Catacombs (49 page)

"How much trouble is it to dispose of both of them, in such a manner that no trace can ever be found?"

Jumbe bit down on the stem of his pipe and sat staring at Kilimanjaro.

"Handle it your way, then."

F
or fifty-six hours Raun Hardie and Matthew Jade had been imprisoned in a square windowless metal storage building with a concrete floor. The building was about seven feet high. The only air and light came through four horizontal louvered vents at the top of the barred and padlocked door. Each vent was half an inch wide and six inches long. The sheets of metal were corrugated, bolted together, bolted to the floor. The roof had a slight pitch to it; there was a difference of less than a foot from front to back. The building was not quite large enough for either of them to lie flat on the evil-smelling floor; but they couldn't have done this if they'd wanted to because of the way in which they had been handcuffed together: her left wrist to his right wrist, and vice-versa. They could stand, facing each other like partners in a bondage dance; sit cross-legged or yoga fashion, a position at which Jade was much more adept than Raun; or lie, fetally, on their sides with their arms against their chests, a position which allowed them to catch an hour or two of shallow sleep at a time.

Their clothing had been taken from them at the outset; except for a bloodied twist of bandage around Jade's head they were naked. Clothing would have slowed the rate of evaporation of precious moisture from their skin, but in clothes they couldn't remove they soon would have fouled themselves unendurably. Even so sanitation was something of a problem: The only outlet was a rank hole in the middle of the concrete floor, and tactful cooperation was required by each partner.

Total nudity also helped ease a more critical problem: getting enough fluids to stay alive in the miserable heat of the metal box. They were near the lake-shore, they knew that much: Jade had identified the sounds of an engine and bucket line as a dredger in operation, but the door of the box faced away from the lake and the potential of cooling breezes during the long days.

From the moment the door had been locked it was not opened again.
 
They had neither food nor water. Twice a day–after shivering on the cold floor all night, and broiling under the tropical sun–the nozzle of a hose was thrust against one of the vents and they were drenched with chilly or tepid water from the lake. They quickly learned to lick each other to slake their thirsts and replenish some of the salts leeched from their bodies by profuse sweating, but the gains were always marginal. Their lips swelled, their throats ached from dehydration, palpitations and cramps were common–at least for Raun, who screamed often from the pain of knotted calves and thighs.

During the day they heard the sounds of drilling soldiers, the siren of a lake ferry, helicopters arriving and departing, the whistling scream of MiG fighters overhead. At night they heard laughter from a bar, the lap of waves against the shore, hippo and crocodile in reedy coves.

Raun had passed the initial hours of confinement in a state of shock that was expressed as gritty good hopes, then embarrassment at their mutual predicament, then nagging fear of being suddenly taken from captivity and turned over to a barracks of bored men for a gang rape. When nothing at all happened she decelerated through morbid self-pity and a bout of hysteria, bottomed into a torpid depression.

Jade, his normally sharp eyes milky with the pain from his wound, which had not been looked at by a doctor, said little. His mood was even, thoughtful, almost placid. He betrayed no anxiety. He insisted on dragging her around the small prison several times to study it minutely, and for the second time smashed her expectations of Jade the miracle worker by finding it, under the circumstances, escape proof. Thereafter he sat as quietly as possible, hurting, nauseated by the pain, conserving his energy, letting Raun run through her cycle of emotional adjustments.

After the physical shock of their first, sunset dousing, and the additional shock of being quickly persuaded to lick every inch of his skin which she could reach with her tongue while he did the same to her, and seeing him sexually aroused while being aroused herself, Raun had a second, inappropriate reaction: a fit of giggles. It exhausted her. Desire dwindled but the bath, the drink, the inadvertent sensuality, restored her wits.

They were both tired. They lay down together, arms cramped, faces a few inches apart.

"Matt."

"What?"

"Sorry for today."

"You did okay."

"Just okay?"

"Pretty damn good."

"Thank you. Matt?"

"Uh huh."

"Are they going to kill us?"

"I don't know."

"'What do you think?"

"Too early to tell. Right now they're checking us out with a higher authority."

"They haven't questioned us."

"They probably will," he said.

'Will they get–rough?"

"Yes, they will, Raun."

"Oh. God."

"Easy now."

"I'm okay. I think. Matt, how's your head?"

"I'm trying to forget about it."

"That bad?"

He didn't reply. She closed her eyes, sighing. It was still damned hot in the box, but the wet floor felt good. So did being near him, with their knees touching, arms tightly linked, even though her fingers kept getting numb.

"This is my fault," she said. "I want you to know that."

"I'm the one who got shot."

"No. No. It's my fault we were there at all. It was the wrong place, Matt. I lied to you, all along."

He whistled dismally. "Jesus."

"This must be your lucky day," Raun said, and began to cry.

"So where is it, Raun?"

"K-Kilimanjaro. High up. About sixteen thousand feet. Sort of a cul-de-sac. You get to it from the Nyangoro track, which is too difficult above twelve thousand feet for all but experienced climbers. When you get there–it's really tricky the way the Catacombs are hidden away, but I meant what I said–nothing but mummies."

"Much more to it than that, Raun. Your father made an extra discovery, he just couldn't tell you about it; probably for reasons of security. The Chapman/Weller expedition found the remains of a highly technical civilization that flourished in the area ten thousand years ago. They had the Bomb, pop-up toasters, everything that makes life worthwhile. Including an anti-ballistic missile system that might really work. The mathematics of it are preserved on red diamonds. I've seen one. We want the rest of the diamonds. So do the Russians."

"The diamonds are in the Catacombs? I really did us in, didn't I?"

"Why tell me now?"

"Because I wanted–want to make love to you, and I couldn't, can't, want a man I'm not totally honest with. Does that make sense?"

"Yes." He studied her for a long time and didn't say or do much, just linked a little linger with hers and held on tightly. "We could probably work something out even handcuffed like this. But to tell the truth Raun, I've had a hard day and I'm not up to it."

"I'm not either."

"Thanks for telling me anyway. I was wondering if you would."

"You knew?"

"I knew that you had a lot on your mind and that something wasn't kosher when I took my first look around day before yesterday. I just had a bad feeling."

"Now, l-look at us." Raun sniffed back more tears. "Matt, what about Lem?"

"If he isn't here, he's still there."

"But did you see him?"

"No."

"One of the soldiers on my helicopter had his–you know, the dead shellacked tarantula he was so proud of, and there were some blond hairs clinging to it–"

"Okay," Jade said, after a dismal silence broken only by the faint strangled sobs in her throat as she tried to keep her grief to herself. "They got him, then. Try to get some shut-eye, Raun."

"They got him, then?' Is that all you're going to say?"

"Do you want me to try to make you feel less guilty? Not tonight, Raun. Probably not ever."

After that she thought he wasn't going to speak to her again. She drifted off to sleep, dreamed fearfully of helicopters like giant insects pursuing her.

He woke her from a nightmare some time during the night. He had something urgent to tell her. His speech was a little slurred.

"Raun?"

"Yes, Matt?"

"Lem knew the risks. I don't blame you. Don't take it the way I made it sound."

"I'm a stupid cunt and I'm sick of myself."

"But you're not a quitter. Not by a long chalk, as the–limeys say. I want you to know that I admire that. Were you always such a tough kid?"

"Damn–right."

"So you held off a couple of maniacs with knives back there in prison. You took a stiff jail sentence when all you had to do was whine and grovel a little bit. What I'm saying is, it's–balls against the wall again. Even when it looks like you're down to a minute to live, half a minute maybe, don't quit trying to find a way out."

"Just whistle up a guy with a big S on his sweatshirt."

"That asshole's never around when you want him. Try going crazy. I mean it. Twitch all over. Fall down. Foam at the mouth. Make strange noises. You're dealing with men who may be reluctant to pull the trigger on somebody who looks and acts possessed. The one who kills you could be afraid of haying the evil spirit in you fly up his nose. Do you follow?"

"Don't make me laugh, it hurts."

"Think about it."

"You're a long way from my dreamboat. You have some personal idiosyncrasies that worry me. I love you anyway."

"Since we're being so gut-level sincere with each other, I think I ought to tell you you have great tits."

"I know it."

Later she awoke shivering and heard Jade moan, just once, through his teeth. Her hands, up to the manacled wrists, were like blocks of wood. She slept again. In the morning they were both flogged awake by water spurting through the vent.

There was something different about Jade, a difference that scared her. His movements, under duress, were slow and awkward. With his face close to hers as he licked slowly she saw that the pupil of one eye was larger than the other. She knew this meant something was seriously wrong inside his head: a hemorrhage beneath the skull, pressure, brain tissue dying off. He seemed to hear only dimly when she spoke to him; she had to repeat questions two or three times.

Now Raun was in charge. Her teeth chattered. She made him get to his feet. He looked and acted doped. The left side of his face was slack, the mouth pulled down in a funny way. He admitted, without distress, that he couldn't feel anything there. The rush of blood to Raun's hands was agonizing, but at least they were alive.

For ten minutes she screamed, until she was hoarse, for a doctor, paused, repeated herself in every language she knew. No one came to find out what she was carrying on about.

When she wasn't calling futilely for help, she spent the rest of the stifling day talking to Jade, trying to get him to respond. He had a few short lucid periods; then he seemed to disappear into a haze. All he wanted to do was sleep, hunched against her. She wouldn't let him go to sleep. She rocked him and shouted in his ear. When he lifted his head enough to look at her, the enlarged pupil of his eye seemed huge compared to the other one.

Finally, too dehydrated to utter more than a croak, her nervous system drained, she slept herself until the nightly hosing. Nearly forty hours had passed since they had been locked away. She nuzzled against Jade, licking the water from the hollow of his throat, catching the precious drops as they ran down his chin from his soaked hair. He tried to lick too, responding to the body's mindless instinct for survival. His lips were puffed and scaly. He soon gave up the effort and sat trembling randomly against her. Broken speech patterns became isolated bits of nonsense.

"Pubby," he said.

"Matt."

"Luxaweep."

"God damn it, no. No! You can't die like this! It just can't happen. Not to me. Not again. Don't you understand how much I love you and need you?"

His mouth stretched softly, like warm taffy, into the approximation of a grin. Saliva roped down from the lower corner of his mouth. Urine puddled beneath his slack penis; he'd become incontinent. The brain continued slowly to deteriorate. He panted.

"Warcricken?"

"Three goddam months! That's how long it took Andrew to die. The same cancer that killed his father and grandfather. How's that for fair, huh? How's that for a break in life? I had just six months with him, Matt! We counted on a year at least. But I'm glad there was that much time, because otherwise he would have died in jail and I would never have seen him, touched him again. While he sat there on trial, day after day, he'd look back at me; I knew he was starting to die, but what could I do about it? I thought it would be easy. It was a good plan. I never dreamed anyone would be hurt or killed. I thought we were all on the side of the angels. Life isn't like that, is it? Life is so goddamned messy and full of accidents and wrecked schemes. We do ourselves in. We do others in. And sorry doesn't get it. Not anymore."