Day Of Confession

86

Harry heard the scrape of the hull against rock in the dark and knew the blond man was working the boat back down the channel by hand, coming toward them. How did he know they were there? How could he be that close in all the miles of underground waterways? From the single glimpse Harry had as the boat passed going upchannel, Salvatore had seemed to be the man's prisoner, but even if he weren't, if he were there of his own free will, it would still be next to impossible for him to know where they were. Yet somehow he did. And he was only yards, maybe even feet, from the entrance to their hiding place.

The only thing to their advantage, if they had an advantage at all, was that the outcroppings of rock into the channel made the cave entrance difficult to see. Elena had seen it only because of the angle of the motorboat's searchlight as it turned into the channel. Without that, it would have appeared as nothing more than a shadow from an outcropping, a darkening above the waterline.

The sound came again. Closer than before. Wood or fiberglass scraping rock. Then again, closer still. Then it stopped, and Harry was certain the boat was directly in front of the entrance, so near that Elena, in the skiff's stern, could reach out a hand in the pitch black and touch it.

Harry held his breath, his senses electric, every nerve sparking, the thump of his heart like a bass drum. He was certain Elena was the same, waiting helplessly, praying the boat and the men in it would move on.

Thomas Kind stood silent, one hand holding the boat against the granite wall, the other pressing the headset to his ear as he listened. His upper body turned slowly, left to right, and then back, listening, but there was nothing.

Maybe they weren't here after all. Maybe he had been wrong in staying in this channel. Both the microphone and listening device were extremely sensitive. And the jagged rock walls and flat surface of the water were hard surfaces that acted like huge, multidirectional speakers that bounced sound everywhere. The voices could as easily have come from somewhere else. From the channel he had just left, or the one behind, which he had not yet ventured into.

There was a soft creak in the darkness just beyond her, and then Elena felt fresh air waft in from the channel. The motorboat was moving away from the entrance of the cave. The blond man was leaving. She crossed herself in relief, then whispered in the dark.

'He's gone…'

'Give him a few min-'

Suddenly, a loud, sharp wail echoed from the blackness inches away.

Elena froze where she was. A hand thrown to her mouth in horror.

The wail came again. Longer and louder than before.

'Jesus Christ!' Harry whispered.

Danny was waking.