Peter Hernon - 8.4

It was a bravura performance, Atkins thought. But the question remained: Why was he taking such a risk? He already had the computer. What else did he want? Surely he had to figure there was a remote chance she might recognize him. It didn’t make sense. Was he that sure of himself, that brazen? If so, he was more dangerous than either of them could have imagined.

They’d climbed about a hundred feet up the skip shaft and were nearly to Level 10 when another explosion ripped through the heart of the mine. The walls and floor shuddered. The deafening blast was much louder than before. Its concussive force knocked them down. Rock and powder fell on them. There was a cave-in somewhere far below them. They heard the shaft collapse.

“That’s got to be another methane explosion,” Murray said, getting back on his feet.

Fire curtains were drawn to each side of the opening to the mine tunnel on Level 10.

Murray, who was in the lead, saw it first, a ball of white fire rolling down the tunnel, spreading out through the other tunnels and crosscuts as it headed toward the skip shaft.

Murray pulled the fire curtains together. “Come on, fast!” he yelled. “We’ve got to get up the shaft before we’re fried.”

They tried to run, but their heavy air tanks and the other equipment weighed them down, and it was impossible to stand up in the low, steep tunnel. Hunched over, they were strung out. Murray was in front, followed by Neutron and Booker. The robot was carrying Murray’s forty-pound foam canister as well as the one that had belonged to Walt Jacobs.

Weston was the last to make it past the Level 10 opening. A tongue of flame obliterated the thick plastic fire curtains, roaring into the shaft right behind him.

Wren, the next in line, was forced to drop back. In his haste to get away from the heat, he threw himself against Elizabeth, driving her into Atkins. They rolled and slid down the shaft nearly all the way to Level 11.

Stopping his own tumbling fall. Wren got to his feet and faced the flames. He shouted up to Murray, but the roaring fire drowned out his words. Backing down the shaft, he joined Elizabeth and Atkins at the entrance to the tunnel on Level 11.

Atkins confronted him. “If we get out of this, I’m going to make sure you’re charged with theft. You can tell the cops why you wanted Elizabeth’s computer.” He knew he should have held off, waited until they were out of danger, but he couldn’t help himself. He was too angry.

Wren didn’t look in the least surprised or shaken, but his entire demeanor changed. The soft-spoken geologist, ever deferential to Weston and his superiors, spoke with bullet hardness.

“I wondered if you’d ever figure out it was me,” he said, shrugging. “It doesn’t matter. We’ve got another problem to deal with here, don’t we? We need to talk about the dam at Kentucky Lake and what you saw there. Those incredible cracks. I sure haven’t forgotten them. I doubt you have either. Weston says you told him you’d seen them. That was very indiscreet, Doctor Atkins. And Doctor Holleran makes several references to them in notes she typed in her laptop. Did you know it was Weston’s idea I steal your computer? I wish I’d thought of it myself. There’s some very interesting information stored in zipped files on your hard drive.”

He put his right hand in the pocket of his coveralls and took out a pistol.

Atkins recognized the automatic. It had belonged to Walt Jacobs. He’d lost sight of it after Jacobs had jumped to his death.

“I know,” Wren said. “First Jacobs pulls a gun on Doctor Booker, and now it’s my turn. Frankly, I wasn’t planning on using a pistol. Didn’t think I’d need one in a place like this where there are so many ways to get killed.” Wren looked at his watch. “We’ve got one hour, forty minutes, and counting until blastoff. Turns out maybe it was a lucky break we got separated from the others. Gives us a chance to work all this out in private. In a minute, I’m going back up that shaft with your extra foam tanks and see if I can get by that blowtorch up there. You won’t need yours anymore, and I wouldn’t want them to go to waste.”

Atkins carried one of the two forty-pound foam sprayers they’d brought into the mine.

Wren raised the pistol. He was less than five feet from Atkins. The stubby barrel was pointed at his chest. Staring at the black hole in the muzzle, Atkins felt helpless, unable to move. He and Elizabeth unstrapped their tanks and set them down.

THE weather had slowly improved. The thick clouds and gray overcast had broken up. As the morning slipped into afternoon, the sun started to shine again.

Ross found himself checking his watch every few minutes. Fighting continued in isolated pockets, but, for the most part, the Army had brought it under control. Despite nightmarish logistical problems, the evacuations were proceeding. Troops were out in the country, escorting thousands of people out of the danger zone. Some of the convoys were a mile long.

Steve Draper quickly chilled even this meager dose of good news. He’d just gotten a radio message from the mine.

“They’ve got trouble down there, sir. There’s been a fire. The flames have separated the group.”

“Where are they right now?” Ross asked. Draper had drawn a rough map of the mine to follow their progress. He pointed out the probable locations.

“Some of them are huddled in the skip shaft right about here,” he said, pointing to the map. “Just above Level 10. They’ve had a methane explosion down there. The fires are still burning. Three others are trapped on one of the lower levels.”

“Who is it?” the president asked.

“Atkins, Elizabeth Holleran, and the geologist from the Seismic Commission, Mark Wren.” Draper’s voice was husky. He knew the odds.

“Is there anything we can do?”

“Nothing, sir,” Draper said, shaking his head. “Doc Murray says they’re going to lay down some foam and see if they can get through the fire and reach them.”

“I don’t know if they should risk that,” Ross said slowly. For all anyone knew, Atkins and the others were already dead. It might be a fatal mistake to go looking for them. The more prudent course, Ross thought, would be for the survivors to keep looking for an escape route. The brutal truth was they were running out of time. The bomb was scheduled to detonate in about an hour and a half.

Ross stared hard at the ground, hands clasped behind his back. “How do they propose getting through the fire to look for Atkins?”

Draper smiled. He couldn’t help it, even at such a moment. “They’re sending down Neutron.”

WREN took a step toward Elizabeth, who’d been holding her hands behind her back. She threw a fistful of rock and coal dust in his face.

Staggering backward, rubbing his eyes with a gloved hand. Wren started shooting. He fired blindly, the gunshots echoing off the walls.

Atkins grabbed Elizabeth. They ran down the tunnel and turned left into a crosscut. A large picnic table was there, along with a few wooden storage boxes and hand tools. Atkins had noticed similar places during the descent. Murray had explained they were rest stations, where the miners ate lunch, took their breaks, drank coffee.

A long crowbar lay in the dust next to the table. Atkins picked it up. Nearly seven feet long with a pointed end, it was like the one Murray had carried. He couldn’t believe his luck. It wasn’t much, but at least he had something in his hands to fight with.

They turned a corner and entered another tunnel. It was lined on both sides with room-and-pillar cuts, black holes that looked like the eye sockets of a skull. They turned off their lamps and in the dark heard a noise, boots on gravel. Wren was coming after them.