After a while, they came up to a large, tabular boulder and Xie swiftly levered himself on top. Straightening up he started walking across to the other side. Chen was a few metres behind when he suddenly stopped. To the left of his hand he noticed a small triangular mark that had been etched into the rock. It looked to be man-made. He peered closer, wondering what it could be.
As his finger traced the lines of the mark, he slowly became aware of the sound of rushing water. He hadn’t heard it before over the noise of his own breathing but it was definitely there, bubbling away in the distance. Chen was looking about him, wondering where it was coming from, when the rope impatiently tugged at his waist. Xie, standing on the far edge of the boulder, was ready to drop down the other side.
Chen stopped dead in his tracks. Water! They must be standing on top of an underground river.
‘Wait,’ he shouted, advancing quickly across the top of the rock, but Xie turned away, ignoring him. He had followed the lieutenant for hour after hour in the wrong direction. This was the way ahead, he was sure of it.
‘I said, wait!’ Chen bellowed, moving faster, but Xie simply slithered down the far side of the boulder. He took another pace forward when the rock beneath his feet suddenly shifted, breaking off and falling into the darkness below with a dull hiss. Xie’s whole body jerked downwards, his chest smashing into the boulder in front and almost winding him.
Xie screamed, his hands clawing over the smooth rock facing him while his legs kicked out helplessly into thin air. The climbing rope was tight at his waist — the only thing preventing him from slipping into the blackness below.
A few metres away, Chen was yanked off his feet, landing heavily on his elbows. He groaned in pain, but his hands instinctively tightened around the rope in front, trying to resist its pull. Swivelling round, he managed to dig his heels in, but as the rope jarred, he felt himself slide forward again, the drop on the far side looming closer with each inch.
Xie screamed again, a high-pitched note stretched by terror as he frantically jerked his body up and down, trying to pull himself free from the hole. The sound of gushing water was all around him now. He could feel the sudden chill of the river drawing up from the gaps between the rocks. It was somewhere in the darkness just below his feet, rushing over the stone in an underground torrent.
Xie reached forward, grabbing on to the rope and pulling down on it with all his strength, trying to lever his body upwards. He kicked again and again, desperately trying to worm his way out while his shoulders spasmed from the strain. As he slumped back and the rope burned through his hands, his scream faded into a frantic, breathless whimper.
‘Stop pulling the rope!’ Chen screamed, his feet now only a couple of inches from the edge. His whole body was rigid, trying to resist its immense pull, but each time Xie jerked downwards, the rope would bounce from the strain, yanking him closer.
‘Please… please,’ Xie whimpered, his cries muffled by his camouflage jacket which had bunched up past his neck and was now covering his mouth. Only his eyes were visible above the collar, pupils wide as they stared pleadingly at the top of the boulder. He jerked forward again, trying to break free.
‘Don’t pull the rope!’ Chen roared again, but there was no response.
Xie felt the tip of his right boot connect with the rushing water below. As it dipped only an inch below the streaming surface, the river grabbed hold of it, wrenching it along with the fast-moving current. Xie’s whole body twisted from the force, pulling him a few more precious inches further down the hole and into the blackness of the river. He could feel the icy water surging up his leg as if reaching up to claim him.
Chen teetered on the very edge of the boulder, every muscle in his back and thighs fighting. He could now see the top half of Xie’s head poking out from between the line of rocks below. Turning his own head a few inches to the side, he stared down at the instep of his own boot. It was wedged into a crack no more than a couple of milli metres deep. It was all that was stopping him from being flung into the same chasm as Xie.
Chen murmured a silent prayer, willing his grip to hold. He could see the rubber on the sole of his boot buckling to one side from the pressure.
There was another jolt on the rope as Xie’s other leg dipped down into the water.
Chen couldn’t hold it. He was going to be dragged down too.
On the shoulder strap of his webbing was his survival knife. With one fluid movement, he reached up and unclipped it from its sheath. His hand curled round the cold metal of the handle, while the steel blade gleamed in the darkness.
At the sudden movement of the knife, Xie froze.
‘Please…’ he whimpered, staring into Chen’s eyes. His arms had stopped flailing and hung pathetically by his sides. Underneath the line of the rocks, his legs were bent back on themselves, knees skimming the surface of the rushing water.
Chen held his gaze for the briefest moment. Then, bringing down the knife, he pressed it against the rope. The line was under such pressure it felt as rigid as steel. He had to saw down on it, drawing the blade back and forth with sharp jerks of his wrist.
‘Plea—’
Xie did not have time to finish the word before the blade finally cut through and the fibres of the rope tore in two. Immediately he was sucked down into the heaving mass of icy water with just the frayed end of the rope trailing behind him like an umbilical cord. The raging noise of the river was all around him, the cold driving the breath from his lungs as if his whole chest had imploded. Then there was a crack as his neck struck against stone and everything went black.
Chen stared at the empty space beneath the rock for a few moments. Then slowly raising himself to his feet, he slid the survival knife back into its sheath. He remembered the overwhelming sickness he had felt when shooting that boy all those weeks ago. How he had spent the time since trying to banish the terrible guilt.
There was none of that now. No pity, no remorse. For a moment he wondered whether he had lost all feeling; whether this mission had finally got to him, making him as ruthless as the others. But somewhere deep within him, he already knew that wasn’t the truth. The fact remained that Xie had been nothing more than a rapist and a thug. If he hadn’t panicked and pulled on the rope, he would still have been alive now.
‘So long,’ Chen muttered under his breath. He turned, walking back along the boulder towards the marking he had seen on the way up. That was the key to finding their way out of this maze, he was sure of it.
Chapter 47
‘Please, Mr Matthews, we must hurry.’
Dorje padded down the corridor with Luca following a few feet behind. The monk’s arms swung briskly by his sides, the hem of his robe wafting behind. He glanced over his shoulder, checking on Luca’s progress, then swept down yet another staircase.
‘I have been instructed by His Holiness the Abbot to take you to see Miss Shara immediately,’ he said, eyes fixed ahead in search of the correct door.
‘Shara?’ Luca said, hurrying forward. ‘But you said we were going to see Bill. What’s going on, Dorje? The Abbot gave me his word on this.’
‘Plans change!’ Dorje exclaimed, raising his hands into the air. ‘You will get your wish, Mr Matthews, but not everything in this monastery revolves around you.’