“So all I’ve got to do is live a blameless life and I’m in?” Attie asked. “No church, no singing?”
“In my opinion?” Barb said. “Yes. Love and do not hate. Treat other people with love and respect unless they have clearly given themselves to evil. And even then, understand and forgive them if you can. But that doesn’t mean you have to let them live, mind you.”
“Hmm,” Attie said. “So what if you’ve sinned?”
“Sin is such a big word,” Barb said. “And it’s a really narrow concept. I’m not saying that it’s all shades of gray; it’s not. But there’s a really easy way to define sin. Do you have any sort of conscience? I know some very good warriors who don’t. They have to just fake it.”
“I know the kind of guys you’re talking about,” Attie said. “But, yeah, I’ve got a conscience.”
“Anything you’ve ever done you really wish you hadn’t?” Barb asked.
“Couple,” Attie admitted.
“Can you forgive yourself?” Barb asked.
“That’s a tough one,” the master sergeant admitted.
“God can,” Barb said. “But it helps if you can. People seek forgiveness for that sort of thing in a lot of ways. The doctrine of Confession is the traditional Catholic method. I…know someone who has a lot of forgiveness to seek. He’s seeking it through…good works. I, frankly, wish he was with us now.”
“I thought you said good works,” Randell said.
“By certain definitions of good,” Barb said, chuckling slightly. “Killing demons? Good. Counts for a bunch of rosaries, or so I’m told.”
“Oh.”
“Others seek it through self-examination,” Barb continued. “Mostly, though, people seek it through the normal sort of absolutions. Owning up to it to the people that they’ve hurt. Seeking to redress the damage. Doing things that counteract the evil they have done. My friend’s approach is…idiosyncratic. But sincere. And, again, unquestionably in there with God. He had some actual demons to throw off of his soul. But once he did, he’s pretty much in as much of a state of grace as anyone I’ve met. And what he does is kill demons. And their worshippers.”
“That gets back around to where I have issues,” Randell said.
“I wasn’t planning on getting Jesus in a cave,” Attie said. “But you’re a very good missionary, Mrs. Everette. And you can shoot. That’s a benefit.”
“Think about what you just said,” Barb said. “‘Getting Jesus.’ Getting has several connotations in English. It means ‘receiving,’ which is the meaning I think you meant. But it also means ‘understanding.’ Which is equally the case. This is how to ‘get’ Jesus.
“All that Jesus really asked is that we love our fellow man and care about him. Why on earth are you in this cave if not for that, Master Sergeant Attie? Adventure? You’re far too experienced a warrior. You’re here to save lives. Jesus dragged a cross up a long hill while stones and food and spit were hurled at Him, was nailed to that cross, suffered, and died a most painful and horrible death to prove to His Father that we poor humans were worthy of being forgiven for whatever Adam and Eve did to tick God off. He died so that we might live in eternity, period. If you die in this cave, open-eyed and willing to die to save others, do you really think that Jesus is going to reject you? He’s a guy who got nailed to a cross to save our souls. Yeah, He has enough forgiveness for you, Master Sergeant. And He is going to appreciate someone who’s willing to die to save others. Been there, done that.”
“You know,” Attie said, thoughtfully. “If you’d been my preacher when I was growing up I might have stayed with the church. Baptist, too, by the way.”
“I know a few very good Baptist ministers,” Barb said. “I also know more who are total pricks, pardon my French.”
“You’re making me think about converting,” Janea said with a laugh. “But I love sex too much.”
“Mary Magdalene was a prostitute,” Barb said. “There’s no other way to interpret Matthew. So was her sister, Martha. Which made Lazarus, who Jesus raised from the dead, their pimp. God may be a little down on it, but Jesus has no issues.”
“Speaking of whom,” Janea said. “Where is Laz?”
“Probably finding a drier route,” Barb said with a chuckle. “He took one look at this passage and clear as day said ‘Blow that!’”
“Well, we’ve got an open area up ahead,” Attie said. “Finally.”
“Might want to let me go through first,” Barb said. “The last time I let somebody else take point it didn’t turn out well.”
“I think it’s okay,” Attie said. “Unless your Old Ones have green cat eyes. He apparently found a drier route. Little bastard.”
“Language, Master Sergeant.”
CHAPTER NINE
“Well now, this is interesting,” Barb said as she emerged from the mudhole.
The immediate area around the opening to the mudhole was more or less triangular and about thirty feet high. The room continued onwards into the cave through a very odd passage.
The passage was high but narrow with a smooth, flat floor. It opened outwards, broadly at the top and again, slightly, near the floor. And it clearly twisted like a snake. The walls were irregular with spines of limestone sticking out. As she shone her light on the wall she could pick out the outlines of fossilized sea creatures from ancient aeons.
“Keyhole passage,” Master Sergeant Attie said, pouring a bottle of water over the Kriss to get some of the mud off. They were both covered in the thick, sticky mud, as was all of their equipment. “Called that ’cause it looks sort of like an old-time skeleton keyhole.”
Barb did a rough clean on the weapon, ensured that it was still cycling well, then shone her gun-light up. She quickly realized that it didn’t reach all the way into the sides of the spread-out upper portion.
“There could be anything up there,” she noted, sweeping the Kriss around.
“Yep,” Attie replied as the rest of the team dragged themselves out. “I’ve been thinking on that.”
“That was just unpleasant as anything I’ve ever done,” Janea said. “Except this one guy in Los Angeles…”
“Let’s do a gear check,” Attie said. “That could have been pretty rough on our systems.”
The team, in pairs, spent a couple of minutes checking out all their gear. Surprisingly, with the exception of having to change a battery in Randell’s radio, it was all functioning.
“Good stuff,” Barb said, happily. “I do so appreciate good gear.”
“I got most of it off of Navy SPECWAR,” Attie admitted. “Salt water is worse than mud, and the SEALS can break anything. So their stuff has to be really robust. And the radios are designed with obstructions in mind. They’ve actually got about the best gear around for caving, just most cavers can’t afford it. Or don’t have the clearance to get it. Let’s stay sharp. There’s not only limited visibility at the top, there could be passages off of it.”
“Master Sergeant?” Struletz said. “I could probably chimbley to the top and work my way along through there. That way we’d have top cover.”
“And if you had to get down in the middle of a firefight you’d be vulnerable as hell,” Attie said.
“I’ll do it,” Barb said, releasing the Kriss to draw back on its three-point harness. She jumped up and got both feet onto small projections on the wall, and then started climbing the passage like a spread-out spider. Fast. She was rarely in even three points of contact, and it looked most of the time like she wasn’t in contact at all. She hardly used her hands.
“That was just…bizarre,” Attie said when she reached the top.
“Benefits of a lifetime of martial arts study, Master Sergeant,” Barb said, not even winded. “I had this instructor in…Malaysia? Yeah, Malaysia. He loved really bad martial arts movies. But he took some of the stuff from them, some of the stuff you’re looking at and going ‘Yeah, right,’ and added it to his art. Stuff like fighting off of balconies and walls. He believed that the essence of martial arts was grace. It wasn’t a really great combat art, unless you were fighting on a ledge, but it was good for learning balance.”
