What would he do if he were Raven?
Wait it out?
Collapse the tunnel?
Neither tactic would end well for Nathan, and the latter was too terrible to contemplate. No, he had to get Raven to come in here after him. And do it fairly quickly. A prolonged silence might mean he was retrieving explosives. Nathan had no way to know where the dynamite was or how long it would take Raven to go get it.
From the safety of the alcove, he took a deep breath and called out in Spanish, “Hey, Franco, I’ve got your gold from your safe. All twenty-six bars. Does Macanas know about your private stash? Maybe I’ll just tell him.”
Raven didn’t respond.
Of course, Nathan was lying about having all the gold, but by simply proving his knowledge of it, he’d given Raven an urgent reason to come in here, neutralize the threat, and reclaim any gold that Nathan possessed.
Silence from outside the tunnel.
Nathan decided to up the stakes. “And that worthless cousin of yours? He’s bleeding out.”
Raven’s voice echoed in the tunnel. “You aren’t Estefan Delgado. So who are you?”
Knowing his foreign accent had given him away, Nathan said, “Only one thing matters for you. I’m the guy who’s got the goods on your ass.”
Raven’s response arrived in the form of a fourth bullet. It whistled past his alcove like an angry hornet, followed by a concussive boom.
“Go ahead and waste all your ammo.”
Provoking Raven gave Nathan a measure of satisfaction, but he felt terribly cramped inside the alcove and the air quality had degraded from the latest blast from Raven’s sniper rifle. Worse than that, the tunnel seemed to be constricting around him. He jabbed his thigh wound and used the sensation of pain to ward off the illusion. Nothing had changed, the tunnel wasn’t getting smaller.
From outside, he heard muffled voices but didn’t see any movement. Because his field of vision was narrow, he could only glimpse a tiny portion of the outside world. The reverse was also true, Nathan reminded himself. His enemy saw only the black opening of the mine.
He decided to make a bold move, one that involved substantial risk. In the closed confines of the alcove, he managed to shuck his pack and pull out a single gold bar. To reinforce the ruse of being wounded, he pressed the ingot against his thigh and smeared it with blood. Keeping his Sig up and firing a round every third step, he dashed for the entrance. He stopped well short, threw the bar out of the mine, and hustled back to the alcove, firing over his shoulder as he ran.
Back in the safety of the alcove, he peered toward the opening.
Nothing happened.
“There’s your proof,” Nathan yelled. “I’ve got twenty-five more.”
Nathan saw a black form sweep across the entrance and simultaneously scoop up the bar, too quickly to make for a hittable target.
Bright light appeared on the ground near the entrance. Nathan knew Raven had likely activated a small LED flashlight. Nathan used the time to reload his Sig.
“Looks like you’re leaking.”
“I’ll live.”
“What do you want? Maybe we can make a deal.”
Knowing his response wouldn’t be well received, Nathan pressed himself as deep as he could into the recess. “I want you and your boss in a prison cell together for the rest of your lives for murdering Pastor Tobias.”
Raven didn’t respond; his mind was probably racing.
“Did you hear me? You’re going to rot in prison with Macanas. You—”
Nathan’s world erupted again, this time from a fully automatic M-4 that Raven must’ve taken from one of his wounded men.
The M-4’s sound was beyond deafening.
Son of a bitch!
Nathan covered his ears and ducked his head away from the fireworks display tearing past his position. Bullets pinged off the ore car and more overhead light bulbs popped.
When the gunfire ended, Nathan felt as though he’d been run over by an eighteen-wheeler. His body buzzed from the teeth-fracturing barrage. No more than eighteen inches away, forty hypersonic slugs, each producing its own sonic boom, had quite literally pounded his eardrums into mush. With a little luck, blood wouldn’t be oozing down his lobes.
Think, man! React and overcome!
With a start, Nathan realized Raven could be using the suppressive burst to advance into the tunnel. He stole a look around the edge of the alcove but didn’t detect any movement. To hear Raven after that auditory assault would be hopeless. Still, to be on the safe side, he fired a blind round toward the entrance. It zinged off the wall.
He sucked in a dust-filled gulp of air and tasted burned gunpowder. “Nice try, numbnuts, but it’s not going to be that easy.”
Raven didn’t respond.
Nathan peered in the opposite direction, but his NV couldn’t see beyond ten yards or so. He didn’t know much about underground mines but believed there’d be other tunnels connecting to this one farther down the passage. From talking with Estefan, he seemed to recall they were called crosscuts or drifts. Turning his NVGs to maximum gain, he looked deeper into the mountain and saw only telltale speckling on the tiny TV screens. The photocathode plates weren’t receiving enough light to amplify the image.
If there were other tunnels deeper inside the mine, could he find another way out of here? The thought gave Nathan a glimmer of hope, but he dismissed it. Although he was no expert at judging cut and fill volume, there had to be several thousand cubic yards of blasted rock outside the mine’s entrance. The flattened expanse had been the size of a tennis court. And even if there was an alternate exit, what were the chances he’d find it? It could be on a different level — higher or lower. Or nowhere. He’d be forced to use either his infrared illuminator or a light stick, either of which would give Raven a huge advantage. And escaping didn’t solve the problem of neutralizing Raven. As unpleasant as the thought was, his best bet was to stay semiclose to the entry point and wait for his enemy to make a mistake. The trick was getting Raven to do it.
He focused on his immediate area and saw that the walls and ceiling were jagged and uneven from being dynamited. A thick layer of dust covered every surface. There were no timbers for support. He flashed back to a childhood memory of a Knott’s Berry Farm ride into the depths of a mysterious and colorful gold mine, but this grimy place was neither mysterious nor colorful. Pitch-black and dirty, it had a musty odor — probably from water dripping from the ceiling.
Nathan’s blood and sweat had combined with dirt, thoroughly trashing his MARPATs. Adding to his stress, he was already experiencing the early symptoms of anxiety from being trapped in an enclosed dark place.
As he considered his options, an idea formed. He only hoped he had the strength — and time — to pull it off. He fired two more rounds toward the entrance, stepped out of the alcove, and put a shoulder against the side of the ore car. He pushed with all his strength and was a little surprised when it tipped over without too much effort.
It clanked against the rock wall and, to his horror, stayed like that. For his idea to work, Nathan needed it flat on the ground. He silently cursed himself for not anticipating this. Sensing Raven was about to unleash another salvo, he pulled his Sig and fired three shots toward the entrance, purposefully skipping them off the ceiling. He wanted his bullets to go whistling out of the entrance and hit the ground.
He tossed the handgun into the alcove and hefted the car just enough to unseat its side wheels from the rail. The ore car clanged as it fell onto its side. In two quick jerks, he muscled the ore car sideways across the tunnel so its wheels faced the entrance. As he’d hoped, it was a near perfect fit. He now had solid cover three feet high, and he’d be able to run in a crouch deeper into the mine. As he ducked behind the overturned car and prepared to reach for his handgun, a short volley of bullets slammed into his newly created cover. He crawled inside the cast-iron box as two more salvos hammered its exposed belly. Raven was firing in short controlled bursts that banged the ore car like a drum and filled the tunnel with the forlorn cries of deformed slugs. For the third time in as many minutes, he endured the horrid feeling of helplessness. At least he was protected on five sides. Flecks of rust pelted his exposed skin as the ore car took more impacts. He ran his fingers along the iron where fresh dents had formed. No holes, yet. If Raven switched to his larger caliber sniper rifle, though, the bullets might punch through.