"We must be close," said Gunn, gazing through binoculars. "There is no hint of a long scar continuing across the mountain beyond that big rock just ahead."

Giordino stared at the ma.s.sive boulder that protruded from the side of the slope. "The chamber better be on the other side," he grunted. "I'm not keen to be caught up here when it gets dark."

"Not to worry. We've got almost twelve hours of daylight left in this hemisphere."

"I just thought of something."

"What's that?" asked Gunn.

"We're the only two humans within two thousand miles."

"That's a cheery thought."

"What if we have an accident and injure ourselves and can't fly out of here? Even if we wanted to, I wouldn't dare take off in this wind."

"Sandecker will mount a rescue mission as soon as we notify him of our status." Gunn reached into his pocket and pulled out an Globalstar satellite phone. "He's as close as a dial tone."

"In the meantime, we'd have to subsist on these stupid cabbages. No, thank you."

Gunn shook his head in resignation. Giordino was a chronic complainer, and yet there was no better man to be with in a bad situation. Neither man had a sense of fear. Their only concern was the possibility of failure.

"Once we enter the chamber," Gunn said loudly, his voice carrying above the wind, "we'll be out of the storm and can dry out."

Giordino needed no coaxing. "Then let's move on," he said, rising to his feet. "I'm beginning to feel like a mop in a pail of dirty water."

Without waiting for Gunn, he pushed off toward the rock about fifty yards up the ancient road. The slope steepened and became a cliff towering above them. Part of the road had fallen away, and they were forced to pick their way carefully past the rock. Once around, they encountered the entrance to the chamber under a man-made archway. The opening was smaller than they thought-about six feet high by four feet wide-the same width as the road. It yawned black and portentous from inside.

"There it is, just as the colonel described it," said Gunn.

"One of us is supposed to shout 'Eureka,' " exclaimed Giordino, happy at last to get out of the wind and rain.

"I don't know about you, but I'm getting rid of my rain gear and backpack so I can be comfortable."

"I'm with you."

Within minutes, their backpacks were removed and their foul-weather gear laid out inside the tunnel for the return trip to the aircraft. They removed flashlights from their backpacks, took a final swig of coffee, and stepped deeper into the subterranean vault. The walls were smoothly carved without b.u.mps or indentations. There was a strangeness about the place, heightened by the eerie darkness and cavernous howl of the wind from outside the entrance.

They walked on, half curious, half uneasy, following the beams of their lights, wondering what they were going to find. The tunnel suddenly opened into a square chamber. Giordino tensed and his eyes hardened as his light traced out the skeletal bones of a foot, femur, hip, and then ribs and spinal column, attached to a skull with traces of red hair still visible. The remains of tattered and moldy clothing still clung to the bones.

"I wonder how this poor devil came to be here," said Gunn, feeling numbed.

Giordino swung his flashlight around the room, illuminating a small fire pit and various tools and furniture; all of them looked handmade from wood and lava rock. There were also the remains of seal hides and a pile of bones in the opposite corner.

"Judging from the cut of what's left of his clothes, I'd say he was a marooned sailor, a castaway on the island for G.o.d only knows how long before he died."

"Odd the colonel didn't mention him," said Gunn.

"The Madras made an unscheduled stop for water after being blown far off the normal sailing track in 1779. This lost soul must have arrived later. No other ship called on the island for probably another fifty or hundred years."

"I can't begin to imagine how terrible it must have been for him, alone on an ugly rain-cold pile of volcanic rock with no prospects of rescue and the threat of a lonely death hovering over him."

"He made a fire pit," said Giordino. "What do you think he used for wood? There's little but scrub brush on the island."

"He must have burned what brush he could scrounge... ." Gunn paused, knelt on one knee, and moved his hand through the ashes until he found something. He held up what looked like the remains of a toy chariot with two badly fire-scarred horses. "The artifacts," he said gloomily. "He must have burned the artifacts that contained wood to stay warm." Then Gunn shone his light in Giordino's direction and saw the beginnings of a smile arc across his face. "What do you find so funny?"

"I was just thinking," mused Giordino. "How many of those awful cabbages do you think the poor fellow must have eaten?"

"You won't know how they taste until you've tried one."

Giordino probed his beam on the walls, revealing the same type of inscriptions that he'd briefly seen in the Telluride chamber. A black obsidian pedestal rose from the center of the floor where the black skull had sat until removed by the British colonel. The lights also picked out a cave-in of fallen rocks that spilled down, covering the far wall of the chamber.

"I wonder what's on the other side of this rock pile."

"Another wall?"

"Maybe, maybe not." There was a vague certainty in Gunn's voice.

Giordino had learned many years before to trust the intelligence and intuitive genius of little Rudi Gunn. He looked at him. "You thinking there's another tunnel on the other side?"

"I am."

"d.a.m.n!" Giordino hissed under his breath. "Our friends from Telluride must have gotten here first."

"What makes you think that?"

Giordino played his beam over the rockfall. "Their modus operandi. They have a fetish for blowing up tunnels."

"I don't think so. This fall looks old, very old, considering the dust that has filled in among the rocks. I'll bet my Christmas bonus that this fall occurred centuries before the colonel or the old castaway stepped in here, and neither was curious and bothered to dig through and see what was on the other side." Then Gunn crawled up on the spread of rocks and played his light over the pile. "This looks natural to me. Not really a heavy fall. I think we might have a chance at getting through."

"I'm not sure my testosterone is up to this."

"Shut up and dig."

Gunn, as it turned out, was right. The rockfall was not ma.s.sive. Despite his grumblings, Giordino worked like a mule. By far the stronger of the two, he tackled the heavier rocks, while Gunn worked at casting aside the smaller ones. There was a ruthless determination in his movements as he picked up and heaved hundred-pound rocks as if they were made of cork. In less than an hour, they had excavated a pa.s.sage large enough for them to crawl beyond.

Because he was the smallest, Gunn went first. He paused to shine his light inside.

"What do you see?" asked Giordino.

"A short corridor leading to another chamber less than twenty feet away." Then he squirmed through. He stood up, brushed himself off, and removed several more rocks from the opposite side so Giordino, with his broad shoulders, would have an easier pa.s.sage. They hesitated for a moment, beaming their combined lights into the chamber ahead, seeing strange reflections.

"I'm glad I listened to you," said Giordino, as he walked slowly forward.

"I have positive vibes. I'll bet you ten bucks n.o.body beat us to it."

"Skeptic that I am, you're on."

Feeling a little apprehensive now, and with a growing sense of trepidation, they stepped into the second chamber and swept their lights around the walls and floor. There were no inscriptions in here, but they froze at the astonishing sight revealed under the yellow-white beams of their flashlights, staring in almost religious awe at the twenty mummified figures that sat upright in stone chairs hewn from the rock. The two that faced the entrance sat on a raised platform. The rest were grouped to the sides in the shape of a square horseshoe.