And couldn’t find it.
Where was it? It should have been right here. Could it have fallen off the rail? He didn’t think so but wasn’t 100 percent certain. Refusing to second-guess himself any longer, he dropped to his hands and knees and extended his sliced arm. Realizing his mistake, he quickly withdrew it and rolled his sleeve back down to avoid dripping any blood on this side of the crosscut. With the wound covered, he extended his hand again.
Still nothing.
Was he looking on the wrong rail? No way. He’d placed it on the left rail on the low side of the trip wire.
His Sig.
He could activate its laser for a split second without creating too big a flare. To be even safer, he put his left forefinger over the laser’s aperture and pressed the button.
Nothing happened.
What the hell?
Then he remembered turning it off after leaving the tool alcove to avoid accidentally activating it while he crawled. The mistake hammered his nerves. He’d just forgotten something that might’ve cost him his life. Pursing his lips, he flipped the button on the base of his Sig and pressed the button a second time. The tip of his forefinger brightly glowed and an image from the movie E.T. flashed, unbidden, in his mind.
There. Just beyond his reach, the flat rock sat on the rail. Feeling relief that he was still grounded in some sense of reality, he pushed the rock off. Leaving the laser on, he held his glowing finger tight against his body to minimize the light and carefully stepped over the trip wire.
Before moving past the car, Nathan took off his pack and gently placed it where he couldn’t possibly trip over it later. He leaned his rifle against the far side of the car so none of its form could be seen from the junction. Just past the car, he found the opening into the secondary crosscut where the huge slab of rock had been removed from the ceiling…
And stepped inside.
Now came the hard part.
Franco advanced to the overturned ore car and saw something flash at the end of the tunnel. He froze, not wanting to create any discernable movement. The ore car offered him cover, but he’d hoped to keep his presence inside the mine undetected.
Whatever flashed seemed to have come from the end of this main tunnel, but it had happened too fast to see properly. The glow down at the end looked about the same as it had before. This cat-and-mouse game would be much more difficult if it migrated deeper into the labyrinth of passages. He would have to guard against letting the stranger slip out behind him undetected, a difficult task given the nature of this system of tunnels. Although Franco hadn’t been in this mine in several months, he had a fairly good idea of its layout. This main entry tunnel ended at a T junction, branching to the right and left. The left side held more secondary passages and would offer more places to hide. It was likely his prey would set up an ambush on that side. Even though he couldn’t know where his enemy would conceal himself, Franco felt he had the advantage. He wasn’t wounded, possessed a fully automatic M-4, and had a state-of-the-art pair of NV goggles, complete with an IR illuminator for pitch-black environments.
One thing was certain, the guy was bleeding and from the look of things, pretty badly. Blood was smeared everywhere. He smiled. With a little luck, he’d walk up to a dead body. If the guy carried through with his threat and hid the gold, finding it shouldn’t be difficult. This linear environment didn’t offer many hiding places. Franco wasn’t worried.
He was worried about that damned light stick fifteen yards farther down the tunnel. Its presence prevented a stealthy advance. Shooting it from here wouldn’t be easy. Throwing it down the mine had been a smart move on his enemy’s part… On closer inspection, though, it also afforded him an opportunity. The light stick had ended up on the outside of the left rail, nearly up against it. If he hugged the right side of the wall, he’d be in the shadows when he got closer to the light stick. He considered a balls-out run to the light stick so he could hurl it back toward the entrance. Shoving it in his pocket wasn’t an option because his opponent’s NV would see the light through the fabric. He might as well paint a bull’s-eye on his crotch — not an appealing visual.
Because of the light stick up ahead, Franco concluded the best way to advance down the gallery was a low crawl. He left his sniper rifle in the tool alcove, slung the M-4 over his shoulder, and pulled the pistol he’d taken from his mortally wounded man.
Feeling like a snake entering a gopher hole, he began slinking down the tunnel.
Nathan knew his way around rock climbing, but he’d never attempted it in total darkness. From this point on, he’d be caught in the clutches of a silent, black world. The dust on the walls presented a problem. Nathan would never be able to climb into the opening over his head without leaving handprints and scuff marks. The good news was, Franco wouldn’t be able to see the disturbed areas without an artificial light source, and the instant Franco activated his IR illuminator — assuming his device had one — Nathan would have the upper hand. Brutally, the reverse was also true.
This showdown in the dark would become the ultimate test of wills.
Who would blink first and turn on the lights?
A step inside the secondary crosscut, he flashed back to when he’d activated his IR and formed an image in his mind. This connecting tunnel acted like an overly tall hatch on a naval ship. The ceiling was about ten feet high and extended upward at a shallow angle before intersecting the lighter-colored rock and rising much more steeply. From there, it went about thirty feet higher. The floor contained blasted rocks of all different sizes, but the miners had leveled it somewhat with smaller rocks and gravel.
Nathan didn’t need to climb very high; he just needed to wedge himself about five feet above the tunnel’s floor. Rock climbers called it a chimney climb, and it was one of the easier ascents they performed, assuming the gap didn’t become too wide.
He felt for a foothold and found a sharp crag at knee height. Using his right arm, he reached across the narrow passage and braced himself. His clothes issued a barely audible whisper as he hoisted himself up eighteen inches. He extended his free foot to the opposite side and found an angled spot to bear his weight. He repeated the process three more times. With adequate light, he could’ve made this ascent in a few seconds, but blindly feeling for footholds and handholds had taken over a minute. He achieved a stable position by resting his bent knees on one side of the chimney and his back on the other side. He now wished he had his pack. These walls were far from smooth, and he felt every imperfection with perfect clarity.
If he had to stay like this too long, it was going to turn ugly.
Franco hadn’t seen or heard anything in a long time. He didn’t know how much time had elapsed since the tall man had entered the mine, maybe seven to ten minutes, but he did know a blood trail when he saw one. Rather than continue a low crawl down the main tunnel all the way to the light stick, he unslung his rifle, popped up, and ran the remaining ten yards, careful to tread only on the ties wherever possible. His footfalls made noise but not too much. He hurled the light stick as far as he could back toward the portal and quickly dropped prone. If any bullets were going to come his way, he expected them right now.