By the light of his glowstick, West watched the cage"s bars slide past the stone wall...
Solid rock.
Nothing but solid rock flanked the cage on that side.
It can"t be, his mind screamed. There has to be something down here! There has to be something down here!
But there wasn"t.
There wasn"t anything down there.
West"s heart began to beat faster. He had just made the biggest mistake of his life, a mistake that would kill them all.
He resurfaced inside the swirling cage.
The water was chest-deep now, the cage three-quarters under.
"Anything down there!" Zoe called.
West frowned, stumped. "No ...but there should be."
Stretch shouted, "You"ve killed us all!"
Neck-deep.
"Just grab your pony bottles," West said grimly. He looked to Lily, held high in Big Ears"s arms. "Hey, kiddo. You still with me?"
She nodded vigorously-scared out of her wits. "Uh-huh."
"Just breathe through your pony bottle like we practised at home," he said gently, "and you"ll be all right."
"Did you mess up?" she whispered.
"I might have," he said.
As he did so, he locked eyes with Wizard. The old man just nodded: "Hold your nerve, Jack. I trust you."
"Good, because right now I don"t," West said.
And with that, the great bronze cage, with its seven trapped occupants, went completely under.
With a m.u.f.fled clunk clunk, the cage came to a halt, its barred ceiling stopping exactly three feet below the surface.
The underwater currents were extremely strong. On the cage"s outermost side, the silhouette of a whirlpool could be seen: a huge inverted cone of downward-spiralling liquid.
Pony bottle to his mouth, West swam down to check the little arch one final time...
...where he found something startling.
The little arch had stopped perfectly in line with a small dark opening in the stone wall.
Shape for shape, the arch matched the opening exactly, so that if you crawled through the arch, you escaped into into the submerged wall. the submerged wall.
West"s eyes came alive.
He spun to face the others, all trapped in the submerged cage with pony bottles held to their mouths, even Lily.
He signalled with his hands: Wizard would go first.
Then Big Ears with Lily. Zoe, Stretch, Pooh Bear, and West last of all.
Wizard swam through the arch, holding a glowstick in front of him, and disappeared into the dark opening in the wall.
West signalled for Big Ears to wait-wait for Wizard to give them the all-clear.
A moment later, Wizard reappeared and gave an enthusiastic "OK" sign.
So through the little arch they went, out of the cage and into the wall, until finally only Jack West Jr remained in the cage.
No-one saw the relief on his face. He"d made the call, and almost killed them all. But he"d been right.
Kicking hard, he swam out of the cage, his boots disappearing into the tiny opening.
The opening in the wall quickly turned upwards, becoming a vertical shaft, complete with ladder handholds.
This shaft rose up and out of the sloshing water before opening onto a horizontal pa.s.sage that led back back to the main chasm, emerging-unsurprisingly-at the cobweb-covered doorway a few steps up the ascending staircase, the same doorway West had observed earlier. to the main chasm, emerging-unsurprisingly-at the cobweb-covered doorway a few steps up the ascending staircase, the same doorway West had observed earlier.
As they stepped out from the pa.s.sage, West saw Kallis and his men arriving at the base of the previous staircase, stopped there by the now-resetting cage.
Lying on the steps in front of West were the three headless n.a.z.i skeletons he had spied before.
Wizard said, "Headless bodies at the bottom bottom of a stairway mean only one thing: blades at the top somewhere. Be careful." of a stairway mean only one thing: blades at the top somewhere. Be careful."
Retaking the lead, West gazed up this new stairway. "Whoa. Would you look at that..."
At the top of the stairs was a truly impressive structure: a great fortified guard tower, leaning out from the vertical cliff 200 feet above the watery chasm.
The ancient guard tower was strategically positioned on the main bend of the chasm. Directly opposite it, on the other side of the roofed chasm, was its identical twin, another guard tower, also jutting out from its wall, and also possessing a stairway rising up from a drowning cage down at water-level.
West had taken one step up this stairway when- "Is that you, Jack!" a voice called.
West spun.
It hadn"t come from Kallis.
It had come from further away.
From the other side of the chasm.
West snapped round.
And saw a second second American special forces team standing on the path on the other side of the chasm, on the platform preceding the drowning cage on that side. American special forces team standing on the path on the other side of the chasm, on the platform preceding the drowning cage on that side.
They had emerged from a side doorway in the rockwall over there, twenty-four men twenty-four men in total. in total.
At their head stood a man of about 50, with steely black eyes and, gruesomely, no nose no nose. It had been cut off sometime in the distant past, leaving this fellow with a grotesque misshapen stump where his nose should have been.
Yet even with this glaring facial disfigurement, it was the man"s clothing that was his most striking feature right now.
He wore steel-soled boots just like West did.
He wore a canvas jacket just like West did.
He wore a belt equipped with pony bottles, pitons and X-bars, just like West did.
The only difference was his helmet-he wore a lightweight caver"s helmet, as opposed to West"s fireman"s helmet.
He was also older than West, calmer, more confident. His small black eyes radiated experience.
He was the one man West feared more than any other on Earth. The man who had been West"s last field commander in the military. The man who had once left West for dead on the plains outside Basra in Iraq.
He was a former commander of Delta Team Six, the best within Delta, but was now the commanding officer of the CIEF, the very best special forces unit in the world.
He was Colonel Marshall Judah.
In their current positions, West and his team were marginally ahead of Judah.
Given that the paths running on either side of the chasm were identical, West"s team was one trap ahead. Judah had yet to pa.s.s the drowning cage on his side, and had just stepped out onto the base of the descending stairway over there, in doing so setting off- -three nail-studded boulders.
The three boulders tumbled down the stairway toward Judah and his men.
Judah couldn"t have cared less.
He just nodded to three of his men, who quickly and competently erected a st.u.r.dy tripod-like barricade between their team and the oncoming nail-boulders.
The t.i.tanium-alloy barricade blocked the entire width of the stairway and the boulders slammed into it one after the other, each one being deflected by the st.u.r.dy barricade and bouncing harmlessly away into the water.
Judah never took his eyes off West.
"How are those dreams going, Jack? Still trapped in that volcano?" he called. "Still haunted by the chants and the drums?"
On his side of the chasm, West was stunned. How could Judah know that How could Judah know that ...? ...?
It was exactly the response Judah had wanted. He smiled a thin, cold smile. "I know even more than that, Jack! More than you can possibly suspect."
West was rattled-but he tried not to show it.
It didn"t work.
Judah nodded at the fireman"s helmet now back on West"s head. "Still using that fireman"s hat, Jack? You know I never agreed with that. Too c.u.mbersome in tight places. It always pains a teacher to see a talented student employing foolish methods."
West couldn"t help himself-he glanced up at his helmet.
Judah followed through, driving home his edge. "Looks like we"ve got something of a race on our hands here, Jack. Think you can outrun me? Do you seriously think you you can outrun can outrun me me?"
"Everybody," West said quietly to his people, not taking his eyes off Judah. "We have to run. Fast. Now. Go!"
West"s team bolted up the stairs, heading for the guard tower at their peak.
Judah just nodded calmly to his men, who immediately began erecting a long gangway to bypa.s.s their drowning cage and reach the ascending stairway on their side of the chasm.
The race was on.
The Guard Tower and the Gorge
West and his team ran up their stairway.
Just before the guard tower, a narrow gorge cut across their path. It was maybe fifteen feet across, with sheer vertical sides. This little gorge actually sliced all the way across the main main chasm, and as such, had a twin over on the other side. chasm, and as such, had a twin over on the other side.
And once again, the n.a.z.is had been helpful. It seemed that the ancient Carthaginians had built a complex chain-lowered drawbridge drawbridge to span this gorge-a drawbridge that the n.a.z.is had managed to lower into place, spanning the void. to span this gorge-a drawbridge that the n.a.z.is had managed to lower into place, spanning the void.
Taking any luck they could get, West and his team sprinted across the ancient drawbridge, and arrived at the guard tower high up on the next bend in the chasm.
There was a ladder hewn into the guard tower"s curved flank, a ladder that wound around around the outside of the structure, meaning they had to free-climb 200 feet above nothing but the swirling waters below. the outside of the structure, meaning they had to free-climb 200 feet above nothing but the swirling waters below.
Two head-chopping blades sprang out from slits in the wall-ladder, but West neutralised them with sticky foam and his team, roped together, successfully climbed around the gravity-defying guard tower.
On the other side of the chasm, Judah"s long lightweight bridge fell into place and his men ran across it, completely avoiding their drowning cage, reaching the base of their ascending staircase.
The wall-ladder on the outside of West"s guard tower brought his team up onto its balcony.
A tight tunnel in the back of the balcony delved into the chasm-wall itself and emerged on the other side of the bend, where West fired off three self-hovering flares...