“Sam and Aliana have gone down the rabbit hole and found the Magdalena.”
Tom’s reflexes were now fully awake, and he said, “Those are a few names I haven’t heard in a while. Tell me more…”
“Some people, let’s say some unfriendly people, are currently making their way down that hole right behind them.”
“Okay, that’s not very nice.”
“No, I thought you’d say that. Now, what I need you to do, is return to the only place from which they might escape.”
“Might escape?” Tom asked.
“Let me tell you what I know…” the man coughed several times.
Maybe he does already have lung cancer?
“At this moment, Sam and Aliana are inside a tunnel and are most likely in possession of the highly sought-after contents of the lost Magdalena. An elite team of mercenaries is chasing them, cornering them like foxes; their only hope of escaping them is to exit from the other side of the tunnel.”
“And you want me to help extract them from there?” Tom asked.
“Yes. Now, I’ll give you the GPS coordinates of where I’m hoping they will meet you soon.”
Tom wrote down the coordinates, and then read the latitude and longitude back to the man for verification.
He now knew exactly where he was supposed to go.
“Does this place mean anything to you?” The man asked him directly.
Tom had the good sense to answer, “No, I’ve never been there before.”
The man laughed at Tom’s denial, his coarse, dry laugh indicated that he knew perfectly well that Tom and Sam had just spent the past week diving Lake Solitude.
But there was nothing in there … right?
“So, the tunnel comes out there?”
“Yes. But there’s something else you should know, Tom.”
“What’s that?”
“No one’s been able to find a way in for the past 75 years.”
“And you’re betting that Sam will find a way out?”
“No, I’m betting that Sam and Aliana will die when the fox catches up with the rabbits, but I thought you’d like to know nonetheless, just in case. Good luck.”
The man ended the call before Tom even had a chance to thank him.
There was never any doubt in Tom’s mind about whether or not he was going. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do once he got there, or even what he could do. In all probability, Sam and his new girlfriend were probably already dead. In fact, if it hadn’t been Sam, he wouldn’t have even bothered going there to find out.
But Sam was different.
Sam's life of privilege had left him with the deep-seated belief that he could have it all, and as Tom had discovered early on in their friendship, that optimism seemed to have a carry-over effect. If there was anyone who could find a way to get out of this mess, it was Sam Reilly.
With a gentle kiss, Tom left the beautiful woman lying next to him. Her black, silken, negligée barely able to contain her ample breasts.
“You owe me for this one, Sam,” he said quietly out loud as he left.
Then in the dead of night, Tom flew toward the given coordinates, where a crack team of mercenaries were swarming toward the mountain.
He still wondered what they knew, and more importantly, what they thought had been discovered. Did they actually believe that Sam and Aliana had somehow managed to discoverer the lost Magdalena? As he looked at the men swarming the mountain face far below, maybe another day’s climb to Lake Solitude, he couldn’t help but wonder what this really was all about.
The gold wouldn’t even pay their fees, so what else were they after?
Looking at the altimeter, Tom noticed that he was approaching 6,000 feet. Lake Solitude was at 8,500 feet. The air was starting to thin out just a little, and he had to raise the collective to maintain elevation.
Some instinct told him exactly where to go, but what he would do once he got there was an entirely different matter.
And, it was a question for which he had no answer.
Sam located the engineer’s compartment in the Magdalena’s pilot house.
On a routine voyage, the Magdalena would have been carrying an engineer and enough equipment to repair any faults that might occur in flight, but from what he’d heard and learned about that fateful and final night, the Magdalena was flying with only a skeleton crew. Rifling through the equipment, Sam found what he needed in order to disconnect the 75 year-old, enormous air tank from the pilot gondola.
Aliana’s eyebrow curled in surprise as he worked.
“After so much time, won’t the air inside have gone stale?” Aliana asked.
“I’m sure it will have done just that,” he said, as he managed to finally crack open its regulator with a hiss. “Yep, that’s pretty dry, stale crap.”
“So then, what are you going to use it for?”
“We’re going to build a rudimentary diving bell.” Sam released any pressure that still might be held within. He then began to work on cutting the air canister in half, as he continued to explain, “You see, I don’t need a lot of air to get through this tunnel. There should be just enough air in here for me to take three or four breaths, which should be enough to get me through to the end of the tunnel.”
“Me?” She looked concerned. “Do you mean we’re not both going to go through?”
“No. You saw what the frigid water temperature did to me, and I’ve got a lot more body fat to help me keep warm than you do. Besides, the air isn’t the best, as you know, so we shouldn’t both risk going.” He studied her face. She seemed to accept her fate with equanimity. “When I get to the other side, I’ll contact my friend Tom. He’s probably the only person that I know I can trust, and, once he gets here, with our dive gear, and some equipment, we’ll come back to get you.”
“And what will I do if you die along the way?”
It was a fair question, he realized.
“Wait a week. With my rations, you have more than two weeks’ worth of supplies. If I haven't returned by then, take the second half of this air tank, and hope to hell that your luck is better than mine.” Sam made sure that what he’d just told her, was getting through. “Then, you eat as much food as you can to increase your body’s ability to resist hypothermia, and then swim as fast as you can toward the glow, in that direction. Once you make it through the tunnel, you should be able to ascend to the surface. You’ll have to find some way to warm yourself up, and once you do, you walk out of this mountain range, following whatever trail or Via Ferrata you can find, and simply pretend that none of this ever happened.”
He tried to meet Aliana’s eyes, but she turned away.
“Okay, I understand,” she acknowledged.
Sam watched as Aliana’s eyes examined the now halved air canister. It resembled a giant steel bucket, and it was large enough that a man could fit his head and shoulders inside, and breathe the air.
“What I don’t understand is how you plan to sink that thing?”
“Do you mean how will I make such a large air pocket neutrally buoyant?” Sam asked.
“Yes.”
“Well, to do that is simple, really. All you need to do is to attach a heavy weight at the bottom using some of this wire cabling, until our new diving bell sinks.”
“And what do we have that’s heavy enough to sink something like that?” Aliana asked. “It must produce a couple hundred pounds worth of water displacement?”
“I estimate that it’s around 300 pounds.”
“So, what do we have here that weighs that much?”
“That part’s easy, haven’t you realized it yet?” Sam asked.
“No, I haven’t. Please fill me in — what is it?”