Alex gave a half smile and turned to her. She rested her chin on her hand and even in the dark her eyes were luminous in her dust-streaked face. What could he tell her? Though it was his job to keep a unit in the field motivated, the real reason was difficult to explain. Alex knew he should already be dead, but had survived and literally risen a different being. Risks and danger held no fears for him anymore as he felt destiny, kismet, karma, whatever you wanted to call it, was keeping him safe for some specific purpose. He didn’t believe for a second it was to die in these caves. He would see the sun again.

“Do you believe in fate, Aimee? I do, and I know we’ll make it. Besides, it’s been over twelve hours since we communicated with HQ and by now Major Hammerson will be bursting the eardrums of the entire armed forces to get more military bodies down here. Stay close to me and don’t worry.”

Monica appeared looking very pleased with herself. “Everyone this way, I’ve found something,” She led them quickly down the cave and to a gigantic hole in the rock floor.

Monica immediately set to pegging in around a large belay rock. Silex was immediately at her side and hissing into her ear. “What are you doing, we’re not going down there. Are you crazy? That’ll just take us deeper. We need to be going up, you know, where the sun shines. Not down.”

“Dr. Silex, you hear that?” Monica had held up her hand to quieten the scientist and the entire team stopped what they were doing and listened. Nothing could be heard except for their own breathing.

Alex was the first to speak. “Water, running water.”

“It’s a cave stream, quite a large one by the sound of it. I’m not making any promises because it could just disappear through another boulder choke that we can’t get through. However, it could also flow out at the coast.”

Alex stood at the edge looking down thoughtfully. Silex stared at him and smirked, probably thinking Alex was racked with indecision, while he was in fact using his senses to get an impression of what waited for them down in the dark depths. He didn’t want to let Monica rappel down first, and his men could just as easily have achieved it, but she was the specialist and better equipped to give them an idea of the descent’s safety and risk factors.

“OK, Ms. Jennings, but I want you to borrow Mike’s comm unit so we can stay in touch. Mike will be coming down right behind you. Hand the unit back to Mike and then do a near-perimeter survey and report in. Got it?”