Nothing happened.
This gallery remained utterly silent other than the occasional sound of dripping water.
Could his quarry already be unconscious from blood loss? Franco had seen a lot of blood, but even superficial wounds could bleed freely. And he hadn’t seen strong enough evidence to believe the guy had taken anything but superficial wounds. Blood was smeared along the left rail, but it was likely from bullet fragments, not a direct hit. Either way, his prey had to be under a tremendous amount of stress.
Without the light stick’s blinding source in front of him, he could see a glow coming from the right side of the T junction. The left looked dark.
Franco gained his feet.
Aiming his rifle from the shoulder, he silently eased deeper into the mountain.
Once Nathan found a stable position, he reached into his thigh pocket and removed the stun grenade. Feeling its form, he quickly identified the dual-safety-ring system. Keeping his hand firmly around the cylindrical device, he gave the circular ring a clockwise twist and pulled it free. Rather than let it drop to the floor, he pocketed the ring. He left the triangular ring in place for now. If he pulled the secondary ring, the grenade would detonate if he released the handle. Even with the triangular ring still in place, he felt like he had a handful of sleeping wasps. Once he tossed it, detonation would occur in approximately two seconds.
Nathan waited and listened. He couldn’t hear water dripping anymore. He strained to hear even the slightest sound and got nothing.
This was frigging unbelievable.
If there was such a thing as buzzing silence, this was it.
Did absolute silence exist? Did molecules make noise at the subatomic level? He didn’t think so but wasn’t sure.
After two minutes of being wedged in the chimney, he began to feel fatigue in his back and legs. He slowed his breathing and tried to remain calm, but a sense of resentment washed through him. He resented hiding in here like this. He resented Raven’s turn toward crime. He resented this hole in the mountain and everything it represented. Greed. Power. Money. What real value did any of that crap have?
In less time than he’d hoped, his back was killing him, and his legs burned beyond all hope of ever recovering. At any moment, a crippling cramp threatened to seize one or both of his quadriceps.
His sense of time became a pain gauge, complete with a black needle. Each second moved the needle closer to the red zone and… failure.
It really frosted him that Raven might win this battle. How could he let that happen?
He tried to use his heartbeat to count seconds, but the burning in his legs overruled his ability to keep track of numbers. All he saw was the slow creep of the pain needle toward the end of its arc.
He had to hang in there a little longer.
He’d been through worse…
No!
He shouldn’t have thought that — gone there — but it was too late to pull back now.
He’d opened the door.
It happened suddenly. Like a boiling kettle beginning its shriek, Nathan’s mind reached critical overload.
Within seconds his entire body trembled. He closed his eyes and clenched his teeth. Shit! Not now…
The last time he’d felt this coming on, Harv had been there to help him suppress it. If he didn’t compose himself, he’d end up charging the entrance in a panic just to get out of here.
Things got worse when the dark entity living in his soul saw an opportunity to test its chains. Hate-filled memories surged across his brain like time-lapse videos of dying flowers. Life and death, love and hate, strength and weakness all collided. He felt as if his body were being stretched and compressed at the same time. Nausea took his stomach as a sense of weightlessness made him gasp. He banged his head against the wall to verify he was still wedged in reality. His brain registered the impact but little else. Somewhere in the depths of his being, he knew this downward spiral had to end or he would die. If he didn’t trigger his mental safety catch, the Other would get a foothold and climb out of its cage.
He couldn’t let that happen. Bowing his head, he reached for a virtual switch he hoped was still there…
And found it.
Click.
Blackness turned to color as he pictured himself inside a grove of autumn-colored trees. A gentle breeze swayed the branches, freeing their leaves. Each descending leaf drained a small piece of hatred and malevolence from his soul. The leaves fell by the hundreds, then by the thousands. They swirled around his body and tumbled away on the wind.
Through the falling leaves, he caught a glimpse of Holly’s face and extended his mind toward it. Like running toward a train, Nathan used the visual to stay focused. He had to get aboard before it left the station. A split second before the doors closed, he slipped inside.
And had her.
Holly’s face filled his vision, giving him warmth and hope. She was so incredibly beautiful. He missed her and knew he had to survive in order to see her again.
Mind over matter.
He opened his eyes and didn’t know how long he’d been in a trance, only that he’d been acutely aware of his surroundings at the same time and he’d heard no sounds from Raven.
He said a thank-you to God for giving him the ability to fight off the hatred consuming his soul. He could now focus on winning the battle against Raven — not himself.
It was time to kick some ass.
With renewed confidence, he pulled the triangular ring.
CHAPTER 35
Franco peered around the corner into the right side of the drift and saw two light sticks. They lit the craggy cave in eerie, unmoving shadows. He was tempted to try another peace offering, but that would make him look weak. He’d given the intruder his last chance, and there was a fair possibility he was mortally wounded and would die without further help.
Keeping his rifle up, Franco looked the other direction into the dark side of the drift. His goggles couldn’t detect anything recognizable.
Wait, there was something down there, maybe fifteen yards away. He stared for a long moment. If he went in there to investigate, he’d be backlit by the light emanating from the other side.
It felt like a trap, but with a fully automatic M-4, lots of ammo, and well-honed combat instincts, Franco felt certain he could spray the entire area before his prey got a bead on him.
In a somewhat risky move, he crouched and reached up to activate his IR illuminator for a split second. If lurking eyes were down there, their pupils would reflect the invisible infrared flash and light up like a Christmas tree. He’d seen the effect many times. Then he remembered the guy had a pair of goggles on. Still, Franco decided it was an acceptable risk. He felt fairly confident he knew what the object was, but he needed to be certain.
He twisted the knob for a split second and during the brief flare of light, he saw several things at once.
An ore cart.
A backpack hanging from it.
And a trip wire made of fishing line.
Oh, that’s clever, he thought. Just inside the drift, one side of a nylon fishing line was tied to the rail, and the other end was attached to an empty water bottle covered with bloody handprints. If he hadn’t activated his IR, he wouldn’t have seen the trip wire. He would’ve walked through it, yanking the plastic bottle free. Although harmless, it wasn’t silent.
Finding the trip wire became a valuable discovery. If his opponent had eyes inside this drift, he wouldn’t have needed the booby trap. Franco knew there were several openings into secondary drifts on the right side. The discovery of that vein had led to an exceptionally high yield of gold per ton. He couldn’t remember how many openings there were, but they all lay to the right-hand side.