Gone to Ground (31 page)

“Jim, I don’t like this. I should go with you. I...

“Maggie? O’Reilly?”

Both turned toward the new voice. Christina was at the mouth of the tunnel, head protruding into the small cave, looking anxiously between the two of them.

Great,
thought O’Reilly,
Am I going to have every damned kid up running amok in the caverns when the Enforcers storm the castle? Why can’t anyone stay where they’re told?

“Christina, what is it? You need to be back in the cave with the other children.” O’Reilly snapped.

“Maggie said to keep an eye out and see what the Enforcers are doing in the valley. It’s Rickards. He and the others are heading toward the entrance to the caves.”

40

Rickards looked at the entrance to the cave Harlan had found. It would be easy to miss, hidden behind the juniper and boulders. Add that to an entry way clean of any prints except for those of his men, and it would have been very simple to overlook.

Have to remember to compliment Harlan,
Rickards thought, looking back over his shoulder to where the men were waiting at the bottom of the slope.
Maybe in a year or two, when it won’t give him such a big head.
It didn’t matter how much time he’d spent with Harlan on this mission, he just couldn’t seem to warm up to the guy. Rickards wanted to catch the fugitives as much as the next person, but Harlan’s almost rabid eagerness was wearing on him, beginning to make him doubt his own motives.

Then there was this valley. Ever since they’d entered the canyon, Rickards had been struck by the peacefulness. Everything here, except for possibly that damned chicken, radiated tranquility, something that had been sorely missing in Rickards’ life since the disease took his wife. He hadn’t realized how much he’d missed it, until now.

Still, duty was duty. He had to believe in what they were doing. To doubt in his superiors, to doubt in the mission they’d accepted, would open the door to insanity. If he doubted, then he would begin to wonder why he’d sacrificed everything in his life that was important to him, including his wife. He couldn’t afford doubt because in that direction lay madness.

Rickards turned and headed back down the slope to where his men were waiting expectantly.

“Okay, here’s how it’s going to work,” Rickards started, fixing a stare on each man in turn. “I will lead. Harlan, you and Johnson next, followed by Peters and Larson. Donner, you will stay here at the opening and make sure no one gets by that shouldn’t. You will, I repeat will, make positive identification before you open fire. Got it?”

“Yes, sir.” Donner answered, obviously aware that he’d been left at the opening because of his dismal performance earlier at the house. No one wanted to go into dark caves, looking for a wily adversary, with someone who couldn’t be relied on to hold his fire when necessary.

The men headed up the scree and into the opening, each man armed with a rifle at the ready, as well as a sidearm and a flashlight. It didn’t take long before the flashlights were the only source of illumination, casting jumping yellow shadows on the walls.

It’s a good thing we left Donner at the entrance
, Rickards thought as he spun for the fourth time toward movement that turned out to be nothing more than a bounding shadow from one of the other men’s flashlight.

“Check all the side chambers,” Rickards ordered as the small group proceeded further into the labyrinthine caverns.

They moved deliberately deeper into the network of caves, moving carefully around rocks that littered the floor, apparently having fallen from the roof, or been carried down in floods. Every time they came to a new chamber, or saw a side tunnel, every possible hiding spot was thoroughly examined. Several times they thought they heard noises, but when they stopped and listened, there was nothing.

After the first fifty feet or so, they began to see some tracks, though it appeared that some effort had been made to erase them. In spite of the attempts at concealment, however, a footprint was occasionally evident next to a rock, or partially obliterated on the side of the main path. Not much, but enough to tell them that they were likely on the right trail.

That is, unless they were just exploring these caves,
Rickards thought.
Place like this, tracks could remain for years virtually undisturbed. Who knows if they came up here to hide, or just out of curiosity.

The men had been walking for a little over five minutes by Rickards’ reckoning when a soft thump followed by a muffled rattle from ahead brought him to a sudden halt, causing the men behind him to stop suddenly as well.

Rickards signaled for silence. It was hard to tell anything, with the odd acoustics in the caves which distorted the sound of the breathing of the five men. After several minutes of listening, during which Rickards began to doubt that he’d actually heard anything, he signaled them forward, moving slowly.

Another thump-rattle. Once again everyone stopped, breaths held, rifles ready, waiting for anything further. Soft echos whisper-floated around the cave, making the men look nervously about. Finally Rickards signaled the men forward again.

They were cautiously approaching the conjunction between the cave they were in, and the next chamber in the chain, when a man stepped from behind a pile of debris. His features were distorted by the leaping shadows of the flashlights, but his voice was unmistakable.

“Hello, Seth. Been awhile,” came the familiar husky rumble of James O’Reilly.

41

Where are they?
Maggie thought anxiously
as she paced back and forth in the small cave. It had been at least ten minutes since O’Reilly had headed out after Mark and she hadn’t heard a thing. Christina had just poked her head out of the passageway again to let her know that the Enforcers had entered the caverns. It was only a matter of time. She was so nervous her stomach tied into knots, making her feel as if she were going to start puking at any moment.

O’Reilly’s gun was missing. Before taking off through the tunnels he’d had Christina go back to get his holster, unwilling to face the Enforcers unarmed. But the weapon wasn’t where it was supposed to be. Mark must have taken it. The idea of Mark racing off through the caves with a loaded gun made Maggie almost as nervous as the thought of him facing Enforcers period. O’Reilly seemed unfazed, and instead had Christina bring him his hunting rifle. Maggie supposed that having O’Reilly carry the rifle was better than nothing, but it did little to calm her fears.

She kept her flashlight shielded, so that if the Enforcers made their way this far, the glow wouldn’t alert them. Immediately after O’Reilly left she’d pushed the rock back over the majority of the opening to the secret cave. If O’Reilly and Mark managed to dodge the Enforcers and escape through the main opening instead of coming back toward her, she had to be ready to protect the remaining children herself.

She figured if she heard or saw signs of pursuit, she’d quickly slide the rock the rest of the way over the entrance, erase indications of its existence with the juniper bough they’d been using, and run further up into the caverns. As long as the kids kept quiet, they should be safe, and hopefully she’d be able to avoid capture until the Enforcers left, or she was able to get behind them and make her way out of the caves to find O’Reilly.

When Maggie had first proposed going deeper into the caves instead of making a run for it, O’Reilly had rejected the idea, saying he didn’t like the idea of being cornered and trapped if he was caught in a dead end.

Now Maggie was planning to use the idea he’d condemned as foolish.

When O’Reilly left Maggie standing in the middle of the cave, the most pressing thought in his mind was finding Mark as quickly as possible and returning him to his mother, whom, O’Reilly acknowledged, would probably then strangle him forthwith.
I might even help her
, he thought as he raced through the network of caves, scouring the side chambers with his flashlight.

He was sure that Mark headed for the small cave that O’Reilly planned on using as a hiding place, but he didn’t dare take a chance that the boy lost his nerve and hid out closer to the secret cave.

Failure to find and return Mark wasn’t an option in O’Reilly’s mind. His own capture or death was acceptable, but he couldn’t bear the idea of returning to Maggie without her son. The look on her face if he came back without Mark would destroy him as surely as a bullet to the brain.

As O’Reilly neared the main entrance to the subterranean labyrinth, he slowed. The last thing he wanted to do was to race headlong into Rickards and his men. Several times he stopped and listened. The caves distorted sound dramatically, but the third time he paused he was certain he could hear men’s voices, echoing off the cavern walls. The voices sounded calm, and he was sure that they’d not yet found Mark, but as he hadn’t found Mark either, and as he was getting closer and closer to those voices, he didn’t find a lot of reassurance in that calmness.

Just as O’Reilly was beginning to wonder if Mark had headed further into the network of caves, rather than toward the exit, he spotted movement in a little side niche. Rocks, fallen from the roof, were piled along the side of this small half-moon chamber, leaving a two foot gap between them and the wall. As O’Reilly approached, he could see the ten-year-old boy huddled in that opening, hugging his knees to his chest, face buried in his arms..

“Mark,” O’Reilly whispered.

The effect on Mark was electric. He shot out of his hiding spot, scrambling over the pile of rocks, knocking them hither and yon. He hit the ground poised to run when he realized that his attacker was really O’Reilly.

“You scared the crap out of me, O’Reilly!” Mark said, voice high and quavering.

O’Reilly signaled Mark to lower his voice, aware that the sounds coming from the distant caves had stopped abruptly with Mark’s exclamation. The two held their breaths until they once again heard the murmur of voices. Alarm wasn’t evident in the cadence or tone of the indistinct voices and O’Reilly felt sure that they didn’t realize that Mark and O’Reilly were only a short distance away.

“If we had more time, Mark, I’d beat the living daylights out of you.” Mark looked up into O’Reilly’s face, uncertainty clear in his expression. “As we don’t have any time, we just need to get you safely back to the cave.”

“But...” Mark started to protest.

“No, Mark. It was brave of you to try and rescue us, but it won’t work. I promised your mother I’d bring you back, and truth to tell, I’m afraid of what she’ll do to me if I don’t follow through.” O’Reilly gave Mark a smile, trying to allay his fear. He could see he hadn’t succeeded, however, and he could also tell that he hadn’t succeeded in breaking through Mark’s determination to be the sacrificial goat, either

O’Reilly set his rifle down, leaning it on the rock pile. Taking Mark’s shoulders in his hands, he gazed down into the wide green eyes. “Mark, I know the man leading this group of Enforcers. You need to let me handle this. It’s not your job.”

Mark still didn’t look convinced, but he could tell the voices were getting closer. O’Reilly gave him a soft shake and hesitatingly the boy started to move back toward the hideout cave. He stopped and turned toward O’Reilly again.

The volume of the voices suddenly increased as the searchers entered the adjoining cave. The soft glow of flashlights lit the chamber beyond the connecting passage. O’Reilly gave Mark an intense look and motioned sharply with his right hand, making it clear that Mark was to go. Mark turned to run and stumbled over the pile of rocks, then, collecting his balance, took off as quickly as he could in the low light.

As Mark raced off toward the hideout, O’Reilly bent to pick up the rifle. His heart sank as he realized that when Mark stumbled over the rocks, a number of them, some large and heavy, cascaded down over the weapon. Even without the flashlight, he could easily feel where the heavy stones had damaged the firing mechanism. He’d forgotten to retrieve his handgun from Mark, and now the hunting rifle was out of commission.

O’Reilly hadn’t planned on an armed confrontation with the Enforcers in any case. He’d thought about it. It would be relatively easy to take the Enforcers by surprise in the caverns. However, others at the APZ would obviously know where the team was, and their failure to return would merely bring more officers down on O’Reilly’s head.
Still
, he thought,
a gun of your own would certainly have provided some comfort when dealing with the armed officers bent on killing you or taking you in.

O’Reilly turned back toward the advancing officers, who had again grown quiet at the noise created when Mark tripped over the rock pile. He had to give the boy time to get back to Maggie. There was no question of trying to hide until they’d passed, then attempting to draw them back toward the main entrance. He couldn’t take the chance that Rickards would split his force, sending some men forward into the caves, and relying on others to go back after O’Reilly.

The only answer was confrontation.

And hope to hell that someone didn’t open fire at first sight of him.