Beneath the Dark Ice

Eleven

Alex and Tank moved through the stygian darkness like phantoms. Tank was about ten feet up and to the left, his huge bulk barely making a sound. Both had their Patriot scopes engaged but Alex was now finding that his own eyes were delivering depth, peripheral and light enhancement that exceeded the military technology. He disengaged the night scope; for light amplification their background illumination was second to none, but the trade-off was in full-field perception. Alex preferred his own eyes.

His mind wandered, either his physical changes were accelerating or they were just flexing like new muscles being tried out for the first time. Only a few minutes earlier a small fury had started to burn within him; he had managed to contain it this time, but he worried about being in a more pressured situation — what then?

Tank suddenly dropped from view. Shit! Alex’s mind snapped back into focus. He covered the distance between them in less than a second — an abyss; the cave floor had abruptly ended.

Tank was just over the lip of a drop off into a black chasm, dangling with his back to the wall. The toughened fingertips of his caving glove were buried in the top of a small shelf, the other holding his knife as he tried to reach up and dig it in behind his head for higher purchase. In one smooth motion Alex leaned out over the rim of the cliff and took the knife from Tank’s hand. Swinging it around in an arc, he embedded it six inches into the cave floor with the sound of a sledgehammer striking a rail spike. His hand now secured by the deeply wedged knife, Alex grabbed the front of Tank’s reinforced caving suit and lifted. Tank, fully kitted out, must have weighed over 250 pounds; Alex lifted him up and over the lip like he was little more than a laundry bag full of linen. He sat the big man down next to him.

“Watch that first step, big fella.”

Tank looked at Alex, then at his knife sunk into the stone of the cave floor. “Been working out, boss?”

“Nah, we were lucky — just got an adrenaline rush when I saw you go over. You OK?”

“Fine now, but praise the Lord, Ms. Jennings was right about these suits — you don’t need to take them off to use the bathroom.”

They stood on the edge of an abyss that dropped away into impenetrable darkness. Raising her chin and breathing deeply, Aimee could feel a slight breeze blowing up from the depths, carrying with it a hint of rich mosses and humidity. She stood a little back from the edge; there were two things that made her feel uneasy — swimming in the ocean at night and darkened heights. Even though it was much warmer now, she shivered as she remembered the time five years ago when she attempted to leave a downtown building late one evening. While waiting for an elevator to take her back to the lobby from the fourteenth floor, the double doors had slid open to reveal a shaft without the car. An empty black doorway which led into nothingness. Aimee, daydreaming, had stepped forward and had only been stopped from plunging hundreds of feet to her death by a watchful security guard. She had been nauseous for days afterwards.

Twenty feet across the gap the cave continued. Aimee watched Monica crack a glow stick, shake it to get maximum illumination and then drop it over the edge. They all held their breath and waited — and waited. After a while, when the stick had obviously passed out of range of their vision, and no sounds of it hitting bottom could be heard, Monica turned to the group.

“OK, climbing down is not a good idea,” she said.

The HAWCs increased the illumination on their torches and the strong lights showed what looked to be piles of clothing or packs on the cave floor over the gap.

“That’s them; they’re over there.” Aimee had stepped forward, her excitement at the chance of finding Tom alive overtaking her fear of the chasm edge. Alex put his hand out to gently hold her upper arm and looked over her head to Monica.

“We need to get over there, Ms. Jennings.”

Monica was already looking up at the ceiling to formulate a route. “No problem. I’ll cam-crawl across the roof and secure a line to the far wall. We can rig up a rope jerry-bridge and relay everyone over. Give me about ten minutes.” With that she stripped off her pack and removed a belt containing an impressive array of equipment. “About time I got to try out this new gear.”

Aimee thought she knew a little about rock climbers and their equipment. Many Saturday nights had been spent with a pizza, a bottle of red wine and the Discovery Channel for company. She had watched in awe as Edurne Pasaban of Spain, followed by the Italian Nives Meroi and Yuka Komatsu of Japan — three women — had broken the K2 mountain’s curse on women and climbed to the top of the feared peak in the Himalayas. She had marvelled at how these small women had ascended the 28,000 feet in freezing conditions while weighed down with all their equipment. She wished now she had paid more attention. However, she did remember the cams — devices with two or more half discs with small teeth that when operated sprang open and expanded into cracks in the rock. They were the tools of trade for rock climbers and mountaineers the world over. Monica’s version was slightly different and consisted of four spring-loaded cams with a trigger that looked like it could be easily operated one-handed.

Aimee watched in disbelief as Monica crawled and swung across the cave ceiling, placing cams along the way connected to a soft, twisted fibre rope. In no time she dropped lightly to the cave floor on the other side, still not even breathing hard. It was a simple matter then to set up the jerry-bridge. This was a basic construction that opened in a V shape with hardened plastic plates at the bottom where the V joined. You could simply walk across, placing one foot in front of the other.

Aimee felt her legs go weak at the thought of stepping out onto a rope bridge that was little wider at the base than her own foot. She hugged herself and thought: are we having fun yet? She looked up at Alex; he was absolutely calm and she drew strength from his presence.

After securing the ladder on both sides, Monica crossed back to test the bridge’s strength and give the team a quick demonstration of how to cross safely. She stood before them now with her hands on her hips. “OK, this is extremely safe; the bridge ropes are of a kernmantle construction which means they are soft to touch but have enormous tensile strength. Where you will be stepping is a polymerised plastic plate — I guarantee it will not break and actually increases strength under stress.”

She looked at Alex. “We’re good to go.”

Aimee drew in a shuddering breath, took her place in the line and focused on the pile of clothing over the chasm.

Alex nodded to Mike and Tank. They crossed without problem, and while Mike waited on the opposite edge of the crevasse to offer any assistance, Tank trotted ahead to provide some initial recon and some forward cover. The two medics crossed next, followed by Matt, Aimee, Silex and Takeda. Alex took one more look back the way they had come. Strange, he didn’t understand enough about his newly amplified senses to know exactly what they were telling him, but he could feel a presence behind them. Was it Benson? He looked forward again and past the group into the caves; there was also something there. Maybe it was the lost group he was sensing. It was confusing; he needed to stay cool, stay focused. He crossed the bridge and ignored the prickling sensation on the back of his neck.

“It’s all torn up.” Aimee dropped the thermal undershirt back onto the pile of clothing. Belts, backpacks and piles of ripped material, even boots were strewn around. She was shaking her head. “Why would they rip it up? Why would they even take everything off?”

“Disorientation, cerebral oedema, even severe dehydration — a hundred things can cause all sorts of aberrant behaviour, Aimee. Come on, we’ll find them.” Silex had put his arm around her and rubbed her shoulder. She looked at him and nodded.

“Thanks, Adrian, you’re probably right. I’ll be OK.” She went to rejoin the team but he held her and gave her arm a little squeeze.

“Are you sure, Aimee? I’m here if you need me.” His bald head bobbed at her and he was close enough now for her to smell his breath. She compressed her lips in a tight smile, nodded again and pushed out from under his thin arm.

“Check this out, you guys,” Matt exclaimed from further down the cave tunnel. There were more of the ancient glyphs carved into the dark stone of the cave wall. Monica and Aimee stopped as the HAWCs and Silex continued on a few more paces. “These are of a similar style to the ones back at the cave opening. Monica, look at this, it’s that same symbol I showed you before; the seal of the two brother warriors — the twins.”

Monica came and stood next to him. “What’s it all say?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Damn, if only we had that other guy from Central America.” Monica elbowed Matt in the ribs and he laughed.

“Well, I can see the symbols for the brothers and also for that eye and coiled ropes which is the symbol of the deceiver god — the Qwotoan I mentioned before. And there’s more about following the path to the underworld. Other than that, at this stage it’s what we in the archaeology business call a vanished language; the images and symbols are mostly a mystery… and would be to ev-ery-one.” Matt turned and shone his torch directly into Monica’s eyes as she mouthed the word magic again.

“I wonder where they all vanished to?” asked Aimee.

“I’ve been wondering the same thing. And I’ve been wondering a few other things about those two warriors,” Matt replied.

The medics, Margaret and Bruno, had joined them now, and Matt turned to them. “You know, this could be just coincidental, but there is an ancient Mayan myth about the creation of the universe that described their version of heaven and earth and the gods and creatures within it. It also featured two brave twins, Hunahpu and Xbalanque, the sons of the blood moon. In the myth, they travelled deep below the earth to their Hades, a place they called Xibalba. Like a lot of ancient races, the Mayan myths were thought to have been handed down from even earlier populations. What if the legend of the brothers wasn’t all myth? What if it was one of those stories that was passed down over the millennia and was never a myth at all but the documentation of an actual journey below ground by these two warriors.”

Matt was breathing heavily, and he sucked in a deep breath before continuing. “Aimee, you asked where they all vanished to. I’ve been thinking about that as well. This could be another population disappearance. These Aztlans could have sent out parties to all corners of the globe — that would explain how their writing style was seeded everywhere from the Egyptians to the Mayans. But the rest seem to have just disappeared. The disappearances and the name Qwotoan—I’ve been racking my brain about it; I knew I’d heard something like it before. The first English attempt of settlement at Roanoke in 1587. Over a hundred people disappeared without a trace, and the only clue to their fate was the word Croatoan carved into a tree. Do you see the similarity—Croatoan, and Qwotoan? It could be the same word, but expressed in different languages. If there is one thing that will cross time, geography and races, it’s a warning.”

The look on Matt’s face was as if he had just been handed two stone tablets from the top of the mountain. However, with Tom missing, Aimee was in no mood to hear about inexplicable disappearances. The scientist in her leaped at the vague but fantastical inferences he was drawing from the little data he had to work with.

“Matt, everything you have mentioned has, or will have, a scientific explanation.” Aimee saw Matt open his mouth and raise his finger to interject, but whether to apologise or debate she never knew as Takeda interrupted them both.

“Please. They’ve found something, you must all hurry.”

Alex kneeled down beside Tank who was examining something on the cave floor. “It’s Johnson’s gun. No rounds fired. No blood either, just a lot of skirmish marks and more dragging.” Tank looked at Alex with more anger than fear — it was a natural reaction; the team was as close as family. They all knew it was a deadly business they were in, but rated themselves as the best and looked forward to going head-to-head with any opponent. Johnson was one of their finest. So how did he get ambushed, disarmed and carried off? And how the hell did he get across the chasm by himself?

Tank went to hand the gun to Alex, but it stuck for a second. He held the barrel to his nose then offered it to Alex. He didn’t need to; Alex could smell it from ten paces back. “Phew, ammonia and it’s slimy,” Tank said more to himself than to Alex while wiping his hand on his leg.

Alex looked up at Tank’s brother. “Mike, go a hundred feet down the cave and hold your position. Report in when you get there and do not engage with anyone or anything.” Mike nodded, snapped off a quick “roger that,” and was gone.

The entire team had now crowded around Alex and Tank. Alex handed the gun to Aimee. “Dr. Weir, your opinion please.”

Aimee touched the substance with her gloved finger, held it up to her nose and sniffed. She also tested its consistency between her thumb and forefinger. “I can’t be a hundred percent sure being away from the lab, but I’d say this is ammonium chloride. But there’s something else — some sort of biological binder making it sticky that I can’t identify without further analysis. Dr. Silex…” Aimee held out the gun to Silex but he made no attempt to accept it.

“I’d say it’s probably an introduced contaminant. Maybe something the soldier brought with him and spilled.”

Alex ignored the scientist and turned to Monica Jennings. “Could this be a naturally occurring substance down here?”

Monica tilted her head. “Maybe, but unlikely. In deep caves, ammonium chloride can occur naturally, but usually in active volcanic regions, and usually near fume-releasing vents. But even then it dissolves quickly. This area doesn’t seem active enough to me and that looks fresh. It shouldn’t be here.”

“Secretion,” Alex said softly to himself, remembering the last communication received from Dr. Tom Hendsen and the organic substance he had found but couldn’t identify. Alex’s comm unit pinged once. “Mike, go ahead.”

“I got another drop-off. About a hundred feet straight down to what looks like a plateau with multiple exits leading off from the cave floor down there. At the lip here there’s significant ground disturbance and then the tracks seem to end. The Hendsen party seems to have launched themselves off the edge, but I can’t see any bodies or debris down below.”

“OK, Mike. Look for a way down or signs they could have descended themselves. Stay alert, we’re on our way.”

Borshov and his agents sped through the dark labyrinth. Like three black wolves closing in on their prey, they travelled lightly and in complete silence. Borshov pushed his men hard; he knew they still had ground to cover before they caught up with the American team, but he was confident there would be no ambush, no hidden detonations or trip-wires just yet. They were not expecting unwelcome company and besides, they still thought they had a man at rear cover.

Borshov stopped his men with a raised hand and, as he had done every thirty minutes since they had set off down into the tunnel depths, withdrew a small box which he pressed down onto the cold ground. A wire trailing from the back of the device ended in an earpiece which he pushed into his ear. The device was a miniaturised seismic resonator. It listened to solid surfaces and amplified vibrations so they could be clearly read. The small LCD screen on the back gave two readings: the distance of the loudest vibration and the direction. The Russian invention was created purely for use by its anti-terrorism units for “listening” though solid walls — a terrorist could be pinpointed simply by taking a single soft footstep.

From the last reading Borshov had taken, the Americans had been just over three miles in the lead, but at their current speed he expected to catch them quickly. He listened again for their footfalls and looked down at the small box for its directional readings. Good, they were still closing, now just over two miles between them. South-south-east with a slightly increasing descent — they must be climbing down at some sections. As Borshov was about to pull his device free from the stone it began to reset before his eyes. It had found another source of resonance. The figures increased rapidly until they stopped at numbers indicating a distance of about two miles, but nearly ninety degrees straight down, and shifting. Borshov closed his eyes to concentrate on the sounds; significant mass, liquid, moving. He pulled the device free. Underground river, he thought.

He gave a short sharp whistle to his agents and sped on again into the dark.

Monica was walking lightly beside Matt, alert to her surroundings, but from time to time dropping deeply into her own thoughts. Be careful, be silent, touch nothing, leave nothing behind; her caving experience made it all automatic now. She used to like nothing more than entering a pitch black cave for the first time, turning out her light and just standing there in the dark, opening her arms wide and just feeling. She would use all her senses other than sight to draw in all the smells, the minute sounds, and feel the weight of the stone around her. She’d done it dozens of times so why now did the thought of switching off her light in this cave give her a knotted, uncomfortable feeling deep in her stomach.

Matt turned towards her and could see the troubled look on her face. “Penny for them.”

“It’s nothing,” Monica said softly.

“Come on, tell Uncle Matt.”

“OK, remember how I said that caves were like people?”

“Hmm, yeah, some are easy, some are bitches; sounded like a few girls I knew in high school.”

“And some are secretive, that’s right. Well, this one is more than secretive; it’s hiding something and for the first time in my life I don’t feel comfortable in the dark.” Matt smiled at her and put his arm around her shoulders.

“Monica, if you’re ever looking for an excuse to get me to put my arm around you just ask, OK?”

“You oaf,” Monica said through a little smile, but didn’t push his arm away.

Alex was the first to catch up to Mike. “What’ve we got?” he asked while looking down over the lip of the drop-off.

“Only this.” Mike stepped to the side and indicated a building-sized stalagmite. About waist high on the column there seemed to be some discolouration about ten feet into the centre of the gigantic mineralised pillar. There were also faint signs that something had led away from the column to the edge of the drop.

“What was that… rope?” Alex tried to pick some up but it fell to dust in his hands. “Dr. Kerns, we need you here please.”

Matt trotted forward and dropped to his knees. “Wow. This looks like it was once an ancient type of Indian maguey fibre-rope. It’s made from a plant like the agave, and look at this.” Matt indicated the rope trail from the column to the edge and then over. “It was once wound around that stalagmite, and became embedded, fossilised within the mineral build-up. No idea how old it is though.”

Aimee shone her torch on the stalagmite then crouched down beside him, her own scientific interest sparked. “We can get an estimate of its age by judging how deep the rope is embedded within the stalagmite. Looks to be about nine to ten feet in; these things grow at about two millimetres per year, so I reckon that took around ten to twelve thousand years to build up.”

“That sounds about right; there haven’t been any plants like the agave or any of its ancestors here for over ten thousand years,” Matt said, nodding to Aimee. “It could be the brothers again. They could have used the rope to climb down.”

“What brothers? Would you like to share your theories with us, Dr. Kerns?” snorted Silex from the rear of the group.

Matt got to his feet and wiped the dust from his hands. Using both his helmet and hand torch he scanned the near walls; soon enough he found what he was looking for — the seal of the warrior brothers. He turned to Silex. “From what I’ve been able to translate, it seems long ago there was some kind of civilisation here. Before the ice covered everything up it might have been the father and mother of all our civilisations. I think it was being plagued or attacked by something they called the Qwotoan, which meant the deceiver or devourer or something like that. The ruler of this civilisation sent two warriors, a pair of brothers, to take an army and go and battle the Qwotoan—I think we’ve been following in their footsteps. The army was totally destroyed and only the brothers remained. I also think their adventure became a Mayan legend, and by looking at this rope I’d say they hadn’t given up on their quest and I reckon they went that way.” While keeping his eyes on Silex, Matt pointed with his thumb over the rim to the lower cave floor. Silex gave Matt a look like he had just smelled something bad and turned his back on the young archaeologist.

“Captain. Captain.” Silex was clicking his fingers in the air as though calling a waiter to his table. “Captain Hunter, it’s like trying to read Swiss cheese from up here. You are going to have to get us down lower so we can obtain better readings. Thank you, Captain, that’s all.” Tank snorted and Mike looked at his brother and winked.

Alex ignored Silex and walked past him a few paces into the darkness. Alex could sense them now; several of them were coming fast the way they had just come. If not Benson, then who? He closed his eyes and tried to picture the tunnels in his mind.

When Alex had been talking to Hammerson about his strange new abilities the Hammer had given him a copy of a secret naval report titled “Anomalous Cognition in Marine Mammals.” The navy had been using dolphins for all manner of experiments since the 1950s due to their uncanny ability to predict or sense danger. The scientific basis was that their unique brains could pick up everything from electromagnetic disturbances to sensitive seismic vibrations long before other animals. Hammerson’s inference was clear; he believed Alex was developing this ability. Alex opened his eyes; there they were. Their presence became clearer — four of them, no three, but one of them large. Alex made a decision.

“Ms. Jennings, can you get us down there quickly?”

Monica had been leaning far out over the edge, shining her torch along the wall to the cave floor. “It’s a basin. A piece of cave floor that has dropped due to ancient volcanic activity or from water passing over softer material. More likely water by the look of how the cave floor down there has been smoothed and the walls are surrounded by more cave exits. No problem. A straight drop by harness rope; all down in thirty minutes. OK?”

“Make it twenty minutes and drinks are on me.” Alex turned away from Monica and called Tank, Takeda and Mike in close. “We’ve got company, only about an hour out. Not sure if they’re hostile, but just in case I don’t want to be caught here with our back to this drop, or at the base of the cliff. We drop down, get under cover and take one final look for Johnson and the Hendsen party. Be alert but stay cool; we don’t want a stampede down here.”

None of the HAWCs asked how Alex knew about the contact; it didn’t matter, his judgment and orders were final.

The creature waited. Its great spread-out mass could feel the light footsteps of the little warm bloods through the miles of stone. It sensed more of them moving towards the larger group. It moved upwards once again in anticipation of the attack.