He gave the rope an experimental tug. "That ought to hold us."
"Right," Nick said.
He threaded the rope through his descender and started down. He focused on the rock face, concentrating on keeping his speed even and watching where his feet were going to land. Every fifty feet or so he drove in another anchor. Above him, Selena dislodged a rock the size of a baseball that breezed by his helmet.
"Sorry," she called.
They descended another five hundred feet before they reached the level of the second cave. It was off to the right.
"I see the cave. It's got a wide ledge in front of it. We have to traverse right. Hang in there."
"Can't do much else," Lamont yelled.
Nick drove a nut into a crack to his right. The nut was a simple device, a shaped piece of metal attached to a loop of wire. He tugged on it to make sure it was set, attached a carabiner to the loop, and moved to the right. Every few feet he set another nut until he reached the ledge in front of the cave. He drove a final anchor into the rock wall.
"I'm on the ledge," he called up.
Selena reached the level of the cave and moved right as Nick had done, hooking onto the anchors he'd placed in the sheer face of the mountain. Next came Lamont. He swung easily across. The others moved back to give him room.
Ronnie was almost to the ledge when the anchor he'd hooked onto gave way. The sudden strain when he dropped pulled a second nut from the wall, then a third. The next one in line held. Ronnie slammed hard against the cliff.
When Ronnie fell, he pulled Lamont off his feet. He slid across the ledge. Nick and Selena held on to the rope with everything they had.
Lamont was partway over the end of the ledge, chords of muscle standing out on his arms, his hands wrapped around the rope. Ronnie hung limp below, his head down, his arms and legs loose.
"Ronnie," he yelled. "You all right?"
There was no answer.
CHAPTER 32
They pulled Ronnie up to the ledge and over. A gash on the side of his head was bleeding. His skin was pale and he was unconscious, his breath labored.
"Shit," Lamont said, "he's not looking too good."
They moved him up against the cliff face by the entrance to the cave, away from the edge.
Ronnie groaned and opened his eyes.
"What…"
"Hey, amigo, welcome back. You know where you are?"
"No. Yeah. The anchor gave way."
"You took a bad hit and it was lights out," Nick said. "Can you sit up?"
"Yeah."
Ronnie sat up and reached toward his head. Selena took his arm and stopped him.
"You're bleeding, Ronnie. Let me get you cleaned up."
"I've got a hell of a headache," Ronnie said.
Nick knelt down in front of him. "Watch my finger," he said.
He moved his finger from side to side, watching to see how Ronnie tracked the movement.
"Looks like two fingers," Ronnie said.
"You've got a concussion. Don't try to stand up."
"Are you dizzy?" Selena asked.
She broke out a first-aid kit and began cleaning Ronnie's wound.
"Yeah, some. Ow. That hurts."
"It looks worse than it is," she said. "It's a scalp wound. They always bleed a lot. I'm going to put a butterfly on it, but you'll need stitches."
"You just used up one of your nine lives," Lamont said.
"Hell, I used those up a long time ago. You got any aspirin, Selena?"
"In a minute, when I'm finished."
She put the bandage on the wound, broke out four aspirin and a water bottle.
Nick said, "Lamont, you stay out here with him. Selena and I will go look in the cave."
"Keep an eye on him," Selena said. "Ronnie, let us know if you feel sick."
"I'm all right."
"Great, but don't try to do anything yet."
She stood and followed Nick into the cave.
This cave was larger than the first, large enough to stand upright. It went back fifty or sixty feet. It was dark inside, but like the other, appeared empty. Fresh footprints in the dust on the floor of the cave showed where someone had walked about.
Selena cast the beam of her flashlight around the cave. She walked deeper in. She turned to look at the side of the cave and felt a light touch against her leg.
"Selena, don't move," Nick said. His voice was tight.
Selena froze.
Nick shone his light at her feet. The light glittered off a thin filament that stretched across the cave at ankle height..
"You're up against a tripwire," Nick said. "Whatever you do, don't move."
"I'm not moving," she said.
Nick followed the wire with his light to a small pack placed behind a pile of rocks against the wall of the cave. He knelt down by it. A faint odor like sweet candy hovered about it.
"Semtex. I'd guess about a half kilo. Enough to blow this cave out of existence."
"I'm glad you figured that out," Selena said. "Now would you mind doing something about it? I'm getting a cramp in my leg."
"Hang on."
Nick studied the pack. It was a universal desert khaki color, with a flap. The tripwire ran under the flap. Using the tip of his knife, Nick lifted the flap and exposed a detonator hooked to the tripwire. With infinite care, he teased it out of the plastic explosive, releasing the tension on the wire. He set it down on the floor of the cave, away from the pack.
"You can move now," he said.
Selena bent down and began rubbing her calf.
"Bastards," she said.
"Must be a reason they left it," Nick said.
On the wall at the far end, Selena found another set of Hebrew characters cut into the wall, in the style used when Solomon was King.
He came and stood beside her, shining his light with hers on the writing.
"What does it say?"
"The words translate as 'the place where the king's ships sail.'"
"A port?"
"Duh. Where else would ships sail from?"
"Okay, a port. Which one? There must have been several, even back then."
"There's one port that's always been associated with Solomon, called Ezion-geber. It's where his ships left for Ophir and Tarshish, to pick up silver and gold."
"That sounds right. Where is it?"
"Well that's a problem," Selena said. "It was on the Gulf of Aqaba at the tip of the Red Sea, near present day Eilat. It doesn't exist anymore. A couple of spots have been proposed as the location, but no one knows for sure where it was."
"How are we supposed to find a place that disappeared thousands of years ago? You see anything else in here?"
"No."
He picked up the pack of Semtex and they went outside. Ronnie had regained his normal color and his eyes looked clear. Nick crouched beside him and held up two fingers.
"How many?"
"Six? Nah, just kidding. Two fingers. I'm fine."
Nick stood. "Can you stand up?"
"Sure. Except for the headache, I'm good "
Ronnie stood. He swayed a little.
"A little dizzy," he said.
"What have you got there?" Lamont asked.
"Half a kilo of Semtex. Selena almost set it off. If she had, we'd all be singing with the angels about now."
"We found the next marker," Selena said.
"Where are we going next?"
"South, to the Gulf of Aqaba."
Nick looked at the sun. "It's getting late. Let's figure out how we're getting down."
"I wonder how someone got up here to make those marks," Selena said. "They didn't have climbing gear like we do three thousand years ago."
Lamont looked out and down over the edge. The base of the mountain was far below.
"I think I know how," he said.
Nick came over. "How?"
Lamont pointed to the left.
"You see that old rockslide over there? Look below it. You can see what might have been a path coming up to this ledge, before the rocks buried it. It's steep and it's narrow, but someone could have walked up here."