The Columbus Affair: A Novel

CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE

ZACHARIAH HOPPED ONTO THE DAM AND EXAMINED THE GASH. Alle and Rócha climbed up with him. None of their flashlights burned. He’d ordered them extinguished after they entered the river. He did not want to alert Rowe or Sagan that he was here.

Water rushed toward the cave.

Rócha slipped off and stepped past where the water flowed, reaching for something. In the moonlight he saw it was a tool, and heavy.

A sledgehammer.

Had someone opened the dam?

Rowe? Sagan? Someone else?

Both he and Rócha were armed, their guns kept above the water on the trek over. Now his was again secure in his back pocket.

“What is it?” Alle whispered.

“I don’t know. But we are about to find out.”

———

TOM USED THE NOTCHES IN THE WALL AND LOWERED HIMSELF to the next level. Some were natural, others clearly hewn from the rock. He found Béne standing in thigh-high water.

He motioned with his light. “You lost your gun.”

The shoulder holster was empty.

“That’s okay. I’ve rarely needed one.”

Béne pulled his wet pant leg up and he saw a sheathed knife strapped to his leg. “This has always worked better for me.”

He decided to risk a look over the side, hoping there would be more notches for climbing. With a padding movement, setting his feet down cautiously with each step, he eased toward the edge. Sure enough, there were more notches, the next level about eight feet below.

“I don’t suppose your friend who knows caves told you what’s down there,” he asked Rowe.

“Nope. And you didn’t think this was going to be easy, did you?”

———

ZACHARIAH CAUGHT A WASH OF LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS BEYOND a rock ledge. He heard nothing except the roar of falling water. More lights continued to dance in the blackness. He crouched low, as did Rócha and Alle, and they used large rocks scattered here and there to work their way to the end of a ledge.

Two figures stood below.

Béne Rowe and Tom Sagan. At the edge of the next level, doing the same thing he was doing. Checking out what was below.

He signaled to Rócha, and a gun appeared.

“What are you doing?” Alle whispered.

He ignored her.

Rócha maneuvered through the dark, closer to the edge, planting his feet in the water. They’d get only one chance. It had to count. He was pleased to see that his man understood that, too.

Rócha leveled the weapon.

The shot was about twenty meters, but Sagan’s and Rowe’s lights made for easy targets.

Two pulls of the trigger and—

“No,” Alle yelled. “Stop.”

And her flashlight sprang on.

———

TOM HEARD SOMEONE YELL, THEN A LIGHT BLAZED FROM ABOVE.

He whirled and saw an illuminated man crouched at the ledge’s end, aiming a gun their way.

Rowe saw it, too, and leaped over the side.

A shot banged.

———

ALLE HAD POINTED HER LIGHT AT RÓCHA, HOPING TO BLIND HIM.

And she had.

He’d been caught off guard, one arm rising to shield his pupils at the same time he fired.

“What are you doing?” she said in a loud voice.

Zachariah backhanded her across the face, sending her down into the water. She rolled and kept her balance, planting her feet, then tried to stand.

“You stupid child,” he spit out.

Had she heard right? Never had he spoken to her in such a way, and never had he struck her. She still held her flashlight, which Zachariah yanked from her grip.

“I never wanted my father killed,” she said.

“Why do you think we are here? Your father and Rowe threaten all that we do. Millions of Jews have been slaughtered through time. Do you have any idea how many died defending the First and Second Temples? What are two more deaths? They mean nothing. Your father is in our way.”

In the wash of her light she saw fury on his face.

“You’re insane,” she said.

He lunged for her. “Since you feel the need to protect your father, then be with him.”

She tried to shrink back and avoid his grasp, but he grabbed her hair and wrenched her head downward, tripping her legs out from under her. She hit the swift-moving water and tried to stand. But he helped her along with a kick, the flow too fast, her body too close to the end.

She screamed.

And dropped over the edge.

———

TOM HAD AVOIDED THE SHOT FROM ABOVE THANKS TO A LIGHT that blinded the shooter momentarily, the fired round ricocheting off the cavern walls. By the time the shooter recovered, he’d pushed himself through the rushing water, light off, back toward the cavern wall. He kept his focus above, eyes mated to the darkness, but the man had disappeared.

A stab of light suddenly appeared, bouncing across the roof.

He could hear shouting but couldn’t make out what was being said, the words lost in the trills and gurgles of the falling water.

More movement above.

Then a scream jolted his nerves.

Female.

Could it be?

A body came over the edge and splashed into the waist-high water. Whoever it was came up, gasped for breath, and tried to stand.

“Dad.”

The word tore at his heart.

Alle.

He lunged toward her, wrapping his arms around her body, intent on stabilizing them both. Then he saw two forms above, one holding a flashlight aimed down.

“It is all over,” Simon called out.

The other man raised a weapon.

With Alle in his grip, one hand still holding his unlit flashlight, he dropped them into the water, out of the beam’s glare.

Simon adjusted, trying to relocate the targets.

But the current sent them over the side.

———

ZACHARIAH STARED DOWN, AMAZED.

“He took them both over,” he said to Rócha.

But he wondered. What did Tom Sagan know now that he didn’t? Water raced past his legs. He used the light and scanned the cavern wall.

And saw niches. Leading down.

Rócha saw them, too, and moved closer with his light.

“So let us see what it is you know,” he whispered.