CRO-MAGNON (55 page)

Go forward.

One-handedly jiggling the air tank into the angled space, he began to make short thrusts, the metal ringing against the rock walls. Suddenly his rational mind deserted him and he was shoving, kicking, and twisting, his regulator rattling in his ears. His brain raced, his fear burgeoning until he was lashing in a blind frenzy.

A sharp tug on his fin brought him to his senses. His thrashing slowed, and he felt sanity come crawling back. With an effort, he forced himself to go limp.

Still panting, he berated himself. He’d let panic take over, and it had almost killed them. If he’d bashed his head, lost his mouthpiece, blocked the offset with his body . . .

Get a grip!
He forced a slow breath, then another, and resumed maneuvering the tank, trying one angle after another.

Finally, the butt nosed around the corner, and he arched his back and scraped through the offset. The spear jammed in the rocky elbow and he tugged it free, its strung-out cargo bobbling behind. Straightening his body, he emerged into the middle section of tunnel.

He hoped Caitlin had seen enough to guide her own tank. If he saw her light, he’d know she’d made it through. Unclipping his flashlight, he directed the beam forward in the murky passage.

He should have terminated the mission when he’d had the chance, he thought. Finning along the slightly descending passage, he felt random tugs on the spear as the four frozen heads—three human and one wolf—bobbled as first one and then another bounced off the fractured walls.

Seconds later, light from Caitlin’s flash bloomed in the surrounding silt. His panic receded, but he sensed it hovering, waiting to strike again. If the farthest-in stricture had closed that much, what would the narrower one be like?

He soon found out. The entrance was actually wider, but the offset had acquired a second bend where a section of wall had buckled, forming a corkscrew. Drawing on his experience with the previous stricture, he was able to maneuver the dismounted tank through the first turn. But the severed heads, bobbing behind the spear, began to jam. Pulling them with small tugs, he felt the resistance coalesce into a springy jerk that brought him up short. His mind reeled. He’d have to let the spear go.

If you let the heads go, Caitlin will take them,
a voice told him
. She’ll drown before she’ll leave them.

Taking a slow breath, he forced himself to picture what had happened. Two or more of the heads had come together and jammed in the narrowest part of the now-double offset. In the narrow tunnel there was no way to free them manually, and Caitlin, her dismounted tank preceding her, would be unable to get a hand on them.

The soccer-sized globes had jammed by random movement, and he would have to free them the same way. He rolled to one side, then the other, his dismounted air tank ringing against the walls. A series of pressure waves assaulted his eardrums, and he thought he felt the tunnel vibrate. A dull thud traveled through the water.

Again he pictured what must be happening. His exertions had loosened a block of granite, which had fallen into the already narrow stricture.

Caitlin might become trapped in the offset, and there was no way to go back for her! Why hadn’t he insisted on aborting this tacked-on dive? Panic seized him again as he tried in vain to rein it.

You’ll kill us both!

But the sick feeling persisted, threatening to take over.

He heard a clink, then another, and felt the spear edge forward. When he pulled, he felt the heads break free. Caitlin had used her tank to butt them. Self-control returned, and he eeled around the second turn and into the horizontal tunnel.

His panic had receded, but not his anguish. Would Caitlin get past the fallen rock? The tunnel was too narrow for him to bring his tank past his body and turn around. There was nothing but to go forward and look for a wider place. But how would that help, if the rock was jammed or too heavy to move?

Thirty yards along, the tunnel broadened. Manhandling the tank past his body in preparation for turning back, Calder saw the silt behind him bloom with light. Relief washed over him and the last of the terror ebbed away, leaving him weak and trembling.

His cave-diving days, he knew, were finished.

Remounting his tank, he flippered along the now adequate tunnel. At last, the angular mouth came into view and he flicked off both his flashlight and headlamp. The silt-bloom died as Caitlin followed the agreed precaution in case anything had gone wrong topside. In the sudden darkness, Calder groped his way to the entrance.

Hanging in the abyss outside the tunnel, he located Zinchenko’s anchor line by feel, and waited until he felt Blaine crowd against him. At least half his fears had been for nothing, he thought; they would not spend eternity in the frozen cave or the flooded passage.

But what about Teague? Had the hit man noticed their absence?

In the blackness, he felt Caitlin tap his shoulder. Adjusting his buoyancy compensator, he began to ascend the line, careful not to let the frozen heads touch it.

Since he and Caitlin had already used their free-diving time and then some, they required a short decompression break at the thirty-foot level. He used the time to reflect on their situation. They couldn’t go back to camp, and Ayni’s hut was out because as soon as Teague realized they were gone he’d check it. They’d have to strike overland. But unless they happened upon Ayni returning from his rounds, he knew they had little chance of negotiating the jumbled wilderness to the southern border. Trying to compose his mind, he hung in a trance while minutes passed.

At this level, a bit of moonlight filtered down. Blaine nudged him and pointed to her watch, and he began to ascend toward a shorter stop at ten feet. As he drifted upward, he could see a silvery sheen on the underside of the ice now covering the lake. He saw the dark blob where the johnboat floated in a cleared patch a few yards offshore.

And as he approached the ten-foot level, he saw something else.

Or rather, failed to see it.

There was no white cloth tied to the anchor line. He felt Blaine glide up beside him. She swiveled to face him, and they stared at each other in the ice-filtered moonlight.

#

Either something had happened to Zinchenko, Calder thought, or the man had lost track of the agreed time for the divers to surface. But a professional camp master was not likely to miss a time check.

What to do? For some reason, he did not experience the panic that had gripped him in the tunnel. He felt dismay and fear, but they were not disabling. He continued to peer at Blaine. In the wobbly penumbra cast by the boat, he could make out nothing behind her faceplate, but he sensed that she was equally confounded.

One thing was certain: Whoever was in the boat, if anyone was, would have seen their bubbles reaching the surface or collecting under the transparent layer of ice that circled the johnboat. If Teague was there, he might know they needed a short decompression stop, but any longer than that might alert him that they knew.

So, whatever their decision, they needed to act promptly.

Floating next to the anchor line, his compensator set on neutral, Calder tried to compose his mind and consider their options. They could swim away under the ice. But as Caitlin had predicted earlier, their tanks—there having been no excuse to refill them—were running low. They could not go far, and the bubbles from their regulators would leave a trail that Teague could simply follow.

He cursed himself for allowing his desire to please Caitlin, plus his newfound dream of breaking free of academia, to enmesh them in this dilemma. If he hadn’t allowed his yearnings to override common sense . . .

But there was no time for recriminations. He forced himself to consider the situation. A professional killer might be waiting for them to surface. Waiting with a special gun—the very latest for close-up killing.

Calder glanced at the wood shaft in his hand. He also had the latest in hand-held weaponry—the latest, thirty thousand years ago. He could use the spear to poke a hole in the boat, but the occupant could motor out of reach and plug the hole. Hoping for a lucky hit with the spear though the bottom of the boat was way too chancy. If it wasn’t fatal, he and Caitlin were dead.

He glanced again at Caitlin, floating beside him. They were probably finished, but she was his responsibility and he must do what he could—at least go out fighting. He cast around the dark water, cataloguing what was at hand.

The permafrost-preserved spear. The heads of three humans and one wolf. Caitlin. A scrim of ice on the lake.

Glancing down, he saw the Neanderthal’s head bobbing on the cord, its halo of blond hair drifting in the dim light, the other heads dimly seen below. He and his kind had lived by close-in killing. They must have worked as a team, striking from two or more directions at once.

And they must have been resilient. Even while dying, the Neanderthal had not given up.

Calder made his decision.

He disliked risking Caitlin’s life, but they were going to die anyway. Raising the spear, he pulled on the attached line until the three human heads, and finally the wolf’s, bobbled around him in the dark water. He unsheathed his knife, gripped the spear, and severed the cord above it and again at the butt of the spear.

He saw Blaine stiffen as the three human faces descended into the abyss, swinging in lazy arcs. Despite their predicament, he felt a touch of annoyance. Here they were, about to lose their lives, and she was worrying about people dead these thirty thousand years. Maybe she was so focused on her newfound goal that she’d lost track of reality. Or perhaps she still expected to find Zinchenko in the boat, a prospect he knew was unlikely.

Turning to her, he palmed the wolf’s head, made a mock overhead basketball shot, and was gratified to see her nod. At least she wasn’t in complete denial. Maybe she’d hoped to talk their way out. But he was convinced that as soon as they surfaced they’d meet a hail of bullets. He placed the wolf’s head in her hands. Shading his eyes in the dim light, he pointed at her and then at himself. She stared, her face a pale blob against the dark water. He pointed at her again, churned his fins and pointed his free hand upward toward the landward side of the johnboat , then pointed to himself and finally to the boat’s other side.

Her head tilted, asking for more. He jerked his head at her, churned his fins and made another basketball shot, churned his own and thrust the spear.

She nodded. She’d grasped the idea and agreed to it.

Calder rattled his regulator with a pent-up sigh.
Thank you for being gutsy and smart.

He knew he must hurry. Whoever was in the boat certainly would have noticed their bubbles. And, hopefully, would keep watching the same spot.

Tapping Blaine’s shoulder, he took the spear in alternate hands, slipped free of the scuba tank, and hugged it to his chest. As he’d known it would, the deluxe steel tank had slight positive buoyancy, much of the compressed air having been depleted. He watched Caitlin juggle the wolf’s head while she dismounted her tank.

He took a huge breath and left the tank to drift slowly upward while he gestured to Catlin, then flippered toward the port side of the johnboat, while she started in the opposite direction.

Everything depended on speed and precision, he thought..

And precision under duress was an old friend.

It’s just another biathlon shoot, Ian.

He watched the dim form of Caitlin some distance on the other side of the boat.

Go now!
he thought.

He saw her shoot upward, the wolf’s head a black blob on her chest. Driving with his fins, he shot upward toward the thin ice that circled the stubby boat, the stone-tipped spear held close to his side. He didn’t have the Neanderthal’s strength, but he remembered that the dying man had struck for the lion’s vulnerable spot.

His head shattered the ice and he heard the stutter of the automatic pistol.

Bursting out of the water, he saw a silhouette in the boat, facing away. Saw the wolf’s head spinning in the moonlight, its lower jaw missing. Heard the gun cease firing, saw the gunman begin to turn.

Gripping the gunnel with his left hand, he centered on the man’s head and thrust the spear with three-quarters of his strength, holding back enough for accuracy.

As in the biathlon, time froze. Teague spun toward the new threat, his normally deadpan face stiff with anger. The motion looked awkward, and Calder realized the man was chilled from swimming through icy water to the boat. The Glock barrel came around, and he recognized an auto-fire magazine protruding from the handle.

The stone tip of the spear moved with agonizing slowness as he altered his focus from the man’s throat to his gaping mouth, a bigger target.

The pistol racketed. In his peripheral vision, and he sensed small geysers walking toward him beside the boat. He felt a soft shock, and heard the Glock cease fire.

Bull’s-eye.

A wild elation gripped him. He and Caitlin would not sleep on the lake bottom tonight!

He heard the pistol fall into the boat, felt a tug on the spear, and saw the shaft socketed between Teague’s lips beneath his bulging eyes. The blocky body tumbled over the side, pulling the spear with it, and Calder felt the boat tip onto its side. Letting go the gunnel, he dropped back into the water and began to search for Caitlin, a vision of the shattered wolf’s jaw filling his mind.