With his interest in the case reignited, Rigel met with Officer Snow in the cave. Bill Serrano followed him.

Chris Snow was Serrano’s antithesis: A thin guy with a lean face and a white beard on his chin. He was wearing one of the helmets they used when they worked in close quarters; something akin to a diving helmet with lights on the sides, although transparent and not so ostentatious.

Snow handed Rigel and Serrano a helmet each, asking them to follow him into the cave. The humidity there became almost palpable just by going in a few meters, although the sun, as well as its light and the heat it emitted, were soon excluded from that sum of climatic aggravations, for which they were both very grateful.

On the way, Rigel took off his cap and sunglasses, put them in one of his uniform pockets, put on his helmet with ease, and activated the automatic oxygenation system by touching the controls that it had incorporated in the neck part. Bill Serrano struggled with his glasses and with the helmet for a while before he got ready.

Thanks to the white light emitted by small plastic rods scattered throughout the rock tunnel, they could see silhouettes of all shapes marked with white chalk, here and there, on the floor and even on the walls. Also, long dark stains scattered everywhere, like paint bursts: dried blood.

Rigel and Serrano moved forward, careful not to trip over the treacherous stony ground, a qualm Officer Snow had apparently overruled; perhaps because he had been working in there for hours and knew where to step and where not to, or because the anxiety that he had now made his steps so firm that no loose rock could make him stumble.

“There’s a hole in the wall that one of the students must have dug,” Snow said. “Well, we have discovered a hollow spot behind it.” He stopped and pointed to a hole in the wall the size of a narrow door. “We used the electronic sonar and the ray machine to see if there was a side grotto to the cave and—Well, see for yourself.”

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Rigel and Bill peered into the hole to see what they had found. Behind the plastic shell of their helmets, the eyes of both officers went wide. Even the stocky Bill let out a stunned sigh. No wonder. Maybe what was there didn’t solve the case, but one thing was certain: everyone’s astonishment was well justified.

Rigel took a flashlight from one of the holsters on his belt and poked the hole with its beam.

Behind the cave, a few inches below ground level and camouflaged in mists of dust, was a wall built with architectural neatness, covered with laminated plates, somewhat yellowish due to humidity and the passage of time, which still retained some of their original shine despite the confinement, though.

And as Rigel pierced deeper into the mist with his flashlight, he realized it was not just a wall but a corridor. As far as his eyes could see and the curtains of dirt and dust allowed him, there was a whole structure hidden inside the cliff, running next to the cave; a freaking place built by the hand of man. A corridor five feet wide, maybe six, in perfect condition, but obscured by oblivion, with a glossy floor that appeared to be polished concrete, walls formed with vertical plates, bar-shaped lamps—none of them working, of course—and running along the ceiling, pipes of various thicknesses and air ducts with small iron grates identical to the one they had found outside the cave. The air currents that escaped through there sounded like the wails of a lost soul.

“This wall was pretty weak,” Snow said, tapping the cave wall. “I guess because of the terrain conditions. However, according to our sonar, this is one of several corridors in there, and the rest of the structure is extremely solid.”

“Do you think it could be some kind of bunker?” Rigel asked.

“Possibly,” Snow nodded. “Have you heard of the case of the trapped child?”

“Yeah, Gamma district handled the case,” Bill Serrano said. “What about it?”

“Well, the breach in the cave where those bones were found is connected to one of these corridors.”

“Holy…!”

Rigel contemplated the possibilities that the statement held.

“Has someone gone in yet?” he asked.

“Nobody yet,” the officer replied. “We were waiting for you to give us the order.”

Colonel Beta went through the gap and into the corridor.