Steve Berry - The Balkan Escape (Short Story) - A Cassiopeia Vitt Adventure

Numbers were clicking down.

Recognition was instant.

A bomb.

The timer at 15 seconds.

14. 13. 12.

She raced in the opposite direction, leaping forward just as the plastique exploded.

The impact shook the mountain and sent rock crumbling in an avalanche that quickly consumed the tunnel behind her. As the ceiling collapsed she scrambled to her feet and bolted away, the opening Varga and Sokolov had filled a few moments ago gone.

She dashed to another corner.

The tunnel walls behind her were imploding, rock pounding rock, dust rising in a dense storm, the air rapidly being replaced by a suffocating pall. She stared ahead and saw the tunnel end ten meters away. Even worse, another red glow pulsated at the base of a stone barricade. She ran forward and the light revealed another digital timer attached to another bundle of explosive, this clock at thirty seconds.

Go left?

Sokolov’s idea of help?

The first explosion had annihilated the tunnel behind her, blocking any escape in that direction, and a bomb lay at her feet, less than twenty seconds from exploding.

She trotted back to the corner and shone the light. The first tunnel was cannibalizing itself. A loud crack split the air as a chunk the size of a Mercedes slammed down and disintegrated into boulders.

She shielded her eyes, then peered through a veil of dust.

Her mind was keeping count. Probably less than ten seconds. She whipped the beam to the left, then right, and spotted a smile forming in the remaining wall that was quickly expanding into a yawn.

She made a decision and leaped.

Another blast pulsated the mountain.

Behind her, the entire tunnel vanished but the crush of rock onto rock became muffled by a barrier of rubble, sealing off the hole that had existed only moments before.

Rumbles continued for another minute, then faded.

She lay on her stomach and held her breath.

Absolute darkness devoured her.

She exhaled and tried the flashlight.

The bulb still worked.

She examined her prison. The chamber was not tall enough to allow her to stand, maybe a meter and a half, the ceiling and floor slanted upward. To her dismay she was trapped inside a long, narrow box sealed at both ends. Her wet clothes were caked in dust, as were her face and hair.

She cleansed her lips with a spew of breath.

The air was breathable, but motes of dust hung thick like a blizzard.

She worked the flashlight around the confines and forced any negativity from her mind. The suspended dust bounced the photons back at her like tiny stars. She swiped a clear spot of air where she could breathe.

And noticed something.

She stretched out her hand and gently probed the beam.

No, it wasn’t her imagination.

The particles were moving—slowly, nearly imperceptibly, but definitely shifting to the right.

She belly-crawled forward.

The floor sloped toward the ceiling. At the end of the chamber the floor gave way and, a few centimeters down into the blackness, she spotted a slit, a good meter long and a third that high. Rock filled the space, but not tightly. She hinged her torso down and peered through the opening. Dark beyond, but it looked like a crawl space, large enough for her to fit into.

More movement in the air encouraged her.

She tried to dislodge the rubble. The stones were stacked loosely, but held firm. She swung around so her legs stretched forward and slammed the soles of her boots into the stones.

Three whacks and the rock gave away.

She cleared a path and saw that the space was negotiable. What encouraged her even more was that the air had freshened. She was proud of herself for staying calm. Tight places, though, had never been her weakness. Heights, especially from airplanes and helicopters, bothered her. She had a rule. If she couldn’t run around in it, she didn’t fly in it. Unfortunately, time after time that rule seemed to be violated. Trouble had a way of following her. One thing after another. Today seemed a perfect example.

She crawled forward on her elbows and wiggled down into an even smaller space. Her beam revealed another rectangular path, less than a meter square, which stopped a few meters ahead. In the floor, at the far end, she spotted yet another opening.

She worked her way forward on her elbows and peered down to see a drop, at an angle, like the laundry chute she recalled from her childhood home. The path then appeared to rise again, and she noticed dust drifting that way.

Could she make it over the hump?

Becoming stuck did not sound pleasant.

She folded herself forward to where the rock angled back up. The space seemed wide enough so she wiggled over and pointed the flashlight downward, spotting a rock floor about two meters away littered with lichens.

Freedom?

She curled over the hump and slid head first, hands extended forward, from her confines.

Her body came free.

She stood in what appeared to be a tunnel—roomy, long, extending in both directions—and brushed dust from her clothes.

She sucked a few deep breaths.

A light appeared to her right and grew in intensity. In the ambient glow she saw Lev Sokolov.

She readied a fist.

But released it when a gun appeared in the Russian’s hand.

“I am not the enemy,” Sokolov said.

“Go left? That’s what you told me to do.”

He nodded. “Bomb to right.”

“Bomb to left, too.”

His face registered surprise. “I thought only one. Sorry.”

She wanted to hit him, but there was the matter of the gun, so she opted for, “What are you doing here?”

“I come for you. I hope you make it this far. We are twenty meters below the chamber where we speak before. This mountain is a big maze.”

“Where are your pals?”

He motioned behind her. “Varga and the other two. I lose them. But you will never get past them. They are back there, behind me. Not a good way out in that direction.”

He handed her his weapon.

“I am not one of them. I am scientist. I hate Soviets. I hate Russians.”

She grasped the gun, checked the magazine, and—satisfied that it was loaded—wrapped her finger around the trigger.

“You are a Russian,” she said, motioning with the gun.

“I hate the country and everything it is. I want to leave.”

“Find an embassy.” She brushed past him.

Sokolov grabbed her arm. “I do not go back to Russia.”

In the flashlight’s glow she saw the desperation in his eyes. He was serious.

“Then leave. The Cold War is over.”

“Not for me. Russians will make me stay.”

There was nothing she could do. “Not my problem.”

“I save you,” he said, as if she owed him.

She stared him straight in the eye. “How have you saved me?”

“I can show.”

Which would buy her time to think and make a smart decision.

Besides, she held the gun.

“Okay. Show me.”

She stared at the spectacular scene.

They’d left the tunnel and were standing at the base of an inverted cone of towering rock. The funnel swept upward fifty-plus meters to a ragged opening that revealed a wind-ravaged sky.

A misty rain showered down.

The sides of the escarpment were stained black with moss and lichens. An irregular pool had formed in the floor beneath the opening high above, the water a blood red. A thousand raindrops disrupted its surface.

She stepped over and tested the water.

Warm. Red probably from iron.

She stared up to the sky. “What I wouldn’t give for a rope, some crampons, and an ice pick.”

She stepped back, allowing the rock to block the rain, and checked her watch. 8:20 A.M. Amazing the thing still worked. She watched more clouds roll past above, driven by air that could only be heard.