“It’s no good,” Manetti said. “It’s gotten too damn dark. Somebody’s just going to wind up busting his skull on these rocks here.” He was right, thought Peters. The search was hampered by high tide now, the beach shrunk to a narrow strip of sand, forcing them back toward the granite cliffs and the erosion spill of rocks beneath, which were already slippery from the spray of surf. The waves filled crevices and tide pools. They were stepping around them, stepping over them. Peters’ hair and clothes were damp with spray. He tasted salt on his lips. The men were exhausted. Enough was enough. At this angle, having to stand this close to the rock face, they weren’t going to find a damn thing anyhow. You couldn’t tell what was a cave—never mind how deep a cave, whether it was deep enough to live in—and what was just a fissure or a cleft in the rock. The troopers had provided them with heavy, three-foot-long Maglite Six-Cells—which went for forty dollars a pop thank you very much—but their bright beams just slashed straight up the sea-wall, and everything looked pretty much the same as everything else.
