The Florentine Deception (27 page)

“Should be safe and ready to go. Who wants to double-check?”

I stepped forward and inspected his setup. “It looks safe,” I said. “Potter, you set it, you go first.”

Potter hooked his harness up to the rope and turned to face us, his back to the chasm.

“All right guys, I'll catch you down below.” And with just a hint of a smile, Potter shuffled his feet to the edge of the crag, leaned backward, and allowed gravity to do the rest.

“You next?” I asked Linda.

“Sure.”

After Potter detached from the rope and gave us an A-OK, she stepped into position, fed the rope through her rappel device, and disappeared into oblivion.

Chapter 43

The three of us now stood along the edge of a hole-pocked, water-smoothed bowl a good thirty feet wide. A brackish pool of water—I had no desire to plumb its depths—filled its bottom. The air here was heavier and had a distinctly musty, sour smell.

“Take a look,” said Linda.

“What?” I asked. Linda tilted her head back and panned her beam across the near sixty-foot-high wall we'd just descended.

“This definitely looks climbable if we had to. What do you think? The holds look reasonable and are spaced pretty close together. Humph … except for that run up near the top.” She pointed. “That looks thin.”

“Next time we come out, we can give it a go,” said Potter.

If there is a next time
. “Okay,” I said. “Let's keep going. So far we're making good time.” I withdrew the iPod from my pocket and fast-forwarded it just past our current position. “Looks like we want to head straight up over the far edge of the bowl, and then down the canyon a long ways to a second pool of water.” I gestured to Linda.

“Onward, then,” she said. We sidestepped left along the edge of the bowl, careful to avoid the stinking pool of water, then shuffled up its far side using a series of natural pockets in the smooth rock. Ahead of us, two towering walls, seemingly formed of melted wax, created a narrow canyon that extended from the edge of the bowl off into the darkness.

The three of us cleared the edge of the bowl, scrabbled down a short slope, and then made our way down into the canyon. Down we traveled, deeper and deeper, our beams slicing through the darkness, dancing across the translucent walls as we snaked left and right through the narrowing ravine. At about thirty minutes in, the canyon forked into two separate channels. Following the video's cue, we veered left into the narrower of the two outlets, then right, down a second fork into an underground slot canyon that, at its tightest, tapered to just a foot wide. At this point, we had to remove our packs, holding them above our heads, and sidestep between the walls to pass. Finally, after traveling nearly a quarter mile in total, we found the canyon's terminus: a large, semi-cylindrical cistern, roughly thirty feet long by twenty feet wide by fifteen feet high. Knee-deep, algae-covered water filled the boulder-strewn reservoir.

I pulled the iPod out of my pack, and together we watched the next five minutes of the video at double-speed. After arriving in the cistern, the two explorers had waded through the muck to its far end and crawled through the cavern's solitary outlet, which to my chagrin was another narrow tube. Even more horrifying, however, was the fact that the tube was almost completely flooded, leaving just a few feet of breathing room between its ceiling and the putrefying, algae-laden water below.

“Lovely,” said Linda.

“Let's get this over with,” I said, cringing. I walked over to the chute, dropped my pack on an algae-covered rock, and eased my knees through the cool water until they settled on the bedrock. Then I grabbed my pack and manhandled it, half-sunken, into the hole.

“Careful, Alex!” said Linda. “Can you see the outlet?”

“Not yet.”

The first few feet on hands and knees were bearable and while the water drenched my pants and the lower half of my shirt, my face was at least a foot above the sour-smelling muck. I edged forward two more feet, pushed my pack forward, and to my dismay it began sinking lower into the water; the tube was sloping down. I turned my head around as far as I could manage in the cramped space.

“Shit! The water is getting deeper!”

“How deep?” asked Linda, her head poking into the hole.

“I'm not sure, one second.” I extended my right hand forward along the bedrock until I felt the change in grade, then inched the rest of my body forward. “It's hard to say. I'm just going to go for it.” Again, I pushed my pack forward, only this time the water swallowed it whole. I cursed and pushed on, my chin now just two or three inches above the muck's surface.

“Are we sure this is the right way?” I called back, nearly gagging from the fumes of the decaying algae.

“I think so,” yelled Potter from behind.

“Okay,” I said, peering forward, “I hope it's not too far. I'm going to try to swim underwater the rest of the way.”

“Careful, Alex,” said Linda nervously, “it's easy to get disoriented underwater. Whatever you do, don't panic. Just stay calm.”

“Thanks for the heads-up,” I said, “I'll be okay.”

The ceiling lowered sharply just ahead, leaving barely an inch of breathing room above the water's viscous surface. Keeping hold of the straps, I shoved my pack forward as far as I could, inhaled a mixture of oxygen and fumes from the decaying muck through my nose, and ducked under the surface. Eyes and mouth clamped shut, I shoved off of the rough walls with my hands and propelled myself forward. My body almost instantly ran into my pack, so I heaved it forward again then launched forward a second time. Totally blind and nervous that I'd soon run out of oxygen, I eased my head up until I felt the welcome coolness of air on my scalp, then on my eyes and nose. I raised my head farther, just exposing my mouth, and gulped a deep, though rancid breath. I tried to relax—at least I had oxygen for the moment—and used my left hand to wipe the muck from my eyes. I opened my lids to absolute blackness: my headlamp had shorted out underwater.

I panicked and took another gulp of intensely putrid air. A surge of stomach acid, bile, and partly digested food rushed up my esophagus and into the back of my throat. I swallowed hard, but my gag reflex was just too strong and a second esophageal spasm ejected a spray of vomit onto the water just inches from my face. The smell of half-digested food and rotting algae caused my stomach muscles to lurch and I gagged again, shooting a further surge of vomit from my mouth and causing me to rear reflexively. My head cracked against the ceiling, and as a shower of flitting stars streaked across my retinas, I collapsed face-first into the water.

Chapter 44

“Alex! Alex! Are you okay? Alex! Where are you?” Linda's screams sliced through the blackness and echoed anxiously off the walls. “Where are you? Potter! Where the hell is Potter?”

I opened my mouth to respond but managed only to discharge a lungful of rancid water in a painful spasm of coughing. Panicking from the lack of oxygen, I involuntarily gasped for air, choked on my own saliva, then retched again.

“Here,” I said, panting. “I'm sitting … on a rock.”

My lungs heaved and I gagged again. “Oh God that's painful,” I said, grabbing my chest.

“Alex,” she said in a more relieved voice, “are you okay?”

“Yeah, I think so. I must have a guardian angel or something. I'm amazed I didn't drown.”

“Just give me a second and we'll check you out. Damn, it stinks in here,” said Linda. “
Augh
, smells like …” She hesitated. “Vomit and rotten vegetables.”

“Your sense of smell is accurate,” I said into the darkness. “My vomit, to be exact.”

“One second,” she said. I heard her sloshing through the water toward me.

“You trash your headlamp too?” I said.

“Potter and I bagged them before going through. He yelled to you right before you disappeared, but I guess you'd already dived under.” I heard a zipping noise and a second later the beam of Linda's headlamp crisscrossed the room in search of me. “Jesus, you look horrible,” she said.

“I'm feeling all right. Now.”

Linda walked over and gently wiped the algae from my face with her hands, then examined my scalp.

“You've got another bump to add to your collection,” she said. “Are you feeling dizzy?”

I shook my head.

“Good. Look into my eyes.”

She shined her headlamp at my eyes; my lids shut reflexively.

“Open up,” she said. Then, after a few more seconds she smiled and said, “You'll live. But if you pull something like that again, it's not going to be the drowning that kills you. I'll take care of it myself.”

That smile—at once both loving yet hopelessly platonic—made me want to die. It made me want to kiss her more than anything else in the world, to tell her how I felt—how I'd felt for more than five years—but I couldn't. I didn't have the courage. I'd never had the courage. “Thanks,” I said, swallowing the emotion.

Linda panned her beam around the cave, which was small and dome-shaped, maybe ten feet high and just as wide, and filled with water.

“Oh, were you lucky,” she said.

“Huh?” I said dazedly.

Linda shook her head and pointed behind me. I twisted to follow her index finger—the boulder I sat perched upon rested at the edge of a good twenty-foot drop. A few more feet of blind, semi-conscious stumbling and I'd have been lunchmeat.

“Holy mother of Jesus!” wailed Potter. I spun back around to see him emerge from the water covered in gray, rotting algae strands like the Creature from the Black Lagoon. “What is that … that … stink?”

“Fife had a gastric spasm,” replied Linda.

After wading over to my boulder, Potter withdrew his headlamp from a plastic bag in the top of his pack and patted me on the shoulder. “Doing okay, man?”

“I've been better, Potter,” I said.

“Your pack's about five feet back. I kicked it walking over.”

“Thanks. Any remedies for a waterlogged headlamp?”

“Use your backup,” said Linda, “you can fix that one later.”

“Good point. Where was my pack, Potter?”

Potter pointed and I slogged through the water to retrieve it. In a minute, I'd swapped my primary and backup lamps, and was ready to go.

“All right, let's get this over with,” I said, after a few more minutes of rest. “If I'm not mistaken, this is our last rappel.”

While Linda set up the last rope, I reviewed the remainder of the video with Potter. Then, the three of us, in turn, slid down the twenty-foot length to the landing below.

“There's the final cave, just like in the video,” said Potter.

“After you, Fife,” said Linda, holding out her hand.

Needing no encouragement, I dashed through the ankle-deep pool of water to the mouth of the cave, and, stooping to avoid hitting my head, ducked into the shaft. And there, upon a boulder just feet from the mouth, sat a reinforced aluminum box the size of a cigar case.

“Holy shit!” I stared at the box, disbelieving.

“What are you waiting for?” asked Linda from behind. “Open it.”

“Here goes nothing,” I said. I dropped onto my knees, and, using both shaking hands, released the two latches and opened the box's lid.

Chapter 45

My jaw dropped. The box contained a red plastic Slinky, a costume jewelry bracelet studded with fake glass gems, a small stuffed teddy bear, a cheap ballpoint pen, and a plastic freezer bag containing a diary.

“What the hell?” Potter and Linda crowded beside me to see. “Toys?”

“It's a geocache,” said Potter.

“A what?” I asked.

“It's a geocache, Alex,” Linda said calmingly, “you've found a geocache. It's a hobby. People place these objects in obscure places, in the middle of the forest, behind a park bench at Disneyland, and, I guess, deep in caves. Someplace where they're not easily discovered. Then they leave hints on the Internet for people to find them.” She picked up the plastic bag and began to open it.

“I don't understand,” I said. “This doesn't make any sense. So there's no Florentine? Where the hell is the Florentine Controller then?”

Linda and Potter stared blankly at me.

“Could it be a hoax?” asked Potter.

“No way. Ronald Lister wouldn't be in a coma right now if this was a hoax. Maybe the diary has the location of the Florentine?” I muttered to myself, unconvinced. I seized the small leather-bound book from Linda's hand and opened its clasp. Its first entry was dated June 5 of 2009 and read:

Congratulations! If you are holding this diary, then you are indeed a true adventurer and are to be applauded! You have descended hundreds of feet, braved stalactite mazes, water-filled tunnels and of course your own fear—and you've made it in alive. Take an object in the treasure chest as your prize, but be sure to leave one of your own for the next explorer. And of course, please sign the guestbook. If you enjoyed the adventure, drop me a note: Salzo Kaza [email protected]
.

I flipped through several pages. Just two others had signed their names in the intervening years—both offered a description of their descent but neither left anything resembling a clue to the Florentine's location. The rest of the pages were blank.

“This makes no sense.”

“The guy on the video must have been a geocacher,” said Linda. “He's probably some wealthy guy. He hires a guide, has the adventure of his life, and makes a video.”

“I'll buy it, but then how is the video tied to the Florentine?”

“You found the video in the vault?” she asked.

“Yeah. And it was labeled ‘Florentine Controller.'”

“Maybe the guy hid it somewhere else nearby?” suggested Potter.

I gazed down the tunnel, which dead-ended in a sheer wall less than a dozen paces away. “Not here.” I shook my head. “It wasn't meant to be, I guess. Maybe someone got to it before us?”