“How far down am I?” her father wanted to know.
A counter with an LED readout rigged to the winch was there to tell her. “Fifteen feet. My screen is just about black. What do you see?”
“Dead space. Wide open. Nothing to the sides or below I can make anything out of, except for the fact …”
Melissa’s heart skipped a beat. “What was that? You broke up.”
“No, I just stopped talking.” Her father’s rapid breathing filled her ears. This was taking far too great a strain on him. “Wanted to make sure of myself before I spoke. I’m sure now. This cavern is perfectly rectangular, as I suspected. Twenty feet by fifteen would be a fair estimation. The wall I’m up against has a hewn feel to it. Aren’t you getting any of this?”
Melissa slid closer to the screen and squinted. “Not enough,” she replied. “Did you say hewn?”
Again his rapid breathing preceded his sharp retort. “Where’s your textbook knowledge, Daughter? This must be some sort of overchamber carved out by those who years ago sought the same thing we do. We’re not the first ones who have been here.”
“Your theories …”
“Fits right into them. The actual doorway was discovered and barricaded thousands of years ago.”
There was a brief thud over the monitoring equipment as he at last struck bottom. Melissa caught a brief glimpse of the floor as her father gazed down at it, before his helmet-mounted camera came up again.
“Strange,” he said.
“What?” Melissa followed into her headpiece.
“I’m inspecting the walls. God, I wish you could see this more clearly. Everything’s been filed too clean, too neat. The walls are perfectly symmetrical, right down to the grooves.”
“Impossible!”
“Unless we’ve got our dating wrong.”
Melissa swallowed hard. “Any sign of Winchester’s killers?”
“Nothing. Wonderful, isn’t it?”
“Why?”
“Think, Daughter. We know they didn’t leave the site in their vehicle, which means they could only have ventured down here. But since there’s no trace of them …”
“They must have found the passage to the next level down,” Melissa completed.
“No wonder you were the finest student I ever had.”
“I thought Winchester was.”
Benson Hazelhurst’s reply was to begin a careful, systematic check of the walls and floors in search of the entrance to the next level. Melissa followed his progress as best she could, finding herself increasingly anxious over the lack of a decent picture. Next time, she would have to come up with a way to create a wider beam of focused light….
“Wait a minute,” Melissa heard her father say, “I found something.”
“What?”
“Piece of clothing. From a jacket, I think. Or a vest like mine.”
“One of Winchester’s killers?”
“I’m in the far southwest corner. Walls feel the same as they did on the other side.”
“Yes. That much I can see. If you could just—”
The picture blurred, faded, sharpened briefly again.
“I’m going at them with my file. The finish isn’t as gritty or chalky, and it feels damper. I’m going to try something.”
“What, Father? What are you going to try?”
“Hush, Daughter. I’m not so old that I can’t exert a little pressure.”
The sound of his labored breathing filled her ears, followed by soft, shallow grunts. Then there was a rumbling, like the sound of heavy furniture being dragged over a floor. On the screen before her, Melissa could make out a segment of the wall shifting inward.
“That’s got it!” Hazelhurst’s tired voice beamed.
Melissa squinted again, fighting to see what he saw. “The passageway to the next level,” she realized.
“There are stairs,” her father said. “I’ll keep my eyes steady for a time so you can see for yourself. The staircase is very narrow. I can’t see the bottom. I’m going to take the first step down.”
“No!” The urgency in Melissa’s voice made Kamir swing toward her.
“Easy, Daughter. I’ve waited my whole life to find what may be at the bottom of this stairway.”
“Then you can wait a little longer. Please. Just until we can get better equipment.”
The screen before her showed the blurred shape of the stairs as her father took them.
“Three steps down now. The steps feel …”
“Damn!” Melissa muttered, as the picture wobbled and started to break up.
“… like they were chiseled at the same time as the walls and floor above. You know what that means, of course.”
“No! No, I don’t….”
The sounds of Hazelhurst’s breath intermixed with the rustling noises of his descent. “Think, Daughter! Whoever built this chamber over the actual doorway wasn’t trying to entomb it; they only wanted to conceal it. Everything in the construction points to the fact that regular forays were made down here by the overchamber’s builders.” More rustling noises. “Difficult to date the work. Early Phoenician or even — That’s it! This reminds me of the way the Egyptian pyramids were constructed. That might give us more of a clue as to the dating. The steps are narrowly spaced. Don’t you understand what this means?”
“Any sign of Winchester’s killers?” Melissa could see virtually nothing now, the dim light giving little back to the camera.
Hazelhurst answered his own question when she failed to. “The builders of the overchamber didn’t construct these steps; they merely discovered the entrance to them, then sought to conceal and guard them. The steps were waiting when they came, waiting for who knows how long.” The old man’s voice turned reflective. “I wonder how far down they got. I wonder how far …”
Melissa estimated that her father had covered forty to forty-five steps now.
“There’s something down here,” he said suddenly.
“What?”
“Just a glimpse. I caught a glimpse. I think I’m almost to the bottom. It must lead into another chamber.”
“Stay where you are. Let me try and get a look….”
“I’m starting to make sense of this construction now. If I’m right — Oh my God….”
“Father, what is it? What do you see?”
“No! No!”
Melissa squeezed close enough to the screen to draw static. “What’s going on? I can’t see anything!”
The camera wobbled, as her father took three rapid steps down.
“Daddy, get out of there!”
“Yes, I’m sure now,” Benson Hazelhurst’s slightly panicked voice returned. “At the bottom of the stairs, I can see … bodies. Aren’t you getting this?”
“Daddy, just get out of there.”
They must be the men who killed Winchester. But what hap—”
There was a sudden flash, and then the picture scrambled into oblivion.
“Daddy!”
“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! …”
Her father’s high-pitched screech froze Melissa’s insides. Her breath left her in a rush, barely enough retained for another desperate cry.
“Daddy! …”
His scream gave way to a wet, slurping sound. What might have been grinding and tearing, or … chewing followed. The screen continued to show nothing. Melissa pounded its top in frustration.
“Get him up!” she yelled at Kamir.
Instantly he moved to the winch and reversed its pull. The steel lifeline grew taut, wouldn’t give. Kamir looked over at Melissa helplessly.
“By hand, then! By hand!”
The two other workers joined Kamir reluctantly and began to hoist on the line. It resisted at first and then started to rise. Melissa watched them from the midst of a nightmare.