eyes at Romano. “Who’s ‘they’?” he asked, but he already knew the answer, which Romano confirmed.
“Heilig Herrschaft.”
Bones aimed a confused glance at Maddock. “I don’t get it. Why would an Italian priest hook up with radical German nationalists?”
Even in the dim artificial light of the cave, the touch of defiance was visible on Romano’s face. “I am descended from Athaulf himself. Visigoth blood runs in my veins, and the treasure is rightly mine.”
“So, what’s the deal?” Maddock asked. You get the treasure, and they get the menorah?”
Romano paled. “How did you...how could you possibly know that?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” Maddock signaled Bones and together they bound Romano’s wrists and pulled him to his feet. “Let’s go, holy man.”
The priest nodded, even smiled at them as he faced toward the distant cave exit. But the smile disappeared when Maddock and Bones forcefully whirled him around and began marching him back through the menorah passage they had just traversed.
“Hey, what’s going on now! You promised to let me go if I told you what you wanted to know! We’re going the wrong way!”
“We will, if you’ve told us the truth. But we’re going to leave you here for safekeeping while we verify that. If you’ve lied to us, Bones will come back with his petrol and sharpened sticks.”
Romano gasped. “What? I told you the truth. I’m not worried about that. But what if you don’t make it back for some reason, any reason?”
“If we don’t make it,” Maddock said, “at least you’ll be able to enjoy the treasure vault that is rightly yours.”
They reached the end of the passage where the vault entrance was and turned into it. Romano gasped.
“You...you found the treasure?”
“Not the treasure,” Maddock clarified, “just the vault.” He pushed Romano inside and closed the door.
Then Maddock turned to Bones. “What were you going to do with the gas and the sticks, anyway?”
Bones grinned and shook his head. “I have no idea.”