circumstances could be fatal. He called out to Monica, who was scurrying around peering into the cave mouths, presumably to see if any led back to the surface.
“Ms. Jennings, we need another route back to the surface. Any suggestions?”
Monica rejoined the group. “Well, there is no breeze coming from any of the large caves. There’s also no cooler air in any of them that would indicate a path to the ice surface either, and there’s no discernable upward slope. All that leaves us is a choice based on direction. My view is we head north which takes us towards the coast and away from the interior which we know is covered in several miles of ice, as well as rock. So…” Monica pointed to a medium-sized opening. “That one.”
“All right, sounds like as good a plan as any to me. Any alternatives or objections? OK. Mike, get fifty feet down into our exit cave and see if we still have something large and slimy to worry about. Takeda, Tank, check our Russian friends for anything we can use. Everyone else, gather everything we may need into your backpacks, non- essential items remain here and we travel light. We leave in two minutes.”
Alex watched Silex turn away and check his bulky backpack. He knew what he was doing. “Sorry, Dr. Silex, essential equipment only. The electronics are non-essential and must remain here.”
“No! I am not leaving this device here. It’s a prototype and represents millions of dollars and years of research. I demand to be allowed to take it with us; if the device stays, then we all stay.”
“That’s your choice, Dr. Silex, but everyone else will be sticking together and finding a route back to the surface. I won’t try to drag you along.” Alex looked back at the cave where the creature had attacked them and then looked back at Silex. The inference was clear: you’ll be here by yourself and that thing is just down in there. Silex looked at Alex with a mixture of fear and hatred and turned to find Aimee; she shook her head and turned her back on him. Silex ground his teeth and then began to swear under his breath as he tore off his backpack and roughly ripped the image resonator and several other small boxes from the webbing and flung them over his shoulder. Alex watched them loop slowly in the dusty air before bouncing and cartwheeling across the fallen boulders, giving off a spray of sensitive electronic debris as they went.
Alex turned away from Silex to face the tunnel where Mike had just disappeared. He knew the injured HAWC was hurting and now he had just been sent by himself back into a cave where he had been attacked by a creature from a nightmare. Mike hadn’t flinched as he rushed to follow his instructions. Good man, thought Alex.
Aimee came up beside Alex. “Are you OK?” She laid her hand on his arm and looked into his face.
Alex nodded in Silex’s direction. “I get the feeling he doesn’t like me anymore. But I feel safer with you here — you can be pretty terrifying, you know.” He smiled and she smiled back.
“Who were those guys that attacked us? Dr. Silex was right; they did seem to know you.”
“They were Russian Special Forces. I’ve come across the big one before. He shot me and left me to die on the other side of the world. I can only guess they were sent to retrieve or destroy the work we’re doing. The world is hungry for oil, Aimee, and how the world gets it is of secondary concern these days. Anyway, forget that, how are you?”
“Don’t worry about me. My dad always said I was steel wrapped in velvet. I’m tough.”
“Good, I think we’re all going to need to be tough before we see daylight again.” He put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed. She looked like she wanted to say something but didn’t know how to start. Alex’s comm pinged. “Mike, report in.”
“All clear and quiet.”
“OK, come back in, we’re moving out.” Alex turned towards the chosen tunnel and hopefully their path back to the surface.
It heard the boom of the falling rock and hesitated. A cave-in was one of the only things it feared. Also, the noise and vibrations made it impossible to hunt in the caves. It held its place and waited until it was sure there were no major rock falls that could crush it. It could smell the floating debris and dust from the cave and also detected the scent of fresh blood but could not risk entering a weakened cavern. It would take another route, as it sensed one of the little warm animals moving fast through the upper passages.
Pieter Dragan had been a Krofskoya agent for three years and had never failed a mission. He was not sad that his comrades had been killed. Borshov was a psychopath and made killing a prolonged game to savour, when it should have been quick and surgically efficient. His time wasting had been his downfall; too bad.
Pieter was racing back to the American’s jerry-bridge when his night vision lens picked up a flicker of blurred movement, and then a human shape appeared standing beside the bridge at the edge of the ravine. It was a girl, and she was holding what looked like a baby. Pieter flattened himself against the wall; there didn’t seem to be anyone else and the girl looked harmless and a little lost; she also looked dripping wet.
The girl didn’t move or speak and when Pieter called to her, she seemed to glide a little closer. Maybe she came from the airplane crash and had been wandering around lost all this time. But how did she get down so deep by herself — and in the dark? Pieter stood up and called to her again, in the few words of English he knew. “Hello, who are you please, you identify, yes?”
The girl shape leaped forward and crashed into Pieter with a wet smacking sound. The pain was excruciating as several dagger-like tusks pierced his flesh. He could not push himself away from the girl as she seemed covered in foul-smelling glue and now even his face was stuck to hers.
Panic set in as he was pulled by an unbelievable strength towards the edge of the rift. His last vision through his night scope was of being hoisted over the cliff edge and drawn down into the blackness where something large and liquid-sounding waited hungrily in the depths below.
Sixteen
Alex distributed the useful items and food among the remaining non-military team members. The long rifles he left behind; though he would have liked the extra firepower, he decided instead to travel light and fast. He also managed to recover one of the handguns which he gave to Aimee. Silex protested, but there was no way Alex would put a loaded firearm into that man’s hands. He figured that even though the guns fired hard impact rounds as opposed to the HAWCs’ safer compressed air armaments, the danger from the creature far outweighed the danger from ricochets.
Alex checked his watch; it was only twelve hours until the chopper arrived to evacuate them. He knew the pilot wouldn’t be expecting to hear from them until they were at or near the surface, and when they weren’t there he would wait several hours and then call it in. That meant they probably had around fifteen hours to make it back to the surface — a walk in the park, if there were no more cave-ins, and if they didn’t stop from fatigue or hit a dead-end or were attacked.
The team marched in silence through the dark for several hours until their cave abruptly ended in a jumble of fallen rocks.
Monica put her hands on her hips and looked over the pile of broken stone, nodding to herself as though she’d been expecting it. “It’s a boulder choke. In simple terms it means the passage has been filled by rocks in some ancient collapse.”
“And she’s the expert? Great choice — four hours walking for nothing. Now I guess we walk all the way back and take door number two.” Monica ignored Silex and clambered over the fallen boulders until she found what she was looking for at the very base of the pile.
She went straight to Alex. “As I expected, it looks like there might be a way through, a small choke hole, but I’ll need to check its length and depth.”
“Do it,” Alex said.
“Give me twenty minutes.” Monica looked at Alex and caught his expression. “OK, give me ten.” She removed her backpack and placed it on the ground in front of a small opening between the boulders. From the pack she took a small stick of red chalk which she held between her teeth. She tied a rope around her waist, and prepared to dive head first into the hole when Matt grabbed her ankle.
“Just one thing.” He got down close to Monica and whispered in her ear. “Be careful, come back.” She smiled and with her chalk drew a little red heart on the back of his caving glove and then, pushing her backpack in front of her, slithered forward and disappeared.
Everyone seemed to hold their breath as they focused on the small opening in the wall of stone before them.
