Aztlans could have sent out parties to all corners of the globe — that would explain how their writing style was seeded everywhere from the Egyptians to the Mayans. But the rest seem to have just disappeared. The disappearances and the name
The look on Matt’s face was as if he had just been handed two stone tablets from the top of the mountain. However, with Tom missing, Aimee was in no mood to hear about inexplicable disappearances. The scientist in her leaped at the vague but fantastical inferences he was drawing from the little data he had to work with.
“Matt, everything you have mentioned has, or will have, a scientific explanation.” Aimee saw Matt open his mouth and raise his finger to interject, but whether to apologise or debate she never knew as Takeda interrupted them both.
“Please. They’ve found something, you must all hurry.”
Alex kneeled down beside Tank who was examining something on the cave floor. “It’s Johnson’s gun. No rounds fired. No blood either, just a lot of skirmish marks and more dragging.” Tank looked at Alex with more anger than fear — it was a natural reaction; the team was as close as family. They all knew it was a deadly business they were in, but rated themselves as the best and looked forward to going head-to-head with any opponent. Johnson was one of their finest. So how did he get ambushed, disarmed and carried off? And how the hell did he get across the chasm by himself?
Tank went to hand the gun to Alex, but it stuck for a second. He held the barrel to his nose then offered it to Alex. He didn’t need to; Alex could smell it from ten paces back. “Phew, ammonia and it’s slimy,” Tank said more to himself than to Alex while wiping his hand on his leg.
Alex looked up at Tank’s brother. “Mike, go a hundred feet down the cave and hold your position. Report in when you get there and do not engage with anyone or anything.” Mike nodded, snapped off a quick “roger that,” and was gone.
The entire team had now crowded around Alex and Tank. Alex handed the gun to Aimee. “Dr. Weir, your opinion please.”
Aimee touched the substance with her gloved finger, held it up to her nose and sniffed. She also tested its consistency between her thumb and forefinger. “I can’t be a hundred percent sure being away from the lab, but I’d say this is ammonium chloride. But there’s something else — some sort of biological binder making it sticky that I can’t identify without further analysis. Dr. Silex…” Aimee held out the gun to Silex but he made no attempt to accept it.
“I’d say it’s probably an introduced contaminant. Maybe something the soldier brought with him and spilled.”
Alex ignored the scientist and turned to Monica Jennings. “Could this be a naturally occurring substance down here?”
Monica tilted her head. “Maybe, but unlikely. In deep caves, ammonium chloride can occur naturally, but usually in active volcanic regions, and usually near fume-releasing vents. But even then it dissolves quickly. This area doesn’t seem active enough to me and that looks fresh. It shouldn’t be here.”
“Secretion,” Alex said softly to himself, remembering the last communication received from Dr. Tom Hendsen and the organic substance he had found but couldn’t identify. Alex’s comm unit pinged once. “Mike, go ahead.”
“I got another drop-off. About a hundred feet straight down to what looks like a plateau with multiple exits leading off from the cave floor down there. At the lip here there’s significant ground disturbance and then the tracks seem to end. The Hendsen party seems to have launched themselves off the edge, but I can’t see any bodies or debris down below.”
“OK, Mike. Look for a way down or signs they could have descended themselves. Stay alert, we’re on our way.”
Borshov and his agents sped through the dark labyrinth. Like three black wolves closing in on their prey, they travelled lightly and in complete silence. Borshov pushed his men hard; he knew they still had ground to cover before they caught up with the American team, but he was confident there would be no ambush, no hidden detonations or trip-wires just yet. They were not expecting unwelcome company and besides, they still thought they had a man at rear cover.
Borshov stopped his men with a raised hand and, as he had done every thirty minutes since they had set off down into the tunnel depths, withdrew a small box which he pressed down onto the cold ground. A wire trailing from the back of the device ended in an earpiece which he pushed into his ear. The device was a miniaturised seismic resonator. It listened to solid surfaces and amplified vibrations so they could be clearly read. The small LCD screen on the back gave two readings: the distance of the loudest vibration and the direction. The Russian invention was created purely for use by its anti-terrorism units for “listening” though solid walls — a terrorist could be pinpointed simply by taking a single soft footstep.
From the last reading Borshov had taken, the Americans had been just over three miles in the lead, but at their current speed he expected to catch them quickly. He listened again for their footfalls and looked down at the small box for its directional readings. Good, they were still closing, now just over two miles between them. South- south-east with a slightly increasing descent — they must be climbing down at some sections. As Borshov was about to pull his device free from the stone it began to reset before his eyes. It had found another source of resonance. The figures increased rapidly until they stopped at numbers indicating a distance of about two miles, but nearly ninety degrees straight down, and shifting. Borshov closed his eyes to concentrate on the sounds; significant mass, liquid, moving. He pulled the device free. Underground river, he thought.
He gave a short sharp whistle to his agents and sped on again into the dark.
Monica was walking lightly beside Matt, alert to her surroundings, but from time to time dropping deeply into her own thoughts. Be careful, be silent, touch nothing, leave nothing behind; her caving experience made it all automatic now. She used to like nothing more than entering a pitch black cave for the first time, turning out her light and just standing there in the dark, opening her arms wide and just feeling. She would use all her senses other than sight to draw in all the smells, the minute sounds, and feel the weight of the stone around her. She’d done it dozens of times so why now did the thought of switching off her light in this cave give her a knotted, uncomfortable feeling deep in her stomach.
Matt turned towards her and could see the troubled look on her face. “Penny for them.”
“It’s nothing,” Monica said softly.
“Come on, tell Uncle Matt.”
“OK, remember how I said that caves were like people?”
“Hmm, yeah, some are easy, some are bitches; sounded like a few girls I knew in high school.”
“And some are secretive, that’s right. Well, this one is more than secretive; it’s hiding something and for the first time in my life I don’t feel comfortable in the dark.” Matt smiled at her and put his arm around her shoulders.
“Monica, if you’re ever looking for an excuse to get me to put my arm around you just ask, OK?”
“You oaf,” Monica said through a little smile, but didn’t push his arm away.
Alex was the first to catch up to Mike. “What’ve we got?” he asked while looking down over the lip of the drop-off.
“Only this.” Mike stepped to the side and indicated a building-sized stalagmite. About waist high on the column there seemed to be some discolouration about ten feet into the centre of the gigantic mineralised pillar. There were also faint signs that something had led away from the column to the edge of the drop.
“What was that… rope?” Alex tried to pick some up but it fell to dust in his hands. “Dr. Kerns, we need you here please.”
Matt trotted forward and dropped to his knees. “Wow. This looks like it was once an ancient type of Indian maguey fibre-rope. It’s made from a plant like the agave, and look at this.” Matt indicated the rope trail from the column to the edge and then over. “It was once wound around that stalagmite, and became embedded, fossilised within the mineral build-up. No idea how old it is though.”
Aimee shone her torch on the stalagmite then crouched down beside him, her own scientific interest sparked.
