Allie gasped as he pushed the creature’s head aside with the muzzle and grabbed its body near the tail and then rose, holding the squirming six feet of angry reptile before tossing it to the base of the wall. The cobra slithered away and disappeared through a hole.
Joe grinned at them. “See? Honor it, and it won’t hurt you.” He motioned to Allie. “Come on. But be careful when you open the door. Could be a whole room full of the critters.”
Allie reluctantly climbed into the six-foot-square area, her light focused on the snake hole. She took a deep breath and shined the beam on the seal. The orange clay bore a seated Buddha stamped into the molding, affixed to an ancient leather cord that was wrapped through a handle and secured to a peg driven deep into the wall. She tried to pull the peg free, but it wouldn’t budge. She knelt in front of the seal and studied it carefully before flipping her pocketknife open. “Take a picture of it before I cut it,” she whispered to Drake, who snapped several, the flash blinding in the small space.
“Got it,” he said, and she nodded and slid the blade under the cord. The material crumbled to dust at the touch and dropped to the stone floor. She nodded to Joe and reached for the handle, and then stopped as her gaze drifted to the area above it.
“Stand back,” she said.
“Why?” Joe asked as he did so.
“See the irregularity in the ceiling?” she asked, directing her flashlight beam at the suspect area.
“Yes.”
“I’m thinking the Khmers might have been trickier than we give them credit for,” Allie said. She rooted in her backpack and found a coiled nylon rope. She tied a slipknot to the handle, inspected the crude hinges, and stepped away from the door. “Ready? Drake, can you set the camera to video and shoot this in real time?”
“Way ahead of you,” Drake said. The device was already blinking an indication that it was filming.
“Okay. Here goes nothing.”
Allie pulled on the cord, but the door didn’t budge. She gave it another jerk, but still nothing happened. Spencer’s head appeared in the opening. “Pass it to me. Let me give it a try.”
He wrapped one end around his waist and then leaned his body weight against it. The door groaned and began to shift, and he drove his legs against the wall to get additional leverage.
The ancient wooden slab swung wide, and a tumble of stones dropped from above, any one of them large enough to crush a human skull like a walnut. Dust filled the space, and Joe and Allie coughed. Allie held her sleeve to her mouth to breathe through, and Joe did the same with the bottom of his crusty T-shirt.
Joe’s flashlight beam cut through the haze and flashed against something beyond the door. In spite of the sediment cloud, Allie moved forward, her lamp shining on the floor, the memory of Joe’s close encounter of the cobra kind still vivid. Drake moved through the opening behind them and reached her in three quick strides, a bandanna held over his nose and mouth, his gun still in the cave, the camera in his other hand.
“Your instinct was right. You could have been killed,” he said, eyeing the scattering of stones.
“I thought it was too easy,” she said, blinking as the dust settled.
They walked together to the doorway and stood at the threshold. Allie swept the chamber beyond with her light and smiled, her eyes bright with excitement. “Looks like we did it.”
“I’ll never get tired of this part,” Drake said, and they stepped into the room together, Joe following them as Spencer remained by the gap in the wall.
Carvings adorned every surface in the cave, and piles of gemstones and gold icons were piled in cubbyholes sculpted from the raw stone. Hammered gold and ruby emblems leaned against the bases of the walls, and fistfuls of ancient gold coins were overflowing from long-deteriorated sacks. At the far end of the chamber, in a position of obvious honor, sat a green Buddha draped in a gold cloak, its jeweled eyes twinkling in the light. Allie stepped forward and Drake filmed as she stopped in front of the statue.
“It’s… it’s breathtaking,” she whispered.
Drake nodded silent agreement. Joe stepped forward and eyed the treasure.
“There must be thousands of coins,” he murmured.
“Yes. But the Emerald Buddha was clearly the most revered of the stash,” Allie said as she regarded the statue.
Joe moved closer and reached out a trembling hand to touch the icon, but froze when Spencer’s voice hissed from the doorway.
“Better get back out here. We’ve got company.”
Joe whipped around and was halfway to the gap when the still of the cave was shattered by the deafening bark of Spencer’s rifle.
Chapter 55
Bullets ricocheted off the rock entrance as Spencer fired at a group of gunmen near the stream. Joe reached his side in time to see an Asian man fall, hit in the torso by Spencer’s last burst. Orange muzzle flashes winked from the trees as the shooters concentrated on the cave mouth. Spencer spent his last round and ejected the magazine as he reached for another, while Joe replaced him at the cave mouth and began firing.
Drake and Allie arrived in time to see Spencer cry out and clutch his face — a rock chip from a stray bullet had sliced his cheek, missing his eye by an inch. Drake hurried over to Spencer and handed him his bandanna, which he gratefully took to blot the gash.
“I need a loaded gun,” Joe screamed over the chatter of his weapon, and Allie handed hers to him as he emptied his and tossed it aside. She reached for it and changed out magazines before setting it next to him, keeping low to avoid the incoming rounds.
Drake spotted a crate at the base of the nearest wall with half a dozen grenades inside and crawled to it. “You want some grenades?” he called out.
Spencer nodded and Drake dragged the crate to the entrance.
Joe turned to him, keeping his head down, and frowned, his face covered with a patina of dust. “We’re sitting ducks here. Just a matter of time till one of them starts chucking grenades. We know they have ’em,” he said, eyeing the crate.
“What do we do?” Drake asked as Joe returned to the fight and loosed another burst.
“You know how to shoot that thing?” Joe yelled.
“I’m no marksman, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Who’s the best shot?” Joe asked after his weapon ran dry.
Drake glanced at Allie. “Spencer.”
“So we trade off until they either get us, or we finish them,” Joe growled. “You able to shoot?” he asked Spencer.
“Yeah. Give me a few minutes so this can clot. I’m fine,” Spencer said. “Although it hurts like a bitch.”
Joe grabbed the loaded AK Allie had set by him and slid his empty one to her. “Keep putting new magazines in these. How many do you have left?”
Drake patted his pockets, as did Allie and Spencer. “Maybe a dozen including what’s in the rifles.”
“That’s three hundred sixty rounds. We should be able to make those last a while. Problem is, they only have to get lucky a few times and we’re toast.”
“What’s the range now?” Spencer asked.
“Most of them are by the river, so maybe a hundred, hundred fifty yards,” Joe answered. “We mopped up the closer ones. They aren’t taking any chances now that they know we can shoot.”
“So it’s a standoff?” Allie asked.
Spencer held the bandanna away from his cheek and eyed the blood on it before shaking his head. “No. They’ll circle around before much longer and come in from above with grenades. We won’t see them until it’s too late.”
“Then we need to do something,” Allie said.
“Like what?” Joe asked, and squeezed off another burst.
“Get out of here,” Drake said.