Chapter 22
“I held on to the wall,” Tess remembers, “trying to find a foothold. A toehold, even.”
Hanging by sweaty fingers.
“I was slipping. I could feel my fingernails bending backward. I pressed myself flat, trying to hold on.”
But the walls would have been too smooth to grip. The Chimney is almost entirely flowstone, every edge rounded off and frozen
into waterfalls of calcium carbonate. In photographs the walls appear unsettlingly biological, all shades of mucus yellow
and blood brown like the interior valves of a giant organ. Cave water runs down the sheer walls in glistening sheets, making
the surfaces even slipperier.
Hundreds of feet underground.
In total blackness.
“But then . . . my toes found a gap in the rock. Just a thin, little crack, maybe an inch or two wide. I couldn’t turn my
head to see it, but I could feel it there. I dug my boot into it, twisted sideways, and rested all my weight on that foot.”
As narrow as the crevice in the wall was, it was an improvement. She could perch for minutes in this position, instead of
mere seconds hanging by her fingertips.
Work the problem, Tess.
“It was too dark to see. My headlamp was broken and my flashlight was gone. All I had left were glowsticks, but I couldn’t reach for them. I’d lose my grip. I was afraid to breathe, even. Every time I inhaled, my chest expanded and pushed me away from the wall.”
Even if she’d had a light source, climbing the curtains of slick flowstone would have been impossible. The Chimney is akin
to an underground elevator shaft. Not even the most experienced caver can ascend it without vertical gear.
Sisu, Washington remembers. The rescue operation’s incident commander had said it best. There’s no English-language equivalent
for such prolonged strength in the face of hardship, and there’s no better word.
Sisu.
At this point Tess’s muscles would’ve been strained, rapidly fatiguing. Ice-cold water trickling down the back of her shirt
would lower her body temperature and sap her strength. Adrenaline pinned her to this wall, perched like a ballerina with one
foot wedged in that tiny crack—but adrenaline isn’t limitless. Gravity always wins.
“I needed to press myself as flat to the rock as possible. Every millimeter. So I unclasped my helmet and let it drop.”
“With Allie’s camera?”
She nods. “I heard it fall for a long time. Then I heard a splash.”
“There was water at the bottom?”
She nods again.
Groundwater levels in the cave’s lower reaches are known to fluctuate wildly with the seasons and rainfall. As far as Tess
would have known, the depth could have been ten feet or ten inches. To let go was to gamble with her life.
And Jacob was on the ledge just above her. With his broken fingers he would’ve been a furious, wounded animal. Dragging himself
to the precipice, his pistol clenched in his good hand, about to aim down at her and fire again—
“I heard him crawling. Toward the edge.”
There was no overhang to shield her from a bullet. This poor girl couldn’t catch a goddamn break. She couldn’t climb up or
down—she’d be exposed in the killer’s red light, hanging for her life between a bullet and a four-story drop. Below, a life-and-death
coin toss.
She knew what she had to do.
Heads: the water is deep enough to break a fall.
Tails: it isn’t.
“I thought about Allie,” Tess whispers. “I thought about when we were teenagers in that tree behind her house, practicing
with her descenders. I could never get the rope stuff right, but she was always so patient with me. Allie loved to be self-reliant,
knowing how to tie knots that will literally keep you alive. It’s why she practiced with guns. Her dad always taught her to
be independent. And she wanted to empower me, too.”
Washington nods gently.
“It was like . . . we were those kids again. And I was squeezing my harness and remembering to breathe and trying not to puke,
and she was urging me to be brave and jump. And she’s looking at me with those green eyes—her eyes have always been so emerald
green, tropical, like a chameleon—and she’s telling me I’m a survivor, that I survived my mother and I can survive this, too.
To trust her and jump.”
Her voice breaks.
“And I . . . kept telling her I couldn’t. That I wasn’t like her, that I’ll never be brave like her. And I know it wasn’t
real, and I was really clinging to a wall with her killer above me. But all I could see was teenage Allie in that tree.”
Washington imagines a gasping, furious Jacob reaching the ledge. His gun in his fist. Aiming down at her.
Squeezing the trigger . . .
“And you let go?”
“No.” Through tears, Tess smiles. “Allie pushed me, one last time.”
Jacob aimed his red light down on her—but a heartbeat too late. The woman dropped off the sheer wall, into blackness.
A second passed.
Longer.
Then he heard a reverberating splash far below. The echo rang off the cave walls like a grenade. He heard water droplets land,
ripples lapping against rock.
Goddamn it.
Staring down into the darkness made him dizzy with vertigo. He scooted back from the ledge and sprawled onto his back, cradling
his hand. He dreaded seeing the damage. Peeling the neoprene glove off his broken fingers would be excruciating.
This whole thing was supposed to be simple. It should have been over in five minutes, an easy execution—zip ties to bind her
wrists, a KA-BAR to cut her throat, and a gun for backup. And now five hours later, here was Jacob Herman with leaking eardrums and mangled fingers, God only knows how many floors underground, with his
prey far below and out of reach.
Still, he knew, the situation had a reassuring upside. He couldn’t reach her down there at the bottom of the Chimney, true.
But with her rope cut, she had no way to climb the smooth curtains of vertical flowstone.
She was confined down there.
“Nice stunt,” Jacob shouted, hearing a distorted echo swirl below. “I’m impressed. I really thought your friend was the brave
one. Joke’s on me, right?”
No answer.
But he knew she was somewhere down there treading water. Rubbing her eyes, shivering in the pool’s piercing coldness. Trying to plan her next move.
“You’re cut off from the world.” He forced a wincing grin. “You know that, right? And I won’t leave this cave. I’ll camp out
here for as long as it takes, until you freeze or suffocate or starve. I’m patient. I can wait days. Weeks, even. No one is
coming to save you.”
He caught his breath.
“The man downstairs, he waits and he waits . . .”
His voice was hoarse and off-key. His hearing was spongy, fresh fluid pooling inside his ear. He cradled his smashed hand
and almost laughed at the wild hilarity of their chase, the bullets and broken bones and close calls. He’d found his match
in her, all right. But her victories were only temporary.
“And, baby, he’s waiting on you.”