Gunslinger

“Well that ain’t fucking creepy in the slightest.”
Matt smirked at Dani’s assessment as Johnny threw a cable into the gloom. The lock on the gate had surrendered easily enough to Ana and a lockpick but it had taken them an hour to set up floodlights on the rotting slippery surface inside. The generator hadn’t liked the snow either and now they all waited as Jimmy plugged it in again and hit the switch.
“Not great but better.”
Dani stuck with her original comment, the dim bulbs in four corners illuminated the inside of the rough-hewn cave and they could all see another steeper drop into inky blackness in one corner. The floor was littered with leaf mulch and dirt, hard packed and slippery. Syn was somewhere up top on point and warned Ana to watch her step as Matt, Johnny and Zack hauled the rest of the equipment inside. She mussed up the snow and pulled the gate to so that it didn’t look too obvious they were inside as Johnny tapped his earpiece.
“Danielle, you still hearing us in here ?”
“Static but yeah, we can hear you. Charlie has the maps up.”
Charlotte blushed, the nickname was new and came from Zacky. He liked it so she had accepted it when everyone else picked up on it too. This time it was only she and Danielle that had stayed behind, Matt was needed for this mission and so the two women were left to carry on the research and mapping. Charlie had used the documents she had pieced together from the archive to make a rudimentary map of the tunnel system under the massive hill.
“Johnny ?”
“Hearin’ ya.”
Charlie traced her finger along the line on the screen and then looked up to where Zacky had his head cam and torch shining down the ramp and into the dark. It was a dead black down there, the lights in the first chamber now comforting when faced with such deep lack of anything. He adjusted the torch down and listened as his woman talked them through it.
“The tunnel leads down into a larger cavern where the SS were storing documents. Could be worth looking to see if anything is still there. There is a fork at the end of that room. The left will take you down deeper into the lower vault where the artwork was held. There is no record about the right but it’s been suggested that it was admin, if so that might help us with where the cache went next.”
Zacky shivered, testing the surface of the steps with one foot before taking a coil of rope from Jimmy and tying it around his waist. Jimmy followed suit, attaching himself to Matt and then finally Johnny. If one of them fell at least the others had a chance at pulling him back. Dani and Ana were checking out the first room in more detail, it was a slim hope that anything of value remained up top but it might also tell them if anyone had been in there lately.
“You two stay here. Maintain radio contact with Syn.”
Dani nodded at Johnny’s command, passing her rifle to Ana as the two women watched the men descend into the dark. Even the combined flashlights didn’t offer much help and progress was slow as they felt their way down slimy walls dripping with water. Jimmy was grateful for the thick gloves and heavy clothes they all wore, the cold was biting on his face as it was.
“Are we splitting up to search the tunnels ?”
Johnny nodded, letting out more rope as they entered a much larger room than the one above. It took them ten more minutes of work to set up some rudimentary lighting before they were happy that they could see well enough to explore. The earpieces offered nothing but static on the main channels so Zacky tuned his into the group frequency.
“Ana ? Dani ?”
“We hear you.”
“No signal to base down here. We can see the tunnels Charlie mentioned. Johnny and I will take left, Jimmy and Matt will take right. Anything up there ?”
Ana shook her head and Dani advised the negative, listening closely as Johnny gave instructions for one of them to come down and search the large room, the other staying up top to maintain contact with base and Syn. The two women pulled a face at each other, neither really wanting to go down into the dark until Dani pulled a coin from her pocket with a cheeky grin, pulling her hat further down over her ears as she clumsily tossed it into the air with the thick gloves, her friend calling tails.
The coin bounced and skittered on the ice before landing heads up and Ana let out a groan as Dani pulled a hip flask from her pocket and offered it in consolation. The two girls had always been close, a friendship strained by the failure of the last mission but still fond. Danielle winked at Charlie as a small argument broke out.
“You really gonna send me down there ?”
“You’re damn right I am.”
“But….Dani…..how could you….”
Syn’s laugh broke through and Charlie smiled as the head cams bumped together in a cute selfie before Dani fixed another rope to the guideline Johnny had pegged up and Ana started to descend the steps. She could see them curve, the flutter of bat wings above her making her wince and duck, every story she had read about bears and wolves in the caves of the mother country coming back into her head.
“My ma always said that her babooshka lived in a place like this…probably run into the old hag.”
Johnny adjusted his earpiece, pleased to be picking up Ana’s signal as they carefully fumbled their way deeper into the caves. It was cold and eerie, a fresh cold wind blowing in from somewhere but the spiderwebs and mould were a good assessment that nothing and nobody had been here first. Zacky swore as he stumbled and Johnny grabbed his arm, the two men sharing a grin as they entered a huge room. This one had rotting furniture and what looked to be decayed filing cabinets.
“Anything over with you Jimmy ?”
There was more static before Jimmy yelled loud enough to nearly take out an eardrum.
“Masses of old furniture, we’re gonna start looking.”
“Keep in touch. Ana, ask Dani if we have anything happening outside.”
Ana gingerly made her way to the edge of the room, a feature on the floor looked manmade and she wanted to see it, pausing to adjust the frequency again. It was eerie being alone even though she knew her friends were above and below her and she tugged again on the rope to make sure she was secure.
“Dani, how’s the eye in the sky ?”
There was a pause before Dani reported back and she was able to relay the message below. Johnny replied in the affirmative and said they had found some documents in Russian and something else he didn’t recognise. Matt reported they had some files already and something that looked like a journal before the signal went completely. Apparently the lower depths were also waterlogged which Dani relayed back to Danielle and Charlie.
“That’s bad, there was another admin room below.”
Dani pushed her dark brown hair back behind her ear and shook her head at Charlie’s map. There was no way down in those depths. Even with scuba gear the water temperature would rule it out. She changed view to check the outside view of the dacha and noticed that Charlotte and the prison break were again being mentioned on the news. Sooner or later someone would find them and she had already made enquires about moving on.
“Forget it, let’s hope they find something useful.”
Charlie nodded, watching Dani’s camera but glancing at Zacky’s, worried by the lack of picture and not being able to communicate directly with the team. Syn was forced down from the trees by yet more snow and contented himself with patrol. Some vehicles in the distance bothered him and he was about to head that way before Dani’s voice broke into his thoughts.
“Gates, get the fuck in here !”
“What ?”
“I heard a crash from down the ramp and I can’t raise Ana.”
Syn swore, sliding down the slope with one last look into the distance and reaching the cave mouth in seconds. Dani grabbed his hand and they tied onto the last guidelines, slipping down the steps into the lower chamber as he screamed into the mic for Ana to respond. As they hit bottom, Dani finally managed to get hold of Matt, her hands joining Syn’s on the guide rope that now stretched from the wall over into a hole in the floor. Broken floorboards suggested Ana had gone straight through but they still could hear nothing.
“Get up here, Ana fell.”
She heard Johnny swear and everything went silent as Syn pulled harder and then wrapped the loop around a chair and Dani before crouching down and crawling carefully onto the broken wood. He felt it creak and stopped for a second, now able to hear the others approaching from below. The rope was taut to the point of breaking, his movements returning as Syn finally reached the gap and looked down.
“Ana ? Baby ?”
“Anything ?”
Syn shook his head, looking back to see that Matt had taken over from Dani, the big man looping the rope around himself with Zacky bracing it too. He shone his light down, following the rope to where he could see Ana, limp and still unmoving on the end of it. The room below was shrouded in dust but he could see enough to know that it might be the very gem they were looking for.
“Hidden room but she’s out cold. Pull but fucking carefully, the whole floor could go.”
Jimmy slid his pack down and reached for his first aid kit as Johnny laid out a blanket on the floor and slowly they raised Ana back up and into Syn’s arms. He dragged her back, only stepping away so that Jimmy could crouch down and check for a pulse.
“She’s breathing ok but that’s a nasty knock to the head.”
She winced as he applied a dressing, blearily looking up and wondering why everyone was crowded around her. Dani drew a breath and grinned, joining Johnny and Zacky as they crawled over to look down into a small room that nobody had touched since World War Two. Johnny grinned, trust the clumsy one to find hidden gold. He smirked back at Syn who was still leaning over where Jimmy was checking Ana over.
“Get the rope Gates, we’re going in.”

Notes