The Exodus Quest

IV

Khaled stared down into the darkness as Nasser and Faisal ran up to join him at the cliff's edge.

'What happened?' asked Faisal. 'Where's Abdullah?'

'He fell,' said Khaled. He turned to his two men. Faisal looked white-faced. Abdullah had been his friend. Nasser, by contrast, looked relatively composed, considering their situation, at least. 'He took the rope down with him,' he told Nasser. 'We need it. Go fetch it.'

'But I-'

'Do you want to get out of this or not?'

'Of course.'

'Then do as you're told,' spat Khaled. 'Fetch me that rope.'

'Yes, sir.'

V

Knox burst through the surface of the water, plunged on through, drawing his feet up as he went, striking the floor of the shaft hard, banging and scraping his feet, ankles and backside, his head slapping the wall, rough surfaces scouring his calf and arm, wind punched from his lungs, sucking in water. He kicked instinctively for the surface, coughed and spluttered it out, breathed gratefully in, oriented himself, pointed around his torch. 'Gaille?' he asked.

Lily shook her head wretchedly, all her energy needed to cling to the wall.

Knox swam around, feeling out for her. It wasn't easy with the rainwater cascading down. He kicked beneath the surface. The shaft wasn't large, yet he couldn't find her. Another breath, another dive, his hands outstretched, fingers brushing something soft. He grabbed at it but it eluded him. He went after it and then he had it, a shirt, an arm, his hand closed around a wrist, kicking for the surface, lungs burning for air, pulling Gaille after him, an arm around her as she reflexively coughed out water, gasped air.

He found a handhold on the wall on which to anchor himself, carrying Gaille slumped unconscious upon his shoulder. He shone his torch around this drowning prison, Lily fighting hysteria beside him, and the question formed unanswerable in his mind: Now what?