I removed the titanium ax from my belt. Using my free hand, I shoved the ax’s sharp-pointed shaft between two smaller rocks. As I pounded the shaft deep, my right foot suddenly slipped and I swung briefly out into space, dangling by one hand like a black gibbon in the rainforests of Borneo. I grunted and reached out with my toes until I found secure footing. A fall from here wouldn’t kill me, but two broken legs would make for a difficult escape.

  I gripped the adze and began applying pressure. The rock shifted reluctantly. When it did, I shoved the shaft deeper into the wedge and reapplied my efforts.

  I looked at my watch. Four hours until dawn.

  Pausing for breath, I looked down. The kid was pacing in a small circle, leaving behind Sasquatchian footprints in the soft sand. Caesar gave me the two thumbs-up sign, grinning. You’d think the old guy was having the time of his life.

  I brought my knees up and kicked the shaft. The rock tilted. Dust sifted down. I shouted for the others to stand aside. I kicked again and again, until finally the rock popped out and tumbled down the wall with enough noise to wake the dead and landed with a thud in the sand, creating a small dirt mushroom cloud.

  I re-positioned myself and shoved the adze between the next two rocks. Again, I swung my legs up and kicked the shaft with the heels of my boots. Almost immediately the rock broke loose and plummeted to the cave floor below. I was just beginning to think that maybe the pendulum of luck was swinging our way when I heard a noise coming from the tunnel.

  ***

  Two guards stood at the entrance to the cave, one of them holding a flashlight steady on me, while the other swept his around the cave. Both were carrying their semi-automatic weapons at their hips, ready for immediate use.

  The one holding the light on me said in Arabic, “What are you doing?”

  I climbed down the wall. “I was advised by the emir’s bodyguard that we needed immediate results, and so we are working well into the night.”

  The guard stepped closer, moving with a limp. As he walked, he kept his beam in my eyes, perhaps to disorient me, perhaps to be an asshole. Perhaps both. After a lot of limping, he finally stood before me.

  “Are you sure that is all he told you?” he asked, flashing the light from one eye to the next.

  “I’m sure,” I said.

  Bum leg and all, he punched me in the stomach, a swift movement that gave me only a fraction of a second to tighten my abdominal muscles. I sank to my knees, sucking air. He stood over me and I expected the stock of his rifle to come crashing down between my shoulders. Instead, his scuffed boots turned away in the soft sand.

  “Just make sure that is all you’re doing, merkep,” he said over his shoulder.

  I could have shot them both in the back. But, then, that wouldn’t have been very sporting of me. With the guards gone, and my breathing back to normal, I resumed work thirty feet above the cave floor.

  And just before dawn, with Wally keeping me posted on the time, I pulled free a final basketball-sized rock and was greeted with something truly wonderful: a cool draft of air.

  Chapter Forty

  I thrust the torch through the opening; beyond, the darkness retreated reluctantly. I was greeted by a refreshing wind that smelled faintly of mildew and dirt and something very old and crypt-like. This side of the cave-in was empty save for a dozen or so large rocks scattered across the sandy floor. The far wall was solid and forbidding, and one thing was painfully clear: there was no way out.

  But then where was the source of the cool air?

  I slithered through the small opening and, with the torch between my teeth like Fido playing a burning game of fetch, I climbed down the far wall. Once on firm ground, I followed the source of wind. I moved slowly over the sandy floor, boots whispering over the sand, eyes alert for anything.

  The far wall came to flickering life as I approached, each fissure and crack emerging from the shadows. The flame danced crazily in my hand, awakened by a breeze whose source was still frustratingly unknown.

  I swept the torch near the base of the wall, searching the shadows that crawled to life. The flame whipped crazily in my hand. The tunnel had to be here—

  There! Near the floor, was a small, dark tunnel. I hurried back.

  ***

  I guided the professor up the rock wall. The few times he faltered, I gripped the fabric of his jacket and hauled him up. All in all, he was a fit man, needing little help.

  Wally Krispin was a different story. The kid had the coordination of a newborn. I helped him each step of the way. His bony knees and elbows stuck out every which way, like a human pin cushion. After twenty long minutes, the kid made it up and slithered on his belly through the opening.

  Voices suddenly erupted from within the tunnel. Many voices, speaking excitedly.

  Dawn.

  “They’re coming for us.”

  I plunged through the small opening.

  ***

  Thirty feet above the floor, Wally was waiting for me, eyes wide with fear. “I-I don’t know how to get down, Sam.”

  But when angry voices erupted in the cave behind us, Wally Krispin suddenly bolted, scrabbling down the side of the wall like a spider with an extra leg. Halfway down, he jumped without reservation, hitting the soft sand hard, skidding on his face. He got up, spitting out sand and raking his hair with his fingers. Luckily, nothing seemed broken.

  I tossed the torch down to the waiting professor. Caesar caught it neatly by the wooden shaft. I knew we couldn’t have done that again if we tried. Before climbing down, I kicked rocks back into the small opening, plugging our escape route. It wasn’t much, but at least it would slow them down.

  I climbed quickly, jumping the remaining half, as Wally had. I hit the sand in a tight roll, coming up to my feet, before stumbling to my knees. In the Olympics, I would have been penalized for a poor landing, but in aeronautics I would have been lauded for a safe set down.

  Torch in hand, I led the others to the small opening at the base of the far wall.

  Caesar bent down and examined the hole. “Rather small,” he concluded.

  “I’ll go first,” I said.

  “By all means,” he said, grinning, slapping me heartily on the back.

  As the wind thundered through the small opening, whistling like something from the soundtrack of a cheesy horror flick, I dropped to my knees and thrust the torch before me, and crawled into the small tunnel.

  ***

  Before daybreak, with only a couple of hours of sleep behind her, a sudden noise brought Faye instantly awake.

  She looked up from the table, up from her folded arms which had served as bed and pillow and watched as Kazeem strode confidently into the tent, motioning away the solitary guard. The big prince ducked under a low-hanging lantern and stood before her, hands on hips. He watched her silently, breathing noisily through his flared nostrils. His deep-set eyes glowed with wild anticipation, and Faye instinctively glanced around for a weapon. All she could find was her laptop computer. Where was a bottle of beer when you needed one—

  “Your father and the others have escaped,” said Kazeem in clipped English. “For now.”

  Faye’s eyes widened with pleasure. A faint glimmering of hope surfaced from far, far below. But she said nothing, just watched the big prince.

  Kazeem continued, “They have escaped into the mountain. Escape, however, may be too loose of a term as I suspect they have not gone far.” Kazeem slid a hand inside his robe and produced a laminated map—her father’s laminated map. “Your assistance may be necessary. Come.”

  Chapter Forty-one

  The tunnel was similar to the size and shape of a heating/air conditioning duct, and as the others were less agile and a lot slower, I stopped routinely to allow them to catch up. Rather sporting of me.

  I was waiting for them now, idly sweeping the torch from side to side, illuminating dark stone walls and a filthy dirt floor. Gloomy. Not the place to be if one were claustrophobic.

  Wally approached from behind. Breathing hard and fast. I might have spoken too soon.

  “You okay, Wally?”

  He swallowed hard. “I feel as if the weight of an entire mountain is precariously balanced above me.”

  “I don’t know how precarious, but there is an entire mountain above you.”

  “That’s not helping. Is it me or is this tunnel getting smaller?”

  “Try not to think about it,” I said sagely.

  Indeed, as we continued forward, the tunnel was getting smaller: the walls closing in, the ceiling descending. Almost like a mathematical formula: the more the walls closed in around us, the harder and faster Wally’s breathing became.

  Soon, we were forced to slither on our sides, to reach out with our hands and pull forward with our arms. It was a hell of a way to make progress. It was also hell on your fingertips and fingernails. Sweat dripped steadily from my brow and nose, to be absorbed by the fine dust scattered over the stone floor, making tiny mud pies. Behind me, I could hear the desperate clawing of fingernails, and I was reminded of a crocodile pulling itself out of a lagoon, its dinosaur-like claws scrabbling over the sun-baked shore. That had been long ago on assignment for the National Geographic, in a far better place, with a whole lot more sunshine.

  Shortly, mercifully, the narrow tunnel ended, dropping down to a smooth stone floor ten feet below. One after another, we slipped out of the narrow crawlspace. Here, the tunnel was more pre-disposed towards bipedal primates. It was glorious to stand erect again, to feel the weight of your body on the soles of your feet, as opposed to your elbows and knees.

  The tunnel was narrow, the ceiling non-existent, as shadows disappeared into the gloom above. We walked single file, which would have made our first grade teachers proud. By my estimates, the passage led deeper into the mountain, but then again it didn’t take an advanced degree in geology to come up with that one. Lichen clung to the walls, glowing softly in the torchlight. The floor itself was a mixture of uneven rock protrusions and beach-like sand. As usual, our breathing reverberated around us, and we sounded like six, not three. Somewhere water dripped. The air was musty and stagnant, almost tangible, like the basement of an abandoned mansion. Haunted, of course.

  “We need to get out of here, and go back for Faye. She’s alone with those animals,” I said. “Where’s the map, professor?”

  He removed it from his boot. “Finding a way out may prove more difficult than you think. Remember, Sam, the computer program only showed the way to the cave.” Caesar peered at the map through his bifocals as I held the torch over him. “Obviously, now that we’re in the cave, we’re on our own.”

  “Obviously.”

  “However, I’ve spent some time pouring over the pages of Struys’s account, and believe I have gleaned a rather accurate map of the tunnel systems within Ararat.” Caesar turned the map over. “I’ve carefully noted each turn, each direction, each choice of tunnel that was made. Now, whether or not Struys neglected to mention a fork in the passage, or a particular left or right decision, is beyond my control.”

  “Good enough,” I said. “We’ll follow you, professor. And if we get lost, we eat you first.”

  Caesar moved forward, and I followed; Wally took up the rear. For the time being, the tunnel led in only one direction, which eliminated the decision-making process.

  ***

  Ten minutes later, we came to our first decision: a fork in the tunnel. One tunnel led off to the left, and the other continued to the right. After consulting the map, Caesar confidently pointed to the right and Wally and I followed without question like lambs to the slaughter.

  Perhaps an hour later, we came to yet another fork in the road, but to my dismay, Caesar frowned at the map, shaking his head.

  I said, “You’re shaking your head, professor, because you can’t believe how remarkably easy it is to decide which tunnel to take.”

  Caesar turned the map over and upside down, which I took as a bad sign. He rubbed his jaw. “I’m beginning to think,” he said, “that I don’t know how to read this.”

  “We can save time and eat you now,” I said. “After all, we haven’t had breakfast.”

  Caesar ignored me. “There’s supposed to be three choices here, not two.”

  I handed the torch to Wally, who held it out for Caesar, as I stepped forward to examine the two tunnel entrances. Both stretched as far as the light would reach. I knelt down and studied the floor.

  “What are you looking for?” asked Wally.

  “I’m looking for some indication as to which tunnel to choose. Perhaps an ancient scuffmark from an ancient pair of leather boots. Something, anything.”

  I didn’t find a scuffmark, but I did come across something unusual. What first appeared to be a shadow from a rock protrusion, was actually something entirely—

  Caesar suddenly yelled, “Wally, the map!”

  I closed my eyes, praying Caesar hadn’t just said: “Wally, the map!”

  I turned, my worst fears realized. The flame had burned a hole in the map. Caesar blew gently as ashes drifted down in the torchlight. The map looked as if a fiery cannonball had been shot through it from a pirate ship.

  Wally dropped the torch and stammered, “I-I’m sorry.”

  I moved quickly, retrieving the torch before the flame winked out. Caesar closed his eyes. The older man seemed to be fighting an urge to cry. Instead, he said simply, “The map is quite useless.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Wally again. “I was just trying to help.”

  The professor took a deep breath, face crimson with anger, contrasting with his silver beard. But then, in a heartbeat, the anger was gone and the familiar old grin returned. His eyes sparkled as if lit by torches of their own. He reached up on tip-toes and mussed the kid’s hair. “You’ve always had two left feet, Wally. Now, I suppose, you have two left hands.”

  Wally grinned, perhaps relieved that the professor hadn’t given him a noogie instead.

  I studied what was left of the map. The hole was nine inches across, spanning the interior route within the mountain, from the entrance to the final picture of a little ark that Caesar had drawn. The drawing looked more like a row boat than the vessel that had preserved life as we know it.

  “Well,” I said and walked over to the shadow along the wall and pushed aside a cobwebbed veil. “The good news is that I’ve found the third tunnel.”

  ***

  “The bad news,” I said, “is that we don’t know which tunnel to take.” I waved the torch at all three. “The left, middle, or right?”

  The professor said quickly, “The middle tunnel.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked. “Sure enough to risk our lives?”

  He started to nod, but then paused in mid-nod. His thick eyebrows scrunched together in a hairy shelf above his orbital ridges. He dropped his hands to his sides. “Suddenly, I’m not so sure, Sam.”

  Wally stepped forward, speaking confidently. “I propose we go right.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the main tunnel seems to naturally progress to the right.”

  “A valid point,” said Caesar. “But the wind seems to be coming from the left tunnel, which might indicate a way out.”

  “But, professor, you just said the middle tunnel,” I pointed out, exasperated.

  “I was caught-up in the heat of the moment, Sam. Plus, I’ve been known to frequently change my mind. It’s a character flaw. To be honest, I wouldn’t bet a wooden nickel on the middle tunnel.”

  I chewed my lip thoughtfully, or maybe hungrily. Finally, I said, “We will each follow a tunnel, and report back here in ten minutes. Do we all have watches?”

  They nodded.

  “Good,” I said. “Wally, you go right. Professor, you check the left. And I’ll follow the middle. Remember, spend five minutes moving into the tunnel, and five minutes coming back. No one gets lost. We meet back here in ten minutes and report on our findings.”

  “But what do we do for torches?” asked Wally, wetting his lips nervously with his tongue. I decided that Wally always looked nervous. Hell, he was making me feel nervous.

  I removed the pistol from behind my back and the pocketknife from my hip. I placed the handle of the torch against a suitable rock, then used the butt of the pistol to hammer the pocketknife into the wood. A half dozen whacks later and I had split the torch into three torchettes. I handed one each to Caesar and Wally, keeping the third for myself.

  “Ten minutes,” I said, and stepped into the middle tunnel.

  ***

  In the middle tunnel, as I contorted my body like a belly dancer on steroids around protrusions and limestone stalagmites (once I was even forced to limbo), I was beginning to think that I had gotten the short end of the proverbial stick. The tunnel was difficult to traverse at best.

  But shortly, as the light from the torchette crawled over the wall like liquid fire, I came upon a small pile of neatly stacked stones in the shape of a finger. Or a phallic. Either way, I was sure it was another marker (and one that would intrigue any Freudian psychologist). I grinned and looked at my watch. Time to go back.

  And that’s when Wally’s high-pitched scream echoed down the undulating tunnel.

  Chapter Forty-two

  I backtracked through the convoluted tunnel system, banging my head and shins more times than I cared to admit, meeting the professor in the main tributary. The professor was huffing and puffing and holding his chest.

  I need to sharpen my CPR skills, I thought.

  “Wally,” he gasped, pointing to the right tunnel.

  When the professor had caught his breath, we stepped into the right tunnel, which was wide enough to drive a Volkswagen Beetle through. So what had happened to the kid? Had he stubbed his toe and fallen?