Due Diligence (29 page)

“Should I take some of these files?” I asked.

Flo looked at the stack of files and then at me. “How many can we squeeze into that backpack?”

“Four or five.”

“Do it. We can send a crew back later for the rest. Wait. I've got my camera. Let me take some pictures down here. These'll go great with the story.”

Flo shot through all three rolls of film. She took pictures of the room, of individual stacks of boxes, of me or Benny posed in front of the boxes, of the piles of medical files, and of individual pages from the medical files. When she finished, we stuffed four files (two Phrenom, two Primax) into the backpack along with the camera and film. We changed the flashlight batteries one more time and headed back.

“This is unbelievable,” Flo said as we started back toward the warehouse exit. “A United States senator may be heading for jail.”

“And you may heading for a Pulitzer Prize, Ms. Shenker,” Benny said. “Fame and wealth await.”

Flo snorted. “We'll see.”

“You know what I still have trouble believing?” I said as we approached the short tunnel that led back to the warehouse. “I just can't believe that Douglas Armstrong is actually the one behind the recent killings.”

We paused at the entrance to the warehouse tunnel and Flo turned to me. “Maybe not directly,” she said, “but he must know what's going on.”

“How many others are involved?” Benny asked.

Flo shrugged. “Sherman Ross? He's been Armstrong's confidant for more than twenty years. And Lee Fowler sure sounds suspicious. Also, don't forget the current R and D guy at Chemitex.” She looked at me. “Didn't you say he got uptight when you mentioned Primax?”

“He did.”

“Sounds like guilty knowledge to me,” Flo said.

“Believe me,” Benny said, as we started down the tunnel toward the trapdoor, “there have to be several others, too. Hell, they've been sitting on this secret for—what? more than two decades? And then along comes their worst nightmare: a due diligence bloodhound named Bruce Rosenthal. He starts poking around, asking questions, looking at documents, asking for additional documents, and all of a sudden they start to get worried. It looks to them like he's picked up the scent. So what do they do?”

Benny paused as Flo pointed the flashlight toward the ceiling. “Oh, shit,” he groaned.

When we left the warehouse tunnel, the trapdoor was open and the ladder and rope were on the ground against the side wall. Now, the rope and the ladder were gone, and the trapdoor was closed.

“Oh, shit,” Flo said.

“It's them,” I said in frustration, trying to control my anxiety.

“We're stuck down here,” Flo said. “Oh, my God.”

Chapter Thirty-one

Flo trained the flashlight on the trapdoor overhead. The door was at least twelve feet above the ground. I was five feet seven, Benny was five feet ten. Even if I stood tiptoe on his shoulders and was able to reach the trapdoor with my fingers—a fairly doubtful proposition in itself—the effort would have been futile. There was no knob or locking mechanism on the tunnel side of the trapdoor. Nothing but smooth, cold metal. Moreover, it didn't take a rocket scientist to conclude that whoever had taken the time and effort to remove the ladder and the rope would have also made sure that the trapdoor couldn't be opened from below.

“We'll never get that damn thing open,” Flo said, peering at the trapdoor. I could hear the rising panic in her voice.

I stared up at the ceiling, my mind racing. “How many more batteries do we have?” I asked her.

“Just one more set.”

“Turn off the flashlight.”

Flo turned it off.

“We have to conserve battery power,” I said. “Here,” I said, reaching for her arm, “take my hand.” She grasped it. “Benny, take Flo's hand.”

“Got it,” he said.

It was totally dark. “Let's go,” I said.

“Where?” Benny asked.

“Back down the tunnel.”

“In the dark?” Flo said uncertainly.

“It's not far, Flo. Come on. It'll be good practice for later.”

“Later?” Benny said.

We walked along the right side of the tunnel in the pitch black. I kept my hand lightly against the wall until it curved into the cave. I stopped. “Now you can turn it back on.”

She did. “What are we going to do?”

I slipped the backpack off my shoulders and unbuckled the flap. “See if there's another way.”

“Another way for what?” Benny asked.

I took the cave map out of the backpack. “Another way out of here. We are not going to let those bastards get away with this.” I unfolded the map and held it up.

Benny studied it with me. “Jesus, it's a fucking maze.”

I nodded. “They run for miles underground.”

Flo stood next to me as we studied the map. “Okay, Becky Thatcher.” She sighed. “Show me where we are.”

I pointed. “We're here. Over here is where the brewery and mansion portions are. Here's where the highway comes in.”

“No exits there,” Benny said.

We examined the map together.

“Maybe here?” Flo asking, pointing her finger at a spot down the cave to our left.

There appeared to be a narrow passageway that connected our cave channel to another channel. I moved my eyes slowly along the parts of the cave that we had already explored. I didn't see any other links to the rest of the network of tunnels.

“I think so,” I said. “Let me have the flashlight.”

She handed it to me.

“We don't know how long it's going to take us, so we better start on battery conservation.”

“Terrific,” Benny groaned.

I pointed the beam down the direction we had chosen. “Take a good look.”

We stared ahead for a moment, and then I clicked off the flashlight.

“Oh, shit,” Flo muttered in the total darkness.

“Give me your hand,” Benny said to her.

“Ready?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Benny said.

Just as we started forward in the pitch black, I heard a distant metallic thunk.

“What the fuck was that?” Benny said.

“It's from back there,” I whispered. “By the trapdoor.”

We were only twenty feet beyond the entrance to the warehouse tunnel. Quietly, and without any light, we moved back to the edge of that tunnel. I peered around the corner. At the far end of the tunnel, the trapdoor was hanging down. Through the opening came a thick vertical column of light, like a powerful spotlight trained on the cave floor. We could hear deep voices. Someone started lowering a metal ladder through the trapdoor opening. Down it slid, until the foot banged into the floor. More voices.

Please let it be the police
, I prayed.

Someone started down the ladder and stopped after three rungs. He was visible from the waist down—faded jeans and brown construction boots. There was a walkie-talkie in his left back pocket. We waited. Two more rungs down, and he stopped again, visible from the chest down. He was wearing a black long-sleeved shirt. He reached up through the opening with both hands. When his hands reappeared, one was holding a high-powered flashlight and the other an automatic pistol. I had already started backing away when his long red hair and familiar face came into view.

“Quick,” I whispered to Benny and Flo, pushing them back toward the direction we had picked.

We pressed forward in the darkness, moving as quickly as we dared. I kept my right hand against the cave wall. We had already been this way once—this was the section of the tunnel that passed by the Spaghetti Room, the Curtain of Creation, and Satan's Waterfall. According to the map, the passage to the adjacent cave tunnel was through a wall in the chamber that Mordecai Jacobs had named the Aztec Sacrifice Room.

The sounds of our jagged breaths seemed deafening as we walked and then trotted and then walked again. I tried to keep focused. Our pursuer didn't know the caves any better than we did. If he turned left at the end of the warehouse tunnel, we'd be in trouble fast. If he turned right, we'd have a shot at reaching the passageway.

We hurried forward in the total darkness with me in the lead and Benny and Flo right behind. To make sure we stayed together, Flo had a finger hooked onto the back pocket of my sweatpants. I had my right hand against the wall. I moved my left hand back and forth in front of me, like an antenna. The only noises were the scraping of our shoes along the path and the rasping of our breaths.

When I couldn't stand the blindness any longer, I whispered, “Wait.” I stopped, and Flo and Benny did, too.

“What?” Benny said.

“Look back,” I whispered, peering into the darkness, straining for the sign of a flashlight beam. “Do you see anything?”

“No,” Flo said.

“Give me your flashlight,” I told her.

We fumbled in the dark as I took it from her. I clicked it on. We were in front of the Saber Tooth Cemetery, the skeleton frozen in its attack stance. The flashlight cast weird shadows against the back wall.

“Not much further,” I said.

I pointed the flashlight down the path, took a moment to fix my bearings, and then clicked is off. We moved ahead slowly, me in the lead, my left hand out front. We'd covered about fifty more yards when I paused to look back. Way in the distance, I thought I saw a faint flash of light. I strained, trying to spot it again.

“Did you see that?” I whispered.

“See what?” Benny said.

“A light back there.”

“Oh, shit,” Flo groaned. “Let's hurry.”

We moved quickly down the tunnel toward the Aztec Sacrifice Room. Every ten steps or so I clicked the flashlight on and off to keep our bearings. When we reached the room, Benny stayed at the entrance as lookout while Flo and I moved inside. I flashed the light beam around the chamber. In the center of the room was a massive stalagmite, far thicker than a tree trunk. It rose four feet off the floor and ended abruptly in a flat, slightly concave surface that was large enough to accommodate a prone adult. A group of large stalactites overhead circled the slab in an oval pattern that mirrored the shape of the stalagmite.

As Flo and I moved further into the room, we were careful not to trip over the dozens of smaller stalagmites that were poking out of the ground or lying broken on the floor. We went around the sacrificial altar to the right and picked our way through the field of stalagmites toward the right wall. I moved the flashlight beam carefully along the wall as we maneuvered our way from right to left through the stalagmites, searching for the opening. We made clumsy, slow progress. We couldn't find it on that wall, so we made our way toward the back wall.

After what seemed like a long time, I spotted the opening on the left side of the back wall. It looked like a large mouse hole. I got down on my hands and knees and pointed the flashlight inside. The beam lit up the first twenty feet. The walls didn't seem to get any narrower, which was good, since the opening was no more than three feet wide and maybe two and a half feet high.

“Well?” Flo said. She was kneeling behind me.

I pulled my head out of the opening. “The map says it goes all the way.” I shrugged uneasily. “What other choice do we have?”

“None,” a male voice said as I was suddenly illuminated.

I spun toward the voice, startled. The man was standing maybe twenty feet away. He had the flashlight aimed at my face, and the powerful beam blinded me. I squinted, trying to discern his features, but he remained in silhouette.

“Stand up,” he ordered. “Both of you.”

As we got to our feet I heard a crackle of static from his walkie-talkie, and then he said, “Hey, John, you read me?”

More static, and then a voice over the radio responded, “Any luck?”

“Yeah,” the man said. “Two of them. Her and that other broad.”

“Stay there,” the radio voice said. “I'm coming. Over.”

“Yeah, over.” The man clicked off the walkie-talkie.

Two of them
, he had said.
Her and that other broad
.

What about Benny
? I wondered.
Where is he
?

The man was still shining the flashlight in my face.

“I can't see,” I said.

He chuckled. “Tough shit, lady.”

If Benny's still out there
, I told myself,
you need to keep this guy talking
.

“Who are you?” I asked. My eyes were adjusting a little. He was standing just to the side of the sacrificial altar.

“None of your business.”

“Who hired you?”

He laughed again. “Forget it, lady. You got lucky on me before, but this is all she wrote.” He waggled the flashlight beam at me. “Time's up. Down on your knees.”

“What for?” I said, my voice shaking.

“Just do it, goddammit.”

I did. He shifted the beam toward Flo. “You, too, chubby.”

As Flo started to bend down, there was a sudden smashing noise, followed by a grunt. The flashlight beam swung wildly. Another grunt, then a dull crunching sound. The flashlight dropped; the lens shattered. Total darkness. Then the sound of a body collapsing.

“Damn,” Benny gasped. “Rachel, give me some light.”

My hands were trembling as I turned on the flashlight. I pointed the beam toward Benny's voice.

Flo gasped.

Benny was standing over the red-headed guy, who was flat on his back and twitching. Benny was breathing hard, and he was holding a chunk of stalactite over his head like a club. I trained the flashlight on the body.

“Oh, God,” I said. The man's forehead was caved in—a bloody pulpy mess. One eye was open, the other smashed. As I watched in horror, his body gave a violent shudder and then became still.

“Benny,” I asked, “where were you?”

“I was out there waiting,” Benny said, still panting. “I saw someone coming. You were still back there looking for the opening. He would have heard me if I tried to warn you. I wasn't sure what to do. I looked around and grabbed one of these things and hid on the other side of this slab.”

I came over and hugged him. “My hero.”

“Yeah,” he said distractedly. “We got to move. You heard that radio. Someone else is heading this way. Where do we go?”

I turned and pointed the flashlight beam at the opening to the passageway. “Here.”

I kneeled in front of the hole and handed Flo the flashlight. I slipped off my backpack.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“The opening isn't high enough for me to fit through with the pack on my back.”

Flo peered in and leaned back with a shudder. “This is freaking me out.”

“Just get down low and start moving. You want me to go first?”

“Definitely,” she said.

I looked back at Benny. “I'll take up the rear,” he said.

I slid the backpack ahead of me into the opening, took a deep breath, and bent down until I was resting on my elbows. Ducking my head low, I scooted into the opening. I pushed the backpack in front of me with my left hand while I held the flashlight in my right.

I purposefully kept the flashlight off. In addition to conserving energy, I just plain didn't want to see what was ahead of me. It was plenty creepy already. I was moving through a cold, wet space that was so narrow I couldn't turn around. Darkness was just fine. My claustrophobia was bad enough without the added jolt of suddenly coming upon one of those ghostly white spiders or blind hairy millipedes.

I slithered onward in the dark. There were no other options: it was either forward on your belly and elbows or wait for the second killer to catch up to us. After what seemed like an eternity, I paused. “Are you okay, Flo?” I whispered.

“Yeah.”

I could hear the strain in her voice, the edge of hysteria. As distressing as this was for me, it had to be even worse for Flo. She was at least thirty pounds heavier than me, which made the fit that much tighter, and the physical and psychological strain that much more intense.

Poor Benny
.

“Benny?” I called softly.

“What?” he snarled.

“How do you feel?”

“How do I feel? Like a pig moving through a snake, for chrissakes. I'm on the verge of a fucking mental breakdown back here.”

“We're almost there,” I lied. I had no idea how much further we had to go, or even whether this narrow channel would stay large enough for us to reach the other cave channel.

The air seemed to get heavier as we moved on—probably more a factor of our growing fatigue than an actual change in atmosphere. But another change was definitely real: the floor was getting wetter. When we had started through the opening, the floor was cold and moist. Now it was actually wet. We were sloshing through water. I was soaking wet and exhausted. My right arm was starting to cramp from holding the flashlight off the ground, but I couldn't risk letting our only light source get wet and short out on us.