Clive Cussler - Trojan Odyssey

What was also strange was that no fleet of security guard cars, lights flashing, came hurtling though the empty and darkened tunnel after them. Nor were there any security cameras. They had all been removed when the tunnel was completed.

The answer quickly became obvious.

"I can see now," said Giordino calmly, "why the security guards are in no hurry to grab us."

"We have no place to go," Pitt finished answering the puzzle. "Our little venture into the bizarre is over. All Specter's security people have to do is wait until we get hungry and thirsty, then welcome us back into the main tunnel when we give ourselves up in hope of a last meal before we're hung."

"They would probably prefer to let us rot in here."

"There is that."

Pitt wiped a sleeve across his forehead to blot the sweat that suddenly began streaming into his eyes. "Have you noticed the temperature in this tunnel is much higher than the others?"

"It's beginning to feel like a steam bath in here," said Giordino, his face glistening.

"The air like sulfur."

"Speaking of hunger. How's your supply of granola bars?"

"Fresh out."

Abruptly, the thought crossed their minds at the same time, and they turned to each other and uttered two words in unison.

"Ventilator shaft."

Giordino suddenly became sober. "Maybe not. I didn't see any raised control booths in the outer tunnels."

"They would have been removed along with the railroad tracks and the overhead lighting and sealed, since they were no longer essential to remove pollution from the excavation."

"Yes, but the ladder rungs were embedded in the tunnel walls. I'll bet next month's pay, if I live to spend it, that they didn't bother to remove them."

"We'll know soon enough," said Pitt, as Giordino hit the accelerator and the cart leaped forward, its headlights probing the darkness ahead.

After covering nearly twenty miles, Giordino spotted the rungs of a ladder crawling up one wall. He parked about thirty feet away so the headlights would illuminate a wider area of the tunnel wall. "The rungs go up to where a ventilator shaft control booth once hung," he said, rubbing the stubble that had sprouted on his cheeks and chin.

Pitt stepped from the cart and began climbing the rungs. It had been a year or more since the tunnel was completed and stripped down. The rungs were slimy with dampness and flaked with rust. He reached the top and found a round manholelike iron cover sealing the entrance to the ventilator shaft above. There was a sliding bolt holding it against bottom stops.

Wrapping one hand through a rung for balance, he used both hands to grip the bolt and pull. It slid out of its clamp with little resistance. Then Pitt leaned to the side until his shoulder was pressed against the cover, and heaved.

It moved a millimeter at most.

"It's going to take the two of us," he called down.

Giordino came up the ladder until he was standing one rung up from Pitt to compensate for the difference in their heights. It was the wolf matching strength with the bear. With two shoulders against the heavy iron cover, they both put their strength into the effort.

The cover fought back, budged less than an inch and froze in place.

"Stubborn devil," grunted Giordino.

"At least it moved and isn't welded," Pitt replied.

Giordino grinned. "Once more with feeling."

"On three."

They stared at each other briefly and nodded.

"One," said Pitt, "two and threeeee."

They both thrust upward with every ounce of strength they possessed. For an instant, the cover resisted. Then it slowly gave, and with a loud screech it abruptly swung open and clanged against one wall of the ventilator shaft. They stared upward into the ominous black cavity as if it was a stairway to paradise.

"I wonder where it comes out," murmured Giordino between breaths.

"I have no idea, but we're going to find out."

Giordino gave Pitt's arm a light squeeze. "Hold on. In case the Specter goons come looking for us, let's give them something to chase."

He dropped down the ladder and climbed in the electric security guard car. He removed the belt off his shorts and tied the steering wheel so the front tires were positioned straight ahead. Then he pulled the front seat out of the car and stood it on end, using it to press the accelerator against the floorboard. Finally, he turned on the ignition and stepped back.

The car shot down the tunnel, its headlights carving weird patterns through the darkness. Within a hundred yards, it yawed against one wall of the tunnel, then careened against the other side in its wild ride, bouncing back and forth with a rending screech of tortured metal far into the distance.

"I wonder how Specter will explain that to his insurance adjuster," said Giordino. He turned, but Pitt was already scaling the ladder.

In the tension and stress of the past several hours, Pitt was surprised at how stiff and cramped his muscles had become. He climbed slowly, conserving his strength. With no lights, he felt a touch of claustrophobia as he ascended in the pitch-blackness. Me began counting the rungs and paused whenever he reached the fiftieth to catch his breath. They were spaced twelve inches apart, so it was a matter of simple arithmetic to calculate the distance they had climbed. Climbing down the ventilator shaft into the control booth from El Castillo, assisted by gravity, seemed like a swim in the bathtub in comparison. At rung three hundred and fifty, Pitt stopped and waited for Giordino to catch up. "Does this never end?" Giordino gasped.

"Pardon the pun," Pitt muttered between heavy breaths, "but there is light at the end of the tunnel."

Giordino looked upward and saw a tiny glow in the distance. It looked ten miles away to him. "Is there any way it could come to us?"

"Just hope it doesn't move farther away."

They continued on, increasingly conscious of the eeriness of the shaft. The glow above grew larger and magnified with agonizing slowness. Water dripped down the walls and onto the rungs. Their hands pulling and scraping against the rust on the rungs as they struggled upward soon became red and raw, the skin scoured as if by sandpaper.

At long last, the glow became a bright light and the nearness renewed their strength. Pitt began climbing two rungs at a time, using up his failing strength at an increased rate. But the end was only a few short feet away now.

With a final effort that cast him over the edge of exhaustion, he came to the wire mesh that covered the top of the shaft, hanging there with breaths coming in great heaves, blood trickling from his palms and fingers. "Made it," he gasped.

Giordino soon joined him. "I'm not up to cutting through that stuff again," he panted.

As soon as the numbness and aches subsided, Pitt reached into the knapsack, retrieved the wire cutters and wearily began snipping at the wire mesh. "We'll take turns and spell each other as we tire."

Pitt cut only a few inches in as many minutes before he could no longer squeeze the handles of the wire cutters. He moved aside and handed the cutters to Giordino. Because of the blood on his hands, they nearly slipped from his fingers. Pitt held his breath, but Giordino barely caught them before they fell out of sight into the darkness below.

"Keep a tight grip," Pitt said, with a grim smile. "You wouldn't want to make the climb all over again."

"I'd die first," Giordino muttered bravely. He cut almost ten minutes before he let Pitt relieve him.

It took the two of them almost an hour before they cut an opening large enough to crawl through. Once past the mesh that had shaded the exterior light, Pitt's eyes were blinded by the sunlight that streamed all around him. Putting on his sunglasses to relieve the glare from eyes accustomed to darkness, he found himself in a round room whose walls were glass from floor to ceiling.