“If only these guys had realized there was an underwater passage leading out to the lake,” Slater said.
“Wouldn’t have done them any good. They don’t have the gear to make it.” Aston pointed to an old fashioned diver’s suit, a large, round brass helmet and hand-pumped bellows for air. “They only had the necessary equipment to send a single man down exploring. Looks like only a few hundred feet of hose at most.”
He moved to the boxed and pulled the flag away. It disintegrated at his touch and he brushed it aside. It didn’t take too much effort to lever the lid off the crate and inside he found a selection of supply boxes, food and drink, all torn and emptied.
“My god,” Slater whispered. “How long were they here before…” She gestured to the naked, butchered skeleton. “Before that?”
“Maybe quite a while,” Aston allowed. There were scrape marks on the tunnel floor that seemed to indicate they had dragged whatever supplies remained to them up to this point and camped out. He winced at the thought of them awaiting rescue, knowing it was never going to happen. What a horrible, slow way to die. Far too much time to think about it. He didn’t blame the guy with the Luger P08 in his lap.
“Do you think we can get out through there?” Slater pointed toward the blocked passageway. “Maybe clear the rubble?”
“If several soldiers in their prime couldn’t do it, I doubt we can. The blockage will have only gotten worse over the years, the little cracks filling with dirt and gravel. I reckon it’s sealed shut.”
“You’re such an optimist.”
Aston nodded. But the discovery of the crates had given him an idea. He picked up one of the Nazi daggers and, working with the utmost caution, pried the lid off of the top crate. When he looked inside, he froze, half terrified, half elated.
“What’s that?” Slater asked.
“That,” Aston said, “is a bloody great box full of dynamite.”
“Seriously? Is it dangerous?”
“Probably. Nitroglycerine, which is what makes dynamite volatile, doesn’t evaporate. Let’s not move around too much now, it might be a bit unstable. Let me investigate here.”
He leaned over the box, reluctant to touch anything. The sticks were pristine, with none of the waxy coating or crystallization that would indicate increased volatility. They appeared safe to handle. He noted that the fuses were thick and coated with wax.
“These were made to burn underwater. Looks like these guys anticipated having to blow their way in or out of somewhere.”
He moved to another box and opened it to find more dynamite, this time lacking the waxy fuses. “With these you attach wire to the blasting caps. They’ll have used a manual detonator and some of that,” he pointed to a roll of detonator wire wrapped around a wooden wheel, “in order to get down deep.”
“Why didn’t they use this stuff to blow their way back out up there?” Slater pointed up the tunnel toward the dead end.
“Maybe they tried and only made it worse. I don’t think it would work, probably just bring more of the tunnel down on them. In such a small place, the concussive blast would be hell.”
“Cover it up,” Slater said. “I don’t want to get blown up!”
Aston grinned at her. “No, I won’t be covering it up. I’ve got a plan.”
Chapter 43
Slater stared at him, silence reigning in the passageway. Her mouth opened and closed once or twice before she finally managed to speak.
“Are you saying you want to blow up the monster?”
“Why the hell not? There’s that half loop of passageway back there, right? We set up a booby trap of dynamite halfway around. When the bastard arrives in its lair, we lure it into the tunnel, run around the loop and come back out into the cave, and then fire the trap. We’ll blow that fucker into pieces trapped in the loop. Or at the very least bring the tunnel down on it. Then we run for the water and dive straight back down the shaft and back out into the lake to freedom. That way we know exactly where the thing is while we escape. And it’ll hopefully be dead.” He paused, a pang of scientific grief washing through him. The thought of killing the magnificent animal when it could teach them so much was painful. But his primary motive was survival, for him and Slater. He could return with a team and dig out the remains, they would still learn heaps.
“Do you really think that’ll work?”
He shook his head, distracted from his thoughts. “Sure, why not? And honestly, can you think of a better plan? I’d rather swim out into that lake again knowing exactly where the monster is.”
Slater looked into his eyes for a moment more and then shrugged.
“Let’s get these cases back out into the lair,” he said. “We can set up the trap and have the remaining dynamite out there in case anything goes wrong and we need more.”
Slater bit her lip. “If something goes wrong, we’ll be eaten, Sam!”
He planted a quick kiss on her stunned lips. “Trust me.”
She put her fists on her hips and arched her eyebrows. “Have you ever worked with explosives before?”
“Sure I have. I know what I’m doing.” He wasn’t about to tell her that it had been while he held a part time job at a gravel quarry outside Sydney, and he had only ever helped while the qualified people did all the setting and blasting. But he was an observant guy and a fast learner. He was sure he could handle this.
Slater pressed her mouth into a flat line as she helped him lug the crate of dynamite back out into the cave. He could tell she hated every aspect of his plan, but there really were no other options as far as he could tell.
They emerged into the wider loop tunnel and hurried around until they reached the end where it opened out into the back of the beast’s lair.
Aston moved around to put the wall between them and the tunnel mouth. “Set it down here.”
He quickly unpacked an old-fashioned plunger style detonator and several sticks of dynamite and charges. Beneath them he found a collection of German stick grenades, so recognizable from all the war comics he’d read as a child. Each stick had a screw cap on the end that would reveal the pull cord to start the five second fuse. With a smile, he stuffed two of them inside his wetsuit.
“Just in case,” he said to Slater’s questioning look.
She gestured at him and he handed her two, which she wedged into her own wetsuit.
He ran back and retrieved the Luger from the dead German’s skeletal grasp, checked the magazine and confirmed the seven remaining bullets appeared to be in pristine condition. No reason it wouldn’t fire, though how much good a nine millimeter bullet would do against a prehistoric creature he couldn’t say. Still, it felt good to have it on hand. He tucked it into his dive belt, grabbed the wooden wheel of detonator wire, and returned to Slater. “Come on.”
They hurried back until they were about halfway around the loop of passageway. Aston paused, looking left and right to judge their position.
“Do you think this is the best spot?” Slater asked.
“If we lure it in that end,” he pointed back the way they had originally come, “and then sprint through to where we left the stuff, we’ll be well ahead of it. You’ve got to think it moves pretty slowly on land, right?”
“I hope so. Our lives depend on it.”
“By the time we get to the other end, it should be about halfway around. About where we are now? So if we blow the tunnel right here, we’ll hopefully be bang on target.” He was estimating wildly in regard to the creature’s speed. They would need a tremendous amount of luck for this to work, and they both knew it. But even if he didn’t manage to kill or bury the creature, the explosion ought to stun or even injure it.