Day of Confession (30 page)

86

HARRY HEARD THE SCRAPE OF THE HULL against rock in the dark and knew the blond man was working the boat back down the channel by hand, coming toward them. How did he know they were there? How could he be that close in all the miles of underground waterways? From the single glimpse Harry had as the boat passed going upchannel, Salvatore had seemed to be the man’s prisoner, but even if he weren’t, if he were there of his own free will, it would still be next to impossible for him to know where they were. Yet somehow he did. And he was only yards, maybe even feet, from the entrance to their hiding place.

The only thing to their advantage, if they had an advantage at all, was that the outcroppings of rock into the channel made the cave entrance difficult to see. Elena had seen it only because of the angle of the motorboat’s searchlight as it turned into the channel. Without that, it would have appeared as nothing more than a shadow from an outcropping, a darkening above the waterline.

The sound came again. Closer than before. Wood or fiberglass scraping rock. Then again, closer still. Then it stopped, and Harry was certain the boat was directly in front of the entrance, so near that Elena, in the skiff’s stern, could reach out a hand in the pitch black and touch it.

Harry held his breath, his senses electric, every nerve alive, waiting for what would happen next. And he knew Elena was the same, helpless, terrified, praying the boat and the men in it would move on.

THOMAS KIND STOOD SILENT, one hand holding the boat against the granite wall, the other pressing the headset to his ear as he listened. His upper body turned slowly, left to right, and then back, listening, but there was nothing.

Maybe they weren’t here after all. Maybe he had been wrong in staying in this channel. Both the microphone and listening device were extremely sensitive. And the jagged rock walls and flat surface of the water were hard surfaces that acted like huge, multidirectional speakers that bounced sound everywhere. The voices could as easily have come from somewhere else. From the channel he had just left, or the one behind, which he had not yet ventured into.

THERE WAS A SOFT CREAK in the darkness just beyond her, and then Elena felt fresh air waft in from the channel. The motorboat was moving away from the entrance of the cave. The blond man was leaving. She crossed herself in relief, then whispered in the dark.

“He’s gone…”

“Give him a few min—“

Suddenly, a loud, sharp wail echoed from the blackness inches away.

Elena froze where she was. A hand thrown to her mouth in horror.

The wail came again. Longer and louder than before.

“Jesus Christ!” Harry whispered.

Danny was waking.

87

A SHRILL WHINE ECHOED ACROSS THE CAVERN as Thomas Kind touched the starter. The twin two-hundred-and-fifty horsepower Yamahas thundered to life, and the searchlight came on full, swinging in a wide arc across the channel as Kind brought the motorboat’s bow around sharply and roared back the way he had come. As quickly he cut the motors and let the boat drift, playing the light across the cavern walls.

HARRY DUG IN with his hands, grabbing at the rock overhead, pulling the skiff deeper into the recess. Beyond him, over his chest he could see the searchlight swing toward the mouth of the cave. In between, Elena was huddled against Danny on the flattened gurney that lay just below the top of the stern. Whatever sound Danny had made had stopped. He was still and breathing silently as before.

The light swung past the opening and moved on. In that brief second Harry saw more of the cave. It went straight back for another ten or fifteen feet before its height suddenly dropped and it narrowed sharply. There was no way to tell where it went from there. But it was all they had. That was, if the skiff would fit through it.

Thomas Kind swung the light back across the rock outcroppings. All he saw were the shadows where one ended and another began. But he’d heard the cry or whatever it had been. And this time there was no doubt where it had come from, somewhere here, along the wall in this section of the channel.

Now he swung the light back, his eyes intent, the deep scratches Marta had made on his face glistening in its spill.

Behind him, Salvatore sat in a kind of fascinated terror and watched, a spectator at a game. It was who Salvatore was, the most he could be.

There!

Thomas Kind saw it. The low ledge, the dark opening beneath it. Gratification tugged in a cruel smile as he turned the boat toward it.

THERE WAS A LOUD SCRAPE and then a dull bang as the skiff suddenly stopped.

“The flashlight. Quickly,” Harry whispered.

The dull rumble of the outboards grew louder, and the light became appreciably brighter as it danced off the granite walls, moving toward them.

“Here!” Elena leaned toward Harry with the flashlight. Their eyes met for an instant, and then Harry took it, turning, playing it into the cave behind them.

The skiff had caught up against the passage entrance. With a little maneuvering, it would fit inside it. But after that, who knew? The blond man knew where they were and would stay there, waiting for them to come out. And if they went on, trying to find an exit at the far end…. If there was one…. If not, what then?

Suddenly the beam of the searchlight was full on them.

“GET OVER THE SIDE! NOW!”

Harry threw himself forward and sideways at the same time, felt his hand fill with material from Elena’s habit, pulling her over the gunwale into the water in a hail of automatic-weapon fire.

Shoving her under the surface toward the passageway on the far side of the skiff, he looked back to see the skiff surrounded by the bright yellow-green of water roiling with gunfire. Bullets chewed up the cavern walls around him, whining shrilly off the heavy stern. It was only a matter of moments before they would cut through the thick aluminum and reach Danny.

Ducking under the water, Harry shoved the skiff hard from beneath, trying to turn it, get Danny out of the murderous line of fire.

Lungs bursting, using the underwater wall for leverage, he maneuvered the skiff around, fighting it backward and into the passage. Suddenly it caught against something, throwing Harry backward. He swam back, digging in against the underwater wall, trying to free it.

He couldn’t. His chest was on fire. He had to have air. Pushing off, he came up. Broke the surface full in the beam of the searchlight. For an instant he saw the muzzle flashes. Thought he saw the face of the man behind them. Calm. Unemotional. Firing in short bursts.

Bullets tore past his head, shredding the thin aluminum bow. Half a breath. No more. Harry dove again.

Once more he used the rock for purchase, this time driving against the hull with his shoulder. Still nothing happened. He tried again. Then again. Once more, then he had to have air. This time he felt something give. Lungs exploding, he hit it again. The skiff broke free and jumped forward. He went after it, kept it moving. Then he had to come up.

He felt himself break the surface. Suck in fresh air. At almost the same instant, the firing stopped and the light swung away. And the place where they were went black.

“Elena…” Harry’s voice rasped through the dark.

“Elena!” His second call, harder, more urgent. He imagined her hit by the gunfire and lying on the bottom, her lungs filled with water.

“I have hold of the boat…. I’m all right—” Her voice was close by and she was gasping, trying to get air.

“What about Danny—?”

“We’re moving!” Elena’s cry was sudden and frightened.

Harry felt the water become abruptly colder, the skiff start to move away from him. Somehow they’d entered an underground stream and were being swept along with it.

He went after the skiff in the dark, half swimming, half pushing off the rock walls. In a moment he caught up, grabbing hold as the boat picked up speed, the water taking them ever faster. Trapped, brutally pounded between the skiff and the passage’s granite sides, he fought the rush of water past him, worked his way along the gunwales, hand over hand, toward the stern.

“Elena!” Harry shouted over the roar of the water and the banging of the skiff against the rocks.

No reply.

“Elena!—Where are you?—Elena!”

88

THOMAS KIND STRUGGLED WILDLY. SALVAtore was much stronger than he looked. The scarf taken from his wife’s hair was twisted in his hands. Looped in a garrote around the blond man’s neck. Pulling harder, the Italian pushed his knee into the small of Thomas Kind’s back.

“
Bastardo
,” he hissed. “
Bastardo
.”

This was something Kind hadn’t counted on, hadn’t even considered from a man as insubstantial and spiritless as Salvatore Belsito. But he would not die because of it. Abruptly he let his body go limp and slumped forward, taking the Italian by surprise. Both men hit the deck at the same time. In a single motion, Thomas Kind pulled free, rolled to the side, and came up behind him. The razor flashed in his hand, and he grabbed the Italian by the hair, dragging his head back, fully exposing the length of his throat.

“That place—that cave where they were—” Thomas Kind took a breath and felt his pulse slow, come back to normal. “Where does it go?”

Deliberately the Italian’s eyes crept up to fix on the blond man standing over him. Oddly, he was not afraid. “Nowhere…”

Abruptly the razor slid across the base of Salvator’s nose. He cried out at the sudden gush of red that poured down over his lip and into his mouth.

“Where does it go?”

The Italian choked, tried to spit out his own blood.

“Like others in… here…. To an underground stream… and… then… back… to the lake.”

“
Where?
—North of here, South.
Where?
”

Slowly a smile crossed Salvatore Belsito’s face, a great, grand smile that was, in truth, his soul.

“I will not… tell you…”

89

HARRY HELD ELENA BETWEEN HIMSELF AND the skiff as it drove stern first against them, pushing them down through a thundering wash of narrow sluice that was dropping at an ever-increasing angle. The pitch black. The force of the water. His hands were raw and bleeding from trying to slow their speed against the unseen granite walls. He could feel Elena pressing against him, fighting to keep her head above water. As he was. If Danny was still inside the skiff—his gurney shoved against the stern—there was no way to tell.

Then suddenly there was nothing under them. Just air. He heard Elena scream. And he felt the skiff crush against him. Then they hit. Deep water. Blacker than before. The force sent him down. Twisting, spiraling, in a mass of turbulence. Then he felt himself touch bottom and push up, trying to swim to the surface.

And then he was up and through it. Choking, gasping, sucking in air. He saw light from somewhere cutting a ribbon through the dark.

“Elena!” he heard himself yell. “Elena!!”

“I’m here.”

Her voice came from behind him. Startling him, making him swing around. In the light he saw her swimming toward him.

Abruptly he felt his feet touch ground, and he staggered forward to sprawl on a rocky shelf, gasping, exhausted. Outside he could see thick undergrowth and sunlight shimmering off the lake beyond it. Then he saw Elena move up on the rock shelf beside him, but she was looking off, past him, toward the water where they had just been. Real time came back, and he followed her gaze. Then he saw what she was looking at, and he could feel the chill cut through him.

Danny was like a ghost. Pale, almost transparent. Gaunt as death. Bearded and nearly naked. Bandages all but washed away. Lying only feet away, staring at him.

“Harry,” he said. “Jesus H. Christ.”

THE SOUND OF DANNY’S VOICE hung frozen in the close air of the water cave as the brothers stared at one another, half in sheer joy and half in disbelief that they were not only alive but together and face-to-face after so many years.

Finally Harry stood and quickly slid back down the rock to where Danny was. Bracing himself, he reached out.

“Take my hand,” he said.

Slowly Danny reached up, their hands met, and Harry started to pull him up onto the ledge, sliding partway back into the water at the last moment to take special care of Danny’s broken legs that miraculously were still enclosed by the blue casts.

“Are you all right?” Harry asked as he crawled up beside him.

“Yes… ,” Danny nodded weakly and tried to smile, and Harry could see the exhaustion beginning to overtake him. Then suddenly, and from behind them, came a loud unrestrained sob. Instantly both men looked up.

Elena sat on the rock ledge where Harry had left her. Her eyes were closed and her arms were pulled tight around her, while her entire body shuddered with sobs of enormous relief. Sobs she tried to hold back but could not.

Getting up quickly, his feet slipping on the damp rocks, Harry climbed up to where she was.

“It’s okay,” he said kneeling. Then, gently putting his arms around her, he pulled her close and held her against him.

“I’m—sorry…,” she managed, letting her head fall against his shoulder.

“It’s okay,” he said again. “
We’re
all right,
all
of us.”

Looking back toward the water, Harry could see Danny huddled on the rock ledge watching him. Yes, they were all right. But for how long? And what to do next?