“Anna! Can you hear me?”
Still no response.
“Anna! For God’s sake. It’s Rich!”
At twelve minutes, they were close to the spot where they’d stopped hours earlier. McCauley examined the dirt. More was piled up. “Look,” he exclaimed. “She dug around the rock.”
The professor shined his light. “I’m going ahead. Hold onto my legs.”
“Got you.”
McCauley crawled forward through the loose dirt. Three feet in his fingers were no longer grasping the ground. There was nothing. “Whoa. Hold on!” he called back.
Tamburro grabbed hard, “What? What’s the matter?”
McCauley now aimed his flashlight down. He thought he saw something, but he wasn’t sure. He looked again. Leaning over as far as he could he listened and turned off his flashlight. That’s when his heart sank.
“Anna,” he said.
After a half-minute, McCauley asked to be pulled out.
“Is she there?” Tamburro pleaded.
“There’s a drop just beyond the opening.”
“But did you see her?”
“No, but there’s a little light. It has to be her flashlight. She must have fallen. I would have too if you hadn’t been holding on.”
“I’m going down.” Tamburro started toward the crawl space.
“Wait, Rich.”
“No, I’m going.”
“No. I’m responsible,” McCauley said. “It’s my fault and it’s my job.”
“Dr. McCauley’s right,” Alpert said. “He should go.” She walked over to him and looked in his eyes. “But you better be careful.”
McCauley nodded. “I will, thank you.” He turned to Tamburro. “Harness me up. I’ll go in feet first this time. Looks like I’ll need fifteen feet of line or more.”
He described the next steps. Once down, he’d search for Chohany and determine her condition. He had gauze and bandages, a splint, water, and mild painkillers. “If she’s okay, we’ll raise her. If not, get the paramedics.”
Tamburro concurred.
Jaffe alerted Cohen. Lobel ran back to their campsite to find blankets they could use to carry Anna back.
McCauley attached the rope around his stomach and shoulders in a way that would support him, but not cut into his flesh. He went in backwards flat on his stomach wishing he’d never found the cave.
Gruber noted Kavanaugh’s eagerness. Too eager?
“Years ago, before all the instant reporting, the talk shows, everything going viral, we could contain. Today it is harder. My work was harder. Yours will be even harder, but you will not be alone.”
“When will I know about the others? Who they are? Where they are?”
“Soon.”
“Not now?”
“Soon.” Gruber was cold and emphatic.
“But how can I—”
Gruber cut him off. “When I decide.”
Martin Gruber studied his prodigy. Perhaps he had moved him along too quickly. Perhaps it was just the difference in younger people today.
He thought back to his own training. It was so long ago. He remembered how the old man in his time, an easier time, worked with him. Had I come to this point in my training with the same intense zeal? He laughed to himself. Of course.
Gruber decided the time had come to reveal the remaining secrets to Colin Kavanaugh and begin the final test of will. In every generation only a few would be permitted access. Would the younger man remain true to The Path, as Martin Gruber had done? He would have to find out.
Gruber pressed a button under his desk. The overheads dimmed and a warm blue light grew visible from hidden floor boards. Kavanaugh was quite surprised that he never noticed the array. Gruber was right. I have to pay more attention.
“The regular lighting is too harsh on the old documents,” the old man stated. He kept his back to Kavanaugh as he slid open a portion of the rich wood behind the great desk. Kavanaugh had always taken it as just wall. Another oversight.
A shiny metallic plate soon reflected the bluish tint. Gruber placed his hand firmly on the center. After twenty seconds, the color of the metal changed from silver to gold. Gruber lifted his hand, but the impression remained.
“It’s a touch pad. It will read your hand print as well,” Gruber said softly. “It’s been programmed for months in the event of my death. But you see I’m still very much alive, so I get to share one of the high tech toys even I know how to use.”
Gruber did not say that the technician who installed the pad had a rather unfortunate sailing accident on a trip he’d won, a trip he never remembered signing up for.
The plate, actually a screen, switched from Gruber’s handprint to a touch screen with numbers and symbols. Kavanaugh recognized the symbols; ancient runes that dated back to the Vikings.
“The combination will be yours. But first you will read. Remember how Latin was one of the job qualifications?”
“Yes, sir. I never really needed it.”
“You will shortly.”
When Gruber finished inputting the code, the whole screen slid to the side and the wall behind it rose to the ceiling, revealing another room, no more than ten by ten meters. It was a combination of old and new, classic and antiseptic at the same time. Solid metal walls and a traditional black and white checkerboard floor.
“Walk where I walk.” Gruber began a step-by-step pattern, ultimately in the sign of a cross.
“Really?”
“Don’t make all my years with you go to waste with one misstep.”
It was all the warning Kavanaugh needed. Little pen-sized tubes in the wall and ceiling seemed to track his every move.
At the far end of the room was an area composed of black tiles large enough to stand on.
Gruber placed his hand on another wall touch screen that appeared as soon as he stepped on the forwardmost white tile. Soon, a pedestal rose from the floor with an ancient cast iron safe atop. “Even with all the high tech possibilities, I’m still a traditionalist. I like a good old combination lock. It’ll be up to you if you want to make a change.”
Martin Gruber carefully turned the dial, saying the combination aloud. Kavanaugh instantly memorized it.
Gruber completed his turn of the tumbler and the safe clicked open. As it did, the room light changed to the same blue as in Gruber’s office.
Two items were inside the safe: a pair of white cloth gloves and an old parchment document. Gruber put on one glove and handed the other to Kavanaugh. “You must only handle the document with the gloves. Put one on. I’ll take the other and hand the paper to you. Then you’ll put on the second glove. Never touch it directly. It must never be exposed to natural light or leave this room.”
Kavanaugh was caught up in excitement. What could be so worth all of this security and precaution?
“And now, a test of your Latin.”
Kavanaugh took the pages and the second glove. He breathed deeply and began to read slowly, methodically, religiously. At the top of the first page was a salutation to Pope Urban VIII, which placed it at more than four hundred years old. “Eminentissimo sanctum tuum, anno Domini MDCI de spelunca repertum … magnus et terribilis…”
His Latin didn’t fail him. “Your Holy Eminence, in the year of our Lord, 1601 a great and terrible discovery was made…”
McCauley felt his way down a space no more than three feet wide. The sides were rough and the air was getting colder. It was dangerous with a rope. Without? “Slowly,” he said again. He groped for places to hold onto as he descended, cursing the fact that he forgot gloves.