The barrage ended and Nathan yelled, “You missed. I’m still here.”
Raven came back with, “How are your ears?”
“What?” Nathan yelled.
“I said, how are your—” Raven stopped midsentence and huffed a laugh. “Why don’t we compromise and split the gold. We don’t need to involve Macanas. It’s mine anyway.”
“Feels like blood money to me. Sorry, not interested.”
“A shame.”
“Tell me about it.”
He pressed his hand against his thigh wound and left several bloody prints on the wall. Contrasted to the dusty surface, the dark stains couldn’t be missed. Next, he reached into the side pocket of his backpack and wanted to kiss Harv when he felt the package of light sticks that Staff Sergeant Lyle had given them. For a sickening moment, he’d thought Harv might have them. He tore the wrappers free from four sticks and pocketed three of them. He bent the first stick, felt the internal snap, and shook it violently.
Its chemistry was instant.
He hurled the light stick toward the entrance and ran deeper into the mine.
CHAPTER 33
The ambient glow reflecting off the walls and ceiling gave Nathan’s goggles all the light they needed. He stole a look over his shoulder and fired a blind shot. The shadow cast by the ore car was perfect. It kept the lower half of the mine dark while providing reflected light up high.
He’d run thirty steps when Raven’s M-4 erupted again. Nathan hit the deck as several bullets whizzed over his head. Their whistling frequencies changed as they ricocheted down the passage. He thought he heard solid thumping farther down the tunnel but wasn’t sure. In an instant, the level of illumination plummeted. Raven must’ve shot the light stick. Its glowing liquid was now splattered over a large area, diluting its effectiveness. Leaving the Sig’s laser dark, Nathan rolled onto his back and fired three angled shots at the ceiling beyond the overturned car.
With three rounds left in the Sig, he reached into his thigh pocket for his last full magazine. He carried a box of fifty more subsonic rounds in his backpack, but they needed to be loaded into magazines. He was about to resume running when Raven’s muffled voice penetrated the passage.
“You’re bleeding. It’s not too late to call this off.”
“That’s not gonna happen, but I promise to visit you in prison. I’ll bring flowers for your cell mate.”
Anticipating another barrage, Nathan fell onto his stomach and wished he didn’t know as much about ballistics as he did. Raven’s next burst was long and sustained. He covered his ears again as chips of rock pelted him from multiple directions. Somewhere up ahead, a puddle of water erupted, splashing his head with grimy water. He cried out before the barrage ended, timing it perfectly. The tail end of his shriek of agony overlapped the waning reverberation.
“Die slowly!” Raven called.
Nathan added a grunt and a soft yelp, then went silent. Except for the bits of pulverized rock, he hadn’t been hit. He ran his hand along his soaked pant leg and wiped more blood on the wall at hip level. Seeing it wasn’t convincing, he rolled up his left sleeve, pulled his knife and drew its blade along the upper part of his arm above the elbow. The cut immediately began to drip blood. Keeping his elbow bent, he let the blood drip onto the rail. In the absolute silence each drop produced a barely audible tap sound. He then smeared the blood around a little. The rail wasn’t wide — less than half an inch — but the dark stain looked authentic. He began a low crawl deeper into the abyss, trailing more blood from his arm and thigh as he progressed.
Despite the trail of blood he left — both manufactured and real — Nathan wasn’t feeling any detrimental effects from blood loss. Of course, that could change, and quickly.
Still moving ahead, he called out loudly, trying to put pain in his voice. “Hey, Franco, you still want to talk?”
“Not just this minute. Let’s see how I feel in say… twenty minutes. Sound about right?”
Nathan fired toward the entrance again but didn’t use the same pattern of quick shots. He sent one bullet, followed by two delayed shots a few seconds apart — the futile efforts of a desperately wounded man.
The muzzle flashes betrayed his location, but since he wanted Raven to know he’d moved deeper into the mine, they worked to his advantage. Raven would see only the first flash; he’d get out of the way for the subsequent shots. Using his hand like a metal detector, Nathan swept the tunnel’s floor for puddles of water as he crawled. He didn’t want to dilute the blood trail he’d created, and he definitely didn’t want to be soaking wet. The temperature already felt cold, and farther in, it would get even cooler. He knew there was more water up ahead because he heard drops landing in puddles. Not only was this place pitch-black, it was utterly silent as well. He kept spreading blood as he crawled until he reached the limit of his NV goggles. The only light his NV detected occurred when he looked toward Raven’s end of the passage. The other direction was a black hole — completely void of light.
Darkness played tricks on the mind. He could’ve sworn he saw his hand sweeping back and forth but knew it was impossible. Even the best NV devices can’t work in total blackness.
He reached up and activated the infrared flashlight for a split second and hoped Raven wasn’t looking down the tunnel at that exact moment.
What Nathan saw during the brief flare was nothing short of glorious.
No more than fifteen yards ahead, the tunnel terminated in a T intersection. The rock wall facing him was peppered with fresh pockmarks from all the bullet impacts.
If he could reach that junction, he’d be able to get out of Raven’s direct line of fire. He’d still be vulnerable to fragmentation wounds, but he’d take those odds any day over his current predicament. Thus far he’d been incredibly lucky to escape serious injury. His former student had unleashed at least one hundred twenty rounds of .223 and several larger-caliber rounds, probably .308. The sooner he crawled around one of those corners, the better.
Completely blind, Nathan continued creeping along the tunnel floor between the rails. Every few yards or so, he stopped and held perfectly still, listening for any sounds other than dripping water. He also glanced back toward the entrance, where the destroyed light stick would silhouette Raven against the soda-straw effect of light. So far, Raven hadn’t come in. It was possible Raven had advanced to the overturned ore car, but Nathan didn’t think so. He hoped the ringing in his ears had receded enough to allow him to detect any such sounds. Still, he couldn’t dismiss the possibility that Raven was conducting his own low crawl toward the overturned car.
As he reached the T junction, Nathan felt something strange on the floor. With a little more blind exploration he knew what it was — a small turntable for the ore car to change direction. He chose the right side of the passage and crawled around the corner. After gaining his feet, he felt his way along the wall for several steps and removed a light stick.