Lonetree listened to the story without asking questions. When Jack was done he said only, “She’s your protective spirit. Your guardian angel if you like.”
“But I still don’t get it. I killed her. Why would she help me?”
“She told you, didn’t she? Until she gave up her anger she could not go into the light you saw. She had to stay in the shadow world until she could forgive you. Most religions talk about such a place. Somewhere between here and…”
“Heaven?”
“Maybe. Maybe it’s the wrong word. Makes it sound like we can actually understand what it is. And just maybe we can’t understand it or describe it with words at all.” Lonetree shook his head like a dog shaking the water out of his coat. “Anyway, this is beyond me. All I know is that I hope your little guardian angel was right about one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“That we still have to find a way to beat the devil. You realize what the steps carved into the rock over there means, right?”
Jack shone his light over to the steps, then back to Lonetree. “They used this place. It means this must connect to the main cave.” He struggled to his feet. “We’ve got to get going.”
“There’s something I haven’t told you yet. But now things are… well… different. I don’t think you’re going to like it.”
Jack didn’t like the sound of that.
“Look,” Lonetree started, “I thought you were dead. Still, I was going to try and save your kid if I could. For whatever that’s worth.”
“Thanks. I appreciate that,” Jack said.
“Save your thanks. See here’s the thing. I told you how I rigged the cave with the C-4 charges, right?”
“Yeah?”
“Well, I thought you were dead. Hell, I thought I was dead at one point. The whole thing shook me up. If we hadn’t got lucky, the bastards would have won.”
“What are you trying to say?”
“I’m saying I decided I couldn’t take any more chances.” Lonetree checked his watch. “I started the timer. Less than forty minutes from now there’s going to be one hell of an explosion down here. So if we don’t make this quick, you’re going to die twice in one day.”
SEVENTY-NINE
They made short work of the passage leading up from the river. Lonetree came to a halt and crouched to the ground, turning his helmet light off. Jack slid next to him and followed his lead by turning off his own light. The tunnel ahead of them glowed softly. They were getting close. Jack cupped his hand over his watch and pressed the light. Just the short passage from the river had already taken three minutes. Thirty-seven minutes until the explosion. He shook his head and whispered the status to Lonetree. They crab-walked forward, staying close to the walls until the tunnel opened to the main cave.
Lonetree nodded left. “We came in the first time over there. Looks like the river parallels this side of the cavern.” He pointed to the lights on the right. “Our friends are already here.”
Two halogen lamps set up on tripods bathed the area in stark white light. Although the lights were pointed the opposite direction from Jack and Lonetree, they still cast a faint circle of illumination across the rows of stone cages nearest the stone structure. Just as when Lonetree had first thrown the parachute flare into the open space of the cavern, Jack was shocked by the sheer enormity of the space. Even moving quickly, it would take them five minutes just to reach the lights.
“I don’t see any movement,” Jack whispered.
“I thought I saw something when we first came in, but I’m not sure now.”
“Either way, we’ve got to go. Let’s do it.”
“Right, follow me through the cages. There might be traps. Once we get close, hand signals only. I don’t know what we’ll find so we have to improvise. “Remember, if you have to shoot—”
“Head shot or multiple to the chest. Got it. Let’s go.”
Lonetree grabbed Jack by the arm and pulled him close. “We can do this.” Before Jack could say anything, Lonetree was gone, a dark shadow picking his way through the maze of stone cages.
Jack followed quick behind as a thousand skeleton sentinels silently marked their progress. He found himself wondering how many of the poor souls laying in these cages were the same creatures he’d seen in that dark in-between place where Melissa Gonzales had guided him. Had those who died here learned to forgive as Melissa had? Or would they stay in that dark place forever, caught up in their hatred and anger? Even with the adrenaline and the exertion of keeping up with Lonetree, Jack still felt a cold chill cover his skin. The skeletons all seemed to be watching him, as if they expected something.
As they closed in on their brightly lit objective, Jack searched for any sign of the men. They took care to block their movements by keeping a stone cage between them and the lights whenever possible. By approaching from directly behind the lamps, there was little chance of them being spotted by anyone within the circle.
But that was the problem. As they approached the lights, they couldn’t see anyone around the stone structure. No voices. No movement. Nothing. It seemed as if they were alone in the cave. That was one contingency they hadn’t thought out.
Lonetree crouched in the dark shadow of a cage and waved Jack to come in close to him. He broke his own rule against talking. “I don’t get it,” he whispered close enough to Jack’s ear that he could feel hot breath on his skin. “I’m almost sure I saw movement under the lights when we first came in. Did you see it?”
Jack shook his head that he hadn’t.
“OK, let’s split up and meet here in five. Careful, maybe they heard something and they’re looking for us.” He removed his gun, pointed Jack to go right and then headed left himself.
Jack slid the safety off his gun and took a deep breath. Keeping close to the stone cages, he ran to his right until he came to a break in the cages where a wide swath of light lay across his path. He dropped to the ground and spread out flat on his stomach. He leaned his head around the corner to look into the open space.
He had a clear view of the round structure, the Source. It was only sixty or seventy feet away from him. Seeing no one, he took the chance to stretch his head out farther to get a better look.
He froze. There were two men crouched on the ground on the opposite side of the stone structure from where he and Lonetree had stood a minute before. Jack was looking at their backs but if either of the men turned around they would be staring right at him. He knew he should scramble backward and get out of sight, but he was fixated by what they men were doing.
They were hunched over, working hard on something lying on the ground between them. The man closest to him, the smaller of the two, was doing most of the work. His back was moving back and forth in a steady rhythm matching the forward and backward thrusting of his right elbow. Even from the distance, Jack could hear the man grunting from his exertion.
The man paused to drag the sleeve of his shirt across his face, like he was mopping sweat from his brow. He lifted a small object and handed it to the other man. This larger man then inserted the object into a small hole in the round structure. The object disappeared into the stone wall.
The smaller man decided to stretch before he resumed his task. As he stretched both arms into the air Jack saw the instrument the man held in his hand.