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“No, thanks.”
After twenty feet the tunnel began sloping downward, first gently, then more dramatically until they were sidestepping and groping the walls for handholds. The minutes ticked by. They turned a corner and Sam skidded to a stop, sliding a few feet before bumping into a wall.
“Dead end,” Remi said.
“Not quite.”
Where the wall met the floor there was a horizontal split. Sam crouched down and shined his headlamp inside. It was barely eighteen inches high. Cool air gushed from the opening.
“That might be the other entrance,” Remi said. “I’ll check it out.”
“Too risky.”
Behind them a voice echoed down the tunnel: “Anything?” It was K holkov. In turn, two voices called back, “Nothing!”
“Bondaruk, Kholkov, and two others,” Sam said.
“I’m going,” Remi said.
“Remi—”
“There’s less chance of me getting stuck. If I do we’ll need your strength to get me back out. Don’t worry, I’ll just go in a few feet and see what there is to see.”
Sam frowned, but nodded.
She took off her pack and harness. Sam knotted one end of the rope to her ankle and she dropped to her belly and crawled into the split. When she was up to her ankles Sam put his mouth near the opening and rasped, “That’s far enough.”
“Hold on, there’s something just ahead.”
Her feet disappeared and Sam could hear her scrabbling over loose rock. After thirty seconds the sound stopped. Sam held his breath. Finally he heard Remi’s whispered voice: “There’s another cavern, Sam.”
He took off his own pack and belt, stacked them atop Remi’s, then jammed the Xiphos between the packs. He clipped on the rope and gave it a tug. The bundle disappeared through the slit.
“Okay, now you,” Remi called.
Sam lay flat and wriggled into the opening. The sides and ceiling closed around him, brushing his elbows and the top of his head.
Then, behind him, a noise.
He stopped.
Footsteps pounded down the tunnel, followed by the sound of boots skidding on gravel. A flashlight beam danced off the rock walls.
“There he is!” a voice said. “I’ve got them!”
Sam scrambled forward, hands clawing at the floor, boots pushing off the sides.
“You! Stop!”
Sam kept going. Ten feet away was another slit; silhouetted by her headlamp, Remi’s head appeared. Her hands came into view, then a carabiner, at the end of her rope, clattered across the floor toward him. He grabbed, kept crawling. Remi began hauling the rope hand over hand.
“Shoot him!” Kholkov shouted.
There was a roar. The tunnel filled with orange light. Sam felt a sting on his left calf. He grabbed Remi’s outstretched hand, coiled his legs, and shoved hard. He tumbled out headfirst, did a clumsy somersault, and landed in a heap. The gun roared twice more, the bullets ricocheting harmlessly through the slit just above their heads.
Sam rolled over and sat up. Remi crouched beside him and lifted his pant leg. “Just a crease,” she said. “An inch to the right and you wouldn’t have a heel.”
“Small miracles.”