“Cathedral,” Tucker mumbled.

Was this the place Bukolov had mentioned?

Die Bloedige Katedraal.

As he stepped farther out, he saw the walls to either side had been carved into tiers. They definitely looked man-made, likely the handiwork of the Boers.

A scuffle of boots sounded behind him. Christopher stumbled into view thirty feet away, his light shining blindingly into Tucker’s face. His tunnel had also deposited him into the Cathedral.

“Whoa, whoa!” Christopher said, sweeping his headlamp across the cavern. “How big do you think this place is?”

“Side to side, fifty yards. Maybe twice again as deep.” Tucker pointed to the tiered ledges on his side. “I want to check those out. Those aren’t natural. See the chisel marks and ax strikes in the sandstone?”

Tucker crossed over and hopped up onto the first ledge, then the second, finally the third, like climbing tall steps. Kane followed him up. They were now ten feet off the ground. He found more Boer handiwork on top. The highest ledge had been excavated along its length to form a crude foxhole, enough room for a soldier to duck down out of sight from the floor below.

Shining his lamp into the foxhole, he saw the bottom littered with spent shell casings. Kane jumped down to explore, sniffing at the casings, shuffling through them.

Christopher had mirrored his climb on the far side of the cavern and discovered the same. They both walked along the top tier on their respective sides, heading down along the cavern, paralleling each other.

“I’m starting to see how the Boers did it,” Tucker called out. “From these foxholes, they could strafe anyone passing through the cavern below. A perfect killing floor.”

“Horrible to imagine,” Christopher said.

Tucker now understood the bloody part of the room’s nickname.

“Let’s keep going.”

They clambered back to the floor, met in the middle, and headed farther down the belly of the monstrous cavern.

Tucker noted the telltale pockmarks gouging a nearby stalagmite, evidence of gunfire. This killing floor had seen some use.

But if so, where were the bodies from that slaughter? Had the British buried them after clearing this place out—even the Boers’ remains? Was there a mass grave somewhere in these hills?

As they continued through the Cathedral, the walls began narrowing and the roof descending, until the space was only thirty feet across. Near the end of the cave, they hit a waist-high wall of burlap sandbags that stretched from wall to wall. They high-stepped over it, while Kane hurdled it. In another ten feet, with the walls ever narrowing, they ran into another line of sandbags, then after that another. Beyond the last one, the Cathedral’s walls and ceiling narrowed to a four-foot-wide funnel that became a tunnel.

“Defense in depth,” Tucker whispered.

“Pardon me?”

He pointed to the dark tunnel. “Your enemy comes through there. The defenders hide behind the closest row of sandbags. If the enemy breaches that wall, the defenders fall back to the next barrier.”

“And the next after that . . .”

“All the way across. If the enemy makes it through that gauntlet, they still have to face the killing floor behind us. No wonder the Boer lasted so long here, where only a few could withstand many.”

Tucker stepped over the last sandbag and wondered if his team would soon face similar bad odds.

“Stay here with Kane,” Tucker said. “I’ll be right back.”

Dropping to his hands and his knees, he crawled along the shaft ahead, which almost immediately began cutting sharply left and right. As he crawled, Tucker imagined a Boer sniper lying prone at each corner, picking off an advancing British soldier before retreating to the next corner, then repeating the process again.

After eight or ten bends Tucker reached a straight passageway. At the end of it, slivers of pale light glowed. Dowsing his headlamp, he crawled the last of the way and reached a pile of rock that blocked the path forward. He fingered the silvery light that pierced through the rubble and pulled a fist-sized rock from its edge. A few more fell with it, forming a watermelon-sized hole.

Cool night air flowed back to him.

He poked his head out and searched around outside, gaining his bearings.

He realized he had reached the other canyon—the other tusk of the boar—the one Christopher and Anya had explored earlier.

Interesting.

If nothing else, he’d found another exit.

After pulling his head back inside, he carefully returned the fallen rocks back into place, sealing the hole, making sure it remained camouflaged from the outside.

He didn’t want any uninvited houseguests coming in the back door.

8:13 P.M.

Tucker returned to the sandbag barrier, where he found Christopher waiting, but he noted a missing member of their team. “Where’s Kane?”

Christopher did a dance of searching around. “He was here a moment ago. That one, he is like a ghost.”

True . . . and with a dog’s curiosity.

He had forgotten to tell Kane to stay.

Tucker pursed his lips and let out a soft double whistle.

Kane responded with a double bark.

They followed the sound back into the Cathedral, only to discover Kane standing at the top ledge along the left wall. He stared square at Tucker—then jumped down into the foxhole and vanished out of sight. The shepherd’s message was plain.

Come see what I found!

What now?

Tucker led Christopher up to the ledge. He shone his lamp’s beam into the foxhole to find Kane seated before a barrel-shaped wooden door in the cavern wall.

“Seems there is more to this maze,” Christopher said.

Tucker jumped down. He tested the four-foot-wide plank door. The wood was once stout, the iron joinery solid. No longer. He leaned against the other side of the foxhole and kicked out with his legs. The ancient door shattered under his heels. A passageway extended from it.

“Let’s see where it leads.”

He took Kane with him this time, but he had noted Christopher beginning to limp badly on the ankle he’d twisted before, so he left him to rest.

The crawl this time was mercifully short. The passageway ended at a crudely circular room, crowded with stacked boxes, but at least he could stand.

He noted four tunnels led out from here.

Tucker sighed.

The Boers apparently were ants in another life.

Tucker called back to Christopher. “If I’m not back in fifteen minutes, come after me.”

He took a brief moment to examine the crates. Burned into their sides was the coat of arms for the Boer Orange Free State. Same as De Klerk’s unit. He pulled the lid off the top crate and looked inside. He found rifle shells, canned goods, tins of kerosene, candles, hammers, nails. He examined three more crates and found similar contents.

Though he had found nothing significant, a question nagged at him: Why hadn’t the British seized this bounty when they cleared this place out?

Without an answer, he began his search of the four tunnels, starting from the left and working his way right.

The first passage led to a mess hall: a long, narrow gallery containing trestle tables constructed from what appeared to be the remains of wagons, all of them topped with abandoned plates and pewter cups.

The second tunnel ended at a bunkroom: a gallery-style cavern, with moldy lines of bedrolls flanking the walls and dark lanterns hanging above.

Again, there was no indication that the British had been here. Nothing was ransacked; nothing looked disturbed. Tucker felt as though he were touring an abandoned theater.

Down the third passageway, he found the unit’s hospital: a ward lined by thirty or so makeshift cots and stacked with crates of medical supplies.

He was about to leave, when something struck him as off.