Stepping through the wide mouth of the cave, Nancy and Mick found that the walls narrowed into a dark tunnel. It twisted right, then left, and then they saw a faint haze of light. Nancy was surprised to find that the tunnel ended at an airy chamber, lit by pale sunlight filtering in through an opening in the rock high above.
“It’s like a great hall,” she said, gazing around the huge space. At the far end of the chamber a pond of dark water, smooth as glass, stretched to the rough stone wall.
“We’re not the first people here,” Mick commented, switching off the flashlight.
Nancy followed his gaze to a recessed area on their right, where three knapsacks were propped against a boulder. Two sleeping bags were rolled out next to a few orange cushions marked with a star and some Greek letters. Nancy walked over to the boulder, knelt to pick up one cushion, and studied the markings. The first three letters were distinctively Greek, but the last four resembled the English letters aooa.
Standing up, she spotted a hearth and cooking utensils just beyond some boulders. “Someone’s camping here,” she observed. “Maybe we should head back. I feel like I’m intruding on their home.” She backed away and accidentally knocked over a lantern.
Leaning down to pick it up, she noticed an envelope on the ground beside it. The flap was partially open, and Nancy glimpsed the edge of a photograph. She looked more closely—and gasped.
“Passport photos?” She looked over the headshots of a dark-haired man. He seemed to have a scar on his face, but the photos were a little blurred, so she couldn’t be sure. “Check this out,” she said, turning to Mick.
“No time for that,” Mick said urgently. “We have to get out of here—and fast.”
Hearing alarm in his voice, Nancy dropped the envelope and joined Mick. He was standing next to a stack of wooden cartons. She squinted in the dim light to read the word painted on each of the cartons: Explosives.
“Explosives?” Nancy’s heart started pounding. “In here?”
Mick nodded, stepping away from the four cartons. “Enough to blow this place out of the Aegean.”
“It’s definitely time to go,” Nancy said.
She turned abruptly toward the cave’s opening, then froze as a man’s voice called loudly from the tunnel beyond the cave opening: “Shara! Shara!” He was answered by a woman, who spoke brusquely.
Nancy felt the hair on the back of her neck stand up. The campers were returning—and she had a hunch they weren’t going to be happy that she and Mick had discovered their collection of fireworks.
Mick’s eyes darted about the chamber. “Looks as if the way we came in is the only way out.”
“Not good,” Nancy whispered, her nerves twanging. “Mick, if those are the people who own these explosives, they might blow us away!”
Chapter Eight
Nancy tensed as the man’s voice called again, “Shara!” His voice echoed against the cave walls, so it was hard to tell how far away he was.
“Do you know what he’s saying?” she whispered to Mick.
“It’s Greek to me,” Mick said.
In the tension of the moment Nancy couldn’t appreciate his joke. She shivered as she looked frantically around the cold, damp cave for somewhere to hide.
Mick had moved away from the explosives and was running his hands along the rock wall near the passageway to the tunnel. “See that ledge up there, over the opening to the tunnel?” he asked.
Nancy nodded, spotting the ledge that ran over the doorway, about ten feet from the ground. “But it doesn’t lead anywhere.”
“We can hide up there—if we can find a way to climb up.”
In a flash Nancy was beside him, searching the rock wall for cracks and crevices that they could use as handholds. The voices of the people were getting louder, but still Nancy and Mick hadn’t found a break in the rock.
“Quick, give me a boost,” Nancy said breathlessly. Mick laced his fingers together so that she could step up from his hands. Desperately she scraped at the rock wall overhead until she felt a triangular wedge she could wrap her fingers around. A moment later she pulled herself up onto the ledge.
Moving fast, she scrambled around, locked her foot into a crevice, and stretched out so that she could help Mick up. Her muscles strained and her body flattened against the rock ledge as Mick grasped her hand and hoisted himself up within reach of the ledge. He had to make it up before they were discovered!
With his free hand Mick grabbed on to the same triangular wedge Nancy had used, and he pulled himself up. He huddled beside her, his face grimy with sweat and dust.
And not a moment too soon. Suddenly the voices were loud and clear, and Nancy knew that the strangers had reached this end of the tunnel. She sank back against the wall as two figures, a man and a woman, entered the rocky chamber below her.
In the pale light that filtered in from the opening above, Nancy could see a short, brawny man with jet black hair and a nasty red scar that stretched from his chin to his ear on the right side of his face. He was wearing shorts, which were sopping wet. Seeing his muscled arms and chest, Nancy knew that he would be a formidable opponent.
The woman was wearing a black one-piece swimsuit. Small-boned and petite, she had short red hair that was slicked back with water. Her features were plain, though something about her seemed familiar to Nancy. Since she was also wet, Nancy guessed that they had just been swimming.
The couple appeared to be arguing as they pulled clothes out of two of the knapsacks. Nancy wondered if the owner of the third knapsack was nearby.
Although she couldn’t understand anything the couple was saying, Nancy noticed that the man kept repeating “shara.” She made a mental note to ask Zoe if she knew the word. Her ear for languages told Nancy that these people weren’t speaking Greek. The rhythm and tone of the language was different from the conversations she had heard at the hotel and in Chora.
A glance at Mick told Nancy that he was studying the couple just as closely as she was. What are we going to do? she wondered. If the couple moved toward the back of the cave, she and Mick might have a chance to slip out through the tunnel without being noticed. But it wouldn’t be that easy.
The red-haired woman pulled a towel from her knapsack and marched toward the tunnel. Unfortunately, the man didn’t seem inclined to follow her. Resigned to settling in, Nancy shifted her legs.
Suddenly she felt herself sliding. Panic cut through her like a sharp knife. Pebbles and dirt scattered to the ground as Nancy grappled to keep her balance. But it was too late. Alerted by the falling pebbles, the woman looked up—right at Nancy and Mick.
Gritting her teeth, Nancy dropped to the ground. She landed just a few feet from the surprised woman. Any hope of a friendly reception was immediately dashed when the woman assumed a fighting stance. With a fierce cry she squared off and aimed a karate chop right at Nancy’s face!
Thinking fast, Nancy dodged the blow, wheeled, and landed a kick to the woman’s chest, knocking her to the ground.
The man was scrambling near the knapsack, probably looking for a weapon, Nancy thought.
Before he could act, Mick leapt to the ground beside Nancy. “Out we go!” he shouted, pulling her toward the tunnel. Not daring to look back, Mick and Nancy raced through the narrow passageway as quickly as they could.
When they reached the cave’s entrance, Nancy turned away from the flat, sandy beach and darted behind a jagged boulder lodged in the sand.
“Are they following us?” she whispered breathlessly to Mick.
“They will,” he answered, “but I think we’ve got a good lead.” He nodded toward a rocky incline that formed a point on the south end of the beach. “We’ll have to climb up that hill and hide behind boulders. It’s our only chance of losing them.”