Then another rumble began overhead. “Another way out?” the middle-aged man wondered out loud. A trickle of water began to flow from the hole in the center of the ceiling. The three looked up in horror. That’s when they heard a sound the chilled them all to the core. The sound of running water.
Sean wasn’t sure but as he laid down cover fire for Tommy, he thought he saw Will pulling himself over to the pedestal in the other room. It was so dark he couldn’t tell. He’d emptied his clip and ducked back behind the wall just as the three villains started returning fire. Through the haze of powder smoke, he could see that Tommy had reached the triangle pedestal and was tucked behind it as a hail of metal rounds blanketed the room. Then suddenly, their enemies had stopped firing and the room was filled with the sound of a deep grinding. Some of the metal objects on the floor were rattling as the earth shook beneath them. A golden statue with a doglike head fell over on its face, clanking loudly on the hard floor.
Adriana yelled over the sound. “What’s happening?”
Sean risked a look around the corner. The wall where they’d entered was rising. One of the men appeared at the top, trying to climb over. Wyatt fired off a few rounds and sent the man scurrying back to the other side. “The door’s closing!” he yelled. “They must have taken off one of the leaves!”
Nearly as quickly as it had begun, the rumbling came to a halt and the room became deathly quiet. “So we’re trapped?”
“Maybe not,” Tommy answered and stood up from his hiding place. He fingered the stone on the altar for a moment, unsure of what was going to happen. His eyes scanned the room of ancient relics, thinking he’d come so far to only behold them for a few brief minutes. Then he picked up the small disc. Where it had rested, four small pegs of stone were revealed. From deep within the pedestal came four loud clicks. Sean and Adriana looked at Tommy, wondering what was going to happen. Suddenly, the floor opened up underneath Schultz’s feet and he disappeared from view.
Sean and Adriana ran over to the hole that surrounded the pedestal on all three sides. The floor panels had dropped away like a trap door, revealing an underground duct underneath with water rushing through it. There was no sign of Tommy.
“The water must have carried him that way,” Sean said.
“You think that’s our way out?”
Sean shrugged. “Looks like it’s the only way.”
“What about the treasure? Father Crespi’s collection?” She looked around at all the ancient artifacts and precious relics.
Sean looked at her with a grin. “Sometimes you gotta leave the treasure behind,” he said without resignation. “Maybe this is where it belongs.” He took her hand and looked down at the gushing water. She nodded and the two of them jumped into the opening.
Angela never panicked. It was one of the reasons she was so good at what she did. But as the water flooded through the opening and gathered around their feet, fear began to creep into her mind. The two men sloshed over to where the original entrance to the room had been. They frantically tried to pull up on the heavy stone but couldn’t find a seam to grip. Angela just stood in the middle of the room while they leaned on the wall in an effort to get the thing to budge. The water level continued to rise quickly and was already up to her waist. She waded to the pedestal and lifted a golden leaf off of the top in hopes that would stop the room from flooding. Nothing happened. There was no way out.
The men looked at her for an answer but she had none. She banged on the top of the pedestal with the leaf but again nothing happened. The water had covered it now and was nearly up to her chest. The younger of the two men had a terrified look on his face. He glanced at the older man and then back at Angela. His head shook violently as the water reached their shoulders. Suddenly, his hand emerged from the water with his weapon and he put it to his head. He pulled the trigger sending a splash of crimson into the water. The body went limp and floated face down on the surface while the bullet wound turned the water an eerie reddish color in the pale illumination of their flashlights.
Angela and her team’s leader were treading water. As the level rose, they grew closer and closer to the ceiling. They looked at each other but said nothing. They were both killers, murderers. There was no comfort to be had. And none was sought.
Their heads bumped against the angled ceiling as the deluge carried them higher. She tried to keep her mouth near the top where there was still air. She watched out of the corner of her eye as the middle-aged man ceased his struggle and let himself sink into the water. A few moments later his body, too, was floating. His flashlight had sunk to the bottom of the room, illuminating the floor far below. She was angry. She had never failed at anything. And she was furious that someone had gotten the better of her. As the water covered her head her thoughts drifted to the events of the last few days: killing her partner, the shootout at the church, the dry desert air.
She needed air. Angela ceased fighting the reflex urge. She opened her mouth and inhaled.
Chapter 67
Sean and Adriana flew through the underground flume. Thousands of years of water flow had smoothed out the stone underneath them so it felt like being in a dark waterslide. The light from their flashlights bounced around on the roof of the tunnel as they tumbled and slid along. After their initial clumsy ride, they both righted themselves and were gliding along in the gushing water. A quick drop sent them airborne momentarily with a sudden thud but the fall had only been a few feet. The tube continued to twist and turn its way through the old rock until finally, they could see a light up ahead.
“Looks like the end of the road,” Sean yelled at Adriana who was sliding along behind him. “Brace yourself!”
The light grew brighter and brighter until suddenly, there was nothing beneath them.
Tommy swam hard through the huge pool that had collected at the base of the waterfall. From the looks of it, he’d come out near where they had entered the cave. The chute he’d gone through had dumped him out into an area where the water was surrounded by a half-circle of rocks. As he pulled himself up onto a large rock, he looked back up at the hole that had just spit him out. He hadn’t expected the floor to drop out from under him when he lifted the stone medallion off of the pedestal. The sudden fall had jarred him slightly but nothing he couldn’t shake off. Then he heard a yell from above just before he saw Sean and Adriana fly out of the chute and into the pool below. Both of them disappeared for a second before re-emerging at the surface, spitting out water.
“Wooo!” Sean gave a yell. “Now that was awesome! Did you see that?”
“I did it,” Tommy answered from the stone embankment with a huge smile. “What happened to your fear of heights?”
Sean shrugged and looked back up at the hole in the cave. “It was only twenty feet or so.”
Adriana seemed less thrilled about the water sports and swam quickly to the edge then pulled herself onto dry land.
The three of them sat for a moment and stared up at the water that was pouring out of the hole in the side of the rock face. Each one of them contemplated something in silence. After a few minutes of rest, they clumsily made their way over the rocks and across a narrow stone walkway that led back over to the shore. As if on cue, the beating sound of a helicopter could be heard in the distance.