Lost Empire (Fargo Adventures 2)

“We two, we happy two,” Sam answered in kind.

“Nothing like a little bastardized Shakespeare to set the tone.”

CHAPTER 31

MADAGASCAR, INDIAN OCEAN

THEIR ENTRY WAS THANKFULLY SHORT. AFTER FIVE FEET OF hunched walking, they saw that the rock ceiling abruptly sloped upward and found themselves standing in an elongated oval cavern a hundred feet wide with a thirty-foot-tall, stalactite-riddled ceiling. Their headlamps weren’t strong enough to penetrate more than thirty feet ahead, but from what they could see the space appeared to be loosely divided into “rooms” by mineral columns that shone pearlescent gray and butter yellow in the beams of their lamps. The quartz inclusions in the walls winked and sparkled. The floor, a mixture of jagged rock and silt that crunched under their boots, was split by a narrow, winding creek.

“Seems like a natural place to start,” Sam said, and Remi nodded.

Using the creek’s path as a guide, they began moving into the cave.

“SOMEWHAT ANTICLIMACTIC,” Remi said after a few minutes.

“I know. The day is young, though.”

Their last spelunking adventure had ended with not only the solution of the mystery of Napoleon’s lost cellar but also a discovery that was helping rewrite parts of ancient Greek history.

They continued on, covering a hundred feet, then two hundred. Sam’s headlamp picked out a wedge-shaped wall ahead from whose base the creek gushed. On either side of the wall, a tunnel curved back into darkness.

“Your pick,” Sam said. “Left or right?”

“Right.”

They hopped over the creek and started down the right-hand tunnel. After twenty feet the floor sloped down, and they found themselves standing in calf-deep water. Sam shined his beam over the surface; there was a slight eddying current. They kept walking.

Remi stopped and put her index finger to her lips.

She clicked off her headlamp. Sam did the same.

Then, following ten seconds of silence, a sound: something moving in the darkness ahead. Like leather scraping against stone. More silence, then another sound: like a heavy wet towel striking rock.

Sam and Remi looked at each other and, in near unison, mouthed: Crocodile. The leather was scaled skin rubbing on rock; the wet towel, a heavily muscled tail slapping stone. Splashing.

Heavy feet plodded through water. Sam drew the Webley and pointed it into the darkness. Together, he and Remi clicked on their headlamps.

Twenty feet away and sloshing directly toward them was a crocodile snout; just behind the snout a pair of heavy-lidded eyes staring back at them. Farther back, at the edge of their headlamp beams, they could see a half dozen scaly bodies writhing about, eyes flashing, mouths agape, tails whipping.

“Flare,” Sam said.

Remi didn’t hesitate. With a hiss, the tunnel filled with flickering red light. Remi lowered the flare to knee level and waved it before the oncoming crocodile, which stopped, opened its mouth, and let out a low hiss.

“The Kid was right,” she said. “They don’t care for it.”

“For now. Start backing up. Slowly. Don’t turn your back on it.”

In lockstep, with Remi’s eyes fixed on the approaching crocodile, they began retreating. Sam glanced over his shoulder. “Another ten steps and we’re at the ramp, then the narrow part.”

“Okay.”

“When we get there, plant the flare in the sand. We’ll see how they like that.”

When they reached the spot, Sam patted Remi’s shoulder. She knelt down, jammed the flare into the silt, then stood up and kept back-stepping, with Sam’s hand still on her shoulder. Halfway up the ramp, the crocodile stopped six feet before the hissing flare. It scrabbled first to the left, then to the right, then stopped again. It let out another hiss, then backed down the ramp and into the water. After a few seconds it disappeared from view.

“How long do flares last?” Remi asked.

“That kind? Ten or fifteen minutes. With luck, long enough for us to check the other tunnel.”