Hazen swore, spat. Raskovich was gone, bolted like a rabbit. Although Hazen had briefly given chase, he’d been unable to find the guy. The way the man had been running, he was probably halfway back to KSU already.
But now, as Hazen looked back the way he had come, he wasn’t sure just which of the branching tunnels he’d come out of. He thought it was the one on the right. But he wasn’t sure.
Hazen swallowed, cleared his throat. “Lefty?”
Silence.
“Larssen?”
He cupped his hands in the direction of his backtrail and bellowed, “Hey! Anybody! If you can hear me, sing out!”
Silence.
“Anybody there? Respond!”
Despite the chilly air and the incessant wetness, Hazen felt a prickly sensation along his spine. He looked back the way he had come; looked around; looked ahead. The night-vision goggles gave everything a pale, reddish, unreal look, like he was on Mars. He checked his belt and confirmed what he already feared: he’d lost his flashlight during the chase.
The whole operation was fucked up. They’d gotten separated. Raskovich was lost, the whereabouts of Larssen unknown, the condition of Lefty and the dogs uncertain. At the very least, McFelty knew they were there. If he was dead, or injured . . . Hazen figured he had enough to deal with without dreaming up a lot of hypotheticals.
The thing to do was to get everyone back together, get a situation report, take stock.
Shit, it was hard to remember which of those holes he had come outof. . .
He examined the cave floor for footprints or marks, but it seemed as if each of the tunnels had been heavily trafficked. And that alone was very strange.
He ran over what had happened in his mind, trying to recall landmarks. It was all vague; he’d been concentrating on catching the fleeing Raskovich. Still, on balance it seemed to him that he’d most likely come from that passage on the right.
He walked down it about fifty feet. There were some broken stalactite pieces scattered here, like teeth. He didn’t remember those. Had he just run past them too fast?
He went farther, but still nothing looked familiar. With a curse he returned to the pillared cave and took one of the other tunnels. He proceeded slowly, straining to remember, feeling his heart starting to beat a little fast. Nothing looked familiar. The dripping rocks, the feathery crystals, the banded, glossy humps—it all looked strange.
And then he heard a sound. Someone up ahead, humming.
“Hey!” He broke into a trot, turned a corner, paused at a fork in the passage.
The humming had stopped.
Hazen spun around, calling out. “Larssen? Cole?”
Still no sound.
“Answer me, goddamn it!”
He waited. Couldn’t they hear him? He’d heard the sound as clear as a bell; why couldn’t they hear him?
More humming, high-pitched and farther away, coming out of the left tunnel.
“Larssen?” He unshouldered his shotgun and walked down the left tunnel. The sound was louder, higher, closer. He moved more cautiously now, his senses on alert, trying to control his heart, which seemed to be pounding way too hard in his chest.
There was a flash of something at the periphery of his vision and he stopped and spun around. “Hey!”
He got just the briefest look before it darted away into the blackness. Brief as the glance was, it was enough to leave no doubt at all that it wasn’t one of his team.
And it sure as hell wasn’t McFelty.
Sixty-Four
Raskovich leaned back with a neigh of terror, wanting to run and yet unable to do so, waiting for the thing to leap up and pounce on him. It was like a nightmare: his feet frozen to the ground, paralyzed, unable to flee.
He gulped in air—again, and then again—and, gradually, paralysis and fright ebbed and reason began to return. He leaned closer. It was nothing more than the mummified body of an Indian, sitting on the floor, bony knees drawn up, mouth open, shriveled lips drawn back from an enormous row of brown teeth. Placed around him was a semicircle of pots, each with a stone arrowhead in it. The mummy was wrapped in stringy rags that at one time
