He pushed her in, and followed close behind her, with his hand on the butt of his pistol in case she tried anything.
The water slapped against the rocky wall as their legs and hips sent waves careering away from their bodies, and the smell of damp mould filled his nose.
Her hands slapped against the wall as she moved ahead of him. “I can’t see anything.”
Logan turned the goggles’ illuminators back on, and the dark tunnel lit up for him.
“Don’t worry. I can. Just keep going.”
“I can’t walk if I can’t see.”
“If you stop walking, they’re going to kill you, too.”
Logan could hear voices behind them in the shaft, and the clatter of boots striding down the spiral ramp.
The insurgents were coming their way.
One Legionnaire, one pistol and a few grenades against who knows how many men. He’d fought rival gangs in the ZUS at odds of five to one or more, but they didn’t have guns or RPGs. He couldn’t fight off that many here.
They had to be out of sight before the insurgents reached the water. If they couldn’t find him or the girl, maybe they’d think they’d drowned at the bottom of the shaft. No-one was likely to go diving in to check for bodies.
The tunnel forked just ahead. “Turn right,” he said.
It was as good a direction as any.
They turned just as the sound of the insurgents’ boots reached the other end of the tunnel.
Logan grabbed her shoulder and pulled on it to slow her down, so they’d make less noise as they waded through the waist-deep water. He glanced back around the corner, but the goggles couldn’t even see as far back as the shaft. Hopefully the insurgents wouldn’t be able to see that far, either.
They waded on.
The girl was shivering as the water soaked through her thin clothes. Not that Logan was much better, but at least the thick cloth of the fatigues kept water near his skin, where his body could warm it up. They’d had to get out of these waterlogged tunnels before they froze.
As they approached a crossroads in the tunnel, he tried to build a mental map of the mine, and the maze of tunnels they were progressing through.
“Turn left.”
That would take them further away from the shaft, rather than turning back toward it. Either way, they needed to keep turning in different directions, to confuse any insurgents who might be following them.
The tunnel opened into a cavern ahead of them. The ceiling and walls faded into dark shadows at the limit of the goggles’ range, but it was probably four or five metres high, and perhaps twice that wide. The mould smell was just as strong as it had been since they entered the tunnel, but something else joined it. A smell he recognized.
Dark shapes floated in the water across the cavern. Bloated bodies, limp arms and legs. One of the dead men slowly turned as the waves from Logan and the girl’s steps smacked against its side. Bone showed through the man’s cheeks where a rat sat on its face, slowly chewing through the flesh. It raised its bloody nose and squeaked at Logan as he strode past.
“What is it?” the girl said. “What’s that smell?”
“You don’t want to know. Head to the left.”
The mouth of another tunnel showed as a dark rectangle in the wall on that side. He couldn’t see any tunnels on the other walls. And didn’t want to spend a moment more than he had to in the cavern with a dozen dead men.
“Where are we going? It’s like a maze.”
“Right now, we’re going anywhere those assholes aren’t. Once we’ve lost them, we can figure out how to stop them.”
“I can’t hear them any more.”
“They’ll be coming soon. They can’t afford to let us run around loose in the mines. There’s got to be some way to move between the mine levels other than that shaft. They need a way out in emergencies. We just have to find it.”
They pushed on through the tunnel. It twisted slowly to the right, then ended as it opened out into another cavern.
Logan grabbed the girl’s shoulder, and pulled her to a stop.
“Wait here,” he whispered.
She grabbed his arm. “Don’t leave me.”
He pulled her hand away. “Keep quiet. I’ll be back.”
She shivered and whimpered as she leaned against the wall in the darkness. He peered out of the tunnel, into the cavern. From the slope of the roof, it must be the size of one of the hangars at the airport, and the roof was supported by rows of narrow stone pillars that rose from the water.
He left the girl, and waded slowly out into the cavern, creeping from pillar to pillar until he could see the far side in the IR glow of the goggles’ illuminators. A tunnel in the far wall ended at a ledge about three metres above the water. And something hung from the rock wall just below it.
No, two things.
Two men, naked from the waist up, with scars and bruises across their torsos. They dangled from ropes that were tied around their wrists, and attached to metal rings in the cave wall above the ledge. Both swung limply at the end of the ropes, with their chins slumped down against their chests.
He raised his pistol, and crept through the water toward them. Tiny waves spread out around him, reflecting from the stone pillars, and forming an increasingly complex pattern around him as he swung his legs through the water. He looked up into the tunnel entrance above the men as he approached them. But it was dark and empty, and the only sounds came from the water splashing around him.
The man on the left raised his face from his chest, and stared toward Logan. The eyelid bulged around the man’s right eye, the cheek was dark with bruises and blood, and the lips were bloated as though he’d been punched a few times too often.
“Who’s there?”
“Legionnaire McCoy, sir,” Logan whispered.
Bairamov chuckled. “Legionnaire McCoy… I told you the bastards couldn’t kill you, didn’t I, McCoy?”
Logan grabbed the tied ropes around Bairamov’s wrists, and untied them quickly. Then lowered Bairamov until he could drop his arms and lean back against the wall. Bairamov rolled his shoulders and sighed as he relaxed them, then wiped some of the blood from his face.
Desoto soon followed. He cradled his right arm with his left hand, and winced every time it moved.
“What’s wrong with your arm?” Logan said.
“Bastards kept hitting me until something broke.”
“I had worse in training,” Bairamov said. “You’ll get a week in the hospital.” He rubbed his bruised face. “Maybe I’ll join you.”
Muffled voices echoed around the tunnel above them.
“Who’s…?” Desoto began. Logan put his free hand over Desoto’s mouth for a second, then grabbed Desoto’s shoulder, and Bairamov’s arm. The two prisoners could see no better than the girl in the darkness of the unlit cavern. He pulled them away from the wall, and toward the tunnel he’d entered from. He moved a few metres away, until he could barely see the ledge. Then hid them behind the pillars.
As the echoing footsteps grew louder, He turned off the goggles’ IR illuminators. He didn’t need them right now, as the tunnel began to glow with the beam of a flashlight that swung as the man carrying it strode along the tunnel.
Three men stepped out onto the ledge, holding rifles at their hips. They leaned over the edge, then pointed their rifles down, and opened fire. The girl’s scream was barely audible over the gunfire as they fired dozens of rounds down toward where Desoto and Bairamov had been just a moment before.
The gunfire stopped.
The beam of light from the flashlight swung down from the ledge, and across the wall below. It stopped at the first set of dangling ropes. Then swung to the next.