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AFTER DIGGING DOWN a farther two meters, Creed hit a large stone slab. He cleared away the dirt to look for another sign from Saunière and discovered an arrow pointing in the direction to dig next. As well as his initials there was something else scratched onto the surface, a message, 5M, ROCKS – TOMB.
He turned on hearing Ben crawl along the tunnel, the empty bucket scraped on the sides of the passage and banged on the wooden supports. Creed informed him of the new discovery.
Ben leaned into the hole and stared at the message chiseled crudely into the rock's surface and spoke aloud its meaning was. “After five meters we will reach rocks and behind them is the tomb. The rocks must be the ones he mentioned in his confession that he used to block the tomb entrance. And look, the arrow is pointing back to the cave entrance, towards the hole I filmed through.” He could hardly contain the excitement in his voice. “We're nearly there.”
They both turned when Doyle dropped into the entrance hole and glared at them menacingly.
“I can't hear any digging. What's the problem?”
“No problem,” Creed answered.
“Then dig,” Doyle ordered.
Creed flipped the slab over to hide the inscription. Now they knew how far they had to go, they worked slower, certain that as soon as they reached the tomb, they would become redundant. Of no further use, they would probably be killed. Also, the longer it took them, the more chance they would have of overpowering their captors.
They were kept hard at work until they were exhausted, and even David could see they needed a break. He called them out of the tunnel and told them to rest. Ben was ordered to cook enough food for them all, so he heated two cans of stew. When it was ready, they ate in silence.
“I need to take a leak,” stated Creed, after he had finished eating.
David nodded to Doyle. “Take him outside but keep an eye on him.”
Creed crossed to the blanket Doyle had replaced over the entrance.
“I need to go as well,” said Ben, spying an opportunity. If he were allowed out with Creed, it would be two against one. They might be able to overpower Doyle. He began to stand.
David pointed his gun at Ben. “Sit the fuck down. You really think I'm that stupid? You can go when your boyfriend gets back.”
Ben sat. It had been worth a try. “I need a smoke, they're in my rucksack.”
David glanced at the rucksack Ben pointed at and nodded his permission. They had already been searched for weapons. His eyes followed Ben as he carefully reached for his cigarettes and lighter, slipped one from out from the packet and lit it with a lighter.
David scrutinized the lighter. “Is that gold?”
Ben was about to lie but thought better of it. “It is.”
David held out a hand. “Gimme.”
Ben threw it to David and watched him examine it.
“It's heavy and no doubt expensive, even just for its gold value,” stated David.
Ben held out his hand to retrieve his lighter. “It was a present.”
He sighed when David slipped it into his pocket and smiled. He blew smoke at David, but he didn't seem to mind. Unfortunately, death by passive smoking took too long to be a viable solution; he would have to think of a quicker method.
Creed soon returned, and when they'd both been toilet, Creed and Ben were ordered to sleep. They climbed into their sleeping bags. Though they tried to stay awake, hoping to catch the men unawares if they nodded off, exhausted by the long day's work it wasn't long they were both asleep.
David left Doyle to guard the two sleeping men while he went to fetch the car. Having walked the track earlier, he reckoned he could drive the car all the way to the cave. Except for a couple of places where it was deeper, causing the vehicle to slide, the day's hot sun had dried up the few patches of mud, the ride up had been easy, and within an hour he was back.
So they could both get some rest, they took turns guarding the men. David sent Doyle to the car to get some sleep, telling him to relieve him in four hours.
The next day, the routine started again. After breakfast, Ben and Creed were set to work in the tunnel. After digging for a couple of hours, Ben was tipping a bucket of soil on the huge pile that had accumulated in the cave when David's mobile phone rang.
“Hello Boss,” David answered, after reading the caller ID.
I wonder if he has his number filed under Boss. Ben pondered, arriving at the conclusion he probably had. He took his time emptying the bucket so he could listen in on the call.
“Okay...Yes, everything's fine...No they're still digging...I don't know...Okay.” David tapped Ben on the shoulder with his gun. “How much longer before you reach the tomb?”
Ben shrugged. “How could I possibly know that?”
“Take a fucking guess.”
“Two days, three, maybe a week, I don't know.”
David raised the gun as if to strike Ben around the head. “Get back in the tunnel and work harder.” He placed the phone back to his ear. “Harper reckons about two days...Okay.” He hung up and turned to Ben as he was about to climb into the hole. “You both need to dig faster. The boss will be here later to check on your progress.”
“What's his name, I take it Boss is just an alias?”
“Very fucking funny, you'll find out when he gets here.”
“What's going to happen to us when we reach the tomb?
“That's not my decision, but I wouldn't make any long-term plans.” David smiled. “Now back to work and tell Frenchie to get a move on and no more slacking.”
Ben jumped into the entrance, crawled along the tunnel and dropped into the hole at the end and informed Creed about the phone call and the imminent arrival of the thugs' boss.
“We can't let them get their hands on the stuff in the tomb,” Creed stated.
“I know, but what can we do, they have guns.”
“And they aren't making any mistakes, well not so far, and soon there'll be three of them if their boss stays, making it even harder to get the drop on them.”
David shouted into the tunnel. “I can't hear any digging, don't make me come in there.”
Ben swapped places with Creed.
“We have no choice other than to carry on and hope something turns up.” Ben hacked at the dirt with the spade. “It's doubtful, but there may even be another way out through the tomb. The original entrance perhaps, though it would mean more digging.”
“I hadn't thought of that.” Creed put the bucket in position so Ben could fill it.
After digging a couple of more meters, they ran out of timber supports. David refused to go and fetch a fresh supply and ordered Ben to remove some they'd already used earlier in the tunnel. To not put too much strain on the boards, Ben took out every third one, which meant that as the wood was twenty centimeters wide there were two boards then a twenty centimeters gap then another two boards then a gap and so on. It seemed to work because the roof didn't cave in.
As the tunnel progressed, digging suddenly became easier as the earth wasn't so compacted, they only had to touch it, and it crumbled. They soon found out why, the roof of the tunnel was now solid rock, with no weight pressing down on the soil, it had remained relatively loose after Saunière had backfilled his excavation.
Though they dug faster, they didn't alter the amount of earth they took out of the tunnel. The excess they removed was spread over the tunnel floor.
Four hours later, they measured from the position of the 5M marked stone to the end of the tunnel. They had dug three meters, which left only two more before they reached the tomb. They continued digging until they came across the rocks mentioned in Saunière's message scratched on the slab. After clearing away the loose earth, they saw the rocks had been piled up to build a wall across the tunnel.
Ben stared at the rock wall. “We've only dug about three and a half meters from the slab, not the five meters it indicated.”
“Maybe it's another of Saunière's traps?” Creed suggested.
“Let's proceed with caution.” Ben began removing the rocks and found another layer behind.
“It looks like we might have a couple of meters of rocks to remove.”
“Then we'll have to remove them, those bits of stone are all that stands between us and the tomb. Some I can take out; the rest can be placed along the edges of the tunnel.”
“Good thinking.”
To keep up the pretense of digging, a bucket of earth scraped off the floor was taken out every few minutes.
Ben soon had enough rocks removed to see that it was only two layers deep. As soon as Creed returned, he told him the good news.
Creed peered at the wall. “What's on the other side?”
“Pass that lamp behind you, and I'll take a look.”
Ben pushed a few rocks into the space the other side of the wall and held up the brighter light.
“What do you see?” Creed asked, excitedly.
“Not much. The tunnel continues a short distance and then turns, but it looks clear. Ben handed the lamp to Creed, “I'll remove enough rocks for us to squeeze through, but you had better take another bucket of soil up to prevent them from becoming suspicious.”
Creed quickly filled the bucket with soil. As he turned to leave, he glanced back at Ben. “Don't go in until I get back.”
“I won't, we'll go in together.”
Dragging the bucket of soil alongside him, Creed scrambled along the tunnel. When he returned, Ben had made a gap big enough to crawl through. Excited at what they were about to see, they scrambled through the hole.
To the right, the tunnel was blocked by a cave in. To the left, it led around a corner. The larger tunnel was almost high enough for them to stand up straight. Ben held up the light. The first thing he saw was Latin words chiseled into the tunnel wall.
Creed emerged from the smaller tunnel and stood next to Ben. “What does it say?”
Ben Translated. “Be gone I conceal the secrets of God.” Ben ran his fingers over the neatly carved writing. “This must be the original tunnel entrance dug by the Knights Templar.”
Creed moved his light around the tunnel. “The original entrance must be in that direction, toward the river.”
Ben gazed at the collapsed heap of earth and rocks reaching from floor to ceiling. “You notice how the floor slopes down? It must go below the level of the river outside.”
“It looks impossible to move quickly, which means the only way out is back through the tunnel.”
“Come on, let's go find out what is really in the tomb.”
Creed followed Ben along the tunnel where it led off to the right. As they approached, Ben could tell the opening was too straight and square to occur naturally, it was made by the hand of man. He paused at the opening blocked by a wall constructed from stone blocks. He recognized the wall; he'd seen its other side when he'd filmed it with the video camera he'd lowered throw a small shaft in the top of the tomb chamber.
In the bottom left of the wall was a pile of stones. “That's how Saunière gained entry,” Ben explained. “He removed just enough of the blocks so he could fit through.”
It only took them a few moments to remove the rocks and then, just as Saunière had done many years before, they entered the Tomb.
