Chapter 3: スパイの仮面

Deep inside the cave, the air was so damp it was suffocating, like congealed mud poured into the windpipe, mingled with the stink of rotting earth and rust. Femi leaned against a protruding rock wall, his back pressed tight to the rough stone, the coarse grains digging through his thin clothing into his ribs until they ached.

His chest heaved violently, and every breath felt like dragging on torn lungs, the stabbing pain in his lungs striking his eardrums beat by beat with his heartbeat. That ancient compass was clutched tight in his palm, its brass casing chilled to freezing point, its needle frozen dead toward the abyss, its blue light long extinguished, leaving only an ash-gray silence.

His fingertips had gone numb from gripping it so long, but he dared not let go. That cold metal was his last remaining link to this world.

Adetai straightened up, his gaze sweeping casually toward a corner of the cave, where a collapsed fissure lay, narrow and deep, just large enough to hold a miniature signal transmitter. His feet shifted half an inch toward that corner, the sound of his soles scraping rock faint yet firm, and then he pretended to trip over a stone, staggered, and stood upright again.

Femi sneered inwardly. Beneath that hypocritical mask lay such precise calculation, every step treading the edge of his psychological defenses. He slowly extended a trembling hand and took the canteen Adetai offered. As his fingertips touched the cold metal of the bottle, the compass in his palm jumped violently, its needle pointing dead at the pocket on the left breast of Adetai's chest.

What was hidden there was certainly no ordinary water vessel or communicator. That invisible energy field was giving off a disturbing heat.

Adetai crouched down, his boot soles grinding over gravel with a faint crunch. He took a metal canteen from his waist, unscrewed the cap, and the sound of steaming water in the dead silence seemed especially jarring. The vapor quickly condensed into white mist in the cold air, blurring the lower half of Adetai's face.

He did not hold it to Femi's mouth, but left it hovering in midair, his wrist slightly raised, as if confirming whether the other man still had the ability to swallow, or as if waiting for his prey to come closer on its own. Femi stared at the canteen, his gaze unfocused, while his mind raced madly.

He quietly activated the compass's sleep mode, an extremely low-energy state that could only capture faint energy fluctuations around him. The needle trembled slightly in his palm, giving off a barely audible hum, its frequency so low it almost melted into his heartbeat, yet so clear it made his hair stand on end.

Adetai sighed, his tone full of regret and concern, as if lamenting a flaw in a fine piece of ore, his voice as soft as coaxing. He turned sideways, trying to lean out from behind Femi to check Sekunla's position, his movement as natural as curiosity, but in fact probing a blind spot.

Alarm bells rang in Femi's mind. This was not the posture of a rescue, but of an ambush being laid, meant to cut off his retreat or confirm his companion's state. Taking advantage of the motion of drinking, he pressed the compass against Adetai's arm and instantly captured a scrambled stream of data.

That energy field was not the frequency of civilian prospecting equipment, but a military-grade, high-precision positioning tracker, and it was active, sending signals outward in an endless stream, like an invisible hand broadcasting this location into the depths of the dark.

Seeing no reaction from Femi, Adetai's brow furrowed slightly, but he quickly recovered that compassionate mask. He reached out with his other hand and gently brushed aside the stray hair falling across Femi's forehead, his movement so gentle it was almost reverent, his fingertips nearly without warmth as they touched the skin.

Yet in the instant his hand slid across Femi's cheek, Femi felt a strange static sensation from his fingertips, a tingling warning edged with pain. At the same time, Sekunla gave an extremely faint cold snort in the darkness--a warning, and also the release of long-suppressed anger.

Femi did not look up, but from the corner of his eye he caught a fleeting metallic glint at Adetai's cuff. It was not a work uniform's button, but more like the casing of some precision instrument, refracting a cold gleam in the strong light.

Adetai did not approach directly, but stood five paces away, his beam sweeping slowly over the two of them, the sharp edge of the halo cutting off all the surrounding shadows, finally settling on Femi.

His gaze seemed concerned, but in fact it was like appraising a part awaiting repair, sliding over Femi's taut muscles and pale face, calm without a ripple. Femi felt that gaze like tiny insects, burrowing through his skin into his flesh, bringing a shudder.

He did not move, only turned his head slightly to let the light miss his eyes, pretending to be in a daze, deliberately making his breathing seem broken and faint. He knew that at this moment any extra movement might betray him, and in this enclosed space, honesty was a deadly poison.

The silence lasted a long dozen seconds, until footsteps drew near from afar. Along with the faint clink of metal instruments, it sounded especially harsh in the silent cave, each step like treading on Femi's nerves.

A dazzling beam pierced the darkness, lighting the dust hanging in the air, those tiny particles dancing madly in the shaft of light like a startled swarm of insects.

A man in dark gray work clothes appeared at the cave mouth, holding a powerful flashlight, wearing a professional, gentle smile, his stride steady without a trace of weariness, even carrying a disquieting elegance. Femi narrowed his eyes and recognized that face--Adetai, the "rescue" man sent by the mining conglomerate.

Femi's eyes flew open, his gaze sharp as a blade, stabbing straight into Adetai's pupils. He dropped the canteen, and the metal striking rock rang out crisply, like a thunderclap exploding in this enclosed space, water splashing everywhere and soaking Adetai's work clothes.

Adetai's body went rigid, the hypocritical mask in his eyes shattering in an instant, revealing the cold and dangerous truth beneath, his pupils contracting sharply. His fingers moved silently toward his waist, where a folding knife was tucked, its handle gleaming coldly in the dark, his thumb already on the blade-release slot.

Femi did not retreat, but pressed a step forward instead, the corner of his mouth twisting into a cruel arc, the fear in his eyes fading, replaced by resolve.

Adetai watched Femi's drinking motions, watching the droplets slide down the corner of his mouth, the corner of his own mouth curling into a meaningful arc. He leaned forward, and the shadow cast by his tall figure enveloped Femi, the sense of oppression suddenly intensifying, until even the surrounding air seemed to thicken.

His voice was pressed extremely low, audible only to the two of them, carrying the pleasure and composure of a hunter appraising his prey. Femi did not answer at once, but kept up his weak posture, only tightening the fingers gripping the canteen slightly, his nails digging into his palm, using the sharp pain to stay awake.

He was waiting, waiting for the compass to give a more definite answer, as the humming quickened in rhythm.

Adetai's fingers trembled slightly, not from fear, but from the instinctive reaction of nerve endings long lurking in darkness to danger. The blade did not sink deeper, but withdrew half an inch instead, turning the pressure on his throat into a suffocating scrutiny.

He stared hard at the ferocity in Femi's eyes that had not yet faded, trying to search it for a flaw, or more precisely, hoping to find the panic and cunning a "spy" ought to show. But Femi's gaze was hollow and calm, like a mirror of the abyss, reflecting all of Adetai's disguises and schemes back at him unchanged.

Sekunla crouched in the shadows on the other side, her body shrunk as small as possible, trying to blend herself into that thick darkness. Her forehead pressed against the cold stone wall, and the condensation seeping from the stone mingled with the cold sweat on her brow and slid down her cheek.

Her knuckles were white from gripping too hard, her nails digging deep into her palms, as if only that slight pain could hold down the fear surging inside her. The gunshots from before had faded, but their echoes seemed still to linger in the folds of the air. The fear of being hunted had not dispersed, but coiled around everyone's nerve endings like vines, squeezing hearts tight.

"You misheard." Femi's voice was so soft it was almost drowned by the dripping water in the cave. With difficulty, he raised his hand, his fingertips touching the back of Adetai's knife hand, his movement as gentle as stroking a fragile piece of porcelain.

Adetai did not pull away. His pupils contracted violently, because in the instant of contact, he keenly sensed a faint electric current from Femi's fingertips--the residual energy feedback of the prospecting instrument, which, through direct skin contact, was wildly disrupting the biomagnetic field inside Adetai's body.

Adetai's face instantly turned deathly pale. Instinctively, he reached for the prospecting instrument at his waist, only to find its casing scalding hot, the red light on its screen flashing madly, emitting a piercing beep. He finally realized that the faint humming he had been ignoring all along was precisely the noise cover Femi had deliberately created.

Femi was not weak at all. He was using his own body as a conductor, forcibly overloading this industrial-grade device, in order to conceal his true identity signal.

Adetai's breathing quickened, and the knife tip wavered lightly at the side of Femi's neck, nicking a small patch of skin. Blood seeped out and dripped down his neck, drawing a bright red trail in the darkness.

He looked at that drop of blood, murderous intent and despair interwoven in his eyes, and finally he slowly loosened his grip on the knife. Femi, however, did not let go. Instead, with all his strength, he shoved Adetai toward the fissure deep in the cave that had just been surveyed, leading to the unknown mineral vein.

"Put the knife down." Femi snapped, his formerly frail posture suddenly erupting with astonishing force, as he seized Adetai's wrist, his ten fingers closing like iron pincers. Adetai tried to break free, but found his joints seemed bound by invisible chains, unable to move at all.

Before the narrow, cramped rock wall, the two faced each other eye to eye, the air thick with the scorched smell of blood mixed with ozone.

"I have not lost. I am only waiting." Femi went on, the arc of his mouth turning bleak. "You think you are watching me, but in fact I am wiping clean that damned machine for you. Every time you came close just now, you were feeding it new coordinate data. Adetai, what you are holding in your hand is not a knife. It is the key that opens the gates of hell."

"Tell me, who is above you?" Femi leaned close to Adetai's ear, his voice icy to the bone. "Because in the next second, I am going to bury all the secrets here, together with you, forever in this darkness."

"Get out!"

A roar echoed between the rock walls, gravel rattling down and obscuring the two men's view, leaving only a dull thud as Adetai vanished into the darkness, and the silhouette of Femi standing alone at the mouth of the wind, straightening his collar.