“The vent is corkscrew-shaped, with a switchback,” said Gabriel when they had reached the rockfall that disguised ingress to the cavern. The climbing had been steep, and Cheung had made Gabriel go first, knowing of his physical abilities and desirous of keeping his gun.
“The Killers of Men are inside?” said Cheung.
“Just inside. I can show them to you.”
“And this climbing equipment?” Cheung indicated the gear still scattered around the vent.
“Turned out to be unnecessary,” said Gabriel.
“This is an interesting conundrum, Mr. Hunt. If I let you precede me, you might enact some futile ambush. If I go first, you could conceivably slam the door on me.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t have shot your other bodyguard,” said Gabriel.
Cheung steamed briefly. “Pah! Bodyguards are no more than physical extensions of my command. Without my authority, no power exists in the first place, do you understand? Kangxi Shih-k’ai, the Favored Son, was unafraid to lead his men into battle. No warlord fears to put himself at risk above all. That is why I do not fear you.”
Gabriel said nothing. He knew his brother’s life was dependent on making Cheung believe that whatever happened next was Cheung’s own decision.
“Snap these tight, so I can see them,” said Cheung, tossing Gabriel a pair of manacles retrieved from some inner pocket of his jacket.
“The funnel is difficult to negotiate.”
“You will cuff yourself and hold the lamp as we both proceed.” The ever-present gun terminated further debate.
Gabriel dropped the loose climbing gear back into the pile. Why hadn’t he thought to leave himself an extra gun here as well? He cinched the cuffs onto his wrists. Cheung checked them, tightened each to make sure Gabriel was secured. Then they went into the hole.
With his hands locked together by four links of tempered steel, Gabriel was reduced to the motility of a snake, his own lamp blinding him as Cheung squirmed through close behind. The rock jags made even a lucky kick impossible.
Several strands of climbing rope were threaded through the passage, like bright blood vessels.
“What are these for?” demanded Cheung.
“I was going to haul out some of the artifacts,” said Gabriel. “There wasn’t time.”
“Yes—robbing the graves of other cultures is a pastime of yours, isn’t it? And what is that smell?”
“There are bats in the cave.”
“And my men?”
“I doubt any survived.” Gabriel had to fold up, then extend himself to scoot along, clearing the way for Cheung to follow, never forgetting the pistol pointed at him from behind. The way widened slightly as they proceeded toward the wide end of the funnel. “Kangxi Shih-k’ai rigged the entryway with a series of traps. Once the idol locked shut, there was no way in or out.”
“Except this way.”
“Yes—see for yourself.”
Gabriel expected Cheung’s lust to get the better of him as he approached his goal, and sure enough, Cheung was wriggling past him now like an eager child. But there was no room to move. No leeway for a blow or a chokehold. Gabriel felt the gun against him as Cheung passed.
Cheung swept his light across the blunt heads of the Killers of Men far below, his heart pounding, his breath short with astonishment.
“There must be…thousands of them,” he said in awe. Then he levered his fist right into Gabriel’s throat. “You didn’t say anything about there being a drop! You climbed out!”
“I thought that was obvious,” Gabriel said, chocking his boots against the nearest outcrop of rock.
“Damn you! It must be twenty meters to the floor!”
“I know,” said Gabriel.
In another two seconds, Cheung would be angrily backtracking to get all the mountaineering gear. Which made this the time to act. Gabriel lunged to his knees, swung his chained hands over Cheung’s head, pushed off like an Olympic swimmer, and launched them both into the black sky below.
Together, Cheung and Gabriel fell from the ceiling of the cavern for half a heartbeat, plunging into the void. Their lights and Cheung’s gun toppled away.
Then the carabiner locked around Gabriel’s belt cinched hard enough to compress several of Gabriel’s internal organs into a space rather too small to hold them all.
He had clipped it on before cuffing his hands during his dalliance over the equipment. The lifeline ran anonymously among the other ropes depending down the funnel. Now it convulsed to guitar-string tightness against the anchor pitons in the rock outside, which groaned with the impact and load, but held.
Leaving Gabriel swinging in darkness, nine feet below the vent, with his arms coiled around Cheung’s collar. It was the stiff, reinforced collar that saved Cheung’s life, since had the chain of the manacles been around his bare throat, he’d have been hanged for sure.
They heard the lights smash against the rocks below; two, maybe three entire seconds after they had dropped.
Gabriel could hardly even see the man below him desperately trying to fight gravity. His arms reached down into an absolute absence of light.
In credit to his nerve, Cheung did not holler or panic. He did not kick his legs. He hung on with grim determination and focused hatred, trying to crawl up Gabriel’s arms. Choice was out of the question. Gabriel could not drop or hold, and all Cheung could do was try to maintain his grip against the beckoning fall as they pendulumed in a slow, lazy arc in the damp darkness. Every movement weighed Cheung’s collar more heavily against the cuff chain…which burden threatened to unsocket Gabriel’s already fatigued arms.
Disturbed bats were beginning to flit around them.
Daredevils, safe crackers, heart surgeons and crazy psychiatrists call it “supertime”—the moment that elongates under stress. It seemed that they dangled on the tether for an hour, when in fact it was mere seconds.
Every dram of oxygen was vital to both men; for Gabriel, head-down, to keep the blood vessels in his face from exploding, and for Cheung, lathered with terror-sweat, choking on his own knuckles while trying to hang onto the cuff chain that was cinching his hard collar into the flesh of his throat.
“Where…” Gabriel managed to choke out, “is…Michael?”
The body below him twisted in his grasp, but didn’t reply.
“Where? I’ll…save your…life if you…tell me.”
Cheung barked out a laugh.
Then, chinning himself with an iron grip on Gabriel’s forearms, Cheung lifted his throat out of the constricting embrace of the chain. “I’ll order him killed,” he spat in a single breath, his face inches from Gabriel’s, “while you hang here for eternity.” Then with a monumental effort he shifted one of his hands to grip Gabriel’s belt. He began hauling himself upward along Gabriel’s body with a fierce, almost incomprehensible strength.
“He’s in the Peace Hotel,” Cheung taunted. “Eighth floor, west side, last room. And what good does this knowledge do you Mr. Hunt? What can you do with it now?”
“This,” Gabriel said, and bending one knee, kicked Cheung hard in the face.
For a moment, Gabriel continued to feel Cheung’s weight pulling him down like a lead apron; then just the scrabbling of the man’s fingertips against his chest; then nothing, a burden lifted, and seconds later he heard a wet crunch followed by a long, keening wail. All was darkness—but in his mind’s eye he saw Cheung far below, impaled on one of Kangxi Shih-k’ai’s spikes, the previously impaled skeleton crushed to dust beneath him by the impact of his fall. Here was a Killer of Men indeed to add to the ancient warlord’s collection.
Gabriel felt no satisfaction or fulfillment—merely relief that he could draw air again. His vision was spotting and his sense of direction was shot. He tried to pull himself up by the rope, but made little progress; he had no more strength in his arms.