Luke heard a footstep.
Then a match flared and the quivering reflection of a small flame painted the tunnel wall.
“Hey, boss, you in here?” a small voice said. Then, “Ouch.”
The flame disappeared.
“Who’s that?” Megan whispered.
“Frankie?” Luke said.
Another flame, this time closer. “Boss?”
“Frankie, we’re in here.”
“Who’s Frankie?” Megan asked.
The boy’s potbellied figure appeared at the tunnel’s opening holding a lighted matchstick. “Boss, what you doing here?”
“Come here, quick,” Luke said. “Use that match and burn the rope around my wrist.”
He knew it would be impossible for the boy to undo the expertly tied knots. But a match flame could melt the nylon ropes in seconds.
Moments later Luke felt the flame singing the hair on his hands, and then his right hand broke free. He grabbed the tape with his teeth and tore it away from his fingers.
The rope around his left wrist gave way and he went to work on his ankle ties.
The Río Dulce was unusually calm on that night, and Calderon’s boat was skimming across the water when he heard the beep in his jacket pocket.
He pulled out the detonation transmitter.
The light had changed to yellow.
He set the timer on his chronometer for three minutes and pressed START.
54
“Forget about it, Enrique. It was probably an animal,” Juan whispered in Spanish. “Let’s get out of here.”
They had armed the detonator and were trotting through a warren of small passages toward the main tunnel when Enrique spotted a movement in the peripheral wash of his miner’s lamp. The men had separated and crisscrossed through the intersecting paths, quickly backtracking to where they’d set the explosive charges.
But they hadn’t found anyone.
Juan pointed at his luminescent watch. “In two minutes this place is going to blow. We have to leave. Now.”
“I’m telling you,” Enrique said, “I saw something. It wasn’t an animal.”
Just then, a small shimmer of light shone on the tunnel wall, near the entrance to the cavern where Calderon had taken his captives.
Enrique flipped off his light, then reached over an overhead joist and turned off the arming switch on the detonator.
Juan was already moving into the tunnel with his M-16 raised.
As soon as Luke and Megan had lifted Father Joe to his feet, the priest said, “You three go ahead without me.” He took a long breath, his lips pursed. “I’ll follow behind.”
The priest could barely walk without their support, let alone sprint through darkened passageways.
“No.” Megan’s head was tucked under Father Joe’s armpit, her arm wrapped around his trunk. “We’re going out together.”
Her voice carried the tone of an appellate court judge.
Luke took the priest’s other arm and the three of them stutter-stepped to the mouth of the tunnel. Frankie led the way, holding a lighted match.
Their first step into the tunnel was greeted with a volley of gunfire that ripped the priest from Luke’s arm and sent both Joe and Megan to the ground.
Frankie dropped his match and the passage went black.
Footsteps — at least two sets — were moving toward them.
Luke dove to where Megan had fallen and rolled her away from the tunnel’s entrance.
The footfalls grew louder. A shaft of light suddenly pierced the darkness, painting an oblong circle of light at the far end of the cavern. The assailants were using assault tactics: storm the enemy’s position with overpowering force, give them no time to regroup.
Luke was crouched next to the tunnel entrance when the rifle barrel yawed around the corner to scan the perimeter of the room.
He shot up with the force of a catapult, slammed the rifle stock into the assailant’s head, then dropped to the ground with the slumping man, using him for cover while ripping the rifle from his grip. Luke spun the weapon in a 180-degree arc and put three rounds into the second attacker before the man could bring down his aim.
The unconscious assailant was lying in the entry. Luke used the tip of his rifle barrel to point the man’s helmet light into the tunnel and jinked his head into the passageway, searching for targets.
The tunnel was empty.
He shouldered the weapon and quickly examined Megan, who was already rising onto her elbows with Frankie’s help.
She was shaking, but there were no gunshot wounds.
When Luke turned to Father Joe, his eyes went immediately to a spreading circle of red on the priest’s left side. He tore open Joe’s shirt. There were two entry wounds in his chest.
Megan kneel-crawled around Luke and took a position on the other side of the priest.
“Oh, my God,” she whispered when she saw the wounds.
Father Joe had a rapid pulse.
In a few minutes the priest’s pulse would become thready, and then fade completely.
And there was nothing they could do for him.
Megan placed his head in her lap. “Hang on, Father,” she said through welling tears. “Stay with us.”
The priest coughed violently and leaned to the side. His breaths came in gasps, but his face was strangely calm. He looked first at Luke and then at Megan. When his eyes reached her, he lifted his right arm and made the sign of the cross.
Then he collapsed and was still.
After a long moment, Megan began stroking the priest’s forehead. She wiped away bits of dirt and combed back his hair with her hand.
“He’s gone, Megan. We have to go.”
She let out a wailing cry, brought Father Joe’s head to her breast, and rocked back and forth.
Calderon was nearing the freighter when he glanced at his chronometer — thirty-seven seconds until detonation.
He pulled the transmitter from his pocket.
The light was green. Someone had disarmed it!
“Turn the boat around,” he shouted at Kong. “Take us back to the dock.”
Calderon keyed in his radio. Two sentries standing guard on the barge checked in. Neither had heard from Enrique or Juan.
Calderon grabbed a spotting scope from a compartment under the helm and aimed it at the cove. Laborers were scurrying over the barge like a horde of worker ants, securing cargo, doing their final checks. Two men using a winch tightened cables around the mosquito container.
The tunnel entrance was empty, and dark.
He rechecked the arming indicator on the detonator. It was still green.
What had happened?
McKenna couldn’t have broken free. It wasn’t possible. He had checked the bindings himself.
When the boat entered the lagoon, Calderon switched his scope to infrared mode and searched for heat signatures near the tunnel entrance and in the water along the perimeter of the barge.
Nothing.
He pulled the detonation transmitter from his pocket. The light had changed back to yellow.
What the hell is going on?
He blew out a heavy breath, reset his chronometer and pressed START. He hoped his men were sprinting, because he was only giving them one minute to clear the blast area. After screwing up his timetable and delaying the detonation, they’d know better than to loiter. At worst, the percussion wave would knock the wind out of them, cover them in a cloud of silt. Or maybe their ears would ring for the next few days.
They knew the rules, and the risks.
Thirty-one seconds. Calderon ran a thumb across the ignition switch.
He still wondered what had caused Enrique and Juan to disarm the detonator for those few minutes. They knew their trade, and rule one when handling explosives was never to arm the detonator until everything — explosive charges, detonation cord, and blasting caps — had been checked twice, then cross-checked by a fellow team member.