Red Helmet (41 page)

“Bossman's made it outside, Mr. Stein,” Mole reported.

“How about Blackjack and Shorty?”

“Them too.”

“Good. Shut the power down. Everything.”

Mole picked up the phone to make the call.

A few minutes later, Bossman clumped in, his face grimy with sweat and dust. He looked a bit sheepish. “Well, here I am,” he said.

“Glad to see you're okay,” Einstein said, but there was no trace of gladness in his voice.

“You have a right to be mad, Einstein,” Bossman said, taking off his helmet and giving his bald head a good scratch. “But I needed to see what the situation was.”

“And what is the situation, Bossman?”

“Well . . .”

“Did you find a roof fall?”

“No. But I didn't feel the air moving either. There must be an obstruction.”

“But how much and what kind—you have no idea, do you?”

“No, I don't.”

Einstein jabbed his finger at Bossman. “From here on, we're going to do this by the book and only by the book. You understand?”

“Sure. But that's Cable in there, Einstein. And Song . . . well, everybody in Highcoal's crazy about her. And Bum, though he's a rat bastard, he's one of ours too.”

Einstein raised his eyebrows. “You think I don't care about them?”

“I didn't say that. It's just that you're so cool and collected about everything.”

“What I am is unemotional, which is a good thing to be in a situation like this. Now, get over to the bathhouse. Your rescue team is there. Check them out. Make sure they're ready. I'm going to put a bore hole down on Six West return to test the air. I've got another rig putting a hole into Five block intake to test the air there too. When I get those readings, we'll know better what to do next.”

Bossman nodded agreement. “Just don't wait too long, that's all I'm saying. You know what happened at Sago.”

Einstein knew very well. At the Sago mine in 2006, with thirteen miners trapped after lightning had set off a
methane explosion, incessant delays had followed, all perfectly explainable and by the book, but twelve men had died who might have been saved if the rescuers had gone directly to them.

“All right,” Einstein agreed. “I'll remember Sago. You don't forget Brookwood or Crandall Canyon.”

In 2001, at an Alabama mine named Brookwood, a dozen rescuers had rushed inside after a methane explosion. They had inadvertently sparked another detonation, killing them all. At the Crandall Canyon mine in Utah, three rescue works had been killed while desperately trying to burrow through to trapped miners.

Einstein and Bossman stared at one another, at an impasse because of these contradictory events. You had to be safe, but you had to be quick too. Bossman blinked first. “All right, Einstein,” he said while putting his helmet on. “But just remember, those three miners down there can't breathe a book.”

Bossman went out the door, heading for the bathhouse. Watching him through the window, Einstein saw the constable stop the top foreman and lean in for a word. The constable continued on toward the office and came inside.

“Got a minute?”

“Make it quick.”

“Sure. Here's quick. Bum shoved Square off the mountain and murdered Stanvic. Some kind of coal rustling scam. I need to arrest Bum.”

Einstein shook his head. “Constable, we don't even know where Bum is.”

“Well, when you find him, let me know. I got a pair of handcuffs for him. Consider him dangerous.”

The constable left, while Einstein processed this new wrinkle. “What's the status of that air spectrograph?” he demanded, just to break the silence that had enveloped the office. Everyone in it had heard the constable. The news would soon be rippling all over Highcoal.

Mole looked up from his console. “It just arrived, Mr. Stein. I told them to set it up in the red cap classroom.”

“I told you to keep me apprised of these kinds of things,” Einstein griped.

Considering he'd just learned of the spectrograph's arrival from the contractor who had delivered the thing, Mole started to snap back at Einstein, but then thought better of it. He held his peace. The MSHA inspector was under a great deal of stress. Mole saw no good reason to add to it.

S
ONG DROPPED THE
slate bar and sat down beside Cable. “I'm beat.” She emptied the water from a plastic bottle, then tossed it away. She looked at the roof, listening, but there was nothing going on up there as far as she could tell. She looked around. “Where's Bum?”

“I don't know. The way he's been guzzling water, maybe he had to take a leak.”

“I don't trust him, Cable. I think . . . wasn't Stanvic on your football team too?”

“The center.”

“So he and Bum knew each other very well, right?”

“Of course.”

“Can Bum drive a coal truck?”

“Sure. He drove one for Fox Run for a while before I hired him on.”

“Listen, Cable,” Song said urgently. “I think it was Bum who pushed Square over the mountain and I think he probably killed Stanvic too. He's capable of it. He's always angry, he's violent, and he sleeps on the job. Maybe that's because he works at night hauling coal that's not his, then takes drugs to try to stay awake.”

Cable went over the accusations, which matched what he already thought. “I guess right now, it doesn't matter,” he concluded. “We're going to have to depend on each other, including Bum, to get out of this.”

“But that's my point,” Song argued. “We can't depend on him. Do you see how he keeps looking at the fresh SCSRs? And drinking all our water? He's planning on being here when the rescuers come, Cable, but I don't think he cares if we're here or not.”

Song jumped when there was a roof fall not far away. “It's okay,” Cable said. “It wasn't big,”

But then they heard screams. It was Bum. “Oh Lord, I'm covered up! Please help me!”

“Bum!” Cable yelled. “What happened?”

“I was looking for food for us,” Bum shouted, then his voice trailed off into a whimper. “Top fell on me. I'm all busted up. Please help me.”

Cable turned to Song. “I can't ask you to go after him again.”

Song took a breath, then slowly climbed to her feet and picked up the slate bar. “Yes, you can. You just did. And I'm going.”

Thirty-Six

10:32 p.m., Tuesday

E
instein walked into the bathhouse where Bossman was going over the layout of the mine with the rescue teams from Atlas and Fox Run, plus a team from the Amalgam mine who had come up on their own. All three teams had their rescue apparatus neatly laid out on the concrete floor, including stretchers, first-aid kits, gas detectors, and self-contained closed-circuit air packs, each weighing thirty pounds and providing four hours of oxygen under normal load. The air packs were full face-mask units with speaking diaphragms. Each team was also equipped with portable hard-wired mine rescue communication systems. Their equipment was state of the art.

Einstein addressed them. “People, I recognize most of you. You've competed against each other in the rescue contests at the MSHA Academy when I've acted as a judge. I know you're all good men, and you know what to do. Now, I'm in charge of this mine rescue. We've established a fresh air base at the bottom and that's where we'll begin. Whatever happens, don't forget your training. Test the roof from rib to rib if you see anything that looks suspicious. Team captains, test for carbon monoxide, methane, and oxygen deficiency at each stop or if you have the slightest suspicion of bad air. Also, test at entrances to sections, faces, walls of overcasts and undercasts, stoppings, ventilation doors, barricades, and seals.”

“What's been tested so far?” asked Joe “Cotton Eye” Robinette, the team captain from Amalgam. He was a wiry, hard-looking man with a gleaming eye. The other he kept squinted, a scar above it the apparent result of an old injury.

“Assume nothing's been tested,” Einstein replied. “You know the drill. For methane, hold your detector at eye level or higher. Carbon monoxide at chest level, oxygen below the waist. If you see anything out of limits, stop and communicate with the fresh air base at the bottom. Bossman's going to be in charge there.”

“What about curtains?” the Fox Run captain asked.

“You'll carry curtains and brattices with you. When you curtain up, or change the ventilation in any way, be sure to mark what you did with chalk, including the date and your initials.”

“Any sign of a fire?” one of the rescuers asked.

“Not yet, but we're not discounting it. We've got bore holes going down that should tell us.”

“Well, let's get going,” Cotton Eye said, and all the rescuers nodded agreement.

Bossman held up his hands. “Boys, I know you're impatient, but hold on. Shorty Carter here—you all know him—is our team captain. When the time comes to go in, he'll lead our team to the first block, then stop and check the air quality. If the air is clear enough, and methane levels are permissible, the Fox Run team—Pritha Mahata's the lead—how do, Pritha—will follow. We'll keep hopscotching teams. At each block, everything stops until we take stock of where we are and decide how to push on. Any questions?”

There were none, except more general grumbling that it was time
to get on with the rescue. “Listen to me, men,” Einstein said. “You're not going to do anybody any good if you rush inside and get yourself killed. Just follow the plan, and stay in communication with your team and the fresh-air base all the way.”

“All right, Einstein,” Mahata said, speaking for the others. “We hear you very well. We shall proceed slowly and with care.”

“Thank you, Pritha,” Einstein said. “Now one more thing. One of the men inside—he's known as Bum around here—is wanted for questioning in a murder case. We don't know if he's dangerous or not.”

Shorty looked around the rescuers, then spoke for all of them, “Don't matter what he's done on the outside, he's still a buddy of our'n. We're going to go get him.”

Einstein allowed a subtle smile while Bossman said, “I want you boys to know I'm grateful you're here. There ain't no men in this world better'n miners, and there ain't no better miners than them on the rescue teams.”

With a whoop of enthusiasm and confidence, the best men in the world picked up their rescue gear and headed for the manlift and whatever waited for them below. Unnoticed, four more men, also dressed in rescue gear, appeared out of the shadows of the bathhouse and joined them.

T
HE AIR WAS
still clear outside the curtain, though Song could taste smoke on her tongue and feel it in the back of her throat. Her light flashed around the entry. “Bum?” she called. “Where are you?” She heard nothing but the flapping of a distant curtain.

Song looked into the first cut where a continuous miner sat, empty and abandoned. Her light played across it and then the face, the raw coal sparkling back at her. Bent beneath the low roof, she walked to the next cut, then the one beyond, which she noticed had not been pinned with roof bolts. She supposed Vietnam Petroski had seen no reason to do it, since the section was going to be shut down anyway.

There was still no sign of Bum. “Bum, call out!” she yelled.

Still nothing. She clutched the slate bar, ready to use it as a weapon if Bum was pulling some trick. Her light flashed over a second continuous miner and two shuttle cars. She walked between the shuttles, then let her light sweep along the rib to the curtain that fed the air off the face into the ventilation return. Thin smoke drifted by. The roof was higher here, so she was able to straighten up. She decided to walk to the beltway to see if Bum was there. “Bum? Where are you?” she called.

Then Song heard footsteps. While she was trying to determine their direction, she was violently tackled and her slate bar went flying. When she crawled to her knees, Bum's light was shining in her eyes. He was holding the slate bar. He didn't say anything. He turned the bar around to its sharp point and jabbed it viciously at her chest. She dodged, the point just missing her. Then she leaped to her feet and started running. There was a curtain blocking the entrance to the beltway. She threw herself through it, rolled, got up again, and kept running. Bum careened through the curtain, the slate bar snagging it and pulling it down on top of him. While he was fighting to get free of the plastic material, Song was stopped by the sudden failure of her SCSR. She spat out its mouthpiece and cautiously inhaled the open air. It was foul and she coughed, but at least it seemed to have some oxygen in it. She crouched behind the beltway and turned off her light. Hiding was all she could think to do.

Bum threw off the curtain and then aimed his light at the beltway. His voice was a maniacal warble. “Come out, come out, girlie girl, wherever you are.”

Song crawled beneath the belt's rollers and came up on the other side. Her hand found a cardboard box. Inside it were plastic tubes. Lubricating grease for the rollers.

Bum walked along the belt, his light flashing across it. “Come on out, girl,” he called again. “I was just funning. Don't mean nothing. We need to go back and help Cable.” He climbed up on the belt and began to crawl along it, his light flashing from side to side.

When he got to where she was hiding, Song jumped up and squirted grease into Bum's eyes. He yelled, dropped the slate bar, and began to paw at his face. Song snatched the bar, clambered over the belt, and ran back to where the curtain was lying in the gob. Bum, still wiping at his face, ran clumsily after her. She kept going, ran to a shuttle car, and crawled up on its boom. It was turned toward the third cut in the section, the one unpinned.

Bum saw where she'd climbed and laughed. “Get off that boom, girl,” he said. “You could fall and hurt yourself.”