Don Winslow - Satori

“I hate this.”

“I know.”

He paused, then followed Solange into the next chamber.

This one was larger, high enough to stand up in. Three horizontal shafts came off it in different directions. They rested for a moment, then one of the Viet Minh led them into another shaft, reached behind him, and ripped a plug from a cable, plunging the tunnels behind them into darkness.

Diamond cursed when the tunnel went black.

He had found the hastily camouflaged entrance and led several of the Vietnamese down the shaft into the first chamber. They crawled until they came to the chamber with the three shafts, then split up. Diamond took one of the men with him and was sure that he had the right tunnel as he could see recent scrape marks in the dirt below and could swear he heard the sound of movement, like rodents, ahead of him.

He was on the track and then darkness hit.

Fighting off a momentary panic, he felt for the flashlight on his belt, turned it on, and shone it in front of him. The light in his left hand, his.45 in his right, he crawled forward.

They crawled until they came to what seemed to be a dead end. But another shaft ran sharply to the right, and they took it, and then repeated this process of seeming dead ends until this maze zigzagged at least three hundred yards and Nicholai roughly reckoned that they must be literally out of the woods. They came to a chamber that had a vertical shaft and they descended a wooden ladder another twenty feet down to a much larger chamber.

“Your home for the next couple of days,” Quoc said.

It was an underground barracks of sorts. Wooden-framed bunk beds lined the walls, rudely constructed wooden chairs were placed about, some medical supplies, bottles of water, and canned foods were neatly stacked and organized. There was even a small shelf of books, and relatively fresh air was being pumped from a narrow ventilator shaft.

“It’s quite good,” Nicholai said, “but I prefer the Continental.”

“I’m sure Mancini would be pleased to welcome you,” Quoc answered. “Shall I call for a reservation?”

“That’s all right.”

“Or the Beijing Hotel?”

“I’m growing fonder of this establishment by the second,” Nicholai said, “assuming, of course, that the price is reasonable.”

“Your bill has already been taken care of,” Quoc said.

“It’s a small city down here,” Nicholai said. “How far does this complex go?”

“Now?” Quoc said, “Almost all the way to the outreaches of Saigon. Eventually, all the way to the suburbs.”

“And then you pop out of the ground with rocket launchers and take the city,” Nicholai said.

“When the time is right,” Quoc said, “hopefully before the Americans blunder in. You will stay down here for a few days, then we will get you out, I think through Cambodia, if that suits you.”

“That will be fine,” Solange said.

She took a bottle of water, sipped from it, and handed it to Nicholai.

“We will leave you alone,” Ai Quoc said.

He and his men left the chamber to see to the rocket launchers.

Diamond crawled to a dead end and realized that he must have chosen one of the false tunnels. They were clever, these Communist rats. He started to back out, then paused and felt a small waft of air. He shone the flashlight to his right, saw the concealed shaft, and headed into it.

Soon he came to another dead end.

Damn these bastards to hell, he thought.

Then he saw the next shaft.

He was halfway through the maze of zigzags when he heard a dull throb above him.

Nicholai looked up.

So did Solange.

They stared at the ceiling as if they actually thought that they could see what they were hearing.

A low-pitched hum and then a whining sound, and then the bombs hit.

The bombers came in directly over the tunnel complex and laid their ordnance in a spread pattern over a rectangle of a thousand square yards.

The chamber shook.

Dirt fell from the ceiling.

It all held for a moment and then there was a horrific bass thud and the bunk beds came down, and the neat stacks of supplies, and the walls quivered and more dirt came down and then the lights went out.

Nicholai heard Solange moan, “Mon dieu, mon dieu .”

He reached for her hand, found it, and pulled her forward, his mind reconstructing the chamber and locating the shaft. He found it with his hand, reached up for the rungs, and pulled her behind him.

“We have to get up!” he yelled, and then he felt her find her feet and they climbed up the ladder to the next chamber. They had to get up and out quickly or they would be buried alive.

A slow, suffocating death in the dark.

“Nicholai…”

“We’re all right,” he said. “We’re all right. Stay with me.”

He pulled her up into the next chamber. It was pitch dark now, a tight cloying blackness as he forced himself to remember the layout. It was difficult in the noise of the explosions above them, the falling dirt, the concussive force of the blasts.

You have been here many times before, he told himself, in many caves, in tighter spots than this, so think. He found the tunnel entrance first with his mind and then with his hands. Then he took off his shirt, tied one sleeve to his belt and the other to Solange’s.

“Come on,” he said. “We’re going to be fine.”

He led them into the entrance and they started back.

Diamond spat the dirt out of his mouth and rubbed it from his eyes.

God damn the Frogs, he thought. Didn’t they know he was down here? Or did they know and didn’t care?

“Come on,” he said to the soldier behind him.

There was no answer.

The man was dead.

He plunged ahead.

The tunnel was fast coming in around them as Nicholai pulled Solange along. They came to one false wall after another, but Nicholai had the route firmly in his head and he crawled quickly, encouraging Solange all the way.

“Almost there.”

“That’s good.”

“Oh, that’s very good.”

Diamond heard voices.

Speaking French.

He stopped, lay flat, and held the pistol out in front of him.

Nicholai’s proximity sense warned him.

Someone was around the sharp right angle in front of them.

He stopped.

“What-”

“Ssshh.”

A bomb blast rattled the walls. Dirt slid, narrowing the tunnel. His ears ringing, Nicholai couldn’t hear. He slid forward on his stomach, and then a muzzle flash lit the tunnel and he saw Diamond.

Diamond crawled forward, shooting in front of him.

Nicholai reached his right hand as far as it would go, clutched at the air, and grabbed Diamond’s wrist. “Solange, your knife!”

Diamond ripped his arm backward and freed his hand.

He lowered the pistol again, toward Nicholai’s face.

Nicholai felt the powder blast burn his cheek.

He reached again in the dark, lunging out with a punch. “Your knife!”

Solange coiled as much as she could in the narrowing confine of the tunnel. She pushed out with her long legs and squeezed past Nicholai, her knife in front of her.

Diamond pulled the trigger.

The muzzle flash blinded Nicholai. He crawled past Solange, and heard Diamond crawling away. He started to go after him, but then he heard Solange moan.

Diamond would have to wait.

He stopped and turned to Solange.

“Are you all right?” he asked her.

“Yes.”

But then he felt the warm stickiness of her blood.

She was bleeding badly from the side. He couldn’t see in the stygian darkness but he could feel.