“Where’s your Colt, Hunt? I hope you haven’t lost it. That was a fine piece. A fine piece.” He turned the gun over in his hand a few times, then tossed it off the side of the mountain.
“How did you beat us here?” Gabriel said.
“How do I beat everyone at everything? I just do. It is my gift.” He turned to Sheba. “I am sorry we didn’t meet under better circumstances, my dear. You are a very lovely girl and I can be most generous to my friends.” He gestured at the man holding the umbrella over him. “Istvan, help Mr. Hunt get that stone out, will you? Here, I’ll take that.” He took the umbrella in his free hand. “Go on.”
Istvan slipped his gun into a shoulder holster under his jacket and knelt on the ground beside the paw. Both DeGroet’s light and Sheba’s shone on the block. Istvan felt around the edges of the seam Gabriel had uncovered, tried to slip his thick fingers inside. It was impossible—the groove was too narrow. He looked back at his boss somewhat helplessly. “How am I supposed to get it out?”
“Well, Hunt? How were you going to do it?”
“Frankly,” Gabriel said, “I hadn’t figured that out yet myself.”
“Well, figure it out now, or your lovely friend goes where your gun just did.”
Karoly took the bag off Sheba’s shoulder, transferred it to his own, and pressed the nose of his revolver into her back. Gabriel could see that his hand was bandaged. “Did that hurt,” Gabriel said, “when I shot the gun out of your hand?”
“Quit stalling,” Karoly said, his voice a low rasp.
“Oh, good,” Gabriel said. “It did.” He turned back to the block, thought about the options for getting it out. With a drill and some anchored screws it might be possible to gain purchase on the stone and draw it out; with an explosive, of course, you could blast it out. But with neither…
“Lie down,” he told Istvan. “On your back.”
“What?” the big man asked.
“On your back, next to me,” Gabriel said, and demonstrated, lying down with the soles of his boots up against the stone block.
“What are you doing, Hunt?” DeGroet wanted to know.
“We’re not going to be able to pull it out—we don’t have the tools. That means we’ll have to push it in.”
DeGroet thought about it for a moment, then nodded. “Do it,” he told Istvan.
The big man lay down, braced his feet against the stone. Gabriel briefly considered the possibility of rolling over on top of him, trying to get to the gun in his holster, but he discarded the idea. Even if he succeeded in taking Istvan by surprise and could overpower him and get to his gun—none of which was a sure thing—doing so would take time, and with Karoly’s pistol millimeters from Sheba’s spine, it was time they didn’t have.
Gabriel said, “Count of three, push. Okay?” Istvan spat to clear rainwater from his mouth, then nodded. “One,” Gabriel said. “Two…”
He saw Sheba move. She spun and broke free of Karoly’s grip and started running for the stairs. DeGroet reacted swiftly: He swung his walking stick out, slipping it between her legs in midstride and, with a snap of his wrist, sweeping her ankle from under her. Sheba fell to the ground with a crash.
Gabriel jumped to his feet, but Karoly stepped forward with his gun aimed squarely between Gabriel’s eyes. “Just give me a reason,” he growled.
DeGroet stood over Sheba where she lay sprawled, her breath knocked out of her, her hair a wet heap against the stone. He put the tip of his walking stick against her throat. “Don’t do that again. Next time it’ll be my sword you’ll feel. Get up.”
Sheba climbed unsteadily to her feet. Karoly grabbed her arm roughly and pulled her to him.
“Where were we,” DeGroet said. “Ah, yes. You were counting to three?”
Gabriel looked from DeGroet to Karoly and then to Sheba. Her eyes shone apologetically. “Don’t,” he told her. “It’s all right.” He resumed his position on the ground, steadied his feet against the stone.
“One,” he said. “Two…” He looked over at Istvan, who nodded. “Three—”
He pushed with all the strength in his legs, and beside him he saw Istvan doing the same. Judging by the size of the man’s legs, he had no shortage of strength in them. The block moved—but only infinitesimally. “Again,” Gabriel said, and counted. It moved a bit more this time, sliding inward by a few inches. “One more. Kick this time.”
They both brought their knees to their chest and, when Gabriel called “Three,” kicked out, their soles landing sharply against the stone. The block slid in by half a foot or more—and then, after teetering for a second, fell inwards. There was silence for several seconds, then a large, reverberating thud that sounded like it had come from a long way below them.
Gabriel rolled over and approached the opening. Istvan was right behind him, gun in hand once more. Gabriel took his Zippo from his pocket, lit it. Inside, a corridor led along the length of the paw and deep into the rock behind it—but first there was a gaping pit, beginning an inch from the opening, and it was into this pit that the stone block had fallen. If they’d managed to pull the block out rather than push it, whoever had been the first to step into the opening would have fallen similarly.
“I need more light,” Gabriel said. He picked up the flashlight Sheba had been carrying from where it had fallen when she’d taken her spill. Shining it at the corridor’s ceiling, Gabriel saw a series of crossbeams stretching from wall to wall as well as columns supporting the ceiling. It looked almost like a tunnel in a mine, propped up to ensure stability.
The first of the crossbeams was directly above the pit.
Gabriel walked up to Karoly. “I need something from that bag. You can get it for me or you can let me get it myself—your choice.”
“What is it?”
“A coil of rope.”
“Get him the rope,” Karoly said to Sheba. “Nothing else. I see anything else come out of that bag, you’re a dead woman.”
“Understood,” Sheba said. She unzipped the bag and pulled out a hank of nylon rope.
Gabriel carried it back to the opening. It took three tries to get the end of the rope over the crossbeam and then much fishing with the middle portion of the rope to snag the far end and pull it far enough back across the pit for him to grab it. When he did, he tied a quick six-loop hangman’s knot and drew the rope tight around the beam, like a noose. He tested it with a few strong tugs. The beam held.
“Okay,” Gabriel said. “Who goes first?”
They all looked at each other. Gabriel pictured DeGroet running scenarios in his head along the lines of the old missionaries-and-cannibals puzzle: If he sent Gabriel first, Gabriel could keep the rope on the far side and escape along the corridor, if he were willing to sacrifice Sheba, and DeGroet couldn’t be certain he wouldn’t; on the other hand, if DeGroet sent one of his men across first, he’d no longer have the advantage in terms of numbers back on this side of the pit…
“Ladies first,” DeGroet said, and he pulled Sheba toward the opening. She took hold of the rope, wrapped it several times around one fist, then grabbed it with her other hand as well. She gave Gabriel a concerned look, then lifted her feet and swung across. She staggered a bit when she landed and for a moment Gabriel thought she might slip backwards—but she steadied herself and remained upright. When she’d regained her balance, she threw the end of the rope back. Karoly caught it and, after pocketing his gun, followed her across.
Next came Gabriel. He tossed the flashlight across to Sheba, who shone the beam downward so it wouldn’t get in his eyes. Gabriel gripped the rope firmly and pushed off. He noticed as he swung that the crossbeam didn’t seem quite as stable as it had when he’d first tested it. But he made it safely across. When he landed, Karoly made a point of showing him that he had his gun out again and his finger tight against the trigger. “I see it,” Gabriel said. “You don’t have to wave it around.”