The Daisy Ducks (36 page)

"Daisy's in front, in the old mine," he
said in a barely audible whisper. "She all right, this dude
says." He pointed at the prostrate man. "He goin' off watch
at five-thirty—that's about a half a hour."

We left the sentry well trussed in the bush, with two
layers of gaffer tape over his mouth. We started along the ridge, one
man moving at a time. The last man in line would work his way up to
the front, passing all the others and tapping each man lightly on the
shoulder as he went up the line. The rest remained frozen, heads
searching in all directions for sound and motion. When he was in
place ahead of the first man, we'd pass a signal down the line; then
the new last man would turn and move up, leaving the man directly
ahead of him to turn around and watch our rear—and so on, over and
over. Then Roantis motioned for Tommy to peel off and go to ground on
the rock summit just above us. He settled down there like a mother
hen, his rifle across his lap and binoculars up. Those big lenses
would gather weak light and enable him to keep an eye on most of us.
He winked his watch three times as we left him, saying everything was
okay. Farther along, it was my turn. I went to earth just off the
rocky ridge, in a patch of brush between two boulders. I sat down,
holding the rifle upright between my knees, and flashed the others
good-bye. Good-bye and good luck. I sat looking into the dark all
around me. Half an hour. Could they sneak in, find her, and get her
out in that time? Yeah. Roantis was good. We'd pull it off without
any violence. We'd get Daisy out and go back to Asheville. I still
had doubts about Fred Kaunitz, but I hoped that if he were going to
pull anything, he would have done it by this time. I sat watching the
dark, keeping my ears alert.

It happened before I knew it. A man walked past me
down the ridge, going in the direction we'd come from. I saw only his
shadowy outline. Was it one of us? No. He wore no hat and carried no
weapon.

Wait a minute, Adams. This guy's walking down the
ridge from the direction that the Ducks are headed. How come they
didn't meet on the trail? Good question. Then my ears picked up an
unmistakable nighttime sound that every wilderness camper knows: the
brassy, patting stream in the brush that means somebody's taking a
leak. No doubt that's why the midnight walker was up and around. Wait
and see if he returns. Sure enough, within seconds he was back on the
trail and passed inches from me in the predawn darkness, headed back
to . . . where?

My mind returned to our crude plan. I was posted as a
lookout. I was supposed to give warning. Should I let off four shots?
In short order, things were coming unraveled. What the hell to do?
The best answer was not to shoot but to follow him. We were just too
close now to abort the plan. Also, the guy wasn't armed. Best to
follow him and perhaps even get the drop on him.

I swam out of the brush and headed down the rocky
ledge in a low crouch. When I caught up with him, I decided, I'd
smack him on the noggin with the pistol barrel and go ahead to tell
the others what had happened. It was by no means perfect, but it was
all I had.

Except the guy had disappeared. I moved faster,
making as much noise as I dared, but I still couldn't see him. Then
brush parted lightly to my left, and I froze in a full crouch. The
brush continued to snap and hiss softly, but the sound grew fainter
and fainter. The man had left the trail and was moving away from it
through the growth. But where was he going? I had to find out, so I
followed the noise.

I kept a safe distance behind, which meant I couldn't
keep close track of him. After a couple of minutes, I found myself
staring up at the pale rocky face that rose vertically only a few
feet in front of me. A cliff wall. Now where was he? He didn't
disappear into thin air, like Judge Crater. Where was—

Then I felt it: a cool draft of damp air that smelled
like old cellars and new sidewalks. It was blowing all over my face.
Coming right out of the mountain.
 

25

HELL, it was better to be in the tunnel than
silhouetted in the opening. I ducked inside. The passageway was very
narrow and twisting, which meant it had been a natural seep. The
floor was irregular and sloped, which made normal walking impossible.
I crept along, feeling the way with my hands on the narrow walls.
Sometimes the passage closed up tight and got scary. I can't stand
closed, dark places at all. But I kept at it, knowing that the other
guy had done likewise and that he sure hadn't come from just a broom
closet in the rock- there had to be some sort of room in there.

But three or four times I had to light back panic. It
would be scary enough in the daytime on a friendly spelunking
expedition. But in the dead of night, in the house of the enemy, it
was a bit too much. Having finally stopped again to catch my
breath—the fast breathing of fear, not exertion—I decided to
creep forward another twenty feet. If the passage didn't open up,
screw it. I mean, there are limits to my foolishness. I think. I
still had not turned on my flashlight for fear it would be seen. But
I knew my nerves wouldn't allow my going much farther without a
light. Two more bends in the passage was all I was giving it. One
bend. The passage was still dark and damp and so tight it kissed my
stomach and back. Not the kind of kiss I like. The kind of kiss I
like is with Mary in the sack. Or Janice DeGroot in the phone closet.
Good. Think about Janice in the phone closet, not the cave. Dammit.
That's what started this whole mess: Janice DeGroot in the goddamn
phone closet. Oh well, live and learn. Of course, my problem is that
I do the former, but the latter does not follow. One thing I was not
going to do was belly-crawl through a low passage. If it couldn't be
walked, the hell with it. If I got stuck on my tummy in a cave
passage in the dark . . . Well, I'd be a screaming meemy in two
seconds. And then I would spend the remainder of my life in a rubber
room, drooling and singing Gregorian chants. just to hell with it.

Why are you talking to yourself in your mind again,
Adams?—I asked myself Because I'm scared, that's why.

And also, I thought, if this passage does lead
somewhere—and I was beginning to doubt it—why didn't the kid,
Darryl Royce, tell us about it? Simple: he was smarter than he looked
and didn't want to give us any extra help. That's why.

Second bend now . . . around it. Glory be: a light.
The light was not close and it was a small bulb, almost around a rock
corner from my line of sight. It was obviously placed there so people
could find their way in the perpetual darkness. It wasn't there for
direct illumination. I went for it, looking around me as I walked. I
glanced at my watch. Almost ten minutes had elapsed of the half-hour
deadline. We had twenty minutes left until the fresh crew woke up. I
walked past the light with my rifle held at the hip. I prayed more
than anything that there would be no shooting. I passed the light,
turned to my right, and saw the cave open up. Was it a cave or a
mine? Who knew? Who cared? In back of the room were stacks and stacks
of cardboard boxes. As I sneaked past them I looked closely. Most had
the three-diamonds trademark of Mitsubishi or whatever it is, that
huge Japanese conglomerate that makes everything from autos to
transistors. What was in the cartons? Auto parts? No. Tunafish.
Tunafish? That's what it said: chunk light tuna, in water and oil.
Looked like five thousand cans of it. Looked like restaurant grade,
wholesale. Why all the tunafish? Was Royce smuggling something other
than dope?

Then I remembered: young Darryl had said that Royce
was a survivalist, a man waiting for nuclear war to destroy
civilization. And I had read somewhere that currency in the
post-nuclear age would consist mainly of two items: 22-caliber
cartridges and cans of tunafish. So I was looking at his nest egg,
his private hoard of survivalist currency. Like as not, the
ammunition was in some other passageway. In a cave, no less. So we'd
be back in caves for a few thousand years after the fireballs died
out. And then we'd learn to hunt wild game and wear their skins and
fur when it got cold. Generations later, we might scratch the soil
with the sharpened femurs of elk and bison (or perhaps the tusks of
woolly mammoths, if they decided to come back too) and put seeds in.
We'd start training dogs again, if any were left. One day a young
woman might have the temerity to mix sacrificial blood with soot and
ocher in her tough palm, sneak into the farthest corner of the clan
cave where she would not be seen, and by the faint light of a tallow
lamp begin with trembling hands to draw a crude wall painting of the
beasts of the fields . . .

Oh, it was a cheery thought.

I went on, making a gradual turn to my right. Ahead,
I could see what appeared to be a second room, bigger than the first,
barely lighted with several of the tiny bulbs. The light shone
against the rock walls so faintly that the shape and size of the
place were not clear. But it was big—much larger than the small
seepway I had crept through. A dark circle at its far end was the
main entrance. The place smelled of damp rock and wood smoke. I saw a
fire-blackened section of wall on the far side and the remains of a
fire below.

Men were sleeping on the floor of the cavern on army
cots. I stayed in the near-darkness of the rear of the cave and swept
the prone figures with my binoculars. They gathered enough of the
feeble light and magnified the images enough for me to see them. One
man stirred in his cot. Probably the guy who'd just returned from his
call of nature. Then I saw Daisy. What was holding her? Some kind of
shackle. Could we cut it off? Pick the lock? Blast it apart without
maiming her? Roantis would know. It was dark in there; the lights
were barely strong enough to allow people to see where they were
going. The one in the passage was probably burning all the time, and
no doubt they all were powered by a generator like the one Royce had
hidden in the old pump house back at the farm. If I could get to that
generator and kill the lights, perhaps I could sneak up to Daisy and
free her to run out the front entrance.

No, I'd better wait for Roantis.

But where was he? And Kaunitz and Summers? They were
supposed to have worked their way around to the front by now. Time
was getting short. I decided to go back, find Roantis, and tell him
about the passageway; it might change our plans and make things
easier. But I had to hurry.

I crept back into that cramped passageway, which
smelled like a new sidewalk, and wriggled and squirmed my way through
it. If it was so hard to get through, why had the man decided to use
it rather than the main entrance? But I didn't have time to consider
this fully because then I was fighting my way through the tangles of
brush and creepers again back to the narrow ridge. I looked up; the
cloud cover was thinning and the stars shone brightly. It was lighter
out; it would be dawn pretty soon. I walked as fast as I dared, half
bent over and holding the Colt at my hip. I was shivering. I didn't
think it was from the cold. The path on the ridge wound down and to
the left. After I'd gone about forty yards, I saw a pale yellow
opening in the cliff ahead of me, some twelve feet above the path I
was on. That was the entrance I had just seen from the inside. I went
on, and soon more of the place was visible. Below the entrance and to
the side stood the flatcar we'd seen on the spur earlier. In the
dark, I could see it only through my glasses. The spur ran on past
the cliff and continued westward. Near the flatcar was a clearing. I
could barely see the cartons and other supplies stacked on pallets.
The clearing was ringed with woods. Roantis, Summers, and Kaunitz
would be in there; all I had to do was find them.

I left the path twenty yards from the clearing and
took cover in the trees. It was a good thing too, because after
creeping forward a ways, I went to the edge of the bush and had a
peek. I looked up at the entrance and saw what I had suspected: a
sentry on watch just below the lip of the hole. He had a good view of
the clearing and would have seen me approach on the path.

Now it was obvious to me why the Ducks had been
delayed: the entrance twelve feet up a sheer cliff and a sentry to
guard it. There was a crude wooden stairway leading from the clearing
up the cliff face to the entrance, and the sentry was at the top of
it, looking down. Tricky. Very tricky indeed. It would take even a
man as skilled and cold-blooded as Roantis an hour. And that we did
not have.

I sank back into cover and kept moving. Before I'd
gone six feet, an arm caught me around the face, a huge hand covering
my mouth and nose.

I dropped the rifle and knew that in less than a
second I would feel the white-hot wall of agony when the dagger
plunged into me. Either my right kidney—death in thirty seconds,
and the most painful stab wound possible; or my subclavian artery,
between neck and shoulder—death in three seconds; or perhaps below
my rib cage and up into my heart—death in three seconds,
unconsciousness immediately.

Instinctively, I made a hitchhiker's thumb with my
right hand and shot it backward. I felt the wet syrup of an eye. The
hold on me relaxed, and I heard a deep grunt of pain. Without
stopping, I stood up and sent my right elbow back with everything I
had, then turned and kicked. The man faded back and sat down, holding
his eye with one hand, his groin in the other, and cussing in a
hoarse whisper. I heard reference to an intimate relationship between
me and my mother.