“We still have no way of knowing that those two rivers are one and the same,” James pointed out.
“Not certain, but look at this.” Tom clicked another button, and a third image joined the picture. This one was created using prediction software, designed to determine future sizes of the flow of water, based on previous size and strength.
“They’re the same river!” Aliana agreed.
“Either that, or just a very close neighbor,” James acknowledged.
“Just one question,” Aliana said.
“What’s that?” Tom replied.
“How are we going to bridge that 10-mile gap?”
“That’s simple… I wasn’t sure how far we were going, so I brought the MOLE.”
Chapter Sixteen
The small team arrived at the edge of the Dharuk River early the following morning. Aliana watched as Tom drove the mole out of the back of the enormous helicopter. To her, it looked more like something a kid would draw to highlight a bad science fiction story or cover of an eighties era comic book. At the front of the vehicle, a large tunneling device gave it the strange appearance of the nose of a mole, whereas the large tank tracks, reaching the same distance below and above the machine, gave it the odd appearance of large claws. Two windows built inside the tank tracks were the only signs that people might actually be able to fit inside the machine.
Aliana was surprised by how silently it ran, being electrically powered for underwater use. Tom then advised her that the device was capable of floating and submarining in water, and could tunnel through significant amounts of rock.
“What do you think of my girl?” Tom asked.
“I’d say, by the looks of her, that you have an interesting taste in women.”
Tom unlocked and then opened the watertight trunk of the mole. A small armory appeared, including plastic explosives and four high powered handguns equipped with silencers.
James’ left eyebrow raised in surprise, “You take those on a lot of diving trips with my boy, do you?”
“I wasn’t taking any chances, this time.”
James took the first Glock out, removed the silencer, emptied the cartridge, and then replaced the rounds, before adeptly reassembling it again. “Looks okay.” He then pointed it at an old tin can, forty feet away, and fired five rounds. “Seems to fire straight,” he said.
Tom walked towards the remains of the rusty old can. There were four holes all in a grouping no more than a couple inches in total. “Four out of five isn’t bad, James.” Tom said. “I’m impressed.”
James confidently walked up to him and snatched the can out of his hand. Holding it up to the sunlight he pointed out that the fifth shot was so close to the fourth that it almost went through the exact same hole — the tiniest of marks on the side of the hole indicating that it was indeed hit by the fifth bullet.
“Five out of five. Just wait till I tell Sam his old man’s a better shot. You can shoot, that’s for sure,” Tom said.
James scrunched up his face, like he was ready to hit someone.
“Of course I can shoot. I’ve been a dedicated Republican all my life,” James replied, as though that explained everything.
“Talking about weapons, what do you know about Billie?” Tom asked.
“Billie?”
“Billie Swan. The marine archeologist.”
“Oh Bill! She and Sam have a history…”
“You mean they dated?”
“No, it’s much more complex than that. With dating you sometimes have the chance of one day getting married and then hopefully later getting divorced. What Billie and Sam have is something more definite. Why do you ask?”
“She brought a high powered pistol and silencer to the Mayan site we discovered in the Gulf of Mexico.”
James smiled. “I knew I liked that girl.”
“Yes, well she decided not to kill me, so it begs the question, why did she take it in the first place?”
“I have an idea about that, but I think Sam could better explain it.”
Aliana stood up from the log she’d been sitting on. A half-eaten apple in her hand, Aliana decided she’d heard enough. “Are we going to go find Sam or wait around talking about him?”
“Good point, Aliana,” James said, “Rodriguez and his men might just go down the mineshaft, any minute now, having likely guessed that you were on to him.”
“That’s great,” Tom said, pulling out a rocket launcher from the back of the mole. “So we can expect company down there.”
The heavy mole floated surprisingly well, considering it more closely resembled a tank than a boat. Displayed along the front steel wall, two monitors displayed both the digital imaging from outside as though it were a windscreen, and on the other side, radar and high frequency sonar images.
Tom adeptly steered the craft using the pedals, like those on an aircraft, with his feet to move the rudder that dragged behind the craft. Each hand gripped the individual throttle controlling the left and right tank tracks.
“Everyone have their seatbelts on?” he asked.
Aliana double checked her five-point seatbelt, and the said, “Are you expecting us to need them?”
Tom smile reassuringly. “Not at all, just a safety kind of guy, that’s all.”
The pace of the river picked up speed as the mole approached the opening to the cave system. Sitting next to Tom, Aliana leaned forward and asked, “How sure are you that we’re not just about to go off some sort of waterfall?”
James gripped her shoulder from behind and warmly said, “Oh, he doesn’t, but it’s reasonably unlikely, wouldn’t you say, Tom?”
“It’s all right Aliana. I’ve taken into account the possible differences in depth of the river. There’s less than ten feet of movement between this river and the subterranean river system from Sam’s map,” Tom said.
“And what if we’re wrong about these two rivers being one and the same?”
“Then, we’re in trouble,” James said, sardonically.
Tom threw the tank tracks into reverse, slowing their progression down the river to a meagre crawl, and said, “Don’t worry, we’ll be safe.”
Entering the dark cave system, Tom flicked on the massive overhead LEDs, flooding the entire area with light. Small ripples flittered where the river approached the end of the large cave, before turning a slight corner and then disappearing into an unknown world.
Moving forward at a crawling pace, Tom had an ominous feeling he knew just where that water at the end of the tunnel was disappearing to. “Anyone want to guess where our river just went?”
He could see whites of Aliana’s knuckles as she gripped the stability bar hard in front of her. “I have an idea I’m not going to like it!”
And then the mole lurched forward, as it entered the first set of rapids.
Skipping over the smaller rapids as they approached the end of the tunnel and slicing through the larger ones, the current picked up considerable pace, until Tom was forced to leave the tank tracks idling. The tracks were no longer able to produce enough force to overcome the flow of the river, leaving them bounding down the river, mostly out of control, like a heavy raft.
At the end of the river, the tunnel veered sharply to the left and the ride become more violent, as the entire river turned white with froth, causing the mole to bob up and down in rapids as large as five feet high.
At its narrowest point ahead, the river was surging and plunging down the inside of the mountain. “Here comes that waterfall you were asking about,” Tom said. “Hold on everyone!”
The mole dropped five feet into the first rock pool with a giant splash as the entire craft became submerged before bobbing out to the surface again.