At one shaft, he lingered somewhat longer. It took two seconds for the pebble to hit bottom; a quick mental calculation indicated the distance would be twenty meters, or about sixty feet. Sufficient. He examined the rock making up the wall of the shaft and found it rough, solid, with enough adequate footholds: suitable for the purpose he had in mind.
Now, making a detour around the shaft, he stumbled and fell hard, the flashlight dropping to the ground with a clatter and going out. With a curse, Pendergast lit a match and tried to edge around the shaft, but the match went out, burning his fingers, and he dropped it with another muttered deprecation. He got up and tried to light another match. It sputtered to life and he took several steps, but he was moving too fast now and the light went out again, right at the edge of the deep pit; he slipped and, in the process, swept a loose rock off the edge, giving a loud cry as he himself went over. His powerful fingers grasped a fissure just below the edge of the shaft, and he swung his body down so that he was dangling into the dark void, out of sight of the tunnel above. He abruptly cut off his cry when the rock he had dislodged crashed into the bottom.
Silence. Dangling, he found a purchase for his toes, his knees well flexed, giving him the leverage he needed. He waited, clinging to the edge of the shaft, listening intently.
Soon he could hear Roman cautiously making his way down the tunnel. The beam of a flashlight flickered over the lip of the shaft as the sound of movement paused. Then, ever so slowly, he heard the man advance toward the pit. Pendergast’s muscles tensed as he sensed the man creeping toward the edge he hid beneath. A moment later, Roman’s face appeared, bloodshot eyes wild, flashlight in one hand, handgun in the other.
Uncoiling like a snake, Pendergast leapt up and grabbed Roman’s wrist, yanking him forward and pulling him toward the void. With a scream of surprise and dismay, Roman reared back, his gun and flashlight skittering off across the rocky ground as he used both hands to fend off the attack and counteract the pull. He was immensely strong and quick, surprisingly so, and he managed to correct the sudden imbalance and dig in his heels, striking at Pendergast’s forearm with a bear-like roar of rage. But Pendergast was up and over the edge in a flash, Roman scrabbling backward. Pendergast raised his own gun to fire, but it was now black and Roman, anticipating the shot, threw himself sideways. The bullet ricocheted harmlessly off the rock floor, but the flash of the discharge betrayed Roman’s position. Pendergast fired again, but now the muzzle flash revealed nothing: Roman had vanished.
Pendergast dug into his suit and pulled out his backup light: a handheld LED. Roman had apparently launched himself into a narrow, low-ceilinged seam that angled down steeply from the main tunnel. Dropping to his knees, Pendergast crawled into the seam and followed. Ahead, he could hear Roman in panicked flight, scrabbling along the low passage, gasping in fear. He, too, it seemed, had a second light: Pendergast could make out a jerky glow in the darkness of the seam ahead.
Relentlessly, Pendergast pursued his quarry. But as hard as he pushed, Roman stayed well ahead. The young man was in peak physical condition and had the advantage of knowing the tunnels, their fantastic complexity only adding to his edge. Pendergast was doing little more than moving blind, following the sound, the light, and — occasionally — the tracks.
Now Pendergast entered an area of large tunnels, cracks, and yawning, vertical chimneys. Still he pursued with monomaniacal intensity. Roman, Pendergast knew, had lost his weapon and was in a state of panic; Pendergast retained his weapon and his wits. To heighten Roman’s terror and keep him off balance, now and then Pendergast would fire a round in the direction of the fleeing man, the bullet cracking and zinging as it tore through the tunnels ahead. There was little chance he would hit Roman, but that was not his intention: the deafening roar of the gun, and the terrifying ricochet of the rounds, was having the desired psychological effect.
Roman seemed to be going somewhere, and it soon became clear — as the air in the tunnels grew steadily fresher and colder — that he was heading outside. Into the storm…where Pendergast, having jettisoned his outerwear, would be at an additional disadvantage. Ted Roman might be beside himself with fear — but he was still able to think ahead and strategize.
A few minutes later, Pendergast’s suspicions were confirmed: he rounded a corner and saw, directly ahead, a rusty steel wall with a door in it, open, swinging in the wind, the sound of the storm filling the entranceway. Rushing to the door, Pendergast shone his flashlight out into the murk. All was black; night had settled. The dim light disclosed a mine entrance, broken trestle, and the plunging slope of the cirque, falling away at a fifty-degree angle. The beam did not penetrate far, but nevertheless he could make out Roman’s footprints in the deep snow, floundering off into the storm. Farther below, through the murk, he could see a cluster of glowing pinpoints — the smoldering remains of the pump building — and the lights of the idling snowcat nearby.
He turned off his light. He could just see the faint, bobbing glow of Roman’s flashlight, descending the steep slope, about a hundred yards to one side. The man was moving slowly. Pendergast raised his weapon. It would be an exceptionally difficult shot, due to the high winds and the added complication of altitude. Nevertheless, Pendergast took a careful bead on the wavering light, mentally compensating for windage and drop. Very slowly, he squeezed the trigger. The firearm kicked with the shot, the report loud against the mountainside, the rolling echoes coming back from several directions.
A miss.
The figure kept moving, faster now, floundering downhill, getting ever farther out of range. Pendergast, without winter clothing, had no hope of catching him.
Ignoring the snow that stung his face and the vicious wind that penetrated his suit, Pendergast took another bead and fired, missing again. The chance for a hit was becoming nil. But then — as he took aim a third time — he heard something: a muffled crack, followed by a low-frequency rumble.
Above and ahead of Pendergast, the heavy snow surface was fracturing into large plates, the plates detaching and sliding downward, slowly at first, then faster and faster, breaking up and tumbling into chaos. It was an avalanche, triggered by the noise of his shots and, no doubt, Roman’s own floundering about. With a growing roar the churning front of snow blasted past the mine entrance. The air was suddenly opaque, full of roiling, violent snow, and the gust of its passing knocked Pendergast backward as it thundered by him.
Within thirty seconds the roar had subsided. It had been a small slide. The slope before Pendergast was now swept clean of deep snow, the residual, trickling streams of it sliding down the mountain in rills. All was silent save for the cry of the wind.
Pendergast glanced downward to where Roman’s bobbing flashlight had been. There was nothing now but a deep expanse of snow rubble. There were no signs of movement; no calls for help — nothing.
For a moment, Pendergast just stared down into the darkness. For the briefest of moments — as the blood rage that had taken possession of him still pulsed through his veins — he grimly contemplated the justice of the situation. But even as he stared, his fury ebbed. It was as if the avalanche had scoured his mind clear. He paused to consider what, subconsciously, he’d already understood until the sight of Corrie’s burnt corpse swept all logic from his mind: that Ted Roman was as much a victim as Corrie herself. The true evil lay elsewhere.
With a muffled cry, he sprang from the mine entrance into the snow and struggled down the slope, coatless, sliding and floundering to where the avalanche had piled up along the top of the cirque. It took a few minutes to get there, and by the time he reached the spot he was half frozen.