Andy McDermott - The Midas Legacy

‘Don’t suppose any of you speak English?’ Eddie called to them.

To his surprise, he got an answer. A skinny man with a swollen purple bruise on one cheek tentatively raised his hand. ‘I… speak English,’ he said quietly, hardly daring to meet their gaze.

‘Okay,’ Eddie replied. ‘I’m Eddie, she’s Nina, and we’re leaving. All of us. The guns over there — get them. We’ll have to shoot our way out.’

That only intensified the man’s fear. ‘We’re trapped down here too,’ said Nina. ‘They’re trying to kill us, just like you — we don’t have a choice.’

‘If you get the guns, at least you can fight back,’ Eddie added. Nobody was yet in sight down the main tunnel, but the wailing alarm and the conveyor’s rattle prevented him from hearing if anyone was approaching from its side passages. ‘Even if you don’t want to come, tell the others so they can decide for themselves.’

The man hesitated, then spoke in his native language to the prisoners. It quickly became clear that there were two groups: those who had been so traumatised and crushed by their jailers that they were afraid even to consider the possibility of escape, and a smaller number who while just as physically ground down still harboured a spark of resistance. These latter moved warily away from the others as if expecting some cruel trick; when it became clear they were not about to be punished, they went to the dead soldiers and shared out their weapons. When all the guns were taken, the remainder gathered pickaxes, determined not to be left defenceless.

‘What about you?’ Nina asked their translator, who had not armed himself. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Ock,’ he replied, finally finding the courage to look her in the eye. Some of the other prisoners were regarding her with expressions that went beyond simple curiosity. It took a moment to realise why: they were staring at her hair. North Korean propaganda posters, she knew, sometimes demonised Americans as red-headed, freckled thugs.

‘Will you help us?’ When he hesitated again, she continued: ‘You’re the only one who can speak English — we need you to talk to the others.’

‘I… I do not know,’ he stammered. ‘My wife, she is here also, on another floor.’ His eyes flicked upwards. ‘If I help you, they will kill me — and they will kill her!’

‘They were going to kill you anyway,’ Eddie pointed out as he examined the red crates.

‘Yes, but…’ The strain of trying to resolve the dilemma made him tremble.

‘Ock,’ Nina said softly. ‘We’ll do everything we can to help you, and to find your wife. I’m not a soldier, but Eddie is. A very good one. If anyone can get all of us out of here, he can.’

‘So long as we don’t stand around here all day with our thumbs up our arses,’ the Yorkshireman added.

‘He’s also a very rude one,’ she said, glaring at him. But he had a point. ‘We’ve got to get out of here. Are you coming with us?’

Ock finally whispered an answer. ‘Yes. I will help you.’

‘Thank you.’ She looked at the reluctant prisoners. ‘Try to get as many of them to come with us as you can, then tell the ones with guns to do what Eddie tells them.’

‘Did any of the guards in here smoke?’ Eddie asked, opening one of the wooden boxes.

‘Did they smoke?’ echoed Nina uncertainly. ‘Why?’

He lifted out something that could have come straight from a cartoon: a stick of dynamite wrapped in red paper with a fuse hanging limply from one end. ‘So I can light these!’

Ock gawped at him, then pointed at the guard impaled by the pickaxe. ‘Him.’

‘Get his lighter, or matches, whatever.’ Eddie stuffed several sticks into his pockets, along with a couple of longer coils of fuse, then returned to the tunnel. From somewhere in the distance he heard a thudding drumroll: the sound of rifles firing in unison. ‘Those fuckers ,’ he said, realising what it meant. ‘There must be other workers on this floor — they’re killing them! We’ve got to move now , before they trap us down here.’

Nina scurried to the dead soldier, digging gingerly through his pockets and pulling out a crumpled book of matches. ‘Got them.’

‘Great — let’s go.’ He started down the tunnel at a rapid jog, moving alongside the conveyor so he could use it as cover if anyone appeared ahead. Nina ran to catch up, followed by the armed prisoners. Ock had a hurried discussion with the other workers, then the group — with varying degrees of reluctance — came after them.

The tunnel met with another a couple of hundred yards ahead, a larger passage slicing across its end at an angle. The conveyor stopped at another belt, dropping the last few pieces of broken rock that had been loaded before Bok’s announcement on to its still-laden counterpart.

That was not the route concerning Eddie, though; rather a smaller side passage that appeared to link the two main shafts. ‘Hold on,’ he said as he approached it, signalling those behind to slow. He stared intently at the darkened opening, and saw flickers of light washing along its walls from within. ‘Shit! Someone’s coming. Nina, give me those matches!’

She handed him the matchbook. ‘You’re going to use dynamite ?’

‘If we run out of bullets, we’re fucked.’ He pulled out one of the sticks, then struck a match. ‘None of those soldiers back there had spare mags. The Norks probably can’t afford ’em.’

‘That’s great, Wile E., but it won’t matter if you bring the roof down on us!’

But he had already lit the fuse. ‘Everyone down!’ he snapped. Nina hurriedly ducked behind the conveyor, Ock yelping a translation to the prisoners before joining her in cover.

Eddie ran to the passage, holding the sputtering explosive in one hand. He peeked around the corner — and saw the silhouettes of several soldiers advancing on him, one holding a torch.

The beam snapped up and locked on to his face—

Eddie jerked back as bullets smacked against the wall, stone chips stinging his head. He flung the dynamite around the corner, then dived to the floor and covered his ears. Shouts of panic came from the passage, followed by a scuffle of footsteps as some of the soldiers turned and fled, while another made a desperate scramble to tear out the fuse.

He failed.

A piercing bang came from the tunnel, followed by a surge of flying dust and grit and body parts. Deeper booms shook the floor as part of the ceiling collapsed, crushing what remained of the soldiers into oblivion.

Even covered, Eddie’s ears were still ringing from the detonation. ‘That’s another bloody step closer to needing a hearing aid,’ he complained, returning to the others. ‘We need to keep moving.’ They set off again, the Koreans glancing down the wrecked tunnel with expressions that suggested hope was rising within them for the first time in years.

They reached the main intersection. Eddie waved for caution as he went to the corner and checked the new tunnel, but the only movement was the ceaseless trundling of the second conveyor belt. The power cables ran along the roof. ‘Does this go to the way out?’ he asked.

Ock peered nervously past him. ‘To the lift that takes rocks to the surface, yes.’

‘If it takes rocks up, it can bring soldiers down,’ Eddie warned, signalling for everyone to follow him along the tunnel.

It took the fugitives a few minutes to reach the tunnel’s end. Two other conveyors ran into the chamber beyond from adjoining passages, their termini choked with mounds of rubble. The reason it had not been cleared was instantly apparent: all the slave workers had been shot, bloodied corpses littering the floor.