Veil

Chapter 16

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Veil leapt into space, then spread his arms and arched his back to control the angle of his body in free-fall. As he plummeted, the thought flashed across his mind that he was diving off a hundred-fifty-foot cliff into unknown depths, had been forced to kill an American soldier who was a super-assassin as well as—probably—a double agent, was being hunted by Defense Intelligence Agency operatives, had fallen in love for the first time in his life, had discovered a bizarre personal link with one of the greatest artists who had ever lived, and was now on the first leg of a journey that could end in torture and death—all because of a likable madman's obsession and impossible quest. Nevertheless, his own quest had to continue; he could not walk away from the Institute and Jonathan Pilgrim's insanity without going into hiding, and he had rejected that alternative years before. He preferred to make his stand here, on his unknown enemy's ground.

At the last moment he ducked his head, brought his arms together, and clenched his fists to absorb the force of impact with the water. He sliced down into the cold, dark depths, reversed direction, and pulled easily toward the surface at an angle that would bring him to the surface behind the waterfall.

He came up in roaring darkness and groped forward through swirling foam until his fingers touched stone. He hauled himself up on a ledge and unstrapped the belt that secured a rolled towel to his waist. He tore away the protective layers of plastic wrap, unrolled the towel, and searched through its contents until he found his flashlight, which he turned on.

The mouth of the cave behind the falls was high but relatively shallow, an amphitheater of smooth stone from which radiated a number of smaller caves of various sizes going in different directions. There were two caves, each large enough for him to walk in, which appeared to head toward the east.

Veil set the flashlight down beside him on the ledge and sorted through the rest of the things he had brought with him; jeans and a sweater, sneakers, a dozen extra batteries, chalk, his .38, and a makeshift compass he had fashioned from cardboard, thread, and a needle he had magnetized from the motor in the refrigerator in his chalet.

He dried himself, stripped off his shorts, and dressed in the dry clothes. He rewrapped the other items in the towel, picked up the flashlight, and entered the first cave on his left.

He had gone less than two hundred yards when the cave began to narrow, then abruptly became no more than a crevice that was too narrow for him to enter. He retraced his steps to the amphitheater and entered the second cave. Twenty-five yards in, the second cave suddenly branched off into three others.

Veil stopped to take his compass and chalk from the towel, and as he put the flashlight in his armpit to free his hands the beam passed across something in the middle cave that flashed orange. Veil gripped the light and shone it down the cave, and in an instant knew that he would need neither compass nor chalk to continue his journey. He also knew that he would have to rethink his original assessment of the hospice and the people who stayed there.

Someone at the hospice—Lazarus Person, patient, or staff member—was a spy. A route that could lead only to the Army compound had already been marked; there were orange blaze marks, spaced every fifteen yards, on the walls of the cave, and scuff marks in the dust on the floor.

Veil took his .38 out of the towel and stuck it in his belt. Then he started off on the route marked by the bright orange crosses.

It had taken enormous time and effort, involving much trial and error, to mark the route, Veil thought as he glanced at his watch and found that he was into his third hour underground. The route was not direct, but involved many twists and turns in a succession of radiating caves, many of which cut off initially to the north or south. Time was something neither Lazarus People nor the dying at the hospice had much of, since both groups were, for different reasons, transient. The hospice was essentially a closed society, and not even a permanent staff member could have spent the weeks it must have taken to blaze this route without being missed—unless there had been collusion by either Sharon Solow or Jonathan Pilgrim, or both.

Or unless his original assumption had been wrong, Veil thought, and the longer he spent in the marked caves, the stronger became his conviction that this was the case. It was the Army spying on the hospice, not vice versa. Why? Death by natural causes and searching for heaven seemed unlikely topics of interest for the personnel in a top-secret military research facility.

And always the problem remained of determining who had spotted him, and why it had been quickly decided that he should be killed. What else was Pilgrim hiding? Veil wondered. And was it hidden at the hospice?

Twenty minutes later he felt fresh air gently wafting in his face as the cave widened and sloped sharply upward. Veil climbed up the rock slope and found himself at a fairly broad cave mouth that looked down into the valley and the rustic, wooden buildings of the military compound. The buildings were spaced in a horseshoe pattern, with a larger building set at the closed end, the open end facing inland. The enclosed area of the horseshoe was a grassy commons area crisscrossed by white gravel walks, and with a flagpole in the center. The American flag flapped in the wind blowing down the valley from the sea.

Veil put his flashlight into the rolled towel, crouched down, and wedged the bundle beneath a ledge. As he straightened up, a soft chiming sound tolled in his mind.

Danger.

But from where? The chime sound had saved his life too many times in the past for him to doubt it now, but he also did not want to retreat after coming this far. He was silently crouched just inside the mouth of the cave, trying to decide what to do next, when his decision was made for him.

"We know you're there, Kendry." The voice was deep and resonant, absolutely calm, firm with self-confidence. It came from somewhere above him, just outside the mouth of the cave; the man would be in an advantageous position, with the sun above and behind his back. "We've been waiting on you. You tripped a sensor when you entered the cave, another one when you were halfway through, and a third just now. We know what you can do, pal, and we're not going to fuck with you. If you come out of there holding anything but the air over your head, you'll be at least twenty pounds heavier by the time you hit the ground. Come on, now; step out slow and easy."

Mambas.

Veil snatched up the towel, cradled it in his belly to protect the flashlight, then dove headfirst down the sharp incline. He turned and rolled as he landed on his shoulder, then slid on his back to the bottom. There he rolled into a ball and hugged his knees as he waited for what he assumed would be a murderous hail of bullets ricocheting off the stone walls and ceiling.

Instead there was a single, hollow phut. Something large, not a bullet, passed through the air over his head, smacked hard against a wall, and fell to the floor. Veil cursed aloud as the gas grenade exploded.