the shaft, increasing Jack’s unease. The tunnel was elliptical, about five metres across, but the ceiling had lowered and a deep bed of gravel rose up from the floor. They were still going down, their lights boring a hole into the darkness. “Forty metres depth,” Costas said. “The Yucatan cave systems bottom out at about fifty metres, maximum. We’ve got to be going back up soon.” Jack looked at his depth gauge. Forty-six metres. Fifty-two metres. The ceiling and the floor had almost converged, and they were wedged in now, burrowing in the gravel to make space. Then they came to a standstill in a cloud of silt. Jack aimed his headlamp into the slit ahead, a crack only inches above the gravel. It was a dead end. They were trapped.
Costas heaved himself back beside Jack, his rebreather clunking against the ceiling and his body grinding through the gravel. “Something’s not right,” he said. “We were being pulled down by a current, and that’s got to go somewhere. And this gravel pile curves down at the sides, shaped by water movement. There has to be an outlet.”
He pushed himself down the right side of the gravel pile, into a narrow channel at the bottom, and pulled himself ahead until only his fins were showing. Jack closed his eyes, then opened them again, concentrating on little things, like the shape of a fossil in the limestone a few inches from his face. He looked down again to where Costas had disappeared. He could see that the crevasse was free of silt. Swept clear by the current. Costas was right.
“Jack. Follow me.” He did as Costas instructed, digging his hands into the gravel and heaving himself down the side of the tunnel. He felt the flow of water, saw light ahead. “It goes up,” Costas said excitedly. Jack followed slowly, squeezing through a boulder choke. There was hardly any room to move, and he was reduced to wriggling, his rebreather pack clanging against the stone walls. The tunnel beyond was narrower still, like a drainage pipe, smooth and rounded where the current had worn it down but only about three feet in diameter. Jack had never been in a space so narrow. It was beyond claustrophobic. There was no way they could go back, with the current pressing against them, and any blockage in the tunnel now would seal their fate. Costas’ fins were a few feet ahead of him. Jack checked his depth gauge, remained focussed. He stared at the rock inches from his face, then at his depth gauge. Forty-one metres. Thirty-seven metres. They were ascending, slowly but surely. Then the tunnel took a sharp turn upwards and they were in a chamber, a vast space filled with shadowy forms, great columns that towered upwards like white-robed giants, beckoning them up from the underworld. Far above, Jack could see a shimmer of green, distinct from the white beams of their headlights. He closed his eyes again, a wave of relief coursing through him, his heart pounding not with fear but with exhilaration. He rose beside Costas through the chamber, the water so clear that they seemed suspended in midair like figures from some scene of apotheosis. Then they were at the top of the cavern, only ten metres beneath the surface of the water, butting up against a crack in the rock where they could see the light of dawn shining through.
It was not over yet. The crack was a narrow squeeze, barely wide enough for one of them. There was no other exit from the chamber.
“Why does this always seem to happen when I dive with you?” Costas said. “Next time let’s do some open- water diving for a change.”
“If there is a next time.” Jack looked into the black chasm yawning below, then back up into the crack. He could see foliage, the wavering forms of trees overhanging the surface of the water. His heart was still pounding, but no longer with excitement. This was a ridiculous place to die.
“We’ll have to swim for it.” Costas said. “You go first.”
“No way. You’ll have the tighter squeeze, and I can help push you through.”
Costas unstrapped his rebreather and dangled it down beside him. He pulled himself as far as he could into the fissure, about two metres above Jack, then ripped off his helmet and dropped the rig. It went plummeting past Jack, disappearing into the darkness below. Jack pulled himself behind Costas and pushed up against his legs. Nothing happened. Suddenly he felt helpless, appalled that he might watch his friend die only a few metres from the surface, holding his legs. Then Costas kicked hard and erupted upwards. Jack paused to regain his breath, unbuckled his harness and dangled it beside him, took five deep breaths and then ripped off his helmet and dropped the rig. He heaved himself up through the rock, his eyes open to the blurry haze of daylight through the water, and pulled himself through. Another kick of his fins and he surfaced in a slurry of green algae, in a small pool sheltered by fronds of undergrowth.
Costas was panting on the edge of the pool, looking like the Creature from the Black Lagoon. He wiped the slime off his face, submerged his head and shook it violently, then reared up out of the water and offered Jack a hand. “You might want to do the same. Don’t want to terrify the natives.”
After Jack was out and shaking himself off, Costas reached into the top of his wetsuit and extracted a slim metallic device, about the size of a pocket calculator. He tapped the front and pulled out an aerial, bringing the device to his ear.
“Sometimes you’re a surprising bag of tricks,” Jack panted.
“Combined GPS beacon and two-way radio,” Costas said. “All I need to do now is activate the mayday button and Ben’ll have us pinpointed. I can try to establish a radio link and talk to him when we know what the situation is.”
They had surfaced beside a rough jungle track. It was still raining, alternately drizzling and pouring. Costas activated the compass on his device and quickly took a bearing. Ten minutes later they crept up the limestone dome that covered the cenote and approached the overgrown temple. The jeep that had brought them was at the end of the track. Jack saw a boy, a local Maya, playing on the road, but he had not spotted them. They stealthily rounded the building and each took one side of the entrance, their backs flat to the wall, listening. They could hear nothing. Jack could taste the salt of his sweat joining the water on his face. He looked at Costas, nodded. They sidled into the chamber, keeping to the shadows, straining their eyes into the candlelit gloom. There was no sign of Maria or Loki. The only occupant was a man sitting with his back to them on a diving tank, cleaning a pistol. Jack gestured to Costas and returned to the entrance, vigilant. Costas crept up behind Reksnys and put his arm round his throat, clamping his mouth. The pistol dropped with a clatter. Costas drew the man close and spoke with a snarl.
“Now. Where were we?”
20
Twenty minutes later the noise of rain was drowned out by the shuddering roar of the Lynx as it came to a hover overhead, sweeping the jungle floor with its downdraught. Two men were winched down through the dense foliage, followed by a red first-aid crate. Once they were safely on the ground, the Lynx tipped forward and disappeared back into the cloud. Jack ran over from where he had been sheltering to pull the box from the undergrowth and then scrambled over to help Ben.
“We didn’t know what to expect,” Ben shouted above the downpour, holstering the pistol he had been holding at the ready. “When Costas radioed in the GPS co-ordinates we were only about three miles from you, flying a search pattern just off the coast. The cover story was an aerial survey for archaeological remains offshore. Jeremy came along as the only archaeologist on board. And because he insisted. You don’t want to fly uninvited into Mexican airspace bristling with weapons, especially at night, so it’s only me and my Glock. But now we’ve found you, the Lynx has gone back for a full security team and we’ve contacted the local police.”
“Loki’s gone,” Jack shouted. “Ordered by his father to follow us down into the cavern. Taken Maria with him. Didn’t trust us. But Reksnys is all yours.”
“I’ll need to do a perimeter sweep, priority. Jeremy’ll have to do prisoner detail.”
Jeremy pushed his way through the undergrowth from where he had landed, his glasses steamed up and kicking off a mass of vines. Jack led them through the tangle and out on to the rough track, then straight into the temple. At the entrance they shook off water and Jeremy wiped his glasses. Inside, Costas stood with the Luger aimed at a form lying gagged and face-down on the ground, his wrists and mouth roughly duct-taped. Jeremy bounded past them to the wall-painting and peered closely at the image of the menorah, now revealed, and at the battle scene. “Vikings,” he enthused, his glasses steaming up again. “You were right. Fantastic. And look. I’m sure that one’s a woman.”
“Time for that later.” Jack nodded to Costas, who gave him the Luger while Ben knelt over Reksnys and re- fastened his wrists with a plastic tie. “Costas needs to help operate the winch, Jeremy.” Jack passed him the pistol. “Can you handle this?”
