Retribution Road by Jon Coon (best books to read for women txt) 📗

ahead of them had the road blocked and they were cut off from escape. She cramped the wheel, hit the gas, and started the bus rolling down the hill toward the cave entrance. With their pursuers yelling behind them, she left them in a cloud of dust and drove toward the water.

“Hang on,” she yelled as the bus crashed through the safety cable and plunged down the hill. She pulled open the door just as they hit the water, and the seventy-two-degree liquid flooded the bus immediately. She pulled on her swim mask, cleared it, and looked for Paul. He’d fallen behind the first row of seats. She pulled him out, grabbed his mask and fins, and pushed off for the surface.

Staged for the customers’ next dives, several sets of scuba gear and two underwater dive scooters were sitting on the dock. While Paul put on his fins and mask, she pulled two rigs and two scooters into the water. Their pursuers were close.

She shoved one of the rigs to Paul and wasted no time flipping the other on over her shoulders and into position. She grabbed a scooter and was ready. Paul was right behind. As the men with guns reached the deck and started firing, she and Paul hit full power on the scooters and disappeared into the tunnel.

The water was shallow and clear as gin. Stalactites and stalagmites lined the way, and other than flying in near darkness, it was a thrilling ride. When they had gone about ten minutes, she signaled for them to surface.

“They will be coming. We need to find a place to hide. Hopefully someplace warm.”

“My grandpa will send Gabe and his divers to find us,” he assured her. “We just have to wait for them.”

“Okay, let’s run on the surface and save our air for the tunnels. Keep your eyes open and look for a good place to wait them out.”

Tom awoke to the alarm buzzer on his phone and looked at the time: almost nine. After a nearly all-nighter at the hangar with his team making last-minute modifications to the plane, he’d tossed and turned three hours past his usual morning time. Concerns about Paul, the Benson girls, and the day’s flight had kept him awake most of the night. He didn’t remember setting the alarm. He picked up the phone and saw a call from a number he didn’t recognize. He overrode his first inclination to delete it, put on his glasses, and thumbed play. At the sound of Paul’s panicked voice, he sat up, dropped his feet to the floor, and was at full alert.

“Grandpa Tom,” the message began, “we’ve escaped, but they’re after us. We’re at a park called Dos Ojos and we’re going to try to find someplace to hide until . . .” Paul’s voice was drowned out by the squeal of tires, the crash through the retaining cable, and the bounce and rumble as the bus careened down the hill to the cave entrance. Tom heard several loud crashes and then a splash before the phone went silent. Tom grabbed his pants and went looking for Gabe.

Well ahead of the usual first group of tourists, Angelica and Paul scootered through the clear water, amazed at the beauty of the caverns. They followed the gold guide line, and the irony was not lost on Paul.

There was light ahead. They were approaching one of the several cenotes, openings from the surface at which ancient Mayan priests had performed pagan rituals. Paul remembered the accounts of virgin sacrifices in National Geographic and thinking, there was another good reason not to be a girl.

As they reached the edge of the cenote on the surface, they heard shouting and then shooting. The pop of handguns above sent bullets zipping into the water around them. They dove into the shadows and passed beyond gun range, safely out of sight. They resurfaced in the tunnel, hidden in darkness. Angelica was shivering. “I’m freezing,” she said. “I’m cramping. You can touch me now. Please.”

In his rescue diver course, Paul had learned the technique for releasing leg cramps. He put her foot against his chest and used her fin to bend her toes toward her knee. He used slow, steady pressure and massaged her calf until she felt relief. Then he repeated the process with her other leg.

“Thanks, that’s better. But it won’t last. I’m just too cold.”

“Let’s look for a way out. Maybe we could drop the scuba gear and join a snorkel group.”

“Yeah, if they are letting any of the groups in the water.”

“It’s worth a shot. Let’s keep going.”

“Okay.” She pulled the trigger on the scooter and dropped only deep enough to see the gold nylon cord beneath them. She knew the rush of the water created by the scooter was pulling her heat away, so she slowed a bit and felt slightly better.

They followed the line another two hundred yards, and the light above increased again. Then they surfaced well back from the opening and heard laughter ahead. Girls’ voices reverberated from the cavern walls. Perhaps this was the break they needed. Staying well back in the shadows, they approached the light. There was a wooden stair coming down from the surface and a group of boisterous snorkelers playing in the shallows.

“Just what the doctor ordered,” Paul said.

Angelica nodded, and with frozen fingers, pulled at the buckles on her BC. “I can’t,” she whispered. Paul moved in and helped her. They dropped the rigs and scooters and edged their way toward the dock.

Paul looked carefully for the men who had followed and shot at them. Not to be seen. He held Angelica’s hand and could feel her shivering. He moved quickly to the swim ladder and was about to help her out when he saw two men start down the stairs above. He dropped from the ladder and pulled her beneath the floating deck. At the point at which the deck was anchored to the shore,