The Florentine Deception (28 page)

She patted me on the back. “I don't think so. Whatever the Florentine is, I don't think it was ever here. The more I think about it, the more I'm sure that video was just a travelogue.”

“Then what are we missing?” I asked.

Both stared blankly at me. I sat down and began to run through the possibilities.

“I'm totally confused,” I said, after several minutes of thinking. “It just doesn't make sense.”

Linda patted me on the back. “Let's reason through it on the way up,” she said. “Maybe we'll see something we didn't see before.”

“Yeah, let's go,” I said dejectedly. “On second thought …” I grabbed the diary and shoved it into my pocket. “Just in case.”

Chapter 46

We'd just completed the hike up through the winding slot canyon and my lower back and legs were screaming. Linda and I collapsed at the edge of the bowl as Potter investigated the periphery.

“Give me five to rest,” I said, exhausted by a mixture of physical fatigue, lack of sleep and melancholy. Neither Potter nor Linda said anything, so I found a passably flat area at the edge of the bowl, lay down, doused my headlamp, and fell instantly asleep.

“Alex.” Potter shook me. “Alex, wake up. We should get going.”

“Whuh?”

“You slept nearly half an hour,” said Linda.

I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and sat up. Linda lay next to me, head on her pack and face pensive.

“You get any sleep?” I asked.

“Nah. I've been trying to figure this whole thing out,” she said. “But I'm not making any progress.”

“Join the club.” I frowned. “I don't know what I'm going to do at this point.”

“We'll figure something out, Alex. Hell, if it comes to it, I'll go with you to Thailand for a few years to disappear. We can climb at Railay Beach and drink margaritas until things cool down.” She tussled my hair gently and my heart skipped a beat.

“Don't go promising anything. The way things are looking, I may take you up on it.”

“I'm going up, guys,” said Potter. “I want to get this last ascent over with.”

“Go for it,” I said, then I turned back to Linda. “Hey, can you go next? If I'm going to be dodging killers for the next six months, I want to get at least one last climb in before we go topside.”

“You're incorrigible,” she said, a sad smile on her face. “No problem. You deserve it.”

I rummaged through my pack and dragged out my climbing shoes while Linda readied herself for the ascent. Then, after I'd laced them, I stood up and swept my beam across the wall, selecting a pair of shoulder-height pockets to start with. Hand over hand, I methodically worked my way up and right along the face.

“Ready for number two,” yelled Potter from between the anchoring stalagmites.

Linda patted me on the calf, threw her pack over her shoulders, and hooked herself up to the rope. I continued rightward until I'd traveled up about ten vertical feet, then followed the pockets back down and took a seat near my pack.

“You're up, cowboy,” yelled Linda.

I opened my eyes.

“Already? All right, I'm coming,” I said with a yawn. I grabbed my pack, slung it over my shoulders, and then headed back over to the rope and connected my ascending gear.

“Here goes,” I mumbled. Slowly, I worked my way up the rope using the Jumars, sliding one up, then the other, my feet dancing back and forth between the dangling nylon étriers.

About thirty feet up I paused for a breather, dangled from the Jumars, and panned my beam over the rock's mottled face. “Under better circumstances, this would have been a killer route,” I yelled. I waited for a response, but got none.

“Linda?” I yelled. “Did you hear me?”

“…the hell?” her voice echoed down.

“I'm sorry?”

“What the hell?” screamed Linda. I jolted my head back, tried to see above the ledge but they were too far from the edge.

“What's going on?” I asked. “Is everything okay?”

I waited a beat.

No reply.

Fighting the fatigue, I began double-timing up the rope. Then I saw her. Linda backed up between the two stalagmites, and her hand concealed behind her back, began furtively waving me away.

“I don't know,” Her voice trailed off, then, “talking about. I'm telling you.” Her hand signaled again. Something was very wrong.

I looked down, my heart hammering, trying to figure out what to do. I was thirty-five, maybe forty feet above the ground and locked to the rope. Pistol buried deep inside my pack. As good as dead, a sitting duck. Noiselessly, I unclipped my harness from the ascending gear, careful to maintain my grip on the pair of aluminum Jumars still locked to the rope. Now totally untethered, I could wrap my legs around the rope and lower myself down, hand under hand. If I could just reach the bottom, I could hide behind …

“You can stop now, Mr. Fife.”

I looked up, stunned, both hands still clutching the Jumars.

Khalimmy leaned over the edge, a gray steel gun gripped tightly in his right hand, a Maglite aimed at my torso in his left. Potter stood next to Linda between the two towering stalagmites that anchored the rope.

“Please stop, Mr. Fife, or I'll have to shoot one of your friends.” He turned momentarily. “Both of you, turn your lamps off and throw them here.” He gestured at his feet. Both complied. “And you, Mr. Fife. Drop your lamp.” I removed my headlamp and dropped it as instructed. Its light disappeared a second later with a crack, leaving the room totally dark save for the beam from Khalimmy's lone Maglite.

“How?” I stammered. “How could you possibly…”

“We simply followed you here.” He paused to scan the room. “And I must say, this remote location does simplify things greatly. Now, Alex, I'm going to ask you a question, and I need an honest answer. If you give me an honest answer, no one will get hurt. Otherwise, I
will
shoot your friends.”

I swallowed hard and felt a drop of sweat run down my right temple.

“Just tell me what you want. I'll give it to you.”

“Thank you,” he said mildly. “Now I need you to tell me the password for the video.”

I thought for a moment: video … password … What password?

“Do you mean for the Florentine video?”

“Yes.”

“But there wasn't any password. It wasn't password-protected.”

“Come now, Alex, you don't take me for a fool, do you?” He raised the gun a few degrees toward Potter.

“I don't know what you mean. The video wasn't password-protected. Let me come up and I'll just give you the damn thumb drive. Please.”

“I have the video—you graciously left it out for me on your counter,” he raised his gun farther, pointing it at Potter's face, “but what I need is the password.”

“I just …” I stammered, “I don't have any password. There wasn't any password on the video.”

Khalimmy's muzzle flashed and before the event registered in my brain, Potter's body flew past me. Below, I heard the sickening crunch of bone impacting rock. No screams, no whimpers, just stillness.

“What the fuck did you do?” I screamed, “What the
fuck
?” Linda sank to her knees and began sobbing.

“Alex, I don't want to have to ask you again. I don't want to have to kill either of you, but I need the password.” Khalimmy walked up to Linda and pointed the muzzle at her forehead. “You have three seconds.”

“Three.”

“Two.”

“Wait!” I yelled. “Stop! I'll tell you.”

Khalimmy withdrew the gun an inch. “Yes?”

“The password is 3729724, three-seven-two-nine-seven-two-four,” I screamed, rattling off my childhood phone number.

Khalimmy took a step back from Linda and stared at me contemplatively.

“Now, Alex, there are two possibilities. One is that you're lying to me to save yourself. The other is that you've finally come to your senses.” He scratched his grizzled chin with the tip of his gun. “The problem is that I can't tell which is which. So I think I'm going to have to turn the screws just a little tighter and make sure you're not lying to me.”

“I told you the password. Please, just go, leave us.”

“Not quite yet, Alex.” Khalimmy lowered the gun and fired. Linda's body spasmed.

“Fuck!” I screamed, spittle shooting from my mouth. “Why? What did she do to you? I told you the fucking password.”

“It was just a kneecap,” said Khalimmy, “now I'm going to ask you one more time. Tell me the correct password or I'll just kill both of you right now.”

“I told you, it's 3729724, I swear to God.”

Khalimmy lowered the gun to Linda's head, which bobbed lightly as she sobbed.

“What more can I do to convince you?”

“Are you sure, Alex? Because I will put a bullet into her head if you're lying.”

“3729724,” I sobbed, “3729724!”

“Well, I have to say, I believe you, Alex. At first I doubted, but now I believe you. Thank you, Alex.” Khalimmy raised the gun from Linda's head and aimed it at my chest. “But even given your cooperation, there is no way I can afford to let either—”

Linda threw her shoulder sideways into Khalimmy's leg, sending him staggering backward into the darkness.

“Go!” she screamed, “jump!” Khalimmy cursed, then fired again—this shot purposeful and deadly. Linda's silhouetted figure slumped to the ground.

“God help me,” I murmured. I closed my eyes, released both hands from the Jumars and launched backward.

Chapter 47

My muscles tensed in anticipation of the impact, of the jarring crunch of bone, but as the heels of my feet connected, it was with water, not rock. My body plunged deep into the inky pool until its liquid surged into my wide-open mouth and down my windpipe. Choking, I thrashed for the surface, my lungs begging to evacuate the asphyxiating fluid, the need so primal it overrode any fear of Khalimmy or his bullets. But my body refused to rise. The weight of my pack was dragging me down. I wriggled from the shoulder straps, jettisoning the pack into the void, and kicked upward. As my head breached the surface, a bullet whistled by my ear and into the water.

My mind willed me to dive back under as another bullet slammed into the water centimeters from my face, but my lungs revolted. A third bullet punctured the water's surface somewhere behind me mid-cough, then another torpedoed through the water, grazing my arm painfully. Amidst my violent coughing, I somehow managed to tread toward the edge of the pool, and just as a final shot ricocheted off the volcanic rock, I climbed from the water and staggered toward the safety of the overhanging wall. Khalimmy cursed from above and swept his beam along the bowl's pocked edges for a target.

Leaning against the wall, I grabbed my chest and heaved, then finally took a full breath. I coughed, ejecting the final vestiges of water from my lungs, then inhaled again. Khalimmy's beam zagged closer to the wall and scanned right. I edged left, toward the cover of a dense colony of stalagmites just beyond the edge of the bowl, my body in the shadows, pressed hard against the cliff face.

Khalimmy's beam passed behind me and left. Reaching the edge of the wall, I waited until the beam reversed its course, then spun and dove into the thicket of rocks. Khalimmy screamed and sent a pair of slugs ricocheting off the towering rocks.

“Fuck you!” I spat. “You're going to fry.”

“Hardly.” His footfalls echoed off the cave walls. “But I can't say the same for you.” I peered from behind a stalagmite. Khalimmy had rested his gun and flashlight on a boulder and was now rapidly retracting the rope.

“Thank you for the password, Mr. Fife,” he said, as the tail of the rope cleared the overhang and disappeared. “I'm afraid I won't have the satisfaction of seeing you die myself, but I'll revel in the knowledge that you'll soon suffer a painful death from hunger or thirst. Good enough.”

The sound of Khalimmy's footsteps receded, as did his flashlight's illumination, until finally the cavern settled into complete darkness and stillness.

I crouched behind the rock formation and tried to calm down, tried to put my situation into perspective but my brain refused to focus. I closed my eyes and zoned out, breathed in deeply, then out, in and out for five minutes. Slowly, my heart rate moderated and I remembered that I'd been shot. I carefully touched the wound on my left arm. My finger came away slick, but the wound was shallow, just a skin abrasion.

“Potter?” I spoke softly, fearful Khalimmy might still be hiding up above. No response, no movement. I stepped from behind the stalagmites and yelled this time. “Potter?” Again, no response. “Linda?” I waited, then shouted her name again.

“What a fucking mess!” I screamed. “What a motherfucking mess!”

Slowly, sweeping my hands for obstacles, I made my way over to the wall. Given the total lack of light, gear, water, and food, Steven, if he were still alive, was my only chance for survival. I leaned back against the wall and sank to the floor.

Over the next half hour, I called out for Steven every few minutes, hoping that he'd somehow evaded Khalimmy and come to find me, but each passing minute of silence brought more despondence. I rose to stretch my legs and relieve the growing ache in my lower back. What could I do? What were my options? My backpack and all its gear were a lost cause, waterlogged and submerged beyond my reach, my headlamp God knows where, Potter's and Linda's packs—and their spare headlamps—sixty vertical feet of advanced climbing above me. If I had a headlamp I might be able to make it up, but given the utter lack of light, it was suicide. I sank back down to the cave's floor and my mind wandered. Hours passed. Steven wasn't coming.

“Why did Khalimmy need a password for the video?” I asked myself. I wasn't sure—my memory of the preceding hour and a half was a hazy blur—but I thought Khalimmy said he had the copy of the video. But if he had a copy, he'd know the thing wasn't password-protected. If he had a copy, he could have gone after the Florentine himself. But he didn't ask for the Florentine. He didn't expect us to have it—he didn't expect it to be here. He just wanted a password.
The
password. There were no other files with the video—I'd checked multiple times. It just didn't make sense.