Even as the thought struck him, he saw light ahead yet again. It might have been more vents, but this time, when he clicked off his flashlight, he realized the glow luring him forward came not from below but above. Desperate for air, he swam another ten feet, then fifteen, and finally twenty-five, and then he could stand it no longer.
Chest burning, mind screaming, he kicked for the surface and emerged with a wheezing gasp into a much narrower cavern, perhaps as little as eight or nine feet in width. The afternoon sunlight that streamed in came from a crevice another twenty yards ahead, but beyond it, he could see a sliver of deep blue sky.
A grin split his face.
And then he realized he had to swim back and let Jada and the others know and then lead them through the underwater passage. His lungs hurt just from thinking about it. But they would be out, and that meant the real search could start. He would find Sully, and together they would expose the secrets of the hooded men to the world so that the murderous bastards couldn’t get their hands on anyone else. He thought about the paintings in the Chinese worship chamber, the hellish images of torment in Diyu, and he felt more determined than ever.
Drake clung to the wall, catching his breath for the swim back.
This time he would take off his boots.
He couldn’t help but wonder if, when they finally got back up to Akrotiri village, the taxi driver would be waiting.
18
Turbulence jostled Drake from an unsettling dream. He had been standing in the rain at Sully’s funeral, the only person without a black umbrella. Among the sea of faces he could see through the veil of dream and rain were many of the less savory characters he and Sully had encountered over the years. Thieves and cutthroats, smugglers and corrupt politicians-all of them had gathered to pay their respects. Jada stood by the grave, her magenta bangs now dyed a bloody crimson, and the priest who stood at the head of the gathering, one hand on the coffin, was Luka Hzujak.
The priest had looked at him, dry beneath his huge black umbrella.
“When you lie down with snakes, you’ve gotta learn to hiss,” the priestly Luka had said, his voice like a whisper in Drake’s ear. “But that doesn’t mean you have to slither.”
He had laughed then, and the entire gathering of mourners had laughed with him, their voices the shush of rain pattering on umbrellas. Drake, soaked to the skin, had not found it funny. Sully had used that line about snakes with him ten years earlier, the morning they had paid a ship’s captain in Valparaiso to carry them and their cargo home to the States. The man had had a huge cache of drugs on board, also headed for the USA, and Drake had needed to be persuaded not to throw them overboard. Sully had reminded him that if they didn’t want the captain to interfere in their business, they couldn’t interfere with his.
When he woke from the dream, he found Tyr Henriksen watching him.
Drake sat up, groggily reaching for his gun.
Henriksen nodded. “It’s all right, Mr. Drake. Your weapon is still there and still loaded.”
Drake’s hand closed on the butt of the gun, but he didn’t take it out of his waistband. The guttural drone of the engine made him blink, and only as he glanced around did he remember that they were on an airplane chartered by Henriksen for the journey from Greece to China. Out the oval window beyond Henriksen the sky was dark. He wasn’t sure how long they had been flying or how long he’d been sleeping, but it was still night.
The plane Henriksen had chartered was of a sort he rarely had been inside: a private jet with seating for twelve in the center and a cabin for business in the rear, complete with a narrow conference table. Henriksen, Olivia, and Corelli had been in the back when Drake had fallen asleep, and it disconcerted him to wake with the man studying him as if he were some kind of exotic pet.
“You slept soundly,” Henriksen said. “You snore.”
“Back off, pal. You’re freaking me out.”
Feeling something sticky on his chin, Drake wiped his mouth and realized he had been so deeply asleep that he had been drooling a little. Henriksen had had the good grace not to mention it.
“I guess I was more tired than I thought,” Drake said.
Henriksen leaned back in his seat. “We all were. I dozed for several hours myself. Jada is still sleeping.”
Drake craned his neck to look back along the aisle and saw her stretched out in her wide, fully reclined seat, a blanket over her. She looked peaceful, and Drake felt happy for her. Peace had been hard for Jada to come by of late. Only sleep offered any respite from her grief and the fears and tensions of recent days. Olivia and Corelli were nowhere to be seen, which he assumed meant they were still in the rear cabin. Whether they had gotten any sleep, he didn’t know. Not that he had a lot of concern for their well-being.
“How much longer?” Drake asked, sitting up straight.
He had fallen asleep so quickly that he hadn’t even taken the trouble to recline his seat completely, and now his back ached from slouching in the chair for so long.
“We have several hours yet,” Henriksen replied.
When he shifted in the seat, he winced, and Drake realized that the knife wound was bothering him badly. Corelli had stitched him up, and it seemed their first aid kit had included some serious painkillers, but if Henriksen had taken anything, Drake hadn’t seen him do it.
After escaping from the labyrinth beneath the Goulas in Akrotiri village, they all had spent a little time recovering and letting their clothes drip-dry on the rocks at the bottom of the cliff not far from the village. Getting topside had been a time-consuming process. Drake had hoped the taxi that had dropped him and Jada off in the morning would be there waiting, but night had fallen by the time they returned to the village, and he and Jada had reluctantly accepted a ride back to their hotel from Henriksen. They had ridden in relative silence, all the suspicion and ill will poisoning the air in the limousine.
Drake and Jada had returned to the suite, entering with guns drawn, just in case the hooded men were waiting. Not that Drake had believed they would be. All they seemed to want was for everyone to stop searching for the fourth labyrinth, and now that they realized Henriksen and Jada were both on the verge of locating it, Drake figured they would retreat and just wait. He wondered how many killers would be waiting for them when they got to China.
They had showered and put on clean clothes, then packed up what little they had. Without a word, Jada had put all of Sully’s things in his duffel, including the sweater he’d bought when they had shopped the night before. Neither one of them was willing even to consider the possibility that he wouldn’t have need of the contents of that duffel again.
A door clicked open at the rear of the passenger cabin. Drake turned and saw Corelli poke his head through.
“Mr. Henriksen,” the short man said. “Olivia has something you’re going to want to hear.”
Drake frowned, turning to Henriksen, who popped up from his seat with the exuberance of a child.
“Well?” he said, turning to Drake. “Are you coming?”
“What is it?” Drake asked, still not completely awake. The echoes of his dream had lingered like cobwebs in his mind.
“I’m going to guess it’s a translation of all the ancient Chinese back in that chamber,” Henriksen said. “Or don’t you want to know if my people have figured out the location of the fourth labyrinth?”
Drake stretched and started to rise. “I’m coming.”
Henriksen went on without him, hurrying excitedly to the back of the plane and slipping through the door to the rear cabin. As Drake watched him go, a voice from his dream came back to him.
You’ve gotta learn to hiss, but that doesn’t mean you have to slither.