Page 68 of Trapped with the Covert Ops Soldier

Large, jagged cracks created shadows in the lamplight. Cracks that went on into the darkness.

“It’s ready to come down. It wouldn’t take much of a blow to start another rockfall that would bury all of it, and not much more to bring the whole cavern down.”

She nodded slowly. “You’re right, we need to blow this entire place up.”

“Want to help?” He held out a stick of dynamite with a wick long enough that it needed to be coiled up. “Leave the wick here, then hide the dynamite as deep into the rock pile as you can get it.”

She hesitated, if they detonated the dynamite there, it would blow the bodies of the dead into nothing more than sticks and splinters.

But that was better than the alternative—more death and destruction.

She scrambled over the rocks until she was near the limit of the wick, then moved a couple of rocks to create a hole she could stick the dynamite into. She went back to Smitty who handed her another stick and nodded at her to repeat the process.

It took a while to plant all the dynamite. Smitty had found twenty-two sticks and it took several minutes for him to replace the original wicks with longer ones, then decide where to place them. Not all of them went into the rock pile, he wedged several into cracks and crevices in the walls of the cavern too.

When they were finished, they stood back and examined their handiwork. Some of the wicks were plainly visible, but not all. There was enough debris to camouflage more than half well enough that a casual glance would never see them. A handful were hard to see even if you knew exactly where they were.

“Well,” she said, trying to inject a positive note into her voice. “I’d say the gold is as safe as we can make it.”

“You sure you don’t want to see if there’s any that we can take safely.”

“I’m sure.” She frowned. “You?”

He shrugged, then glanced at her with a crooked grin. “You own the land that shed is on. This is your claim.”

“What? That can’t be... no, no one owns the mountain.”

“Just checking.”

“How long do you think we’ll have to wait before Virgil comes back?”

“Not much longer. He’s patient, but he also broke from his cover. He’ll be back.” Smitty glanced around the floor of the cave, then walked over and picked a rock up.

He grinned and held it out to her. “A souvenir.”

She lifted her hand and he dropped the stone on it. The bit that faced her looked like granite, but it changed when she turned it over. Large beads of gold were peppered through the rock. All it would take to free them was the judicious use of a hammer.

“You see any more like that when you were hiding the dynamite?” he asked.

She had, she just didn’t want anything to do with any of the gold, didn’t want to touch it, didn’t want to think about how many people had died trying to find and take it.

“Nope,” she said in a steady tone.

He chuckled. “That much, huh?”

She opened her mouth to continue the lie, but he held his hands up again. “A couple of rocks like that one would be a great way to distract Virgil if we need a distraction.”

She studied him for a moment, then walked a few feet away, searched the debris for a few seconds, then came back with a solid chunk of gold about the size of a golf ball. She handed it to him. “Here, one distraction for you and one for me, but that’s all we’re taking.”

He shoved it into one of his pockets. “Yes, ma’am. Let’s go back to the tunnel.”

They retraced their steps, but about twenty feet away from the tunnel entrance, he brought her to an abrupt halt with a hand on her arm. She paused, looking for whatever alerted him.

The distant crunch of wood shattering into splinters wasn’t loud, but now that they weren’t walking, there was no other sound in the cavern. It was followed by intelligible yelling and a cry of pain.

Silence fell. It had to be Virgil and someone else.Jack?

Had Virgil hurt Jack?

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