He had the earpiece stuck in his own ear. He could hear everything Natasha was saying, which meant he again had the element of surprise. Guns drawn, he and his men were ready to kill. The Bennetts had taken this hunt far enough. They had become a liability he could no longer afford. It was time to take them out, once and for all.
He stopped suddenly and held up his right hand, bringing those behind him to a complete stop as well. He whispered into his headset for the second team to stop and let the tunnel quiet down. A moment later, all was quiet, save the steady trickle of running water at their feet. Mariano closed his eyes and strained to pick up every sound. Finally he heard what he wanted. The picks were still chipping away.
“Go!” he barked into his headset. He and his men began to move again, faster now.
Their speed increased along with the headroom in the tunnel as they approached the center. Mariano was almost sprinting as he came around the last turn, his pistol ready to fire. But when the gunmen finally converged upon each other, they were stunned.
No one was there.
It was as if Jon and Erin had entered a parallel universe.
On the other side of the wall was another tunnel, narrow but dry, running alongside Hezekiah’s and back toward the Gihon Spring. It was level for about fifty meters but then began to decline sharply, down steps hewn from the limestone.
All three of them moved fast and sure.
At the last moment, they’d heard their killers coming. They’d had to assume Arik and Roni were dead. They’d slipped away from the main passageway just in time. But they still had no idea how many were behind them or what lay ahead. Their only goal now was to open up as much distance as possible between them and their pursuers until they could figure out what to do next.
They descended fifty or sixty steps, then once again hit level ground. The tunnel broke sharply to the left, moving perpendicular to Hezekiah’s. It also began to narrow further, and zigzag wildly. Bennett quickly lost his sense of direction. He still had no idea where they were headed, except that it seemed they were now in some sort of subterranean complex of ancient cisterns and pipelines, winding their way underneath the City of David, under Mount Zion, and perhaps even under the Old City itself.
65
Bennett stopped just in time.
As he rounded another corner, the tunnel came to a dead end inside a small cavern. At its center lay several dozen large rocks, arranged in a circle, with a hole in the center. With Natasha peering over his shoulder, Bennett shined his flashlight into the hole, revealing a shaft too deep for the light to penetrate beyond the first twenty or thirty meters. He picked up a stone and threw it down. No splash, no thud, no sound at all.
“What’s down there?” asked Erin, watching their backs.
“I can’t really tell,” he said. “It’s too dark.”
“But we can’t stay here,” said Natasha. “If we do, we’ll be trapped.”
“We may be trapped either way,” said Erin.
Bennett didn’t hesitate. “Then we keep moving. Let’s see where this thing takes us.”
He ordered Erin and Natasha to go down first while he stood to hold off their pursuers. They quickly set down their backpacks; pulled out ropes, carabiners, and the rest of their gear; and prepared for the descent. Bennett donned a harness and gloves, then positioned himself on his stomach at the opening of the cavern, turned off his flashlight, and aimed his Uzi at the tunnel behind them.
He remembered the satellite phone. The last thing he needed was for it to start ringing in the darkness. Then again, this could be his last chance to get word to Costello. With one hand on the trigger, he used his other to reach down and pull the phone from his pocket. It glowed an eerie green in the shadows. But it was useless. No coverage.
He’d waited too long.
Whoever was hunting them was coming on fast.
Natasha could hear footsteps and whispers echoing through the labyrinth. She quickly tied their ropes around several of the heavier boulders and cut her lights. Then she rappelled down first, lugging not only her backpack but Bennett’s as well so he’d be able to move quickly if a gun battle erupted. When her feet hit the ground, it wasn’t limestone beneath her. It was sand.
She pushed the packs aside, unclipped herself and tugged the rope several times to let Erin know she was free. Then she got down on her hands and knees in the darkness and felt around. Sand? Everywhere she touched, there was soft dry sand — loads of it. It certainly explained why they hadn’t heard the stone Bennett had tossed into the shaft. But beyond that, it made no sense. Who put it here and why?
She continued feeling around with her hands, her Uzi strapped to her side. She crawled to her left but hit a stone wall. She crawled forward, but there, too, was a stone wall. There was one behind her as well. To her right, though, she finally found an opening.
That’s when the shooting began.
Bennett couldn’t see a thing.
He could hear someone creeping forward in the darkness and decided not to wait. He pulled the trigger and the tunnel exploded. Fire and smoke poured out of the barrel as he emptied an entire magazine, following the tracer rounds onto his targets and watching at least two men drop to the ground.
Then the return fire started. Bennett rolled left, back into the relative safety of the cavern. He fully expected to be hit by ricocheting rounds, but when the shooting paused, at least for a few seconds, he was still alive. Someone was reloading. He did, too.
“Erin, go — you’ve got to go now!” he shouted as he fumbled in the dark to eject one magazine and pop in another.
But Erin had her own plans. Seizing the momentary lull, she jumped up and aimed down the tunnel. She, too, unleashed an entire magazine — firing directly over Bennett’s head — before rappelling out of sight.
Bennett could barely breathe. A rush of adrenaline coursed through his body. He pivoted and pulled the trigger again, and again bloodcurdling shrieks erupted from the other end of the tunnel.
Four down, unknown to go.
Four of Mariano’s men were down.
Two were dead. Two more were seriously wounded and losing blood fast. He had only three men left, besides himself.
“Cover me,” he said.
The tunnel again erupted in gunfire. Mariano fished a grenade out of his own backpack. He pulled the pin, rolled it forward, and scrambled for cover as his men — those who could move at least — followed close behind.
The cavern ahead of them erupted in a ball of fire. The ground shook. The roar was deafening, intensified by the sound waves echoing off rock walls in such tight quarters.
Mariano got up quickly and dusted himself off. Then, stepping over the charred bodies of men about whom he’d never given a second thought, he cautiously worked his way toward the opening of the cavern, sweeping his pistol from side to side. The air was thick with acrid fumes. He coughed. He waited a few moments for the smoke to clear, and then he and his men turned on their flashlights. But again, no one was there.
Erin scrambled to Bennett’s side.
She threw her arms around him and checked for a pulse. He was alive. He was breathing. But he was in pain from his fall. As quickly and quietly as she could, she checked her husband’s body for broken bones. She couldn’t believe he’d made it. He’d barely grabbed the ropes and begun descending into the shaft when she heard the grenade rolling across the granite floor above them. When it had gone off, he must have lost his grip and plummeted a good fifteen feet before slamming face-first onto the pile of sand. The force had clearly knocked the wind out of him, but he was going to be okay — as long as they started moving—now.