Suddenly the dim lights in the huge cavern flickered. Almost instinctively Holliday’s hand reached out and swept up the old sword from its pedestal mounts. With his other hand he wrenched the Czech automatic from its holster and thumbed off the safety. Then the lights flickered again and finally went out. Utter darkness fell.
33
The lights came on again almost immediately.
“What the hell?” Peggy said.
“A crude approximation of an alarm,” said Rodrigues, hefting the shotgun. “Apparently my fireworks didn’t disable all our visitors. They’re almost here. We have to leave. Now.”
“We could stay and fight,” said Peggy.
“No. He’s right. They’ve got automatic weapons; we’ve got a shotgun and a pistol. Time to bug out.”
“This way,” said Rodrigues. He bent down and picked up a battery-powered lantern from beneath the table with the shattered wine jar and headed across the cavern toward one of the lava-tube entrances. As they climbed the ascending layers of petrified lava Holliday saw a flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye and turned.
“Go!” he commanded. On the far side of the cavern one of Kellerman’s men appeared, a squat weapon in his hands and a set of American Technologies lightweight night-vision goggles balanced on his forehead. Holliday saw a red beam flash across the cavern from the man’s weapon: a fire-and-forget laser scope. He didn’t wait to see the man’s elected target, or take the time to aim his own weapon; at this range it would be futile. He simply aimed high and squeezed the trigger of the Czech pistol, spraying the entire clip of twelve rounds in the enemy’s general direction. Delay was the objective now, not accuracy. The inside of the cavern rang with shattering echoes as he emptied the gun. The man got off one shot and ducked away. Behind Holliday there was a grunt of pain and surprise. He turned. Rodrigues had been hit, blood blossoming on his shirt, low on his right side. Hopefully no more than a flesh wound. He sagged against the smooth wall of the cave by the entrance to a lava tube. Peggy took the big flashlight and the shotgun from his hands, supporting him under one arm.
“Into the tunnel, as fast as you can,” the ex-priest moaned.
Holliday tossed away the empty gun, transferred the sword into his right hand, and ran up the last few levels to take Rodrigues by the other arm. Together he and Peggy helped him into the relative safety of the lava tube. Behind them there was the sound of ringing automatic fire. More than one weapon. Kellerman’s people had arrived in force.
“Twenty paces into the tunnel. The generator,” grunted Rodrigues. “Be careful,” he warned.
Holliday and Peggy eased the wounded man forward, the tunnel barely wide enough to allow them passage, the ceiling low above their heads. Ahead of them they could hear the roar of the diesel generator, the fumes souring the air slightly. Holliday could also feel a slight movement of the air across his face. Fresh air.
At twenty paces there was a widening of the tunnel, man-made, and a deep, square-cut little chamber on the left. Inside the tiny room there was a bright yellow six-thousand-watt Yamaha diesel generator chugging quietly and a hundred gallon tank of kerosene. A length of PVC tubing led up into a narrow crack in the ceiling, carrying most of the fumes away.
“The switch,” managed Rodrigues.
Holliday found the switch on the side of the generator and threw it. The sound of the generator stopped in mid-cycle, and the lights went off. It might slow their pursuers for a moment, but with the active infrared goggles it wouldn’t stop them. Peggy switched on the battery-powered lamp. A cone of light bloomed, showing the way ahead.
“Another ten paces,” muttered the ex-priest. He coughed and dark, coffee-ground blood poured over his lips and down his chin. Not a flesh wound then, noted Holliday. The man was bleeding internally. He needed medical attention, and quickly.
“What about ten paces?” Holliday asked urgently, helping Rodrigues down the tunnel. Their pursuers couldn’t be much more than a minute or two behind them.
“Trip wire. Fishing line,” the ex-priest managed, coughing again and doubling over.
They stepped forward carefully, Peggy shining the light ahead, keeping the beam down, illuminating the base of the tunnel. Holliday, supporting Rodrigues, now came up behind her.
Fifty feet farther on the light caught a length of taut, black fishing line stretched across the tunnel, calf-high, invisible unless you were looking for it.
“Where is it?” Holliday asked.
“Up,” muttered Rodrigues.
Peggy swept the light up toward the ceiling. The trip wire led upward, threaded through blackened eyebolts, to a small hole in the roof about eight inches across. In the hole were two round, olive-green metal objects, each about four inches in diameter. Holliday recognized them instantly: OZM-72 antipersonnel mines, the Russian version of the American M16 “Bouncing Betty” he’d used in Vietnam and the Yugoslavian PROM-1’s he’d seen during the Bosnian War. Triggered on the ground, the device would bound into the air to waist height before exploding. In the case of these two mines they would fire downward into the lava tube. Each of the OZM’s carried a charge of slightly more than a pound of cast high explosive. The slaughter in the lava tube would be horrifying. On ignition anything for a hundred feet in either direction would be shredded into hamburger.
“Help him over the trip wire,” said Holliday.
Together he and Peggy managed to get the failing ex-priest over the deadly thread. They headed on, hurrying now more than ever, trying to put distance between themselves and the hideous booby trap behind them. A dozen yards along the tube, the passage suddenly veered sharply to the right and began heading upward at a steep angle. Holliday could feel a rush of cool air on his face now, and in the distance he thought he heard the sound of thunder. Somewhere above them yesterday’s storm was returning.
Around them the lava tube was changing; as they neared the surface the walls of the tunnel began to close in. The smooth floor felt slick with mud, and the walls were coated with heavy bacterial slime. It was getting harder and harder to get Rodrigues to keep walking, his coughing increasing with each step, his legs dragging, and his body beginning to shake uncontrollably as he went into shock. Holliday knew the signs. He wasn’t going to last much longer.
“Pocket,” moaned the dying man. “Book. Take it.”
“Later,” soothed Holliday. “There’ll be time for that later.”
“Now!” Rodrigues demanded with authority.
Still moving forward Holliday fumbled in Rodrigues’s back pockets and found a small leather-bound notebook at least half an inch thick. It looked very old. Holliday stuffed it into the pocket of his jacket and carried on. The ground began to rise even more steeply, and their knees bent with exertion. Rodrigues was almost deadweight now. Ahead Holliday thought he saw a crack of light.
Without warning all three of them were picked up and thrown to the ground by a massive concussion. A split second later there was a rolling, earsplitting explosion and a second concussive blast as a gusting roar of heat enveloped them and passed on.
Holliday got to his feet, still hanging on to the sword. The glass in the battery-powered lamp was broken, but enough light was coming down from above to light their way. Peggy abandoned the lamp, and clutching the shotgun, she and Holliday managed to get Rodrigues up. They stumbled forward toward the light. Holliday felt a few splashes of rain on his face, and above them thunder roared. A moment later they reached the ragged end of the lava tube exit and stepped out onto the rugged surface of the ancient crater and into the teeth of a biting wind and a growing storm. A bolt of spiked lightning flashed across the gray-black clouds roiling overhead.
“The badger comes out of his lair,” said a voice. “A little the worse for wear, it would seem.”
Axel Kellerman. He was dressed like the quintessential British country squire in a tweed suit with a waistcoat, walking boots, and a rabbit-skin trilby hat. He sat perched on a flat ledge of broken stone a few feet from the entrance to the lava tunnel. In the distance, almost half a mile away between the two volcanic lakes, Holliday could see Rodrigues’s isolated cottage. More rain began to spatter down. Above them the storm was breaking, the winds pulling at their clothes. Thunder rolled.