Douglas Preston - Still Life With Crows

He stared down, the red glow of the night-vision goggles revealing not a dead body but a lumpy stalagmite, cut in half by his gun, lying shattered on the cave floor. He resisted the impulse to curse, to kick the shattered pieces away. Slowly and calmly, he raised the shotgun and continued down the echoing tunnel. He came to a fork, another fork, and then he paused.

He saw movement ahead, heard a faint sound.

He moved forward more carefully now, gun at the ready. He swung around a rocky corner, dropped to his knee, and covered the empty tunnel ahead; and in doing so he never did see the dark shape that approached swiftly out of the shadows behind him until he felt the sudden blow to the side of his head, the brutal wrenching twist, but by then it was too late and black night was already rushing forward to embrace him and he didn’t have enough air left in his lungs to make any sound at all.

Seventy-Five

P erhaps, Corrie thought, it was all just a dream: this breathless, desperate dash through an endless gallery of caverns. Perhaps Agent Pendergast had never arrived and she hadn’t been rescued, after all. Perhaps she was still down at the bottom of the pit, in a nightmarish half-doze, waiting to be awakened by the return . . .

But then, the ache in her wrists and ankles, the throbbing pain in her temple, would remind her that this was, in fact, no dream.

Agent Pendergast raised his arm, signaling for them to stop. His flashlight bobbled as he consulted the strange, soiled map. This hesitation seemed to greatly agitate the man who was accompanying them. It had taken Corrie several minutes, in her near-stuporous state, to even notice that somebody besides Pendergast had been running along with them. He was a little man with a high voice, sandy hair, and a scraggly goatee. His police fatigues were splattered with mud and clotted pieces of something else she didn’t want to think about.

“This way,” Pendergast whispered. Corrie roused herself to follow, feeling as she did so the vague, dreamlike sensation return.

They passed through a low, chilly cavity that took a series of turns, first to the left, then to the right. And then quite suddenly, the ceiling rose into blackness. Corrie sensed, more than saw, that a large chamber lay ahead. Pendergast hesitated once again at its mouth, listening. When he had satisfied himself that there was no noise besides their own, he led the way forward.

One step, then another, as the walls fell away from the beam of Pendergast’s flashlight. Despite her shock and exhaustion, Corrie looked wonderingly around at the extraordinary space that was revealed, in bits and pieces, by the FBI agent’s flashlight. It was an immensely tall chamber, of blood-red stone so wet and slick that it appeared in places almost to be polished. Pools of shallow water dotted the floor. Near the top of the chamber, the rock face was broken by a series of horizontal cracks, through which the long seeping action of water had built up veils of calcite. These immense white veils, draped over the red stone, gave the uncanny appearance of a richly appointed gallery in a theater.

The only problem was there wasn’t any exit at the far end. The dazed sense of relief that had been settling over Corrie was suddenly lost beneath a fresh wash of fear.

“Where now?” the man in uniform said, panting. “I just knew it. This shortcut of yours led us to a dead end.”

Pendergast peered at the map another moment. “We’re no more than a hundred yards from the public area of Kraus’s Kaverns. But a portion of that will be along the Z-axis.”

“The Z-axis?” the man said. “The Z-axis? What are you talking about?”

“Our route lies up there.” Pendergast pointed to a small arched opening that Corrie had not noticed before, situated about forty feet up one of the curtains of stone. A stream of water poured from it, splashing down the huge masses of flowstone and disappearing into a yawning crack at the cavern’s base.

“Just how are we supposed to get up there?” the man asked truculently.

Pendergast ignored him, searching the wall above with his beam.

“You don’t expect to climb that, do you? Without a rope?”

“It’s the only choice left us.”

“You call that a choice? With that huge gaping hole at the bottom? One slip, and we’re as much as—”

Pendergast ignored this, turning to Corrie. “How are your wrists and ankles?”

She took a deep, shuddering breath. “I can make it.”

“I know you can. You go first. I’ll follow and tell you what to do. Officer Weeks will come last.”

“Why me last?”

“Because you need to provide cover from below.”

Weeks spat to one side. “Right.” Despite the chill damp air, the man was sweating: rivulets that traced clean lines through the muck that covered his face.

Quickly, Pendergast glided toward the cave wall, Corrie following close behind. She felt her heart begin to beat hard and fast again, and she tried to keep her eyes off the rock face above them. They stopped a few yards short of the wide fissure in the floor. The spray of falling water formed a curtain of mist that coated the already slick rock. Without allowing her time for second thoughts, Pendergast gave her a boost, directing his light toward the initial footholds.

“I’m right behind you, Miss Swanson,” he murmured. “Take your time.”

Corrie clung to the rock, trying to suppress the pain in her hands and the still greater burden of her fear. To reach the opening overhead they had to climb diagonally, out over the yawning fissure. The ribbed limestone offered plenty of good hand- and footholds, but the rock was wet and smooth. She tried to think of nothing, nothing except raising first a hand, then a foot, and then pulling herself up another six inches. From the noises below, she could tell that both men were now on the rock face and climbing as well. Pendergast murmured directions, once in a while using his hand to direct her foot to one ledge or another. It was more frightening than it was difficult—the handholds were almost like the rungs of a ladder. Once she looked down, saw the top of Weeks’s head and the gulf that now lay directly beneath them. She paused and shut her eyes, feeling a reeling sense of vertigo. Again, Pendergast’s hand steadied her, his smooth, gentle voice urging her along, urging her to look ahead, not down . . .

One foot, one hand, the other foot, the other hand. Slowly, Corrie crept up the rock. Now, blackness yawned both above and below, barely pierced by the glow of Pendergast’s flashlight. Her heart was racing even faster now, and her arms and legs were beginning to tremble from the unaccustomed effort of climbing. Somehow, perversely, the closer she got to the lip of the passage overhead, the more desperate she felt. She did not dare look up anymore, and had no idea if there were five feet, or thirty feet, still to go.

“There’s something down here!” Weeks suddenly shouted from below, his voice pitched high. “Something moving!”

“Officer Weeks, brace yourself against the rock and provide cover,” Pendergast said. Then he turned back to Corrie. “Corrie, just another ten feet. Pretend you’re climbing a ladder.”

Ignoring the pain that shot through her wrists and fingers, Corrie grabbed the next handhold, found another foothold, pulled herself up.

“It’s him! ” she heard Weeks shout. “Oh my God, he’s here! ”

“Use your weapon, Officer,” Pendergast said calmly.

Desperately, Corrie grabbed a fresh handhold, found a higher ledge for her foot. It slipped and her heart almost froze with terror as she lurched away from the wall. But Pendergast was there once more, his hand bracing her, steadying her, guiding her foot to a better hold. She stifled a sob; yet again, she was so frightened she could barely think.