He grinned. Was it going to be a shared desire? The string went taut, and Mioli instantly placed his second hand on the reel to keep from losing it altogether. The little pieces of yarn flapped vigorously and he started to follow the tell-tale. Whatever had caught its attention was powerful, despite there only being a light breeze on the plateau. His heart raced. Could this be what he was searching for? He’d heard a story from a climber three weeks ago, who said that a strange downdraft hit him like a hammer, nearly knocking him off his feet in the process, as he reached the summit.
The tension slackened for a moment and he released pressure on the string. Had he lost it? The tell-tale fell to the ground and he swore. Mioli slowly curled the string around the wheel as he moved to where the end of the tell-tale had fallen into the snow.
Mioli bent down, about to pick the end of it up, when it yanked to the side. He gripped the reel with both hands again. The mysterious downdraft seemed to be teasing him. Intermittently pulling hard and then releasing its prey. Now the string felt taut and he struggled to hold on. A moment later, despite Mioli trying to stop it, the tell-tale pulled away and unraveled the rest of the spool, and then disappeared into a small hole in the snow.
This was it — an opening to the hidden world he was looking for…
His breath felt light with anticipation as he bent down to examine the tiny opening. He was breathing hard and his heart raced from the effort of fighting with the tell-tale as much as with excitement. The opening was too small for him to climb through, but it wouldn’t take much to widen it and he was certain it was only the tip of a large lava tube. Nothing smaller would have such a powerful downdraft.
Mioli sat down and started the process of winding up the spool. The string was still taut, as though something or someone was pulling it downward. It made him smile how hard it fought. Then it became too hard to keep hold of.
He dug both feet in and his crampons gripped the snow. For a moment he thought it was going to hold. He should have reacted faster. Maybe if he had, there was a chance he would have made it. Instead, he heard the crack of ice breaking beneath him. A moment later the string tugged hard, and the ground beneath him gave way.
His mind was still in the process of registering what had happened to the solid ground below him when his back struck the first piece of solid ice. It was heavily sloped downward and his general momentum kept going, which reduced the impact. He let go of the string and fumbled to grab the icepick, while at the same time trying to position himself so he was no longer sliding headfirst.
His right hand finally latched onto the hilt of the icepick. He swung it into the ice, but without any force, and the blade didn’t even begin to take grip. Mioli swung again and this time the pick dug heavily into the ice. The same instant he felt elation that his icepick had taken hold, his momentum ripped it clear from his hand and kept sliding.
Only he’d stopped sliding — because there was no longer ground beneath him.
Chapter Eighteen
Mioli must have fallen twenty to thirty feet. Maybe more. He didn’t know. At some point his rope must have caught hold on something because he felt it go taut over his shoulder and break part of his fall, before a moment later, being ripped away from whatever it had taken perch on above. He continued falling and struck the ground a split second later.
His back struck first.
Then his head and pelvis, and his entire body filled with a pain so intense he didn’t know where his injuries were because everything hurt equally. Next to him he heard the deep resonant thud of rope falling to the hard icy floor, followed by a clanging sound as his icepick fell less than a foot from his head. The fall took the wind out of his chest and he was certain he’d broken his lower back, and possibly even his legs.
But he was alive.
Mioli realized he was unintentionally holding his breath. He forced himself to take a couple shallow breaths. They hurt his ribs like hell, but he was able to breathe at least. He made a small fist with each hand. The fingers worked, and like the rest of his body they were sending his brain millions of tiny impulses registering pain. He wiggled his toes next. The sensation made him want to cry. He could still move his arms and legs. That meant there might just be hope that he would still survive.
He fumbled in the total darkness for his helmet light and switched it on without moving from where he fell. He was inside a large tunnel. The walls were jet black and glassy. He grinned despite the pain — because he’d found his lava tube.
Mioli turned his head to the left. On the wall were a series of old cave-paintings. One of them depicted a man wearing nothing but a loin-cloth riding a woolly mammoth. Next to that painting was one of a similarly drawn primitive man fighting off a beast. It took Mioli a moment to realize the creature was a sabertooth tiger. He racked his brain trying to recall what his teacher had said about the two creatures in his ancient history class as a kid. They were both extinct — that much he knew for sure — but when had they died out?
His eyes darted to the top of the large tunnel where he’d fallen. It was made of ice and was at least thirty feet above him. He glanced back at the cave paintings. Only there was something different about them… There were no handprints. They were unlike any other Neolithic drawings he’d ever seen in previous ancient caverns he’d explored. He looked at a third drawing. It was of a young woman’s face. She had intense eyes and strong facial features. She wore something golden around her neck, like a pendant, but the lower part of it had been worn off over time. There was no doubt she would have been splendid in whatever time period she’d lived.
The thought about time jogged his memory. He was twelve years old, sitting in an ancient history class in Scuola Giapponese di Roma. His teacher was telling him about mythical beasts. Only they weren’t mythical, they were merely extinct. The sabertooth tiger and woolly mammoths became extinct around ten thousand years ago.
The thought jarred at his concussed mind — the images were at least ten thousand years old! He turned his head to the right. He took a deep breath in and held it. No longer concerned with the pain he slowly sat without taking his eyes off the image painted on the wall. He felt okay. He still had pain. That’s for sure, but somehow he could get past it. Somehow, he had to, didn’t he? He slowly breathed out. It was going to be okay. He would be all right. He would work out a way to climb out. He knew it with certainty. Everything was going to be all right from here. It had to be. He needed to survive so that he could tell someone what he’d seen.
He’d have to. The world had a right to know, no matter what the consequences. There in front of him — on the jet black wall of obsidian, in a cavern not seen by humans since the age when the wooly mammoths and sabertooth tigers roamed the earth, was a rendering of a human being. A perfect depiction of Jesus Christ nailed to the crucifix.
Chapter Nineteen
The Gulfstream G650 flew smoothly in a westerly direction at a comfortable 48,000 feet and well above the raging storm below. It flew toward Malta where the Maria Helena was having minor repairs and maintenance completed while her crew was taking vacation leave. Sam sat at his desk flicking through the digital photographs taken from the hidden chamber inside Derinkuyu. Opposite him, Tom searched the internet for any evidence of a pyramid ever being found anywhere near the Namibian desert.