With Corbett in the lead, the others followed. Moving together, they descended into the deepest part of the cave system as the sound of rushing water grew louder. Along the way, Corbett quietly tried to assuage Ella’s concerns as best he could. By keeping it simple, he was able to tell her only what he felt she needed to know. And although she had many questions, she decided for the moment to keep them to herself.
*****
By the time the two Jihadis finally reached the floor of the main chamber, the heat from the torch had begun to scorch the flesh of Raif’s left hand. As soon as he was able, he shouldered his Kalashnikov and switched the torch to his right knowing that to cast it aside would leave them in total darkness.
“Quickly, bring the light,” Jarral urged as they moved toward the lower chamber and the faint sound of rushing water.
Stoic and wholly committed to the cause, Raif ignored the pain and moved with him.
Somewhere ahead, Jarral mused, Tariq and the Infidel would eventually be forced to recognize that escape was folly. The time of Reckoning was at hand.
Stopping to listen, Jarral thought he could hear voices. “This way,” he said, now taking the lead.
*****
Having finally reached the edge of the fast-moving underground river just at the point where it cut through the rock, Corbett motioned to the others to stop. Playing the beam over the surface of the water, he could see the turbulent point of entry to his right. Rushing to his left, the four-foot wide torrent raced along over the rocks for twenty meters before disappearing again beneath the far cavern wall.
Ella stared at the swiftly moving current. “You really think this is the same source of the stream near the base camp?”
“I’d bet on it,” he said, holding up his hand. “Feel that...?” A draft of air was coming from somewhere nearby. “Fresh air,” he said. “It means there has to be another way out.”
“Over there,” Ella pointed excitedly toward the dark opening in the rock angling off to their left. Corbett turned the light in that direction revealing the second passageway, the same one they had seen on their previous descent. “What do you think…?” she asked hopefully.
“It’s worth a shot…” Corbett said, already on the move. “Only one way to find out.” The others quickly followed.
*****
Having accidentally tilted the torch, Raif cried out as flaming kerosene spilled onto his right hand. Reacting, he tossed the torch aside and began slapping his burning flesh against his tunic attempting to smother the flames. Annoyed at having to stop, Jarral quickly retrieved the torch and without stopping forged ahead.
“This way,” he said moving deeper into darkness. “Listen… the sound of water. They can’t be far.”
The thought of plunging the second and third degree burns on his hand and wrist into the cool, deep water, gave Raif fresh purpose. And compelled by Jarral’s example, he whispered a prayer to Allah for the strength to ignore the pain as he hurried after him.
*****
Trailing behind Corbett and Tariq as they made their way along the dark passageway, Ella hurried to keep pace. Given the events of the past 24 hours, her life had taken on a sense of the surreal. Trying not to think about the faceless men with guns who now pursued them, she forced her mind to focus on other things – images from her childhood, a baseball game she had once attended with her father in New York’s Shea Stadium, her mother’s almost non-existent cooking skills.
Shifting gears, she attempted to retrace the moments in her life that had brought her to this place. The string of seemingly isolated events that, taken alone, lacked cohesion. From attending a chance lecture at college that led her to impulsively change her major. To deciding against her mother’s wishes that she would go to grad school in archeology instead of applying to law school. Her sojourn to Brazil to research the petroglyphs of the Galeras. And now finally here to this ancient cave in Spain. How could such seemingly random events have suddenly placed her in the crosshairs of Islamic terror?
The absurdity of it made her angry. She didn’t even believe in God. The product of a non-practicing Jewish father and a fallen away Irish Catholic mother who had divorced when she was ten, Ella had grown up agnostic, finding all religions suspect. In the words of the late Christopher Hitchens’ god is not Great: “religion poisons everything.”
And yet, here she was, trapped deep underground in a cave in the Pyrenees pursued by terrorists who killed in the name of a vengeful God. What drives such men? Fueled by ancient fears and insecurities, these were religious zealots who waged a holy war against reason while murdering all who failed to accept the irrational certitude that Allah was the one true God. With unexpected clarity, she realized that for such men as these, God, himself, could only be a man. Who else could mete out divine laws and punishments, turning women into objects? “When God made man,” read the plaque framed above her mother’s kitchen table, “She was only joking.” If only that were really true, perhaps this nightmare might end. But it did not.
Shining the light ahead, Corbett moved down the second passageway. He had not gone more than fifty meters when he realized that the space had begun to narrow to the point where he could no longer stand fully erect. Behind him, Tariq and Ella attempted to follow the aura emitting from the flashlight. Then without warning, a few meters ahead, the darkness seemed to abruptly swallow the LED beam. As Corbett stopped, holding up his hand, the others
