Instead, the two monks returned. They were armed with pistols, rifles and swords.
"There is something you should see," one of them said.
Brother Gaspar followed the monks into the cave. He saw the stone oval suspended over the wolf trap at once. Peering down into the hole while another monk pointed his flashlight, Brother Gaspar saw the water and the gold and silver below.
"Benoit's ransom," Brother Gaspar said. "I'd thought it lost forever." He looked up at the young monk. Then he noticed a dead man sprawled on the floor. "Who is that?"
"One of Lesauvage's men."
Brother Gaspar knew that Lesauvage and his men had not left. Their motorcycles were still parked outside. "What happened to him?"
"He was shot," the young monk said. He touched a spot between his own eyes. "He was dead when we got here."
"They're in the tunnel below." Brother Gaspar looked down at the water. "Where does it lead?"
The young monk shook his head. "We've tapped into an underground stream as a well. Perhaps it's another one."
"And perhaps this one leads to the one we use." Brother Gaspar realized that the monastery had been left virtually undefended. He turned from the wolf trap. "Take half of your men into the tunnel. Follow them. The others will return to the monastery with me." He hurried out into the storm, once again hating the secrets that bound him to his life in this horrible place.
The treasure had been found. Did that mean that Father Roger of Falhout's dreadful secret had been discovered, too?
Brother Gaspar lifted his robes and ran as fast as he was able. Nearly 240 years ago, some of the terrible secrets the Vatican had chosen to hide had spilled out. Over a hundred deaths had resulted because of that choice.
How many more lives would be sacrificed to keep the secret?
Lightning flared overhead, exploding inside the cave like a light bulb shorting out.
Glancing up, shielding her eyes against the spots that danced in her vision, Annja saw a hole nearly a foot across at the roof of the cave they were in. The hole was almost twenty feet above them.
"There," Roux said, pointing.
"I see it," Annja replied.
Lightning strobed the sky again, igniting another flare that danced across the water swirling at their knees. The water level was rising, and that concerned her. A flash flood would drown them.
"We can't get up there," Roux said, slapping the slab of rock that framed the cave.
Judging from the walls, the cave had been carved by constantly flowing water thousands of years ago. The result was a smooth surface that couldn't be climbed.
"Then we keep going," Annja said. Heading upstream once again, she ran, knowing that Avery Moreau was growing steadily weaker and the flashlight beam was growing more dim.
Less than fifteen minutes later, Annja found the source of the water. A cistern had formed within the mountain. The hollow half bowl collected water in a natural reservoir, but with the current storm, it had exceeded capacity.
However, the thing that drew Annja's attention most was the light that bled through the cracks where the cistern had separated from the cave roof. A waterfall of glistening water poured into the lower cave.
"Light," Roux said.
"I see it." Warily, Annja drew her sword and moved closer.
The light source was stationary, not the flickering randomness of the lightning. And it was pale yellow, not flaring white.
Cautiously, she made her way up the pile of broken rock that had spilled over the cistern's side. Holding the sword in one hand, trying to avoid as much of the water as she could, Annja peered through the crack.
A room lay beyond. It was another cavern actually, but someone had built a low stone dam to help trap the water in the cistern. Plastic five-gallon water containers sat in neat rows beside the dam. Candles burned in sconces on the walls.
"What is it?" Roux asked.
"A room," Annja answered.
"Someone is living there?"
"Several someones from the look of things," Annja answered. The cold was eating into her now. She was beginning to feel as if warmth had never existed.
"Is there a way in?" Roux asked.
Annja tossed him the flashlight. He caught it before it hit the water.
Avery Moreau leaned against the wall nearby. He held his arms wrapped around himself. His teeth chattered and his breath blew out in gray fogs. "He's going to kill us, you know. Lesauvage. He won't let us escape because we know too much."
"Hang in there, Avery," Annja said.
Reluctantly, the young man nodded. He heard her, but he didn't share her hope.
Hefting a large stone block, Annja took a firm hold and swung it at the cistern's edge. The impact sounded like a cannon shot inside the cave.
The third time she slammed the stone into the cistern, the side cracked. Then sections of the cistern tumbled to the cave floor and the stream below. Water deluged Annja, knocking her from her feet.
Roux tramped through the sudden increase in the water level and pinned her with the flashlight beam. "Are you all right?"
"I'm fine." Annja pushed herself to her feet. She was soaked and the cold ate into her like acid.
The broken section of the cistern wall drained most of the water. Annja knew whoever had purposefully created the larger reservoir from the natural one wouldn't be happy with the damage she'd done.
Catching hold of the cistern's edge, she heaved herself up and in. Kneeling, she offered her hand to Avery and pulled him along, then did the same for Roux. She took a candle-powered lantern from a hook on the wall.
Stone steps, shaped from the bones of the mountain, led out of the cistern room. Annja was certain they followed the meanderings of a cave shaft – with occasional sculpting, as testified to by the tool marks on the walls – but there was function and design.
When she waved the lantern close to the steps, she found impressions worn deeply into them.
"Whoever lives here has been here for a long time," she observed.
"It's a monastery," Roux said. His voice echoed in the stairwell.
"What makes you so sure?"
"Can you imagine anyone else living like this? Cloistered. Underground. With only the rudimentary amenities. And you said you didn't know where the Brotherhood of the Silent Rain came from." Roux looked around. "I think you can safely say that you do now."
Three turns later, Annja came upon a door to the right. She tried it and found it unlocked.
I guess there's no need to lock doors on a subterranean fortress no one knows about, Annja thought. She followed the door inside.
The cavern was long and quiet. Spiderwebs filled the open spaces of the roof. Rectangular openings in the walls occurred at regular intervals.
Annja held the lantern up high. Another doorway stood at the opposite end of the cave.
"What is this place?" Avery asked. His voice sounded brittle.
"A cemetery," Annja said.
The young man stopped in his tracks. "We shouldn't be in here, should we?"
"No," Annja agreed. "But we are. This could be the shortest route to an exit." She didn't really think so, but there were questions she needed answered. She walked to the closest wall and began examining the coffins.
All of them were crafted of flat stones mortared together in rectangular shapes left hollow for the bodies. Once the dead were interred, the lids were mortared on, as well.
Annja brushed at the thick dust that covered them, searching for identification marks. Near one end of the coffin she was examining, she found a name carved into one of the rocks: