“Hold.” Yang knew the dust would settle soon. He turned to the stream and lifted his flashlight. Through the gritty mist he could see its black sinuous surface was no more like an oily sheet of glass, but was now moving, and fast. He smiled, open, I win, he thought.
He was about to order the men forward, when he paused. There was a creaking sound, like the splintering of wooden boards. He stepped out, holding up his light. The air was clearing, but he still couldn’t make out the end of the tunnel. He turned, sighted on one of his men, and then motioned with his head. “Go and look.”
The young soldier nodded once and sprinted forward. He was soon swallowed in the foggy dust. Yang waited.
“Clear.” The voice floated back. “More tunnel, sir.”
Yang looked at Shenjung, feeling both relieved and vindicated. The professor was frowning as he looked at the stream. The water sizzled, popped, and jumped and he stared hard at its surface. At first he assumed it was something underneath pushing upwards, but the more the air cleared, the more he saw that instead, it was something dropping down from above. He lifted his flashlight beam to the ceiling of the cave. A dark crack had opened, no, was still opening, and unzipping down the length of the tunnel.
Shenjung pointed at the ceiling, and Yang screamed a single word. “Run!”
He turned and sprinted towards the newly cleared cave end with Shenjung and his men following him instantly. They clambered over the broken stones, and the water, now free, jumped and swirled as it kept pace with them. There came a huge splash from behind them, and some of his men yelled with fear. Yang didn’t turn, knowing it was probably a rock falling from the ceiling. There came more pounding splashes, then the roar of a giant and the sound of boiling, rushing liquid.
Yang leapt over another boulder, sprinting hard. There must have been another cave stream directly over this one. The explosion had ruptured its bottom, and the streams were about to merge — right on top of them. He put his head down and ran harder.
The growing roar was a living thing that shook the cave around them. The water was an oncoming train, and its speed was about the same. They never had any hope of outrunning it.
Seconds later, Yang and his men were like rats in a drain, snatched up and flushed away in the current. They tumbled down a dark pipe towards a destination that was out of their control.
The water boiled around Yang, pummeling him, throwing him from cave wall to ceiling and then to floor. He tried to keep his eyes and mouth jammed tight, praying that none of the horrifying worms would find their way inside him.
In the inky black water, he struck another body, hard. He went to snatch at it but it was already gone, and in the next instant a massive surge threw him so violently into a cave wall, that he was momentarily stunned.
His lungs were going into spasms, and involuntarily, he opened his mouth wide to drag in a huge breath of air. But instead, the gritty coldness that surged down his throat and into his lungs brought him back instantly. He screamed out the last air in his lungs, and spewed the bile in his gut along with the water. The next thing he knew he was falling through space — falling, falling.
It is over, he thought, just before the impact.
CHAPTER 40
The thumping explosion was felt milliseconds before it was heard. Grenades, Casey thought, reacting first, yelling out to her team and diving. She took Aimee and Soong with her as she crashed to the wall of the cave chute they were descending in. Dust and debris rained down on them as the shock waves pulsed through the stone, and then raced past them.
They stayed down, hugging the rock for a second or two more, before Casey lifted her head.
“Gimme a source, big guy.” She spat and blinked away grit, and then shined her light up at the ceiling.
Rinofsky held up the scanner, first one way, and then the next. “Speed of the tremor wave, and echo duration, gives us a source of about two klicks southeast. With a downward inclination of twenty-five degrees.” Rhino pointed. “Down and that way.” He looked at Casey. “Got to be our Chinese friends.”
Casey stood slowly. “Looks like they decided to clear some blockage, huh? Great idea under freaking miles of stone.”
Dawkins coughed and wiped his mouth, spitting and grinning, and displaying his chipped tooth again. He got to his feet. “Maybe they ran into something they could only fight with explosives.”
“Well,” Casey said, and dragged Soong to her feet. “Whatever it was, I wonder if they achieved little more than a free burial.” She must have noticed Soong’s disapproving expression, and shrugged. “Ah, whatever.”
Aimee dragged a sleeve across her eyes. “We’re probably moving parallel to them. Maybe we can intersect if we find a conjoining tunnel. Provided they made it through.”
Casey held her flashlight in the air. “Interesting, look…” She nudged Aimee. “The dust, it’s moving.”
Aimee watched the floating specks within her own beam. The tiny motes should have been settling straight down to the cave floor, but instead they gently floated towards the dark end of the cave tunnel.
“Air movement,” Aimee said.
“Gotta be a good thing, right?” Casey’s brows were up.
“Better than a dead end, boss,” Rinofsky said, smacking Hagel on the shoulder, and raising a puff of chalky dust.
“Got that right. Let’s move ’em out.” Casey turned to Hagel. “Lieutenant, take point, fifty paces out.”
Hagel hesitated for a moment, and then spun and jogged off into the dark.
Aimee grimaced. “We shouldn’t split up.”
Casey half grinned. “Nah, he enjoys his own company.”
They eased around through a narrowing in the cave, and Aimee saw the glow from Hagel’s light. The man stood silently, pointing his beam to the floor.
He lifted an arm and pointed to their flashlights. “I don’t think you’ll need those anymore.” He switched his own off, and then stood aside, holding out an arm and half bowing, like a maître d’ showing guests to their table.
Casey kept her light on, and moved past the young HAWC. “Holy — fucking — hell.” She immediately pushed her gun up over her shoulder and stood with hands on her hips, grinning. “It’s all true.”
Their cave ended, and they found themselves high up on a cliff wall. The hint of light that Hagel had first seen gradually turned to a twilight blue from the ceiling — a ceiling that traveled away for as far as their eyes could make out.
“Glow worms,” Aimee said. “Permanent twilight, but be careful with loud noises, or they shut down.”
Rinofsky snorted, elbowing Ben Jackson in the ribs. “I didn’t believe it could be real. I mean, I read it, but never thought…” He shook his head. “It’s so goddamn huge. This ain’t no cave.” He grinned. “It’s a world.”
“A world beneath the world,” Jackson said softly.
Aimee pointed. “That’s the sea in the distance.” Before the colossal cave curved away with its own horizon dipping from view, there was the glint on a flat surface that hinted at water. Aimee stepped forward to peer over the edge. “We weren’t here before. I don’t remember there being a jungle. We never traveled over the other side of the sea. I guess this is what was over there.”
“Well, it sure wasn’t in Hunter’s report,” Hagel said sourly.
Casey used a scope to look out over the landscape. “Nothing on visual. Blake, where’s our signal source?”