The Sandcastle Conspiracy

Chapter 9: Underground

Michel went upstairs followed by Carla. They were talking, but the girls could not figure out what was happening.

The girls heard Carla go downstairs and enter her room.

A short while later, Suzanne expected Carla to be asleep. Marta and Suzanne were silently reading in bed, but Suzanne could hardly concentrate. She was struggling with controlling her nerves. Curiosity was killing her.

As Marta was falling asleep, Suzanne had an uncontrollable impulse. An impulse to go and check that tunnel before it was too late for her to learn more about it. Carla could block the entrance. The Police could come and restrict any movement around the tunnels.

She took her jeans, sweatshirt, and sneakers and went directly to the tunnel opening in the garden. She pushed the chairs Marta and she had placed strategically over the entrance. She took the shovel again and pushed hard to make enough room for her to get in. The idea of sneaking inside was both scary and exciting. It seemed like a stupid idea, but it could be the only opportunity to understand what was going on.

She entered the tunnel, slowly feeling the stairs with her feet. She used her phone's flashlight slowly disappearing inside. The tunnel was clearer than she expected. The stone stairs were still in good shape and just a couple of meters below, an open space led to a unique tunnel, similar to the ones she had seen in movies within middle-age castles. She started to get really scared, but curiosity took over. She doubted again as she entered the small entrance and then realized the tunnel was wide enough for her to walk up straight.

"Shit...shit...shit... what am I doing?" She murmured. Trying to remember the maps from Michel's computer, she realized the tunnel was going parallel to the main street.

"If I come back now...I'll never figure out what this is about,"' she thought.

She walked a few hundred meters in a straight line, worrying that the path was steeply downhill. At least there were no bifurcations to get lost in, which helped. Suzanne could not refrain from picturing herself lost in a labyrinth beneath the ground.

And then she heard voices.

Clear, nervous voices in German. Two guys talking to each other. Arguing. Suzanne stopped and did not move a muscle. She quickly checked her phone battery, as a flashlight could discharge the device quickly. The battery was still at sixty-five percent. She decided to move forward.

She spotted a light straightforward. She slowly walked closer to the voices.

Next to the opening she was coming from, she leaned behind a beam that allowed her to observe without being seen. There was a big chamber in front of her. She felt like Lara Croft finding the Chamber of Judgement on Tomb Raider.

She recognized the two guys from the beach the other day, discussing in the opening. Her German was far from perfect, but Dutch was close enough so she could follow what the conversation was about.

"We leave this here and leave"

"I'm really not sure, looked at what happened to Mathias"

"This is what we came here for."

And then silence. No light anymore. Suzanne peeked her head out from her hiding spot to try and get a better view. A small hint of light in one of the corridors was barely visible.
It was time to come back. Slow at first, then ran in panic back to the entrance.

"Suzanne! What the heck?!" she heard as Carla and Michel were about to enter the tunnel.

"Shut up! Don't make a noise," said Suzanne.

She got out and said: "Help me put this stone back in place, quick!"

"But what have you seen down there?" asked Michel.

The moment Suzanne mentioned the two guys in the tunnel, Michel grabbed Carla's phone and shouted: "Get into the house, now!"

Carla and the girls ran and remained silent by the house door, trying to see what Michel was doing.

Michel made a long phone call. He seemed to describe the situation but the girls could not hear a word.

Thirty minutes later Michel was still in the garden. Sirens started to sound in the night.

Michel got into the house.

"You just stopped a terrorist attack, young girl," he stated.

"These two guys were trying to place a bomb for sure. I made a few phone calls. A specialized operations unit* is already searching the tunnels. We are lucky these guys are not pros. But we don't know where they got the material from and who is financing them. We also don't know how they found the maps and entered the tunnels. At this point they could be anywhere," added Michel.

"Who is behind this?" asked Suzanne looking at Michel.

"To be fair, I don't have a clue," he replied.

* The "Groupe d'Intervention de la Gendarmerie Nationale (GIGN)" is an elite operations unit of the French National Gendarmerie that specializes in counter-terrorism operations, hostage rescue, and disarming explosive devices among other high-risk missions.

END of Part 1