———
TOM COULD NOT GO AFTER ROWE. TOO MUCH DEBRIS WAS SWEEPING in from the collapsed dam, the largest chunks wobbling to a halt just past the opening, most of the others vanishing over the edge.
Why had somebody deliberately burst the barrier?
The flow continued in a brisk current, the water now knee-high, but the debris had lessened. He risked walking ahead, the larger rocks making good handholds. He made his way to one side of the cavern and pressed himself close to the wall, keeping his flashlight aimed at his feet, watching every step.
He crept ahead and found the edge.
He pointed his light into the darkness.
“Bene,” he called out. “You there?”
———
ZACHARIAH HEARD BENE ROWE’S NAME ECHO FROM ACROSS THE river. He spotted faint trails of a flashlight streaking inside the cave.
“They are in there,” he said.
In the moonlight he saw that a rock dam had once blocked the cave entrance but a gash now existed, watering pouring through into the cave.
“We can walk across,” Rocha said.
And he saw that was correct. Their lights revealed the river to be waist-deep.
“Your father is in there,” he told Alle.
“That must be where his grandfather told him to go.”
He believed the same thing.
Or at least he hoped that was the case.
———
BENE HEARD HIS NAME CALLED OUT.
“I’m here,” he yelled back. “Any more rock coming?”
“I think it’s all down there now,” Sagan said. “You okay?”
“I didn’t break anything.”
He stepped out from under his protection and moved right, toward the cavern wall. He figured the closer to the side, the better. Then he saw something. His light revealed notches that stretched upward, at regular intervals. Like a ladder.
“Sagan,” he yelled.
He saw the light above, but not the man. Then a face peered down close to the wall. “There’s a way down. See it there.” He pointed his light. “Come on. Let’s keep going.”
“Somebody just tried to kill us.”
“I know. But they didn’t, so let’s keep going.”
“What if they come back?”
“Actually, I hope they do. It’ll save me the trouble of finding them.”
CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE
ZACHARIAH HOPPED ONTO THE DAM AND EXAMINED THE GASH. Alle and Rocha climbed up with him. None of their flashlights burned. He’d ordered them extinguished after they entered the river. He did not want to alert Rowe or Sagan that he was here.
Water rushed toward the cave.
Rocha slipped off and stepped past where the water flowed, reaching for something. In the moonlight he saw it was a tool, and heavy.
A sledgehammer.
Had someone opened the dam?
Rowe? Sagan? Someone else?
Both he and Rocha were armed, their guns kept above the water on the trek over. Now his was again secure in his back pocket.
“What is it?” Alle whispered.
“I don’t know. But we are about to find out.”
———
TOM USED THE NOTCHES IN THE WALL AND LOWERED HIMSELF to the next level. Some were natural, others clearly hewn from the rock. He found Bene standing in thigh-high water.
He motioned with his light. “You lost your gun.”
