The difference was that Jack still held some hope. To move forward, he had to cling to it and massage it back to life when hopelessness washed over him. Now, he was asking Lonetree to subordinate his revenge to Jack’s small hope of recovering his child. He knew it was a lot to ask, but he prayed it wouldn’t be too much for Lonetree to give.
They sat in silence, the sedan’s engine providing the only background noise to their quiet battle of emotions.
Without comment, Lonetree suddenly threw the sedan into drive and gunned the engine. The car’s tires spun on the gravel road, caught traction, and lurched forward toward the driveway leading to Huckley’s house. Jack sagged forward in his seat, the weight of his failure almost too much to bear. But right before they entered the narrow lane, Lonetree yanked the wheel to the left, causing the rear tires to slide out. The sedan spun a hundred and eighty degrees. With expert skill, Lonetree corrected the spin and accelerated the car down the road.
Lonetree looked over to his passenger. “You better move fast through that tunnel, Jack.”
“You don’t have to worry about that,” he replied, nodding his head toward the back seat. “I just hope you have some nasty tricks in your duffel bag for our cave friends.”
That seemed to make Lonetree feel better about the decision he’d just made. A smile stretched out across his face as they bounced down the road in silence. “You bet your ass I do.”
SEVENTY-FIVE
Jack was amazed by how much easier it was to navigate the tunnels this time. A downpour started before they reached the cave opening and had made a mess of the first hundred feet of the passage. Slippery mud coated the ground and the two men had to rake their fingers along the walls to control the speed of their descent.
Except for themselves being covered with thick mud, once they were further into the cave, there were no other signs of the rain It was good news, Lonetree told him, since many caves were prone to flooding during hard rains.
They moved quickly, the combination of adrenaline rushing through Jack’s system and the experience from the first trip allowed him to make short work of sections where he’d languished before. He noted with satisfaction that Lonetree didn’t have to wait at all. In fact, since Lonetree had to push the duffle bag in front of him, Jack often found himself waiting for the space ahead of him to clear.
In less than half an hour, they reached the gallery with the river. Only one tight passage remained between them and the main cave. Walking up behind Lonetree, Jack heard the big man groan as he shined his light on the river.
“What is it?”
“This is a problem,” Lonetree said.
Jack edged next to him and pointed his own light at the swollen river rushing in front of them. The river was nearly twice as wide as the last time they were there. The few feet of water directly in front of them was shallow without much current, but beyond that the river flowed full force. Jack looked up at the rope swing. The spot where he had jumped from before was now a good ten feet into the river. He judged the height of the ceiling and the new width of the river. The geometry wasn’t good. He looked at the side walls. Both were sheer faces that went straight into the water and seemed impassable.
“What now?” Jack asked.
“Guess we’re going to have to earn this one,” Lonetree said. “Here, shine your light over here.”
Lonetree sat his backpack on the ground and started to remove its contents, stacking the small arsenal of weapons on a rock shelf. Knives, handguns, hand grenades, C-4. There was other equipment Jack didn’t recognize but he didn’t bother to ask questions. His curiosity was eclipsed by other worries. He wiped away the mud that covered his watch. Seven-thirty. The sun had been down for over an hour.
What if they already killed Sarah?
It wasn’t the first time the thought occurred to him. In fact, he could think of nothing else during their descent into the earth. And now, so close the main cave, images poured over him of what they might have done to his little girl. Maybe it was happening this very second while he sat there catching his breath. Maybe he would push his head through the rock tunnel just as they killed her.
Lonetree shined his light at Jack, breaking him from his thoughts. He noticed Jack looking at his watch. “I think she’s O.K.”
“How do you know?”
Lonetree shrugged. “Just a guess, really. But I usually have a sense about things like this.”
While it didn’t make him feel much better, he appreciated Lonetree’s attempt to give him hope. “Just the same, let’s get this thing going. Any thoughts on how we’re going to do this?”
Lonetree nodded. “You’re going over on the rope first. It’s going to be a little tricky but I think if I push you it’ll be O.K.”
“You think?”
“I’m not going to B.S. you. This might not go so well. The other option is to climb back out of here and try to catch them at Huckley’s property. You know the risk of that, though.”
Jack searched for any sign of accusation in the big man’s voice. It was, after all, Jack’s plea for Sarah that had put them in this predicament. But if Lonetree held any resentment from the decision he had made, he was doing a good job disguising it. Jack forced a smile but couldn’t repress a shiver as he looked at the black water rushing pass them. “Let’s get over this river.”
“All right,” Lonetree said. “But there’s a little something I haven’t told you yet. Something I think you ought to know. Just in case.”
Jack felt his stomach roll over. Something about Lonetree’s voice worried him. He sounded too detached, too cold. “What is it?”
Lonetree pointed at the wall in front of him. “That thing in the cave over there has to be destroyed. I mean, even if we die doing it, we have to stop these guys. Otherwise they’ll go on killing. That’s the most important thing, right? That they’re stopped and this kind of thing can never happen again.”
Jack nodded. “What is it you’re not telling me?”
“Last week, I rigged the cave with enough C-4 to take out a city block.”
Jack stared at Lonetree. “That’s a little something? Is there a big something that you’re not telling me about?”
Lonetree ignored the comment. “The whole cave structure in this area is unstable, so when the charges go, the whole cavern should collapse. Everything in that cave will be buried under a few million tons of rock.”
Slowly, Jack understood what Lonetree was implying. Once all the people were down in the cave, Lonetree could accomplish the mission with a push of a button. Of course, it would also mean that Sarah would be dead too. “I don’t understand. Why didn’t you use it already? Why didn’t you just blow them up?”
“First, I have to be sure they are down there. If I blew the cave without seeing the Boss, I’d never be sure I killed him. But there’s a technical reason too. I couldn’t rig the explosives to detonate from up top. The cave is too deep and there is too much metal in the rock to get a clear signal. So I rigged a timed device that I could activate from down here.” Lonetree held up a black box with three dials on it.
“O.K. So why are you telling me this?”
“Because anything could happen from here on out. We could get separated. One of us could be killed. If that happens, I want you to set off the explosives. I want to make sure you end this thing if I can’t.” Before Jack could agree, Lonetree held up his hand. “And I mean even if you’re still in the cave. If there’s a chance they might catch you, you have to detonate.”
Jack nodded his head that he understood.