———
TOM FOLLOWED ROWE AS THEY PARALLELED THE RIVER. TANGLED foliage blocked their way, the going slow. Dried twigs and leaves crackled underfoot. They finally made it to a point close to where the cave opened. Their lights scanned the black yawn across the river and he saw something strange.
A dam.
Fashioned of cemented rock, the rough joints thick. It rose two feet from the water and blocked the cave’s entrance, keeping water out.
“We’ll need to walk through the river to get there,” Rowe said as he slipped the gun from the holster and stepped into the swift-moving flow, which rose waist-high.
He followed.
Cold water sent a chill through him that actually felt good considering the amount of sweat that covered his body. The riverbed was smooth stones in varying sizes that challenged his rubber-soled shoes and made footing tricky. Twice he almost lost his balance. If he fell and allowed the current to take him, he’d be gone in a matter of seconds. Luckily, the water ran shallow.
Rowe made it to the dam, hopped on top and reholstered the gun.
Tom did the same.
They both shone their lights on the other side, into the cave opening. Some water leaked through the dam and trickled inside, down a flat, smooth, chutelike incline about ten feet wide.
“This river once flowed into there,” he said.
“And someone dammed it up.”
A sign was posted adjacent to the entrance labeling the cave Darby’s Hole. The warning made clear NO ADMITTANCE. Unchecked water flows, unexplored and unmarked passages, dangerous pits, and unpredictable surges were listed as reasons.
“That’s comforting,” he said.
But Rowe had turned from the placard, studying the trees on the river’s far bank.
No more wails had been heard.
“What aren’t you telling me?” he asked Rowe.
“Let’s go inside.”
CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO
ZACHARIAH CHECKED THE MAP. THEY’D FOUND THE HIGHWAY marked A3, just as Rowe had instructed, then sped north through a series of dark towns. Just past one named Noland the road began to climb into the Blue Mountains. A bright moon sheathed the landscape in a wondrous, divine light and he wondered if its presence was a sign.
“Mahoe Hill is only a few more kilometers,” he told Rocha. “There we go west.”
Falcon Ridge was on the map, with an elevation of 130 meters noted.
“You okay back there,” he said to Alle.
“I’m fine.”
His head spun a little from the twists and turns in the road. He’d never been fond of mountain drives. “I think we are only a few hours away from finding what we are after.”
He wanted to reassure her, calm any fears she may have. The violence at the airport had been necessary, but he’d told Rocha to keep it discreet.
And that he had.
He wondered if Berlinger’s body had been found. Nothing linked him to the rabbi’s house, and he’d been careful inside to stand and to touch nothing. He’d opened the door through his jacket and wiped the knob clean. He’d seen no one, and nothing had occurred that would alert anyone.
Now to finish this matter.
Where they were headed seemed isolated.
Exactly what he needed.
———
TOM HOPPED OFF THE DAM ONTO SLICK ROCK. HE KEPT HIS LIGHT angled down, watching each step through the steady flow of inch-deep water that seeped from the makeshift dam into the cave. Both the warning sign and Rowe’s evasiveness unnerved him. He’d never been inside a cave before, much less one advertised as dangerous with a man who was clearly not telling him everything. Yet here he was, in the middle of Jamaica, doing just that.
Rowe entered first, his halogen light casting a bright cone ahead. They were standing on a ledge, twenty feet wide, the roof thirty feet or more overhead. The rock beneath their feet extended ahead another twenty feet then stopped, water pouring over the side, splashing somewhere below. Rowe crept to the edge, but the thought of what might be on the other side unnerved Tom. Heights were not a favorite of his, and the swift-moving water and polished floor made footing chancy at best. One slip and there was no telling what waited in the blackness beyond.
Rowe stopped at the edge and shone his light into the abyss.
Tom saw a rocky cavern extending out and up, the far wall a good fifty feet away. Vertical strata of sandy-
