The Cleric's Vault (16 page)

He
wasn’t sure how to take the comment, and it did little to suppress his
apprehension.
 
She stepped over to
him and grabbed a loose part of the harness webbing and tugged it sharply,
tightening the rigging.
 

Emily
just shook her head slowly at the sight, having already finished up her harness
adjustments.
 
“Not a word out of
you,” he pointed at Emily as Adriana completed her work with his device,
looking awkward the whole time.

“I
wouldn’t think of it.”
 

The
late afternoon sun gleamed off of Villa’s creamy skin.
 
A light gust of wind rolled across the
desert plains, flicking her dark hair back a little and causing it to dance
around her ears and neck.

“We
should hurry.
 
The sun sets early
this time of year and it gets cold very quickly.”

Sean
turned and gazed to the west.
 
They
probably still had a few hours, so time wasn’t going to be a problem.
 
If everything went according to plan.

*****

Angela
watched the group with her binoculars from behind a small rock formation.
 
Her team was well hidden though, at one
point she had noticed Wyatt pause and look in their direction.
 
James was right behind her trying to
peek over her shoulder.
 
So much
like a child.
 
From the looks of
it, the group she was observing appeared to be gearing up to repel down the
side of the canyon.
 

What had they found?
 
Angela kept the
thought to herself.
 
She wasn’t
sure but she knew what their orders were.
 
Observe only.
 

The
Prophet had been clear in his instructions, though she wasn’t sure why he’d
changed their course of action.
 
Perhaps
he was losing faith in them.
 
Or
maybe the man hadn’t been unable to decipher the location of whatever it was he
was looking for and these people were going to lead him to it.
 
It was a plan that had worked before,
she supposed.
 
But Angela doubted
it would work that way again.
 
Sooner or later there was going to be another confrontation.
 

*****

Sean
had seen the glint of glass off in the distance.
 
He’d assumed that the people who’d tried to kill him in
Vegas the night before had decided to see what they were doing before moving
in.
 
Even out in the desert, there
weren’t a lot of places to hide from the curious eyes of the canyon
tourists.
 
The hit squad was
probably hanging back, waiting until the moment was right.
 

There wouldn’t be any mistakes this time.
 
Not like last night
.
 
He
didn’t voice his concerns to the others.

The
information center was still within view, though it was far away.
 
And their presence on the cliff’s edge
was known by some of the local authorities, informed on the radio by Jim before
they touched down.
 
Still, it was
disconcerting not knowing what move their pursuers would take next.
 

Sean
watched as Adriana ran the rope through her harness clamps and casually stepped
over the cliff’s edge.
 
She pushed
out with her feet and disappeared into the canyon.
 

Emily
stepped closer, far less afraid of the dangerous precipice and watched as the
Spaniard repeated her repelling motion like a pro.
 
About twenty feet down she stopped and leaned in towards the
cliff face, peering at something.
 
“What do you see?”
 
Emily
yelled down.

“It
is a cave entrance.”
 
She swung
herself down and into the opening.
 
A few seconds later she poked her head poked back out.
 
“There is a lot of writing on the
wall.
 
This must be the place!”
Adriana yelled up.

“What
did she say?” Sean asked as he stepped uneasily towards the edge.
 
He crouched at the knees in a feeble
attempt to maintain his stability.

Emily
turned and raised both eyebrows at the site of Wyatt squatting near her.
 
“She said this is the place.
 
Said she found some markings in the
cave opening.”

“You
sure you want me to go in there?”

The
look she gave was answer enough but she said what he needed to hear
anyway.
 
“You’re going to tell me
that Sean Wyatt is going to pass up a chance to go into an ancient cave where
there may be treasure that hasn’t been seen in probably several thousand years
just because he’s afraid of heights?
 
Maybe I was wrong about you.”

He
grabbed the rope from her and laced it through the braking contraption the way
Adriana had showed him before.
 
“You know what you are?”
 
He
asked as he eased unsteadily towards the lip of the canyon.

“A
woman?”
 

Another
slight gust picked up as he leaned out over the drop below.
 
Chills went through his body as he made
the mistake of looking down.
 
They
must have been a few thousand feet up and the drop made his vision blur for a
moment.
 
He clenched his teeth,
gripping the braking device with all his might.
 
“Manipulative.
 
But same difference.”
 
With
that, he released the brake and started inching his way down the rock
wall.
 

Chapter 32

Bandelier National Monument, New
Mexico

They
were in a fix and Tommy knew it. He and Will had been cornered in a manmade
cave at Bandelier National Monument.
 
They’d gone there to look for clues but what they’d found was
trouble.
 
Will was running out of
ammo and there was no way to tell how much ammunition the other guys had.
 
Tommy figured it was more, though.
 
  

He
struggled with the stone for a few more seconds trying to fit it into the round
impression in the wall, but it wouldn’t seat properly.
 
Then it hit him.
 
The oddly colored notches in the stone
were additions.
 
Frantically, he
began searching his backpack.
 
A
few seconds later, he pulled a small pocketknife from it.
 
With the butt-end of the tool, he
started chipping away at the lighter-colored areas of the stone.
 
As he suspected, the softer material
broke away after only a few knocks.
 
Quickly, he repeated the process on the other three marks.

Again,
Tommy slid the stone into place inside the recessed wheel in the wall, matching
the notches with the gaps he’d just created.
 
This time, it fit perfectly flush against the back of the
ancient mechanism.
 
He gripped the
stone tightly and began twisting counter-clockwise.
 
To his surprise, the thing moved fairly easily.
 
Deep within the walls, a new rumbling
began.
 
All of the pieces from the
ceiling had fallen, creating an odd maze of huge stone pillars in the
room.
 
Some were taller than
others.
 
The ground shook more and
more violently.
 
Then he realized
something was moving beneath him.
 
In what could have only taken a few seconds, the floor shifted and then
dropped away beneath him.

Will heard the noise and looked over to the corner where Tommy had
been toiling furiously.
 
He was
gone.

*****

It took Sean about five minutes to do what Adriana and Emily were able
to do in less than thirty seconds.
 
He had slowly eased his way down the face of the canyon wall, careful
not to make any sudden movements.
 
Once inside the lip of the cave, he pressed forward quickly but Adriana
stopped him short, blocking his path.

“I
wouldn’t go too far in there if I were you.”
 
She pointed her light into the darkness and revealed a deep,
circular hole that seemed to go down forever.
 

Sean
simply crumpled down to the ground, shaking his head.
 
“I can’t believe I let you two talk me into this.
 
Why couldn’t this thing be down in an
underwater cave or maybe in the plains somewhere?”

She
simply shook her head at him.

A
few moments later Emily had joined them and cast Sean a degrading glance,
chastising him for being fearful.
 
“Walk it off soldier,” she shined her own light down into the deep
pit.
 
“Looks like we got more to
do.”

He
simply returned Emily’s jab by squinting his eyes at her, as if he was just
fine sitting on the sandy stone floor.

“I’ve
been trying to figure out how we get down there,” Villa spoke up, returning
from the edge of the cave.
 
She’d
been busily tiding up the ropes for the return trip back up to the helicopter.
 
She pointed to some odd engravings on
the wall just above Sean’s head and he stood up carefully to look at it, still
unsteady with his environment.

“Can
you read it?” Emily asked.
 

He
shook his head.
 
“Only a little
bit.”

His
finger traced the outline of the engraved stone symbols that were so common in
North Africa but extremely out of place in the United States.
 
He scanned the wall with his eyes,
trying to fit all the pieces together.

Adriana
stood behind him, watching as he tried to decipher the ancient text.

“Looks
like it says something about an eye and the afterlife, I think.”

“It
says the eye of Akhanan can be the path to death or the stairway to life,”
Adriana interrupted him.
 
“And that
only the righteous may have eternal life.”

Sean
and Emily gazed at her, slightly amazed.
 

“I
was getting to that,” Sean stammered.

Starks
raised both eyebrows.
 
“Sure you
were.”
 
She turned to Adriana and
asked, “So what does it mean?”

Adriana
stepped curiously over to the pit again and shone her light into the vast, deep
darkness.
 
The thing seemed to
literally go on forever.
 
An
intense look on her face showed she was trying hard to work the riddle out in
her head.
 
As she spun back around,
her flashlight passed over something at the corner of where the wall ended and
the big hole began.
 
She stepped
over to get a closer a look and realized what she was seeing.
 
On the wall, a stone panel with twelve,
slightly raised pieces were positioned around eye level.
 
She gazed at it in wonder as she traced
the outline of the ancient script with her index finger.
 
The other two came near to see what had
gotten her attention.

Sean
kept one hand on the cool wall, bracing himself in case some unseen force
pushed him towards the pit.

“What
is it?” Emily wondered out loud.

Adriana
answered by shining her light away from the panel and around the corner into
the dark.
 

A
narrow ledge came into view that seemed to wrap around the left side of the
huge shaft.
 
It was difficult to
see the other side but as she followed it around the wall with her light, it
came to an end at what looked like doorway.

“So
what do we do?”
 
Emily asked.

“I
think we go climb back up and get more rope, more gear, and come back down here
tomorrow to see how far down we can get in this thing.
 
In fact, maybe we could bring someone
instead of myself to do that part of the search.”
 
Sean looked hopeful.
 
Just as he finished his sentence with a childish grin, an odd sound came
from outside the cave entrance.
 

They
watched in horror as one rope and then the other whizzed by, falling downward
into the depths of the cliff.
 
Adriana made a break for it and dove out recklessly trying to grasp the
second rope just as it slithered over the edge and into the canyon depths
below.

She
lay on the dusty stone floor, her arm still outstretched.
 
Sean ran over quickly and reached down
and grabbed her hand, helping her up as she dusted off her tight, black pants
with the other hand.
 
“What
happened?” She asked.
 

Wyatt
turned to Emily to see if she had an answer.
 
Suddenly, a large object whooshed by the entrance and Sean
stepped to the edge to see what it was.
 
Their pilot’s body tumbled through the air below.
 
Sean turned away as it neared the rocky
bottom below.

Emily
had seen the body as it passed by the entryway and rushed over to look
down.
 
Sean grabbed her, but she
wrestled him away in time to see Jim Caldwell hit the bottom.
 
She shook violently.
 
“No!
 
No!
 
No!” was
all she could get out.
 

Sean
pulled her away from the edge and put his arm around her.
 
He’d worked with her a long time.
 
Emily was a brilliant woman, but not
cut out for fieldwork.
 
She’d
always been a more administrative type.
 
She handled herself well enough in tough situations but having to keep
on full alert all the time had worn her down.
 
Just like it had him.
 

A
solitary tear had formed in the corner of her right eye.
 
Several minutes went by before Emily
began to calm down.
 
She took
several deep breaths and tried to steel herself against her emotions.
 
She hadn’t been a field agent in a long
time, but it wasn’t the first time she’d lost an ally in the line of duty.
 
It
probably wouldn’t be the last.

Sean
broke the long silence.
 
“Em, we
need to go.”
 
She nodded and the
three trudged slowly back into the cave.

*****

Will
fired off one of his last three bullets then dashed over to the hole where
Tommy had been sitting only moments before.
 
He shone his light down into the darkness and saw that there
was a rushing stream of water but no sign of Schultz.
 
The drop down to the small river looked to be about fifteen
feet.
 
He looked back in the
direction of the two enemies and decided he’d rather take his chance with the
underground river.
 
Something
caught his eye in the wall just over the hole.
 
Will realized it was the stone disc and carefully reached
over and pulled it out of the indention in the wall.

Will
gave one more quick glance back towards the assailants.
 
One of the men had moved into the open
and was rushing his way.
 
He raised
his weapon and squeezed off one quick shot.
 
The bullet sunk into the target’s mid-thigh, sending the man
to the floor in a crumpled heap.
 
His partner glanced around from a position behind one of the large
columns that had fallen but stayed put.
 
Satisfied he’d done what he could, Will jumped down into the cold,
flowing water below.

*****

Carlson
watched from behind the large piece of fallen rock as his quarry disappeared
into a large hole in the floor.
 
The man had fired off one last shot, dropping his remaining agent.
 
Quickly, he stuck the gun around the
front edge of the column and stepped out, waving the weapon around methodically
just in case. His man was lying on the ground, clenching his left leg about six
inches above the knee.
 
“Can you
make it?” he asked, feigning concern.
 

The
agent looked up and nodded, knowing what the other answer would result in.
 
He’d already seen what his boss was
capable of and wasn’t in the mood to die in a desert cave.

Hunter
reached down and offered him a hand to stand up.
 
The agent hesitated momentarily, then reached up and
accepted the assistance.
 
“You
gonna be able to walk?” Hunter asked.

He
nodded again.
 
“Yeah.
 
The bullet’s in the meat of the
leg.
 
I’ll be fine.”

“Let’s
go after them, then.”
 
Carlson said
as he pointed to the hole in the floor.

The
man gave a quick nod and started hobbling towards the other side of the
room.
 
He knelt down and shone his
light down into the rushing water below and around the dark surroundings of the
underground river.
 
“Looks clear to
me,” he announced over the sound of the flowing water.

“Good,”
Hunter replied.
 
Then he raised his
gun to the back corner of the man’s head and squeezed the trigger.
 
Dark red fragments splattered the
cavern wall and a moment later the body of the agent dropped into the gushing
stream below.
 
If anyone
was
down there, they would have made it
known when the corpse dropped.

Hunter
shone his light down into the subterranean tunnel and, satisfied that the coast
was clear, jumped in.

*****

The
cold, mountain water had initially shocked Tommy, but it was carrying him away
from trouble--or so he hoped.
 
He
had no idea where the underground river was taking him.
 
It was shallow and almost moved him
along like a lazy river at a water park.
 
Fortunately, his light was waterproof so, he could see around the
passageway.
 
He’d been able to
right himself as he floated along downstream so.
 
There wasn’t much to see, just carved out rock for the most
part.
 
It was hard to tell whether
the place was natural or manmade.