Whoever these men were, they were guarding the mine. And they seemed determined to keep any uninvited guests out, so there was something in there they wanted to protect. These weren’t just a few villagers with shotguns and hunting rifles, they had military equipment, and knew what they were doing. They must have done, when Bairamov and Desoto arrived, or there’d be signs of a firefight on the plateau. The others had probably been glad to reach their destination, been taken in by whatever show of a friendly welcome the insurgents had put on, and the insurgents surprised them at a time when they could do little to protect themselves.
Either way, Logan had to get in there, and find out what was going on. He hadn’t expected to be able to walk in the front door, but how else could he get inside? And do it without any of the guards spotting him?
He’d expected to be able to sneak around the area with his goggles while the insurgents were blind in the darkness. But, when they had goggles too, the odds looked even. Worse in fact, with at least four of them and one of him. He might as well have come in daylight.
If only he had Alice to help, he’d have the schematics of the mine right on hand in the intel pack. He’d skimmed through them before they left, and he knew the mine had only this one entrance, and an emergency exit tunnel further up the hillside. But they’d surely be guarding that one, too.
He crawled slowly up the hillside beside him, moving away from the guards while gaining some height to give him a better view of the area around the mine. He paused every few metres in the cover of a rock or tree trunk, to peer around it and check that he hadn’t been spotted.
Then stopped and looked down. The plateau was barren, aside from a few dozen long trails of boot prints in the dirt heading in all directions. Men had been in and out of the mine many times since the last rain up here, and they’d left their marks behind in the dirt.
But that was all. Each of the trails either started or ended at the tunnel entrance. Some did both. So it didn’t look like they were entering or leaving the mine through any other route. And one pistol and a few grenades wasn’t going to get him in there, when he was up against at least four men with rifles or worse. Even if he could take one of their rifles from them, it wasn’t likely to be enough.
He thought back to the schematics, closing his eyes as he tried to visualize the image on Alice’s HUD. He’d grown so used to the technology in his suit that he suddenly felt ignorant without it. Not to mention weak and vulnerable. In many ways, he was just a machine that helped the suit get its job done, and believed it was a man using a machine.
But there was something else. There had been more lines on the schematic, leading away from the mine at an angle.
He remembered them, now. They were heading across the plateau toward the cliff face. He hadn’t taken a closer look at them at the time, because why would he need to?
He looked toward the cliff. His gaze followed the plateau toward it from the mine, but, from where he was up on the hillside, he couldn’t see over the edge of the cliff.
Maybe it was nothing, or he was just imagining he’d seen the lines. But it was all he had. He crawled back toward the cliff edge, following a path that curved slowly away from the mine, to stay out of sight of the guards.
Finally, he lay at the top of the cliff, and peered over. There was something below it. Half a dozen pipes protruded from the cliff face. Some were narrow, no more than half a metre across. They wouldn’t do him much good. But the one in the middle was more than a metre in diameter. Tall enough that he could crouch inside it, if not walk.
Maybe the boy he shot had had the right idea back in Gries. Crawl through the waste pipe into the nearest mine, then find another way out where the Legion wouldn’t be watching.
Logan crawled along the cliff edge toward where the pipe would be below him, studying the cliff face as he moved. There were ridges in the cliff, and a narrow ledge that ran below the outlets of the pipes. Which made sense. There had to be some way for the miners to get down to the pipes when they had to do some kind of maintenance.
And there it was. A rough, rusty metal ladder attached to the cliff face by thick, black bolts. He swung his legs over the edge, and carefully lowered his boots onto the first rung they reached, trying to make as little noise as possible. He clambered down slowly, passing the mouth of the pipe on his right as he did so. Then his boots clunked down onto the ledge.
He stepped along the ledge toward the pipe, trying not to look down, and keeping one hand on the ladder for support, as his boots barely fit on the narrow ledge. He leaned around the side of the pipe, and peered into it.
The faint starlight barely illuminated even the mouth of the pipe, so he risked turning on the IR illuminators. A dried-up stream of dark liquid marked the bottom of the pipe, running in a haphazard way to the mouth from as far back as the goggles could see. Whatever that crap was, it hadn’t been running out of there for some time.
He leaned in. There was a faint oily smell, but nothing that immediately alerted his senses to danger. He clambered into it, moving slowly to avoid making noise when his boots scraped against the concrete walls.
He had to crouch low to creep through the narrow pipe. His back was sure going to hate him in the morning if he had to follow the pipe for a long way. The mine entrance must be a hundred metres away across the plateau, then who knows where the pipe went inside the mine. Or whether he could even get out once he’d gone that far.
His boot crunched down on something in the bottom of the pipe that cracked beneath the sole, and the sound echoed back from the hard walls.
He slowed down. He didn’t need to make a noise that would alert anyone near the far end. He still had most of the night to scout the mine, and return to Saint Jean.
The pipe seemed to go on forever.
After a few minutes, all he could see both ahead and behind were a few metres of a circle of dirty concrete, as though the outside world had never existed. He stopped every minute or so, and listened. There was a faint tapping ahead, followed by a scratching as a rat stared up at him from the bottom of the pipe, with the light of the illuminators reflecting from its big, round eyes. It squeaked as Logan approached, then turned and ran away, its claws scraping against the concrete as it moved.
Then he spotted something up ahead. A dark lattice rising from the middle of the pipe to the top. A ladder, going up to… somewhere. The pipe continued on, but, if there was a ladder, there had to be a way out. He reached it, and looked up. There was a hatch in the top of the pipe, just above his head. The only question was what was on the other side?
He clicked off the illuminators, and the pipe went dark. But his hands could find the hatch. He pressed gently on the cold, hard metal. The hatch didn’t move. He pressed harder. Still no movement. He pressed his shoulders against it, and pushed up with his legs. The hatch stayed shut. It must be sealed from the far side, somehow.
He crouched again, and moved on along the pipe. It had to go somewhere. Though perhaps all the hatches were closed at the moment, because nothing was flowing through it.
But what other choice did he have?
CHAPTER 24
Logan peered out of the open hatch at the end of the pipe, into the darkness around him. Whatever garbage the miners usually dumped down the pipe, they weren’t doing it right now. It had been dry all the way into the mine.
The tunnel alongside the pipe was dark and quiet, though he could hear faint, muffled voices somewhere nearby. Thinner pipes ran near the base of the ridged, rocky tunnel walls from both directions, and joined the pipe he’d crawled through.