A Bloody Storm: A Derrick Storm Short by Richard Castle

if Casper hadn’t climbed between several large boulders. It was an opening about seven feet tall and two feet wide.
    “I don’t have a flashlight, so I only got about fifteen feet inside, but the opening gets bigger as you go deeper,” he said. “Give me one of your flashlights and I’ll explore it while you go get the others.”
    “We’re supposed to wait,” Showers said.
    “What are you afraid of? You think I’m going to cart out sixty billion in gold in my pockets between the time you go get the others and come back here? I’m simply going to save us time in case this opening proves a dead end.”
    Storm handed Casper his flashlight and he vanished through the crack. “I’ll go get the others so you can rest,” Storm volunteered. “You still have my Glock, right?”
    Showers lifted her sling. His handgun was hidden behind it, tucked in the waistband of her jeans so she could draw it with her left hand.
    Storm was able to backtrack quickly without Showers. He found Dilya and Oscar returning to the sheer wall.
    “Casper’s gone into an opening,” he said, catching his breath.
    The three of them began running and soon reached Showers, who was sitting outside the cave’s mouth. The sun was nearly completely down.
    “Has he come back?” Storm asked.
    “Nope. Gone like a rabbit.”
    “Or a snake,” said Oscar, taking command. “I’ll go into the hole first, Dilya next, then Agent Showers, and finally you. He pointed at Storm. “There could be water, making it slippery, and be careful of drop-offs. You need to watch your heads so you don’t knock yourself out, but also keep the light on the ground so you don’t step off a ledge.”
    “How about vampire bats?” Storm asked facetiously. “Just to keep things interesting.”
    “If you’ve never been in complete darkness,” Oscar continued, “then you are in for a surprise. In a cave there is no light, no sunshine, not even starlight.”
    “Like a coffin,” Dilya said.
    Oscar reached into his bag and gave Storm a new flashlight since he had given his to Casper. The Russian then vanished into the opening with Dilya at his heels.
    “Vampire bats, coffins, total darkness, steep ledges, and Casper the ghost lurking around,” Showers whispered to Storm as they entered the cave. “I might have had better odds being tortured.”
    Their flashlights cut through the darkness, illuminating a narrow passageway. Storm guessed they had gone about fifteen feet inside the mountain when the crack started to expand and break in different directions. Oscar continued down the main one with everyone on his footsteps. Storm checked his watch as they made their way forward. He wanted to time how long they’d walked. When they’d traveled another twenty minutes, Oscar came to a stop and declared, “We’ve reached a chamber!”
    They crowded up next to him and all shined their flashlights into the blackness. The chamber was at least thirty feet wide, hundreds of feet long, and forty feet high. It certainly was a big enough opening to hide sixty billion dollars of gold packed into cargo containers.
    “Nearly all caves are made of calcite, the crystal of calcium carbonate,” Oscar explained. He shined his flashlight down and the light reflected back. About ten feet below them was a large pool of water. The roof of the cave was covered with stalactites; water drizzling along the walls had created cave draperies.
    “The white that you are seeing is pure calcite,” Oscar said. “Other minerals, mostly iron, are responsible for the orange and red stains.”
    “It’s beautiful,” Showers said.
    “Yes,” added Dilya, “but there are no gold bars, no tanker containers.”
    “If Casper had not taken the GPS, I would be able to tell if this cavern is behind the wall of granite,” Oscar complained.
    “You mean this GPS?” Casper’s husky voice called from behind them. He held the GPS up in front of his flashlight for them to see. None of them had heard him