Page 49 of What Remains

“Yes, Worthy. I kicked the sand from my boots and put Afghanistan in my rear view.” Driver’s mouth quirked in a sardonic grimace. “Until now.”

4

Hours later.

Gasping, John jerked awake, his mind tearing itself away from yet another drunken spiral of a nightmare that vanished as soon as his eyes opened. Where was he? He couldn’t move. His heart was a knot of muscle, a fist battering his ribs as he struggled to suck in air, get his breathing under control. God, he was suffocating. No, no,drowningagain: falling into thatfreezingwhirlpool, everything was swirling, and he was dying all over again…

“Take it easy.” A voice, close by, on his left. “It’s the altitude. Messes with your sleep, gives you nightmares. You’re hyperventilating. Cup your hands around your nose and mouth and slow your breathing down.”

“Yeah.” For crying out loud, he knew this.Doesn’t make waking up from that nightmare any better.Working his hands out of his sleeping bag, he pulled in a wheezing lungful, held it a moment before releasing a raspy exhalation.Again.He breathed in and then out, in and then out, every exhalation eerily mirroring the moan of the wind beyond their tent.

“Sorry.” He sounded as strangled as a condemned man whose executioner has just tightened the noose, but he wascalmer now. Talking about his brush with death must’ve triggered that particular nightmare. Maybe they should’ve stayed awake longer, talked about other things and let that particular horror recede.

Because therehadbeen something mentioned, a detail his unconscious had noticed enough for him to pause, try to remember what it was he’d heard. Except the harder he tried, the faster that something slipped away in a minnow’s quicksilver flash.

“Worthy?”

“I’m here.” His hands were chilled. Sliding them back into the depths of his sleeping bag, he rasped another apology. “Sorry I woke you.”

“Not a problem,” Driver said. “I don’t sleep well at altitude either. I get these headaches.”

“We should take a diuretic.” He swallowed then grimaced. His mouth tasted like the inside of an old shoe. “Got some more in my pack. Want one?”

“So, I can pee like a racehorse?” A rustle, a softsnick,and then a narrow beam of white light speared the gloom. “Yeah, bring it on. We got to get up soon anyway.”

Grateful for the light and an excuse to get ahold of himself, he levered his body, still cocooned in his sleeping bag, to a sit. Even when he’d been in the Scouts, he hated sleeping bags. Whenever he zipped in, he always felt like one of those Egyptian mummies. Reaching for his pack, he said, “What time is it?”

“About five-thirty…thanks.” Pulling a water bottle from the depths of his sleeping bag, Driver popped the pill John offered, took a long pull, then offered his bottle. “You should hydrate, too. It’ll help with the nightmares.”

“Yeah.” He forced himself not to gulp. When he came up for air, he said, “If we’re awake…I got a coupla questions.” In truth, he had three, but one step by one step.

“Seriously?” Driver capped then stowed his bottle. “Just because I said it was almost time to get up doesn’t mean I don’t want a few more minutes of shut-eye. Can you make it quick?”

“Probably not.”

“Have you ever considered that, sometimes, honesty isn’t the best policy?”

“Spoken like a spook.” As he said the words, something fluttered at the back of his mind. Thatsomethinghis animal brain noticed. What was it?

“All right.” Sighing, Driver squirmed around until he could lie on his side to face him. “Go for it.”

“Mac came back for you, right?” When Driver nodded, he asked, “But no one went back for Roni?”

“Why would they?” Driver yawned and his breath coalesced in a great smoking cloud. “She and I were both on the wrong side when the wall collapsed. I guess we could’ve gone back and slipped in through that old well, but with all that water, what would have been the point?”

“Except I’m here to retrieve her remains, which might mean she got herself out.” When Driver shook his head, he said, “Why the hell not?”

“I told you, Worthy. All that damn water swept her backwards. She never surfaced.”

“But that doesn’t preclude two things. Eventually, the water levels would’ve reached steady state, right? Roni kept in shape. She was athletic. So, she could’ve swum or treaded water or hooked onto the wall before she was swept too far into the caves.”

“Not blind as a bat she wouldn’t.”

“She had her flashlight. It was on.” His last glimpse of her: that white oval as she looked down and then over to where he’d been. “I remember her face.”

“So, you’re saying she might have worked her way back to where I dug myself out?”

“Is it impossible?”

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