At least she'd found out why he had Argentina's flag tattooed on his arm. In a personal tradition born of youth and foolish, macho pride, O'Doyle adorned his body with the flag of every country where he'd killed someone. She didn't ask why the U.S. government had sent him to Argentina to kill. She had hoped to hear more of his stories, all of his stories, when they left the mining camp. Only now it didn't look like they were ever going to leave.
Cheated. That's how she felt. She'd been in love only once, way back in the tenth grade. She and Billy Rasmussen passed notes in history class and cut school to walk the littered streets of Patterson, New Jersey, holding hands and being young. Juvenile love, to be sure, but she still treasured the memories. She'd joined the army at eighteen, shortly after Billy died of a heroin overdose. Twelve years she served with honor and distinction. But those twelve years were loveless. She never found anyone in the service, anyone to love anyway, and all her relationships were cheap and quick. Now, at thirty-two, she thought she'd finally found someone.
Patrick O'Doyle.
The two of them hit it off in the midst of the parched Utah desert. It was something that went mostly unsaid, something that clicked between them right off the bat. O'Doyle's professionalism forbid them from fraternizing out in the open. They'd barely even kissed, only a clumsy peck late at night after the celebration party. Their relationship certainly hadn't burned with passion. Not yet, anyway.
But she knew passion was there. They'd connected almost immediately. It bothered her to know the reason for that connection — they'd both killed people. Up close and personal, where you could smell the fear on their last breath as your knife punched through a heart, as you heard the gurgle of lungs filling with blood. Those moments changed a person forever. She never thought she'd find a man who understood what it was like to carry that feeling around, that memory of watching life seep away from another human being. O'Doyle understood because he carried that same feeling. When she talked to him, she felt complete. For the first time in her life, she felt whole.
"You're right,” she said quietly to O'Doyle. “You're right. It's just that… you know… I find you, and now…” her voice trailed off as O'Doyle gently put a finger to her lips. Her heart ached with the gesture, ached at how such a massive, violent man could be so tender.
"I know,” O'Doyle said. “I know exactly what you mean. We're going to get out of here, I swear it to you. But he's still the boss and we've still got a job to do down here. We have to protect these people."
She marveled at his simplicity. The job was over. It was now survival of the fittest. She couldn't believe the depth of his loyalty, his professionalism. She instantly wanted to argue with him, change his mind, but at the same time knew it would be useless.
"He's the boss, and we do what he says, understand?” O'Doyle said quietly, but firmly.
She nodded, her eyes never leaving his. She didn't like it. But for now she'd play the role. She'd do it simply because Patrick asked her to.
Connell hefted the weight of the lethal Heckler & Koch machine gun. He instantly hated it. He'd never fired a gun in his life — a silent mantra repeated in his head, a wish that he wouldn't have to use the weapon.
O'Doyle took the biggest pack, but Connell carried more than his fair share. Mack prepared everything with a master's touch, stuffing all food, batteries, ropes, and climbing gear tightly away into backpacks and supply belts. About the only thing he hadn't found a place for was the small generator. Without that, the portable floodlights were useless. They'd make the rest of the trip — wherever it led — using only the lights of their headlamps.
All told, they had seven weapons: three H&K rifles, two Beretta pistols and two K-Bar knives. The pistols and knives belonged to O'Doyle and Lybrand, so they kept them — they each carried an H&K as well. The number of weapons was the good news, but the amount of ammo was the bad. They had six H&K magazines total, two for each rifle. O'Doyle set all their weapons to single-shot, as automatic would use up their precious ammo supply too quickly. The brief weapons training for Connell, Sanji, Veronica and Mack didn't involve actual firing — O'Doyle refused to waste a single round.
O'Doyle carried Mack's cavern map and took point. Connell walked about twenty paces behind him. Another twenty paces back Mack stayed with Veronica and Sanji, and twenty paces behind them Lybrand brought up the rear. They all had their headlamps on, which announced their presence to anyone further down the tunnel, but there was really no choice — they would either be an easy target or stumble blindly through the dark and dangerous caves.
A little more than six hours after the elevator plummeted to the shaft floor, the party set out down the tunnels. They knew roughly where they were headed, but nothing about what they'd find along the way.
Chapter Twenty-three
They moved steadily downward through switchbacks and crisscrossing tunnels, sometimes crawling hundreds of feet down ancient rock slides, using the massive boulders like misshapen ladders. Twice they had to break out their two sets of climbing gear to get past particularly dangerous declines. When the tunnels were wide open and the footing sure on some ancient streambed, it felt like they moved quickly; but they wanted to move downward, not horizontally.
The massive expanse of unforgiving stone tunnels and brownish tan caverns soaring high overhead seemed to humble everyone, even Connell. In the midst of such grandeur, speech seemed somehow childish and ineffective. In three and a half hours, they'd moved more than three thousand vertical feet below the Picture Cavern.
O'Doyle halted the party and stopped to examine a puzzling feature on the ground. He called back to Connell, who came forward and stared at what looked like tiny indentations in the powdery cave silt.
"What is that, tracks of some kind?"
O'Doyle nodded. “I saw some a ways back, but I didn't much worry about it. That was stupid of me. I didn't think of Mack's little silver critters until I saw this set. Now that I look around, these tracks are everywhere, and I mean everywhere. Look at any patch of dirt you see in here and you'll see these little two-prong indents."
O'Doyle pointed to one of the marks. Connell's headlamp lit it up like a spotlight illuminating a pitch-black stage. The marks looked like someone had pressed a two-prong fork into the dirt. The “prongs” were less than a quarter-inch apart. Like eyes focusing in on ants after seeing the anthill from high above, hundreds of marks suddenly clicked sharply into view. They were everywhere. Thousands of them in just the small area surrounding him and O'Doyle.
"Holy shit,” Connell said softly.
"Yeah,” O'Doyle said. “I should have seen it sooner."
Connell marveled at the big man's perceptiveness. The tiny prong marks were damn-near invisible even with the light shining directly on them — that O'Doyle spotted it while on the move seemed incomprehensible. Some of the tracks seemed to end at the rough cave wall. Connell's face furrowed in confusion. “Do the damn things go through the wall?"
"No sir, Mr. Kirkland,” O'Doyle said patiently, the voice of an underling explaining the obvious to a superior. “Not through, up. I think these things can crawl right up the rock. It makes sense, based on Mack's description."
The term spider jumped uninvited into Connell's head. And just when he thought things couldn't get any worse. Now not only was he stuck miles deep inside a mountain, soon to be completely in the dark, but there were spiders, too. Big spiders, from what Mack had said, more than a two feet long. Mack had taken to calling them “silverbugs.” The thought of being in the utter darkness with those crawling… things… made Connell shiver.