The Devil Colony (Sigma Force 7)

Before pulling his battery, he noted an unopened voice mail from his parents’ home number. He didn’t have time to deal with it at the moment. He also didn’t want to risk drawing undue attention to himself and the others by calling his parents. Besides, he had supplied his mother with a list of emergency numbers. That should hold them for a while.

Eventually Gray knew that the three of them would have to buy disposable phones, something that couldn’t be connected to them, in order to reach Sigma and determine the best course of action from this point. But for now they had to keep moving, keep under the radar.

With all their electronic tails severed, Gray headed due south, using a map he purchased with cash from a gas station. He edged his speed up along the back roads, avoiding major thoroughfares, eking out as much power as the old V-8 engine could muster. The only trail he left behind was oily smoke rising from his tailpipe, coming from a bad cylinder head.

At least he hoped that was the only trail.

As he drove, the tiny silver skull kept knocking against the steering wheel column, as if trying to warn him.

But of what?

Chapter 29

May 31, 6:43 P.M.

Beneath the Arizona desert

It’ll be okay . . .

Down on one knee, Hank Kanosh patted Kawtch’s flanks, trying to calm the dog. The explosions a moment ago had set them both to trembling. That and the cold chill of the icy tomb. With only the one flashlight, he sat in a solitary pool of light. The dark tomb loomed over his shoulder as he stared at the tunnel opening.

What is happening up there?

He should never have agreed to stay down here.

Kawtch burst up from his haunches to his paws, hackles bristling. A low growl of warning emanated from his throat. Then Hank heard it, too. Muffled voices, faint and growing louder, echoed out of the tunnel.

Who is coming? Friend or foe?

Then the scraping of boots sounded—and a small shape slid on his backside out of the icy passageway. The limber form bounded to his feet. Kawtch barked a greeting while Hank backed a wary step until his mind made sense of the newcomer, recognizing him.

“Jordan?”

“Get back!” the young man said. He ran up, grabbed Hank by the arm, and hauled him away from the tunnel.

“What’s going—?”

Painter and Kowalski fell out of the opening next.

They split in opposite directions, diving away.

Then an impossible sight.

From the mouth of the passageway, a massive black worm extruded into the cavern, shooting all the way to the ice-encrusted ruins. The tubular shape quickly grew misshapen, melting, sighing out with a sulfurous steam. A large bubble burst, spattering out hotter, molten material from the interior.

Mud.

More of the thickening goop poured out of the tunnel, piling and worming into the space, building higher and higher, continually burbling outward in surges and belches of half-molten mud.

Painter joined Hank and Jordan while Kowalski skirted around the cooling edge.

“The enemy sealed us in,” Painter explained, gasping a bit, holding his side. He waved them all farther back. “The explosion cracked through the cavern wall, unleashing a lake of flaming mud.”

Jordan rubbed his arms against the cold chill.

“We have to keep moving.” Painter eyed the mountain building behind them. “The cold down here is the only thing that saved us. It’s cooling the mud, turning it to sludge, forming a semiplug in the tunnel. But we can’t count on it holding. The lake building above will eventually melt its way down here, or the mounting pressure will blast the plug out. Either way, we don’t want to be here when that happens.”

Hank agreed. He stared at the Anasazi tomb. The dead souls here would finally get a proper interment, buried in more than just ice.

Jordan asked an important question. He tried to sound as brave as the others, but a squeak to his voice betrayed his terror. “Where can we go?”

“This must be a huge cavern system,” Painter said. “So for now we keep moving.”

Making the necessity for this abundantly clear, at that moment a great gout of fresh mud burst out of the tunnel, swamping across the cavern, steaming, bubbling with gas—before cooling. As they backed away, more and more hot mud flowed into the cavern, flooding in faster.

Painter pointed to one of the tunnels—the largest—that exited the cave. “Go!”

They fled at a reckless clip. Painter took the lead with a flashlight; Kowalski kept behind them with another. The tunnel ran deeper underground, still treacherously icy. Hank pictured the ancient flood that had drowned the Anasazi’s hidden settlement, imagining it draining away down this very tunnel, eventually turning to ice.

Jordan ran a hand along the low ceiling. “I think we’re in an old lava tube. This could keep going down and down forever.”

“That’s not good,” Painter said. “We need to find a way up. The mud will continue to drain deeper. We have to get clear of its path.”

“And we’d better find that way fast!” Kowalski called from the back.

Hank looked over his shoulder, but Kowalski flashed his beam down. It took a breath for Hank to note the water trickling underfoot now, pouring down from above. Kawtch’s paws splashed in the thin stream. The mud must have reached this tunnel’s mouth, melting the ice above and sending it flowing after them.

Painter set a faster pace.

After another ten minutes—which seemed more like an hour—they finally reached the tube’s end.

“Oh no,” Hank moaned, stepping next to Painter.

The tunnel ended high up a cliff wall. Painter pointed his light over the edge. They couldn’t even see the bottom of the precipitous drop, but a gurgling rush of water was echoing upward. Directly ahead, across an eight-foot gap, stood the opposite cliff. The lava tube continued on that far side. It was like some mighty god had taken a giant cleaver and split this section of the earth, cutting the tunnel in half.

“It’s a slip fault,” Painter said. “We’ll have to jump. It’s not that far. With a running start, we should be able to dive into that other tunnel.”

“Are you mad?” Hank asked.

“It looks worse than it is.”

Kowalski sided with Hank. “Bullshit. My eyesight’s not that bad.”

“I can do it,” Jordan said, and waved everyone back. “I’ll go first.”

“Jordan . . .” Hank cautioned.

“It’s not like we have any choice,” the young man reminded him.

No one could argue with that.