James Rollins - Excavation

What had happened below? What could frighten a man as hard and tough as Gil?

As on that noon day in the streets of Belfast, Maggie knew safety still lay in the shadows. She peered from the room’s edge as Gil reached to his vest and fingered an object bulging in a pocket. It seemed to center the panicked man, as a crucifix would reassure an old woman.

Then, from another pocket, he pulled free what looked like a green apple with a handle. It took Maggie a heartbeat to recognize the armament, so out of place in an ancient Incan ruin.

Bloody hell! A grenade!

With a final glance at the shaft, Gil scrabbled to his feet and raced down the tunnel.

Listening to his fading footsteps, Maggie found she could not move. In her mind’s eye, the grenade still loomed large – a familiar weapon in the war on the streets of her home. Buried childhood panic swelled, threatening to choke her. Her hands trembled. She clenched her fists, refusing to succumb to the panic attack that verged. Her vision swam slightly as her breath became stilted.

Sam must have sensed her distress. “Maggie…?” He reached to her shoulder.

His touch ignited her. She sprang to her feet. “Och, we need to get out of here,” she said, her words rushed. “Now!”

Sam pulled his Stetson firmer on his head. “Why? It’s only Guillermo.”

Her face fierce, Maggie swung toward Sam. The Texan had not seen the grenade. Sam backed a step from whatever he saw in her eyes. She did not have time to explain her fears. “Go, you bloody wanker!” she hollered, the panic thickening the Irish brogue on her tongue. She shoved Sam toward the tunnel and waved the others after him.

Sam’s long legs ate up the distance. Maggie followed, keeping one eye on their back trail. Ahead, Ralph kept up with Sam, but Norman, burdened with his cameras, had slipped behind.

“Hurry,” she urged the journalist.

Norman glanced back. His face was stark white in the glow of the lamps. But he fought for more speed and closed the distance as the two quicker men reached the ladder to the next level of the dig.

Ahead, Sam flew up the wooden rungs with Ralph at his heels. Norman went next. Maggie stood at the foot of the ladder, her ears straining for any danger behind them. Far away, echoing up from below, she thought she could just make out a deep ticking, like a large watch winding down.

“Maggie, c’mon!” Sam whispered urgently to her from above.

Maggie turned to find the ladder clear. For a moment, time had slipped away from her. It was one of the signs of a pending attack. Not now! She flew up the ladder. Sam helped her off the last rung, hauling her up with his arms. The ladder to the surface lay only a handful of meters away. On her feet, Maggie led the way.

She followed the zigzagging line of lanterns, lights flickering past as she ran. As she spotted the ladder’s base, she heard a low grunting coming from the shaft to the surface. It was Gil. It sounded like he had almost reached the plaza above.

With her goal in sight and a freshening breeze from above encouraging her, Maggie sped faster.

Suddenly, words echoed down to her: “Swallow this, you hijo de puta !”

Maggie froze as a hard object pinged and bounced down the shaft to land at the foot of the ladder. She stared in disbelief at the green metallic cylinder. It rested in the mud beside the wooden beam that acted as the main shaft support. The grenade!

Maggie cartwheeled back toward Sam. He grunted as she fell against his chest. “Back… back… back…” she chanted.

The group tumbled, tangled in each other’s arms, away from the ladder.

“What-?” Sam said in her ear.

With adrenaline fierce in her veins, she shoved Sam and the others into a side chamber.

The blast caught them at the entrance. The concussion and explosion of air propelled them all across the room. They struck the far wall and fell to the stone floor in a pile of limbs.

With the lamps flickering around them, Maggie rolled up to her knees. Past her ringing ears, she heard Ralph groan beside her. Maggie took stock of her own injuries. She seemed to be unscathed, but as she viewed the damage done by the grenade through the settling dust, a moan escaped her throat, too.

They were trapped!

The passage that led to the last ladder was now a tumble of rock and dirt. The grenade had collapsed the tunnel to the surface, taking out a good section of the first level’s ceiling. Stones lay in a jumble from the triggered landslide.

Around her, the remainder of the ruins grumbled and groaned with the shift in stresses. Thirty feet of earth pushed to collapse more of the subterranean ruin.

What were they going to do?

Then the lights flickered a final time and died. Blackness swallowed them up.

“Everyone okay?” Sam asked numbly, his voice exaggerated by his deafened ears.

Norman answered, “Fine. I’m buried thirty feet underground… in a tomb. But otherwise, I’m fine.”

“Okay here, too, Sam,” Ralph added, his usual bravado dimmed.

Sam coughed on the thick dust in the air. “Maggie?”

She could no longer answer. She felt her limbs stiffen and begin the first of the characteristic tremors. She fell back upon the stone floor as the seizure grabbed her body and dragged her consciousness away.

The last she heard was Norman’s strangled cry. “Sam, something’s wrong with Maggie!”

Gil fled from the blast in the pit, the roar ripping through the quiet jungle. Smoke and debris, sweeping up into the night, chased him down the slope to the floor of the camp. Though the loose stones cut his bare feet, he scrambled down the stairs, cursing himself for abandoning his boots below. Why hadn’t he tossed his footwear and rifle free of the booby trap before he jumped? But he knew the answer. He had panicked.

Overhead, a flock of frightened parrots scattered across the beam of one of the nearby spotlights. The blaze of blue-and-red plumage across the black night startled him. As the single explosion echoed away, the jungle answered the grenade’s challenge with bird screeches and monkey calls.

The jungle had awakened – as had the camp below.

Lights swelled within several of the workers’ cheap tents. Shadows already moved inside as the sleepers awakened. Even one of the students’ tents blossomed with the warm glow.

Weaponless and with no companions, Gil dared not try to take the camp alone. He would have to gather other men and return quickly to eliminate the americanos and their workers. At least the grenade had managed to bring down the only entrance to the subterranean ruins. The bounty below should be protected until he could return with men and construction tools to dig it free. Not concerned about “damaging the fragile site,” his team could have the treasure hoard plucked in short order. A day or two at the most.

Yet, before Gil could gather more men, he had one more mission to complete here at the camp. Reaching the cluster of tents, he slipped into the darker shadows between two of the workers’ rough shelters. Faces began to peek out of tent flaps. Their eyes were surely on the plume of dirt still smoking from the excavation site.

No one spotted Gil.

As he slipped behind the tents, the whispered squabble in the guttural Quechan tongue could be heard from the neighboring tent. A shrill voice also called from where the students kept their more expensive shelters. “Guillermo! Sam! What happened?” It was the pompous leader of these maricon students.

Gil ignored the growing exchange of voices. From a pile of stacked work tools, he silently removed a pickax and shearing knife. Crossing to the rear of one of the shelters, Gil used the knife to slice a new entrance. His sharp blade hissed through the thick canvas. Slipping through the hole, Gil entered the tent with his pickax.