Corsair

IN THE CAVERN’S DARKNESS, Eric changed out his ammo magazine by feel. Only two clips remained in the pouch strapped to his harness. His shoulder throbbed in time with his racing heart, and he hadn’t had a chance to tend to it. Blood ran hot and sticky all the way to his fingertips.

Another grenade thrown blindly hit just below the Saqr’s gunwale and dropped to the dirt. The explosion was muffled by the hull, but it rocked the ship toward the pier, and they remained at a ten-degree list. This time, the desiccated wood caught fire immediately, and with the flames spreading outside the ship there was nothing they could do to stop it.

“As soon as it gets light enough, we’re toast,” Mark said grimly.

Already, Linda Ross could see his dim outline growing from the gloom. She knew he was right. The darkness had saved them until now, but when the fire reached a certain size and its light filled the cavern the advantage would shift to the terrorists. The question for her was whether they should wait it out and hope to somehow beat back the attack or retreat and find another way out of this trap.

She made her decision the moment she acknowledged her limited options. “Okay, we’ll lay down a short burst of cover fire. Mark, Eric, take Alana, jump for the pier, and head away from the entrance. Try to find some defensible position. I’ll give you a thirty-second head start. Hose ’em again, and I will be right behind you.”

They quickly lined the Saqr’s rail. The fire burning aft of them wasn’t yet big enough to illuminate the entire cave, but they could see ten or fifteen feet out. The body of a terrorist lay sprawled on the ground at the limit of their vision, a black stain pooled under his chest slowly soaking into the dirt.

“Fire,” Linda ordered, and they loosened a blistering fusillade, raking the rubble that had been blasted to seal the cave from the river.

As soon as their guns emptied, Eric and Mark lifted Alana from the deck by her forearms. Linda was still shooting behind them, sniping into the darkness to keep the gunmen down. The three stepped up onto the Saqr’s rail and jumped the gap to the pier. Alana almost fell, and had Eric not grabbed her quickly she would have caught herself on her badly blistered hands.

Keeping as low as he could, Mark led them forward, his arms out in front of him. When he touched the cave’s back wall, he turned right and groped his way along the uneven surface. Alana couldn’t keep a hand on the rock, but behind her Eric laid one hand on her shoulder to keep her oriented.

They walked blindly for seventy-five feet, the staggering wall of sound from the renewed gun battle behind them never seeming to grow distant because of the confined acoustics.

Mark chanced flicking on his light. They were at the end of the pier. There was nautical gear piled just ahead of them, coils of rope mostly, but there was also some chain nestled in reed baskets as well as lengths of wood for spars. But what most caught his attention was the mouth of a side cave off the main cavern. A metal bar had been attached to the rock above it, and from it hung the tatters of what had once been a pair of tapestries that when closed would have afforded privacy inside.

“We might be okay,” he said, and they all stepped into the new chamber.

Eric quickly drew the shades closed and changed out his magazine to stand guard while Mark played the flashlight around the room, keeping his fingers over the lens to defuse the harsh halogen light.

“This is incredible,” Alana whispered reverently. For the moment, she forgot the pain radiating from her hands and the noise of the firefight raging outside.

The cave floor was covered with several layers of intricate oriental carpets to prevent cold from seeping through the rock. More tapestries covered much of the walls and gave the chamber the cheery feel of a tent. There were two rope beds on one side of the room, one of them neatly made, the other rumpled. Other furniture included several chests and a large writing table, complete with ink pots and feather quills, which had grown limp over the centuries and wilted over the sides of their solid gold stand. The desktop was inlaid with complex geometric patterns done in mother-of-pearl. Books were stacked on the floor around it and filled an adjacent set of shelves. An ornate Koran had the place of honor next to a tattered, dog-eared Bible.

There was an alcove next to the shelves. It was stacked floor to ceiling with chests. The lid for one of them was sprung, and when Mark shone the light in the crack the unmistakable flash of gold dazzled back at him.

He tried to see if there was an opening behind the chests, but with them so tightly packed it was impossible to tell without moving them. He shoved at the topmost trunk to dislodge it. The trunk wouldn’t budge. If it was full of gold like the lower one, it would easily weigh a thousand pounds.