“You’re letting me leave?” Yashiro asked, knowing the truth. He knew Osama would never let him leave the complex alive knowing so much of their plans.
“Yes, Yashiro,” Osama said with annoyance in his voice. “You will be paid for your work here. Once in Morocco, I expect you to oversee the technical development at the factory and report to me directly.”
Yashiro knew at that moment he was marked for death and he would never see the morning. Osama was toying with him, hoping he would lead him to any other scientists that shared his reservations.
His mind raced with thoughts of his wife and son, and of Wari.
“Where is my friend Wari?” He asked with false bravado.
“Your friend suddenly took ill and was removed to the hospital in Santa Cruz,” Osama responded quickly. “You need not worry about him.”
Yashiro knew at that point his friend was most likely dead.
“No more questions. Go back to work and, at the end of your shift, pack your belongings. One of my men will pick them up this evening and take them to the supply room to be loaded on your flight out tomorrow,” Osama said in finality.
“Thank you, Yagato-san,” Yashiro said politely as he stood on wobbly legs, bowed, and left the office. His mind reeling, he went back to work knowing that he had to try to make his desperate escape attempt before Osama’s man came looking for him that evening. He felt the cold stare of the guards watching his every move, knowing it would be a death sentence for anyone he talked to. He had waited until his shift was over to make his move.
Now crawling and sweating profusely, Yashiro finally reached the last ventilator grate and looked down over the supply room beneath him. To his horror, he saw a guard below him with an AK-47 slung over his shoulder, reading the supply manifest on a clipboard. He remained motionless, fearful that the sound of his heart pounding in his chest would cause the guard to look up. After five agonizing minutes, the guard finally left, closing and locking the door behind him.
It’s now or never, Yashiro thought as he lifted the hinged grate open enough for him to get through. Holding on to the water supply pipe running in the middle of the shaft, he lowered his legs through the opening. Letting go of the pipe, he dropped to the floor beneath him with a loud thud. Looking back up, he thankfully saw that the grate had fallen back in its proper position, leaving no trace of being disturbed.
Yashiro took note of the four refuse bins on the opposite side of the room next to a hinged metal hatch on the floor. The hatch covered a man-made shaft leading to the lava tube below the complex. As he started to make his way silently toward the refuse bins, he heard the sound of voices coming from the corridor outside the locked door.
In a panic, he leaped over to the closest bin. Lifting its lid, he threw himself inside and landed on a soft mound covered by a canvas tarp. With fear racing through his mind, he squirmed sideways and pulled the canvas tarp free from the mound. He covered himself just as the door to the supply room opened.
Yashiro, with his eyes closed tight in terror, heard the sound of two men talking as they approached the refuse bins. He felt his bin starting to roll on its metal wheel casters. When Yashiro finally found the courage to open his eyes, he discovered the glazed, dead eyes of his friend Wari staring back at him. Yashiro fought the urge scream as the bile rose from his stomach and caused him to gag.
Even after days, Wari’s body was perfectly preserved with no sign of decomposition because of the Psycho-Energetic Mind Snap gun. Only his slightly glazed eyes showed any hint of death.
The anger of the senseless murder of his friend now overcame his fear. He knew this was the fate planned for him if he remained. Yashiro steadied himself to the task at hand, as he heard the sound of the motor that opened the large metal hatchway leading to the tunnel below. He felt his bin starting to swing freely as it was lifted by a pulley that attached to four corner hooks of the refuse bin. Yashiro held his breath, hearing the sound of the electric motor to the lift diminish in volume as the bin was lowered down onto the tunnel floor below.
Almost there, he thought, feeling the cool air of the lava tube wash into the bin. After a few moments, he felt the soft thud as the bin touched down on the rock floor of the lava tube. He heard one of the men climb down the steel ladder that was attached to the basalt walls and undo the hooks on the refuse bin. The man then pushed Yashiro’s escape bin to the side so that he could lower the remaining three.
After what seemed an eternity, Yashiro heard the muffled thud of the metal door above him closing, thrusting him suddenly into an eerie silence. Taking a deep breath, he threw off the canvas that was covering him and climbed out of what was to be Wari’s coffin. He knew they would probably dump his body into the sea long before heading to the airport in Santa Cruz.
The small-framed scientist kept still for a moment, allowing his eyes to grow accustomed to the low lights of the lava tube. His eyes adjusting, he noted that the tube ascended upward about one hundred eighty feet to the cave entrance and then down to the helipad outside. In the opposite direction, the tunnel made a gradual decent into the deep, dark recesses of the volcano.
Making his way slowly toward the exit of the lava tube, Yashiro saw the first of many overhead lights. They were suspended from an electrical conduit and spaced about thirty feet apart.
He saw one of the emergency kits mounted on the cave wall and opened it to retrieve its halogen light. Yashiro knew they were stored there in the event the complex ZPG power supply ever failed. Being that it was still night time, he knew he would need the light to traverse the rocky terrain of the caldera outside. Yashiro checked his light as he continued walking upward toward the entrance and began to think that, just maybe, his desperate plan would succeed.
Just then, he heard the sound of footfalls coming from ahead of him and his hopes of success were dashed. With no time to get back into the bin, he panicked, turned, and started running for his very life. Headed down the lava tube in the opposite direction, he ran past the ladder as the hatch above was being raised. He then heard the shouts of the men chasing him from behind. Seconds later, the excited shouts in the lava tube were drowned out by the deafening echo of gunfire. Yashiro felt a hot stinging pain in his left arm. Feeling the warm trickle of blood flowing down his forearm, he continued to run and ignore the blinding pain. The light from his halogen lamp flashed wildly on the black basalt walls and cast bizarre shadows as he continued to descend into the darkness of the lava tube.
7
Around the same time Yashiro had been crawling through the ventilator shaft in his attempt at freedom, Eli Turner and Maria Santiago were painstakingly sliding the circular stone slab from the entrance of the tomb that had been sealed for almost two thousand years.
Out of breath and exhausted from their endeavor, they laid the cover stone gently on the floor of the cave. The two silently looked into the darkened tomb, both lost in thought as to what they might find in its interior. Even the staunch Captain Saune’s interest was piqued as he and the private climbed out of their darkened crypt and joined the two archaeologists.