The sound of gunfire died out. O'Doyle quickly checked to see if he'd been hit by stray ricochets. He hadn't felt anything, but he'd seen stranger things during his combat days. Free of blood, he checked Lybrand.
"You all right?"
"Fine,” Lybrand said. She moved forward in a crouch toward the first fallen silverbug, its leg still madly twitching in a revolting mockery of a dying insect. O'Doyle grabbed her arm, stopping her.
"Don't go near it. We don't know if it's booby-trapped. Let's get the hell out of here.” Lybrand moved through the tunnel, her hand on O'Doyle's hip as he kept his light and his gun pointed back the way they had come.
Far away, at the edge of his light, he saw a silverbug lurking. Still moving backward, he waited for a clear shot.
Sonny McGuiness sat quietly, hidden among the rocks less than twenty-five yards from the killer's warren. She'd been gone for three hours, leaving in the direction of Milford and coming back the same way. He watched as her Land Rover drove right through the camp's remains and ground its way up the hill toward her burrow. She wasn't bothering with caution anymore. Something had changed.
The Land Rover skidded to a halt less than fifteen yards from her formerly invisible hiding spot. She got out and strode into the warren, her every move an exhibit of anger.
Adrenaline buzzed through his brain, making him feel shaky and alive. Alive. Something he wouldn't be for long if he stayed here. If he could just get a little bit of information, something the cops could use to track her down, then he could take off. He'd given up any fantasy of killing her himself. He couldn't take that psycho bitch. But he'd come this far, and now he was only a short crawl from her position.
He needed to get closer still. He had to know.
Sonny quietly moved toward her nest.
That little fucking prick Angus Kool had thrown a major monkey wrench into her plans, but he wasn't going to stop her. No way, no how. He was out here somewhere. Why else would he have set up the hospital ruse? Was he looking for a way into the tunnels, or was he in there already? Perhaps he'd sneaked back in through the adit, possibly when Kayla was sleeping. If that was the case, then he was likely dead along with the others. But she had no way of knowing for sure.
Kayla punched numbers into the Harris COMSEC unit, carefully creating a web of bounced signals and coded relays. As far as the NSA was concerned, her call would originate from a payphone in Duluth. The NSA had expert SIGINT people, but she knew a dozen tricks they had yet to learn. The ruse would only last about ten minutes, tops, but she didn't plan to be on that long.
She knew she didn't have much time. The camp's secrecy kept people from calling in — only Barbara Yakely had done so, and then only in response to one of Connell's queries. But Yakely wasn't stupid. After a day, perhaps just a bit more, Barbara would try and contact Connell. When she couldn't do so, she'd send someone out here to investigate, and when that happened, Kayla's play was over.
She hoped she could finish everything off in about ten hours. Ten hours to regain the only thing she'd ever wanted — to be an NSA agent once more. Controlling her excitement lest she make even a minor mistake, Kayla silently entered the codes into the Harris COMSEC unit. Another hour or so of programming, and she could make the call.
Veronica had thought herself in shape, and in reality she knew she was, but carrying most of Mack's weight on her shoulder — up a steep incline all the way — wore her out within twenty minutes. Connell took her place, giving her the map, then shouldering Mack with one arm while keeping his H&K at the ready with the other. Connell seemed tireless, dauntless, unstoppable. She was amazed that — amid all the horror of the caves and the silverbugs and some unknown, murderous enemy — she felt a pang of attraction for him.
Strange thoughts to have at a time like this, Professor, she chided herself. Not exactly the place or time for a Love Connection.
Every few minutes she heard a gunshot erupt from far back down the tunnel, where O'Doyle and Lybrand brought up the rear. She didn't know if they were in danger. As long as the gunshots kept ringing out, she surmised they were still in good shape.
She busied herself with the map, calling out directions. The map looked strangely familiar to her, as did the tunnels. They were very much like the Cerro Chaltel catacombs. She felt instantly at ease with the map, finding she could read it without difficulty. She led them steadily in the direction of the Dense Mass. At each turn, she paused to make an arrow out of loose rock to point the way for Lybrand and O'Doyle.
They turned a sharp corner dominated by a pendulous green stalactite. She directed Connell down a shaft on her right-hand side, then knelt to gather loose rocks to make a pointer. Connell and Sanji shuffled up the slope, practically dragging Mack. Their noise quickly faded away. She scooped small rocks into a pile.
Then something caught her eye.
She snapped her head up, fear gripping her, realizing that she was alone in the cave with no weapon should the silverbugs come. She saw nothing. She looked hard, her light flashing across the darkness, filling the cave with a faint cone of light. No movement, no flashes — nothing.
No sooner had she bent her head toward the rocks than her eye again picked up the mysterious vision. Suddenly it hit her; she reached up and snapped off her headlamp, then looked down the tunnel.
There it was, far down the tunnel, faint but unmistakable.
A light.
A light so weak it only presented itself in complete darkness, but it was there. It looked very small. She noted the tunnel narrowed gradually to only a few feet of clearance, which cut off most of the light source.
She screamed down the tunnel to her right. “Connell! Get back here now!"
Another gunshot from far behind filled the tunnel with noise. O'Doyle and Lybrand were drawing closer. Veronica crouched with her headlamp off, staring at the light. Connell's headlamp beam danced on her and the wall to her left as he ran toward her, then he was there, crouching beside her.
"Where's Sanji?” she asked, grabbing his arm.
"He's back down the tunnel with Mack. What's wrong? Why is your light off?"
In answer, she gently reached up and turned his lamp off, then pushed the side of his face to make him look down the tunnel.
"Holy shit… what's up there, according to the map?"
Veronica pulled out the paper, switched on her light and examined it. “It looks like a huge, kidney-shaped cavern. It's very big, but the map says the cavern's floor is far below our current elevation. Looks like this tunnel might lead to a cliff on the edge of that cavern."
"Is there a way down to the cavern floor?"
"I don't know. It's hard to tell on the map."
Connell stared at the faint glow. “If there's a light, someone is there. We may have found our silverbug owners."
"I can't believe the whole thing is made out of platinum,” Randy said. “This is so cool."
Angus nodded in agreement. A pair of tiny portable halogen lamps flooded the tunnel with light. The AL lay on a flat rock, its spindly legs sticking motionless into the air. Angus thought it looked very much like a dead bug. They'd found access panels all over the AL, easily opened by small catches built right into the body.
"I wish we hadn't smashed it up so bad,” Randy said, looking at the one mangled leg and the heavily dented left side of the spherical body. “We damaged the internal structure."
"Yeah, but what choice did we have?” With no suitable equipment on hand, they'd decided to use the most primitive of research techniques — smash the thing with a big rock until it stopped moving.