Moving out of the tunnel, they hooked right. Tom immediately felt the change, how the tunnel was higher and wider. Bits and pieces of machinery were scattered here and there: a square metal bin, lengths of metal protruding from rock, frayed nets strung along the stone. His light caught a flash and sparkle, and he heard Luke: “Whoa, is that gold?”

“No, that’s fool’s gold: pyrite. Real gold’s a little dull, and you find it with a lot of quartz.” Weller trailed his light over the rock and then pointed to a thick, milky-white buckle. “Right there’s a bit. That kind of dirty orange stuff.”

“That’s it?” Luke sounded disappointed.

“People have died for less,” Weller said.

Tom opened his mouth to say something, but then he heard a scratchy buzz. Not footsteps. This was like a hive of bees. Then, from somewhere very far away came an airy scream.

Luke gasped. “What is that?”

“Voices,” Tom murmured. He felt the hairs rise on his neck.

“Chuckies don’t talk.”

“I don’t think they’re Chuckies.” Tom turned, straining to hear above the thump of his heart and the crack and pop of damp rock under his boots..

“You mean, normal people?”

“Yeah.” Protruding from the rock was the mouth of a yellow metal duct. It reminded Tom of a ventilation system, but this opening was very wide. Through it came a fitful, intermittent buzz: a distant ebb and flow like the susurrant whisper of the sea stirring stone. People talking. “What is this?”

“Ore chute. Coming from pretty far above us.” Weller paused, then said, grimly, “Sounds like those little bastards got a fair number of prisoners.”

“We need to do something.” Luke’s eyes were liquid. “Can’t we help them?”

“We’re going to.” Weller jerked his head. “Come on.”

* * *

They found what they were looking for twelve minutes later, which, Tom thought, was cutting it pretty close. Any further and they could kiss any chance of getting out in time good-bye. Weller had led them down a flight of gated stairs—first one level and then another—and then they’d moved fast, ducking through corridors, Luke stopping to chalk Xs to mark the turns.

The first room was smaller than he thought it would be, and the pillars weren’t exactly uniform either, but mushroom-shaped, dropping from the ceiling in a taper before spreading out in a wide, rocky footprint. The layout reminded Tom a little of a very large, very low-ceilinged basement held up with two-by-fours and jackstraws. “This is it?”

“No. Worst stope’s further west and not exactly on the same level. We just got to find it,” Weller said.

“I thought you knew where it was,” Tom said.

“It’s been a while.”

“You keep saying that.”

“We’ll find it.”

“Well, let’s do something.” Luke was unhooking his pack. “Where do we start?”

Tom pointed. “Two charges right there next to that big pillar just off center. Put ’em behind the main entrance here, out of sight. That way, if anyone does smell something or come by—”

“They won’t see.” Luke nodded and moved off. “I’m on it.”

“I’m going to scout ahead,” Weller said.

“You should wait.” Tom had dropped to a knee and opened his bag, but now he stopped and looked up. “One of us should be with you.”

Weller shook his head, then glanced over his shoulder and lowered his voice. “This is taking too long. You see that kid’s eyes? How they’re getting a little red? I think that’s the gas. You’re starting to look like you need to sleep off a bender.”

“What?” Only when Weller mentioned it did Tom feel the slight burn and tingle. “The smell isn’t worse.”

“It may not have to be, or maybe it kills your sense of smell after a while,” Weller muttered. “How’s your breathing?”

“Fine, until you mentioned it.”

“Yeah, I’m getting tight, too.” Weller flicked a look at his watch. “How much time you need?”

“No more than five minutes.”

“See you soon,” Weller said.

He’d already prepared the blasting caps, carefully crimping each shell onto time fuses with SOG needle-nose pliers and then using the C4 punch to core a hole for the detonators. He’d timed the burn rate—forty-five seconds a foot—and under more normal circumstances, this wasn’t necessarily a problem: just pull the igniter and run like hell. But they didn’t exactly have a lot of open space in a mine. For more elaborate preps, there was remote detonation. But Tom’s only option had been to rig a time device.

“Done.” Luke dropped beside him.

“Okay, give me another couple seconds here.” He glanced at his watch. Almost five minutes gone. “Here, hold this one straight out. The rock’s pretty uneven.” He waited until Luke got his hand around the charge, then unspooled a few lengths of duct tape around the legs, securing them to the stone. Uncoiling the time fuse, he used tiny strips of duct tape to keep the waterproof cord from curling on itself. “Let’s go.”

“Where’s Weller?” Luke asked at the entrance. He squatted and scratched two large Xs in white chalk.

“Scouting ahead for that room he’s hot to blow.” Tom glanced at his watch again. Seven minutes gone. “How many charges you got left?”

“Eight.”

He had eleven, plus two blocks of C4 and time fuses, because you just never knew. “Come on. If he’s marking the way, we can catch up. Better than just waiting here.”

“Okay,” Luke said, then coughed. His nose was red as Rudolph’s, and he looked as if he’d just staggered back from a serious barcrawl. “Chest feels funny.”

“You’re doing great. We’ll be done soon.” Tom trotted down the tunnel with Luke on his heels. His lungs burned with the effort, and he coughed, and thought, Maybe ten, fifteen more minutes; then we got to get out no matter what. To his right, he spotted stairs, an X chalked low on the wall, and a down arrow. The stairs sounded too loud, their footfalls ringing and echoing against the rock. At the bottom, Weller had chalked a small, left-facing arrow. We’re moving either west or south. Tom pictured the terrain overhead. This would put them closer to the decline ramp and further from the first set of charges. They would have ten minutes max before the first charges went off. By then, they had to be well on their way toward the shaft. Just hope we have ti—

“Whoa, whoa,” Luke hissed, and then slowed down. “You hear that?”

Tom had been so focused he hadn’t noticed, but now he did hear: a grunt and then a harsh gasp, the scrabble of feet over rock.

Weller.

He darted down the hall, running on the balls of his feet, then grabbed Luke before the boy could spurt ahead. Together, they flattened against a rock wall just left of another X—

In time to hear Weller groan.

75

Flicking the Uzi’s selector, Tom pivoted, weapon at waist level, each hand on a grip. He felt Luke move to flank him.

There were four. A boy at each arm, and another draped over Weller’s waist. The girl straddled Weller’s chest, and Tom and Luke had arrived in time to see her rip a chunk of Weller’s shoulder with her teeth. There was a harsh tearing sound, and the old man bucked, trapping an abortive scream behind his teeth. In the bad light, Weller’s blood was oil, and his skin would’ve looked at home on a shark.

The girl heard them, the scuff of boots against rock, and she twisted, a stupefied expression spreading over her face. A ragged flap of Weller’s skin hung from her mouth, and she was still chewing it back like a kid with a too-large bite of spaghetti. Gore painted the girl’s mouth and face in a clown’s scream. Her eyes widened, and then her snack fell with a moist plop to the rock as her jaw went slack.

“Oh fuck,” Luke said, and then he and Tom were squeezing off quick, silenced shots: pfft pfft pfft pfft! Tom heard the tick-tick-tick of brass against rock; saw the sudden blooms on the girl’s chest. She fell back without a sound. The boys were halfway up when Luke and Tom fired again. The boys jerked, then drooped in limp tangles.

“Weller!” Tom knelt by the old man. The girl had gnawed off enough meat to reveal the dull glimmer of bone.

“F-found it.” Weller was shaking. His face gleamed with sweat and blood. He had a hand clamped to his shoulder, but Tom heard the drip-drip-drip. “Down the tunnel. I was c-coming back when these little f-fucks jumped me. N-never saw th-them.”

“Why didn’t you call for help?” Luke asked.

Tom knew why; read it in the tears streaking the old man’s face. Weller hadn’t wanted to give them away. Not just an old hard-ass; the guy’s willing to go down to make sure we do this. Dragging out the thermal top he’d taken from the dead boy, he used his knife and ripped it into strips. “This is going to hurt,” he said.

“Just d-do it,” Weller said. He let out a gargling, barely audible scream as Tom crammed silk into his wound. Weller panted as Tom knotted more strips of silk into a crude bandage. “L-lucky if I don’t get r-rabies.”.

“What do we do?” Luke said.

“You finish.” Weller’s skin was ash and his swollen eyes were pink, but his voice was a knife. “I marked the rooms. The good one’s a little further on and down one more flight of stairs. But you got to hurry.”

Tom knew he was right. There were more kids where these had come from. After he and Luke dragged the bodies to a corner, he helped Weller to a spot along the far wall, then laid an Uzi across the old man’s lap. “Don’t use your light. You hear something and we don’t say your name, you stay quiet.”

“Don’t worry about me,” Weller said.

“Ten minutes,” Tom said, and then he and Luke hustled.