Amber

Chapter 24

Maddock flicked on his flashlight as he and Bones prepared to explore the cliff caves. “Someone should stay out here in case Professor tries to communicate.”

“Or if he tries to climb over into this cave,” Bones added.

Maddock looked to Willis, who had just finished cleaning and wrapping his leg wound with the trauma kit in his pack. “You think you could keep Professor from falling if you had to?”

Willis guffawed. “Man, please!” He eyed Leopov, who stood with her hands on her hips, awaiting his response. “One good leg or not, if you don’t think I can bust more weight than this little thing… ”

Leopov shot Willis another of her trademarked intimidating stares, but remained quiet. Maddock suspected she didn’t challenge Willis only because she would rather explore the cave with him and Bones than remain out here by herself, but it didn’t much matter to him. They needed someone on the edge of the cave for Professor, and to keep watch in general. He didn’t think the Russians would bother to send a climbing kill team up after them when they could try to snipe them from the walls with little effort, but he couldn’t be one hundred percent positive about that assumption, either. Better safe than sorry.

“Okay, Willis, keep watch here and listen for Professor. Hold on… ” Maddock shrugged off his pack again and removed from it a pair of walkie-talkies. He gave one to Willis. “Channel 3. Not sure what kind of range we’ll get inside all this rock, but it’s worth a try if you need to get a hold of us.” Willis nodded and then set to work re-rigging a safety line in case it should be needed for Professor’s return.

Then Maddock, Bones and Leopov advanced deeper into the cave, all three with flashlights on. The ceiling of the cave was only about a foot or two above their heads, and perhaps fifteen feet wide, but it appeared to extend back quite a ways. They walked back until they reached a half-wall, where an irregular shelf of rock began six feet up, the lower boundary of a roughly circular opening in the cave wall.

Maddock played his light up into the new space. “It’s like a second shell blast opened up this cave back here.”

“A blast cave within a blast cave,” Bones agreed.

Leopov jumped, extending her arms over the ledge, feet finding purchase on the wall, and climbed up into the new cave. Maddock and Bones easily followed suit, and the trio paused at the entrance to the sub-cave while they shone their beams around inside it.

“Bones.” Leopov said softly.

“What?”

“No, I mean actual bones, over there.” She waved her light beam rapidly back and forth over a spot on the floor back and to the left of them. Maddock and Bones added their beams to the large pile of bones, and then they all moved to them for a closer look, knowing that the last time they found bones they belonged to German and Russian World War II soldiers. Could people have used this alpine cliff cave for a shelter, or even for strategic purposes?

But Bones’ voice put this unspoken theory to rest. “Animal bones.” He kicked a couple of the dirty white, elongated bones aside, sifting through the deep pile. “Kind of a variety, but looks like mostly birds, maybe eagles. Smaller mammals, like marmot… this one here’s not so small, probably a leg bone from a mountain goat type animal.”

Maddock looked around the cave floor. “I don’t see any signs of a campfire. So why would all those bones from different animals be piled right there, unless… ”

“Something ate them and left them there?” Maddock guessed.

Leopov appeared unconvinced. “What could get in here that’s big enough to eat animals that large?” She looked down at a two-foot long bone that Bones had kicked to the edge of the pile. None of them had an answer, and Maddock began walking to the rear of the secondary cave.

“Let’s see what else is in here. Except for the bones, so far it looks pretty barren.”

“As expected,” Leopov said, casting a sidelong glance at Bones.

“I never guaranteed anything would be up here,” he said in his defense. “We all agreed that—“

“Hey, look at this!” Maddock’s enthusiasm cut them short. Bones and Leopov met him in the far right corner of the cave, where a tunnel of sorts led upward from the cave ceiling. It was situated high in the corner, but the wall beneath it was naturally stepped, forming a kind of crude stairway that would allow them to easily reach the tunnel.

“Let’s check it out.” Maddock waited for a second, and when no one objected he began climbing up to the tunnel, flashlight still held in one hand, for it would now be pitch black without the lights. He called down to them from the tunnel, which had a rounded shape to it.

“It goes off to our right for some distance. I have to stoop, but it’s passable.”

Bones and Leopov joined him and they began to follow the tunnel as it curved off to the right. They moved along in silence, single file with Maddock in the point position, Bones at the rear. At a section where a large knob of rock protruded halfway into the tunnel, they had to shimmy sideways past it, but they all made it. Shortly after that, Maddock held an arm up, bent at the elbow, hand balled into a fist, the signal to halt.

He heard noise coming from up ahead. “Shhhh!” He hissed back to Bones and Leopov. He killed his light and the others did the same. Footsteps approached. Human, not animal, judging by the cadence. Maddock couldn’t be sure but he thought it was only one man. He drew his knife and waited, kneeling, but suddenly the footsteps stopped.

“Who’s there?” a voice called out, and Bones laughed in response.

“Professor!”

Pete Chapman stepped out into the tunnel with his light on his own face, lest there be any confusion. Friendly fire was the last thing they needed at this point. “Hey, fancy meeting you guys here! And what’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?”

Leopov laughed at his second comment while Maddock quickly shined his light behind Professor, just to make sure he wasn’t being forced out into the open by unseen captors so that they let their guard down. Satisfied he was alone, Maddock redirected his flashlight onto Professor himself, looking for injuries.

“You okay? You hit?” he asked, referencing the sniper fire that came so close to him right before he made it into the cave.

“None the worse for wear, but I’m afraid this outfit is done for.” He looked down and dusted off his jeans, which had several rips in the legs. His jacket was in tatters, shredded in a few spots. “How are you guys? Willis?” He shone his light around the tunnel, looking for him. His expression grew concerned when he didn’t see him.

“He’s okay,” Maddock said, realizing that Professor was worried that his gunshot wound was worse than it had initially seemed. “He’s holding down guard duty at the entrance to our cave.”

“We thought you might try to climb over to our side,” Bones added.

Professor nodded, grinning widely. “I thought about it, but decided to take a look around first and I found a larger cavern behind the first one, and that led into a tunnel… ”

“Same here!” Bones said.

“So our two adjacent caves connect,” Maddock said, eager to move things along now that the team had been reunited. “I wonder where else these tunnels lead?”

Professor’s face brightened. “There’s another tunnel in my cave, on the opposite side of this one, that leads off to the right. Maybe it goes to the next cave over, I don’t know, I didn’t check it out because I wanted to find you guys.”

Maddock appeared inspired. “We should take Willis with us and go explore that other tunnel.” They all agreed and Maddock used his walkie-talkie to call Willis while Professor, Leopov and Bones discussed what they knew about the tunnel system so far. Willis’ reply was weak, but audible, and Maddock gave him instructions so that he could find them. He arrived soon, and bear-hugged each of them briefly in turn before they set out down the tunnel single file toward Professor’s cave.

They reached it before too long and had to step down a rocky slope to get down onto the cave floor. It looked similar to the other cave, but a little smaller. Maddock pointed out a pile of bones. “There are bones in our cave, too.”

Professor scowled. “I checked them out and they don’t look human to me. But the presence of the bones leads me to believe that this tunnel may lead somewhere, because it would take a sizable predator to kill or even to drag animals of that size up or down the cliff wall into these caves.”

“Maybe some kind of mountain cat,” Bones said.

Maddock made his way over to the tunnel and shined his flashlight up into it. Like the other one, it was accessible from the cave floor. “Let’s see where it goes.” He climbed up into it and allowed his eyes to adjust to the very dim light inside while he played his beam around the confines of the passage. It looked much like the other tunnel, only this one sloped mildly up. When they others joined him he began to follow the tunnel in the only direction it led. They saw no branching paths or other options, only a single passageway that led upward at a shallow angle.

They came to a half-wall where the bottom half dead-ended but the upper half — above five feet — looked like it was the beginning of yet another tunnel. The lower half was smooth, without natural climbing holds, so they boosted Maddock up first and then he pulled up Bones, then he in turned pulled up the others. By the time all of them were up Maddock had already begun exploring down the length of the tunnel. They caught up to him at a fork in the passage, one branch leading right and the other, left.

Maddock directed his beam into the left passage. “This one leads up, while the other one… ” He swung his beam in the opposite direction, down along the other tunnel fork. “…this one leads down.”

“Probably to another one of the blast caves,” Professor guessed.

Maddock nodded. “So let’s go up.” He ventured into the left passageway and the others followed. This one was steeper than the others, and it was clear they were gaining elevation rapidly as they walked. A startling moment came when Maddock woke a group of sleeping bats, which then turned and flew out through Bones and the rest of the team, before correcting themselves and flying back past Maddock and up through the tunnel.

“This passage must lead to an opening,” Maddock observed, “or those bats wouldn’t go that way, they’d have went back to the blast caves.”

They trudged on, now realizing that they were walking over years’ worth of encrusted bat guano. Then the incline grew very steep, causing them to slip occasionally on the slick tunnel floor, but they kept on.

“Light! I see light!” Maddock exclaimed.

“We’ve traveled a long distance,” Leopov said. “I wonder if this could be… ”

“This is it!” Maddock stopped in front of a dead end, the tunnel having curved at a near right angle to point straight up where it extended about ten feet into a blue sky. Unfortunately the walls were perfectly smooth, preventing them from being able to climb without the aid of ropes, so Bones pulled out his grappling hook and went to work. He fastened a line leading up out of the tunnel stack and volunteered to make the first climb himself.

He planted the soles of his shoes on the wall, set a good grip on the rope with both hands, and then walked up toward the sky. He stepped over the lip of the vertical section of tunnel and for a moment they heard his footsteps, as if walking around up there. Maddock figured correctly that he was in a relatively open space and so was checking his surroundings for threats.

Before long Bones called down to them. “The summit! This it is it. Looks like we have it to ourselves. Come on up.” He tossed the rope back down and double-checked that the grappling hook was secured. The others climbed up and out onto the alpine summit.

“Wow!” Even Leopov was impressed by the view. They stood in the midst of a broad grassy plateau, spotted with rocks here and there, as well as a few patches of snow. Around them was a ring of even taller mountain peaks, whitecapped and shrouded in fog. Below them the plateau gradually sloped down, forming a high hillside that led deep into a valley far in the distance.

They had reached the summit.