Badwater (The Forensic Geology Series) (28 page)

The thuds were louder, here. I wanted to scream for somebody to fix the damned machine. In the pitchy dark, I couldn’t tell forward from backward, up from down. I went dizzy. I reached for a wall. My hand closed on air. I needed to see. Where was Oliver? Where was Walter? I could not hear their breathing over my own. I found Oliver by his smell. I could differentiate his smell from Walter’s. We all shared a wet dog sweaty smell but beneath that Walter smelled of lemon drops and Oliver smelled of gun oil. I knew what I smelled of. Raw fear.

And then Oliver’s mouth was at my ear. No lights, he breathed, no noise. I breathed the message to Walter. And so we moved on, my hand on Oliver’s waist and Walter’s hand on mine. Quiet as mice, blind as bats. Slow as snails, feeling out the bumps and cracks of the ground.

My hair stirred.

Oliver veered to the side of the tunnel and we snaked behind him. The breeze was stronger now. Oliver put on his light. We’d found another shaft, this one with a ladder. Oliver aimed his beam downward but the shaft swallowed his light before it reached bottom. We listened to the thuds. There was no longer any question where they came from. My heart pounded in synch. My mind raced. Whatever lay thudding down there was a mystery. What lay behind us was not.

We put our heads together, whispering.

“Winze must go down to level two,” Walter said.

“Winze?” Oliver said.

“Shaft’s called a winze when it descends.”

“Who cares?” I hissed, “it goes down.”

“Winze ladder look solid to you?” Oliver asked.

“No obvious rotting,” Walter said.

“I did ropes and ladders at Quantico.”

“I trained on a submachine gun. National Guard. Eons ago, but...”

“Good man,” Oliver said.

“And you.”

They swapped—Walter’s headlamp for Oliver’s subgun—and guilt and blame over Dearing’s death seemed to go by the wayside. I hoped that mattered. I moved to the edge of the winze and switched on my headlamp to spot Oliver down.

Oliver inched his way, dipping a foot to test each rung.

Walter stood watch, feet spread, holding the weapon like it was his garden hose.

At long last Oliver called “come down.”

Down down down
echoed as I got on my knees and fished a leg down. My boot connected with a rung. I glued my eyes to the wall behind the ladder, comforted by old rock if not by old wood. The winze took a long time to swallow me and when my feet at last connected with the floor I called up to the pinpoint of light “okay.” I lit Walter’s way while Oliver stood watch. It was not until they’d exchanged gun for headlamp and we’d moved from the winze alcove into the new tunnel that I noticed the thudding had stopped.

We hesitated. One passage branched left, one branched right, and between them tongued a third.

I brought out the Geiger and painted the walls with the wand, picking up only background noise. I was putting it away when the thudding started again. It came, distinctly, from the right-hand tunnel. It grew louder, less rhythmic. It grew frenzied. Clearly, no machine.

Oliver shouted, “I’m carrying an MP-five and I’m prepared to open fire if you don’t knock off that goddamn noise.”

The thudding stopped.

“Stay put,” Oliver whispered. He advanced into the right-hand tunnel and disappeared around a bend.

It doesn’t want to get shot, I thought, but it definitely wants to get found.

“Come ahead,” Oliver called. “You won’t believe this.”

H
e lay on his back, bound with silver duct tape. Ankles were crossed, knees pressed together, hands taped in prayer at the waist, mouth gagged, eyes squeezed shut against our lights. No need to wrap the eyes, down here in the dark. Otherwise, it was a thorough job.

I got out my pocket knife and started at his ankles. He wore river shoes and no socks and his feet through the mesh were icy to the touch. I sawed through the tape, postponing the mouth and its Buttercup-baiting yak. I freed his knees and then his hands, and he flinched when I pulled off red wrist hairs along with the tape. I fingered the duct tape on his cheek. The mouth was going to hurt. I said “I’m sorry” and pulled.

He flinched. He rolled to one side and pushed himself up to a sit. His arms trembled and he went no farther.

Oliver moved in. “You got a bulletproof reason for being here?”

He rasped, “Water.”

I unholstered my bottle and gave it to him.

He nodded a thanks and drank, greedy. He cleared his throat, eyeing Oliver’s gun. “I’m the victim.”

Oliver grabbed Hap’s arm and twisted it up behind his back, forcing him forward over his knees. “Cut the crap. Who did this?”

Hap gasped. “Roy.”

Oliver released Hap’s arm. He placed a boot on Hap’s calf, securing it in place. He reached down to Hap’s right ankle and tugged at the severed duct tape. It clung to the parachute pants. He repeated the experiment on the left ankle, as if there could be any doubt that the tape had in truth been binding. He removed his boot. “Now tell your story.”

Hap curled his legs away from Oliver. He took a sip of water, holding it in his mouth like a rare wine.

Oliver snatched the bottle. “From the get-go, Miller.”

Hap’s eyes narrowed as he swallowed the last of the water. “Get-go’s at the Inn.” His voice cracked. He cleared his throat, tried again. “Vegas doc comes so I bug out. Run into Milt. We’re hungry. Whole place is locked down so we find our way to the kitchen and make sandwiches. Take them to the garden for a picnic. All of a sudden here’s Roy. Armed. I’m more than on his list now. I’m in his sights.” Hap gave a helpless shrug. “Roy takes us to this service road. There’s a ranger truck. Roy gets in back with Milt and tells me to drive. Key’s under the seat.”

Oliver said, “There was no ranger truck in the canyon.”

“Didn’t come that way. Took a utility road. Hiked from there.”

“You try to run?”

“And get shot? Roy was talking hostages and that sounded better to me.”

Walter said, “Where’s Milt?”

“Down some tunnel?” Hap cradled one wrist, then the other. “Milt’s a joke most of the time but I do hope he’s alive.”

“My partner is dead,” Oliver said, cold. “Somebody cut his throat.”

Hap paled.

“You’ll lead us every goddamn step you took with Jardine.”

Hap rolled to his knees and, cautious as a cat, rose to his feet.

Walter said, “What about Pria?”

Hap’s attention remained on Oliver’s gun. “What’s she got to do with this?”

“Did you see her on the road?
Anywhere
?”

Hap lifted his palms.

Walter’s stony face said he did not believe in Hap’s ignorance. I had to differ. Like Hap, I couldn’t see what Pria had to do with this. It made no sense. Hap’s story made a certain sense. I believed in Jardine, because of Dearing. I believed Jardine had bound Hap, because it was a physical impossibility for Hap to have done it to himself. Beyond that, I was not willing to go.

Nevertheless, I found myself in line behind Hap and Walter—with Oliver bringing up the rear—following Hap through the rocky maze.

We filed down the tunnel to the intersection and Hap without hesitation took the left fork tunnel. The rocky floor here was lined with timbered rails capped with iron straps. This raised my hopes. I hoped the rails went out. In another few yards I had my answer. The rails fed into a shaft with a wooden ore chute. Walter looked in, as if it might still contain yesteryear’s ore.

We continued past the chute.

I concentrated on the noise we were making. Too many feet, too little care. Sound travels, as we’d learned from the thuds. Even whispers travel. I remembered a family trip to Washington DC—I’d stood on a spot in the rotunda of Congress and whispered, and the people nearby did not hear but my dad standing on the sweet spot across the rotunda heard me perfectly. I pictured Jardine, standing on the sweet spot in another tunnel, listening for us. I tried to tread more softly. I focused on my feet. My socks rubbed. Like Walter, I yearned to return to the Inn and nurse my feet.

We passed a little alcove and like Walter, I rubbernecked. I saw a crushed cardboard box with faded lettering that said
Trojan
, and then
dynamite
. My thoughts jumped from decaying dynamite to modern plastique.

I began stepping with more care.

Within a few yards the rails reappeared, in broken lengths, and we navigated cautiously around the dagger ends and the splintered crossties. Something skittered underneath. I heard Oliver stop. I smelled his metallic sweat. I listened for the rat. Or the snake. I heard Oliver’s wet palm slap his subgun. Oliver and Walter, fellowship of the phobic. We moved on but Oliver’s footsteps slowed now, cautious ninja on the lookout for snakes. Soon the rails improved and my hopes spiked again. Our tunnel and the rails took a hard right and as I followed Hap and Walter around the corner I saw another shaft, this one descending from level three, above us. I spared a cursory look at the large storage bin on the floor of the shaft, then my attention snapped back to the rails. Sooner or later, I hoped, they’d lead us out.

But as I turned away, something registered. Something I’d glimpsed. Had I really seen that? A shadow cast from my headlamp, stretched across the back wall of the shaft, distorted by the rungs of the shaft ladder. A shadow rising from the storage bin in that micromoment when I’d looked away. Stretched and distorted, but had that been a head? A ponytail?

Reflexively, stupidly, I looked again.

I looked him full in the face.

Just below, at chest level, his arms rested on the top of the bin and the muzzle of Dearing’s subgun looked me full in the face.

I focused on his shirt, behind the gun. The beam of my headlamp caught on his breast-pocket shiny buttons and they gleamed like eyes.

When I moved my gaze back up to his face, to the real eyes, I was shocked to find them moist. Like he was deeply moved, so overcome he was about to cry. His small mouth pursed. He put a finger to his lips. As if I could speak, or cry out, in my frozen state. He lowered his finger and smiled at me. A shocking smile. Full of warmth. Like he was so glad to see me here. He bobbed his head, encouraging me to agree. So glad we meet again! For a moment I was lulled. Wanted to believe in his benevolence. Wanted to be lulled. When he smiled, his tiny mouth stretched and his cheeks bunched up and the crater on his left cheek wrinkled and deepened. I followed its transformation. His mouth suddenly tightened and he moved his head leftward, just enough that the crater disappeared from view. I jerked my head so that my headlamp beam hit the wall to the right of his face. But I could still see that mouth compress to fury, oh shit he thinks I turned my light away because I can’t stand looking at him but I’d only turned out of raw fear.

I didn’t yet fully know fear.

The gun muzzle swung away from me. Uptunnel. It pointed at Walter’s back.

I turned back to Roy Jardine,
don’t shoot don’t shoot
, please I’ll do anything just don’t shoot, and he smiled again, he saw he had me, and he put his finger to his lips again and then gave his head a jerk to the left. Instructions clear. Move on. Keep quiet. And I won’t shoot Walter.

I wanted with my whole heart to follow those instructions.

But I could not forget Dearing. Dearing’s neck, opened to the windpipe.

This man with Dearing’s submachine gun would not keep his bargain. He was going to wait for me to move on, following Walter and Hap up ahead, in the dark, and wait for Oliver to finish hunting for snakes and come tiptoeing around the corner behind me. He had to wait for Oliver, who had shouted for the whole mine to hear that he was carrying an MP-five submachine gun and was prepared to open fire. Otherwise, Jardine would have already mowed us down.

I went calm. I bought frozen seconds in which to formulate a plan before I had to move, to appear to honor our bargain. Maybe there was a better plan than the one I concocted in five seconds but this is what I went with.

I gave Jardine one last look and a nod—yes yes I understand I’ll do as you say—and he returned to me a look of such approval, such a soft yearning smile like he wished he could embrace me to seal the bargain, that I almost honored it. I turned face-front and started to move. I heard Oliver behind me, finally, coming around the corner. Oblivious to the man in the storage bin. There were only two things that would improve the odds for Oliver. One was the flashlight built into the grip of his subgun. When he swung the gun to point it at Jardine, his light would hit Jardine in the face. Just as my headlamp had done. But it wouldn’t be a vanity thing for Jardine this time. It would be a distraction. A light in the eyes. Maybe a micromoment of blindness. Just the tiniest edge.

The other edge I gave to Oliver myself.

I moved my right arm—on the side facing away from Jardine—stiffly, up twenty degrees, a semaphore.
Stop
. At the same time I stuck out my thumb and jerked it leftward, toward the bin.
Look
. After that, I could do no more than put faith in Oliver’s Quantico training and trigger finger.

As the shots came, I screamed “down down down” and hit the floor and Walter and Hap uptunnel must have caught the terror in my voice because they hit the floor too.

“H
oly crap,” Hap said.

I looked up. I’d been tugging on my boot, which was caught under a crosstie. Clumsy. Amazed to be alive.

Hap moved to the storage bin and grasped Roy Jardine’s dangling left wrist. He fingered the pulse. He shook his head.

Relief flooded me as blood poured out of Jardine. He hung over the lip of the bin. His arms draped down as if reaching for the submachine gun he had dropped on the rails. His head was bent, showing the crown. His black ponytail hung down, funneling blood.

“
Come help
,” Walter yelled.

Walter was kneeling uptunnel over Oliver, who lay with one knee bent. Looked like Oliver, too, caught a boot. I yanked my boot free. Hap turned from the bin and helped me up. As we rushed forward my headlamp caught a dime of blood on Oliver’s khaki shirt front. Oh no, I thought. No no no.