She heard the water still trickling and falling in places. It dropped and plunked off the cave floor. There was something so utterly calming about it. Julia felt herself surrendering to sleep.
And it felt good to do so.
Her arms slid down beside her. The M16 lay across her lap, heavy in the slumbering haze that was overtaking her.
Images swirled behind her eyes. Sounds filled her ears. Julia welcomed them with open arms.
And finally, completely, totally, slept.
15
Mick nudged her awake a few hours later. Julia groaned softly, annoyed at having to relinquish her sleep, but she knew she had no choice. It was her turn on guard duty.
Mick looked at her. 'You slept well.'
'How can you tell?'
He grinned. 'Because I know the look of someone in the field who's enjoyed their sleep. You look rested.'
'I'm still exhausted.'
'We all are. That's to be expected.'
'Weird dreams, too.'
'What kind of dreams?'
She looked at him. There it was again. A slight shift in his personality. Almost like he was two different people. On one hand, he was the cute rough and tumble guy who'd saved their hide a lot today. But on the other…
Well, Julia wasn't so sure yet what the other was all about.
'Just weird dreams. Nothing much to them. But I think I dreamed about this place.'
'The cave?'
She nodded. 'Yeah, the cave. The tunnel. Us. Those…things.'
'So not necessarily a pleasant dream.'
'Well, the part with us in it was pretty good.'
He smirked. 'Wilkins and Nung had a dream about this place, too.'
'Just now?'
'Earlier. When I woke them up for stag duty.' He looked at her. 'And now you just tell me you've had the same thing happen to you.'
'And you think they're related.'
He shrugged. 'Remember the first night at the station? What you were all talking about? The dreams? How you'd all dreamt about this place for years.'
'You said you had the dreams, too.'
Mick nodded fast. 'I did. I did.' He shrugged. 'But now that we're actually here, I haven't.'
'They could just be a by product of the stress of the firefight earlier. Some sort of post traumatic stress disorder perhaps?'
'Yeah, I suppose they could be.' He sighed. 'Wish I'd had the dreams, too.'
Julia smiled. 'You feeling left out?'
'I'm feeling like I wish I knew what the hell was going on around here.'
'I think we all feel that way.'
He looked down the tunnel. 'The answer's down there, Julia. Can you feel it? I know it's down there.'
She nodded. 'We'll get to the bottom of it.' She touched his arm. 'What do you think happened to Vikorsky and Havel?'
'And the others?'
Julia nodded.
Mick sighed. 'I don't know. Part of me hopes they're alive somewhere. I don't know. Being held captive maybe? How weird does that sound?'
'It sounds like optimism.'
'A bigger part of me thinks that they're probably dead by now. Used for some reason. Food? I don't know. It's gruesome as hell trying to debate the possibilities. The best thing we can do is press on and try to find them.'
'Or whatever is left of them,' said Julia.
'That didn't sound like optimism.'
'It's not.'
Mick nodded and handed her the M16. 'Time we got to our positions.'
She took one side of the cave and he the other. She kept glancing over at him. Part of it was for reassurance. Knowing that he was in the nearby vicinity made her feel somewhat safe.
Part of it was because she still didn't completely trust him. Something about him didn't make sense. She wished she could peel back the layers of his head and reach into his brain to extract everything she needed to know.
But she couldn't.
Not yet.
Mick leaned against the cave wall with his gun in hand. He kept the butt in his shoulder but the muzzle pointed just below the horizon. Julia recalled seeing a special on the Discovery Channel about special operations commandos and how they used that position. What had they called it? Low-ready? They could bring up their weapon faster than if it was at their side. They could align the sights faster and bring their targets down.
And here was Mick using a similar style.
Julia didn't think Mick was being completely honest with her. Or any of them.
But why? What was he hiding? And for what purpose?
More to the point, who could Julia trust on her team?
Wilkins.
She smiled. He was her number two man. And she knew he wouldn't take crap from anyone. He'd back her no matter what. She felt lucky to have him along on the trip.
She glanced up, feeling Mick looking at her. It amazed her how much their eyes had adjusted to the dismal lighting down here. The lantern cast only a tiny amount of light, mainly because they'd turned down the oil consumption to preserve the fuel. But even still, Julia could see Mick pretty well.
And he could see her.
She smiled at him. He smiled back.
That was it.
She turned and stared down into the darkness of the cave tunnel. Further down there sat answers to all her questions. All they had to do was walk down, find their way to the other side of the rocks with the light bleeding through them and then have at it with whatever came at them from the other side.
Julia gulped.
She wasn't so sure she wanted another firefight.
Especially if this one was going to be real.
But she didn't have a choice. She owed it to her team. She owed it to Vikorsky and Havel. She owed it to the other staff members who'd gone missing before they arrived.
But most of all, she owed it to herself.
She wasn't going to let this beat her. She wouldn't give Kendall the satisfaction of seeing her beaten.
She smirked and tried to imagine how good it would feel coming back from this trip with everyone safe and sound. How good it would feel to be thought of as a hero. Didn't everyone want to know how that felt? Didn't everyone wish deep down that just once they could save the day? That they could know what it felt like to stand in the winner's circle?
