“Sam? Nah, he’s a pretty good swimmer.” Tom smiled. “When he's not talking, he has breath to last for hours.”
Nearly a minute later she got up and kicked Tom. “Hey, I’m pretty certain Sam’s just drowned. Are you going to do something?”
Tom sat up, stretched, as though he’d been in a deep sleep and walked to the edge of the water. It was moving relatively slowly on the surface, but she’d heard of these things having powerful undertows, capable of sucking a man downwards to his death.
“He does seem to be holding his breath longer than I would have expected,” Tom said and then sat down again.
“That’s it!” she yelled.
Tom nodded. “If that current’s strong enough to drown Sam, there’s nothing I can do to overcome it.” He stared at the dark water. “Too bad, too. I liked that guy.”
She shook her head in disbelief.
A moment later Sam resurfaced and took a couple deep breaths.
Zara said, “My God, Sam! I thought you’d just gotten yourself killed.”
He shook his head. “No. But I think I just found our way out. It’s a very narrow tunnel Tom and I accidentally came across earlier. It will be hard to get through, but if we can reach the other side, it might just take us somewhere.”
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Zara backed away from the edge of the island and said, “Oh no! Not me… no way!”
Sam swam along the surface toward her. “Why? Do you prefer the idea of waiting here and taking your chances on General Ngige’s men who are guarding the well, and even as we speak, working out how to get to us?”
“Unlike you, I’m terrified of confined spaces. Anything narrow and underwater, I’m just not going to be happy. I think I’d rather take my chance against Ngige’s men or waiting long enough to starve in the Saharan desert.”
“Yeah, I hate confined spaces too. But I really don’t have an alternative, and neither do you.”
Sam dipped his head and disappeared under the water again, as though he didn’t want to argue the point.
She looked at Tom. “Really? I thought he was supposed to be some world-leading cave diver?”
“He is. Always hated it though. His mother gave him the stupid notion that one must try to overcome their fears, and he’s spent his life doing just that. It’s a bit extreme, I’ll admit. I think secretly he’s grown to love the subterranean environments.”
Zara asked, “What about you?”
Tom shrugged. “What about me?”
“You don’t look much like a diver? What do you weigh — two hundred pounds?”
“Two fifty.”
“So, how did you get into cave diving? It can’t be a natural choice for a man of your size.”
Tom laughed. “I don’t get claustrophobia. Never have. Instead, cave diving came naturally to me.”
“Really?” Zara was surprised. First, to hear that Sam Reilly hated caves, and second to hear that Tom Bower, a giant, had always felt at home inside them. “How so?”
Tom smiled. He didn’t appear embarrassed. More like a gentle soul and a big kid whose heart never changed since he was a child with his first real dreams for the future. “I’ve been getting stuck in things since I was little. Always too big for everything. In that way, cave diving’s always made me feel right at home.”
Sam resurfaced at the side of the island. “I’ve been thinking and I’ve made a decision.”
“About what?” she asked.
“I thought Tom and I would check out the tunnel I found. If there’s any chance it’s going to go somewhere we’ll come back and get you.”
“Great. And in the meantime, what do I do?”
“It will be dark. You may as well have a rest.”
Zara had seen the domed cavern in the dark. She didn’t like it. One of the few things more frightening than swimming through another narrow underwater tunnel was the thought of waiting here to see if Sam and Tom were ever going to come back, or if they were going to drown and leave her to die trapped in the dark.
She bit her lower lip and then smiled. “On second thought
Chapter Sixty
Sam retraced his trip back to the smaller of the two domes, where he and Tom had erroneously surfaced when they had first arrived. Sam led the way as he slowly swam along the surface of the narrow tunnel where he and Tom had nearly become lost while searching for Zara. He quickly found the narrow tunnel. In this tunnel there were a few inches of air above the water level, so they could breathe while swimming. Zara swam in the middle of the group, with Tom following. They took it in turns to use the one watertight bag as a flotation device, with each of them, using it for a brief break from the strenuous swimming.
They traveled along the tunnel, following a constant and almost imperceptible flow of water. Because the tunnel was perfectly rectangular with no identifying changes in the shape or texture of its walls, it was difficult to judge how fast they were moving. Tom and Sam stopped on occasion to test their ability to swim against the current if later required. They would mark the stone walls of the tunnel with chalk and then swim for a minute. Afterwards, they would stop and measure the distance. Each time they stopped to do this, Sam was surprised by the strength of the current and also encouraged by it. That amount of water can’t move unless it has somewhere to go, and of course, although it was not obvious because of the uniformity of the tunnel, the current was speeding them along its length.
After three hours in the water they saw the first change in the tunnel, and it wasn’t a good one. The water height moved up the wall of the tunnel, which meant there was less distance between the water and the ceiling — less room to breathe.
Zara caught up with Sam and tapped him on the shoulder. She asked, “Do you have a plan?”
Sam gave a cursory glance at the ceiling, now only about half a foot above his head. He said, “To deal with our diminishing room to breathe?”
She nodded.
He said, “Not really. I was kind of just hoping it would resolve itself.”
“That’s it?” She cursed and mumbled something under her breath about never trusting a man like Sam Reilly. “That’s the best you’ve got?”
“If it makes you feel better, I have a gut feeling our problem will self-resolve soon. This won’t last long. The Garamantes who built these tunnels were highly exacting people. They didn’t simply decide to change the height of the tunnel. I think it’s more likely there’s been a cave-in somewhere further along, and it’s caused a backflow of water here, or increased the depth below us. Either way, once we pass it, we should be fine.”
She asked, “Can we pass it?”
“That’s the big if. I’m reasonably confident we’ll be all right.”
Two minutes later Sam placed his hand on the ceiling and stopped their progression. Zara floated into him and stopped.
She asked, “What is it?”
Sam said, “I don’t know. This might be the end of the line. Wait here and I’ll go ahead and see if we can get past it. If that suits you?”
“Go,” she said. “I’ll just hang out here.”
As Tom caught up, he reached up and touched the ceiling, coming to a stop. “Do you want me to go ahead and see what we have?”
“Nah. We already agreed I'll go ahead and check,” Sam said. “Wait here and look after Zara. I’ll have a quick look and see if it’s possible. If I don’t come back, you know the deal?”
“I won’t come looking for you. I’ll get Zara back, we’ll wait as long as we can and then climb back up the well and escape across the desert.”
“Be sure you do. You know I would if the roles were reversed, right?”