Chapter 14

CHAPTER 14 After the first three hundred stairs, Dan was breathing hard. By five hundred, he was ready to cough up his lungs and leave them on the flank of Mount Song. A few times, orange-robed monks and kung fu students puffed past, running up the endless steps. No wonder the Shaolin fighters were unbeatable. If they trained here, they could probably bench- press the temple, and maybe the whole mountain with it. He lost count somewhere around seven hundred fifty, and the Bodhidharma statue was still nowhere to be seen. Perspiration dripped from every pore of his body. I'm turning my precious wushu outfit into sweat rags! Dan glanced at his watch— he'd been climbing

for nearly an hour. Where was the Beard Buddha— on the moon? Another group of monks jogged past, this time on the way down. There was a distinct chill in the air now. Surely he was near the top. The stairs twisted abruptly to the right, and there towered his childhood nightmare, twenty feet tall. An involuntary yelp escaped him. He looked around in embarrassment. No training monks, no wandering tourists. He was alone. He examined the huge base and then let his eyes wander up the folds of Bodhidharma's robes. There were no markings or symbols— not even a crack in the stone where a secret message might be hidden. Was I wrong about the Beard Buddha? As he circled Bodhidharma's bulk, his eyes fell on a small shrine constructed behind the statue. He stepped inside. Chinese writing was everywhere, but a lone sign in English read: DHARMA HOLE. An arrow pointed to an opening in the stone. A cave!

Oh, how he didn't want to go inside. In the course of the Clue hunt, he'd been in enough tunnels, shafts, pits, and catacombs to last a lifetime. And in some of them, it had very nearly come to that. But he hadn't climbed that stairway to heaven for nothing. He got down on all fours and crawled inside. It was dark and tight, the rock cold and damp from the misty air. About fifteen feet in, the cave faded to utter blackness. The shut-in feeling was unendurable— ancient stone pressing on all sides, zero vision. It was as if he'd been swallowed by Mount Song. He began to hyperventilate. Asthma? No, the gasping breaths were bringing air into his lungs, but they were accelerating, and he was powerless to control them. What was happening to him? Was he sick? I'm having a claustrophobia attack! He shut his eyes and tried to pump all thought out of his mind. He was not wedged into an unimaginably tight seam inside millions of tons of solid rock. He was just— chilling.

It was only about thirty seconds, but it seemed like an eternity. At last, he was breathing normally and ready to press on. His probing hand struck a loose rock, and he felt a vibration in his palm. A second later, his knee rattled over the same spot. Odd. He reversed a few inches and tapped at the stone. It made a peculiar sound, not hollow, exactly, but— different. If only I had a flashlight! All at once, he realized that he did have a light. Not a very bright one, but better than nothing. He aimed his left wrist at the loose piece and pressed the small button that lit up the dial of his watch. The glow was dim, but it revealed an amazing sight. This stone was not native to the cave. An examination of the edges showed that it had been specially shaped to fit into that very spot. He scrabbled with his fingers and managed to pry one corner up. It lifted easily. He set it aside and activated the watch light once again. The exhilaration of discovery flooded over him. He was looking into a secret compartment carved

into the rock, not seen by human eyes for who knew how long. He leaned closer. There lay the tattered remains of a moldy blanket wrapped around— what? He drew the parcel out and tried to unwrap it. It was no use. This was a two-hand project, impossible to accomplish when one hand was occupied with lighting up the watch face. He reverted to darkness and replaced the stone over the empty compartment. Then he grasped the bundle in his arms and began the arduous journey, inch by inch, reversing out of the cave. Slowly, the light returned, and he was in the open again. A quick scan of the shrine and the area around the statue. He was still alone. Eagerly, he unwrapped the ancient fabric and examined the contents. His brow knit. Garbage. Literally! Pots and cups, broken glass, all scorched black and half melted. Who takes out the trash and hides it like it's something precious and top secret? He regarded the pieces. Those weren't cups, they were beakers. And the taller, thin ones—

broken test tubes and maybe glass pipes. Those were clamps, the screws charred black. This wasn't trash— it was lab equipment! And something had obviously gone very wrong, because the stuff was all burned. A fire. Wasn't that the Cahill way! His parents, Grace's home, cousin Irina barely a week ago. He could still see her as she fell, as the flaming beach house caved in around her. It was a terrible image— one that had returned to him, unbidden, over and over again since that awful night. Dan had witnessed a lot since Grace's funeral. But that was the first time he'd ever watched someone die. He remembered Irina's face and couldn't help but wonder if his parents had looked like that when their final moment had come. No— can't think about that…. His mind traveled back to the underground chamber in Paris. The mural of Gideon Cahill and his four children— Luke, Jane, Thomas, and Catherine— the forebears of the Cahill branches. That picture had showed a fire, too. Gingerly, he picked up a scorched shard