Minotaur

29

A little gray light leaked down the horizontal tunnel, enough for Chapel to move toward. He loped along the rough floor, all the time feeling an ocean breeze on his face, smelling the salt of the waves.

He hurried as fast as he could, even though his injuries were catching up with him. Even though he knew he’d probably already lost.

There had been three passports sitting on Favorov’s bed. Though Chapel hadn’t bothered to check them, he was pretty sure he knew already whose they were. One for Fiona and one each for the boys. Favorov had taken his own passport with him.

Up ahead at the end of the tunnel lay a natural cave, the ceiling thick with stalactites, the floor crunchy with an accumulation of salt. Big round shapes loomed around Chapel as he burst through into the starlit cave, shapes which resolved themselves into barrels. Fuel barrels. The far end of the cave let out onto a silvery beach under a looming seaside cliff. A deep channel had been dug through the sand and a metal dock erected there so a small watercraft could be brought in where no one could see it from above. Only the boat wasn’t there at the moment.

Chapel dashed forward toward the breakers, his dress shoes sinking into wet sand. Out on the water he could just make out the shape of a speedboat, sleek and shark-like in its lines. A single human figure, no doubt Favorov himself, was hunched over the controls. Even as Chapel watched in utter desolation the boat’s engines spun up a great flume of water and it raced for the horizon.

Favorov had made good his escape.

He lifted his pistol and took a shot at the retreating vessel, but he knew he would never hit a moving target in the dark like that. He didn’t even see where his bullet struck the water. It was over.