Eli rode in the elevator, which purred in a steady, controlled fall to three hundred meters belowground. With Ivan around, he was glad to have Munoz with him. They were both armed with the weapons from the castle. Good thing, too, as surely there were Russian reinforcements waiting above. It was doubtful he’d make it away from the mine in one piece if Ivan was challenged. But he was no fool, either. Once the information on Czajkowski was located, no reason existed to keep him alive. On the contrary. Every reason existed for him to die. Ivan had shot two of his own men with no hesitation. He’d already told Munoz to stay alert, and at the first opportunity they’d make their escape, getting lost in the mine and finding another way out. Ivan could have the information for free. He just wanted this to end. What had, at first, seemed a profitable idea had turned into a disaster.
At least he still had five million euros and the Pantry.
Which the Russians apparently knew nothing about, as there’d been no mention of its existence.
The elevator came to a stop and the metal doors opened to a lit foyer and an unlit tunnel beyond. They stepped out into chilly air. The solitude of the uninviting blackness swallowed him as they entered the tunnel, their headlamps illuminating about ten meters ahead.
“Where you want to go is a long walk from here,” Konrad said.
“Then let us start,” Ivan said. “I don’t move so fast.”
Eli had always imposed a rigorous discipline on himself. He’d dealt with Israelis, Americans, French, Congolese, Chinese, South Africans, you name the buyers, anyone and everyone had been a customer. Unlike Olivier, who had an abhorrence for killing, he’d never harbored any such reservations. But killing this Russian would come with dire consequences.
And Ivan knew that.
Eli tried to dismiss the disturbing thoughts swirling through his brain, but couldn’t. Like fat on a man who’d always been lean, they slowed him down. But he forced himself to focus and kept following their beams down the wide tunnel.
“Amazing place,” Ivan said.
“It shows what forty generations of hard work can do,” Konrad noted. “They just kept digging, making money for the king.”
Eli was not ignorant of the salt mine. Though there were larger and older caverns in both Poland and Europe, they paled in comparison with this vast labyrinth, hundreds of kilometers long, so like the Minotaur’s lair. Everything about it screamed monumental. Mines had always fascinated him, particularly how the Nazis used them in Germany and Austria in the last war as secret vaults. Here the treasure had been far more practical.
Salt.
What a thing.
A rock, hard but fragile. But also a symbol, a measure of wealth, a spice, and a raw material. Once entire kingdoms depended on its trade.
Not so much anymore.
If he’d lived centuries ago and worked the mine, he would have wanted to be a treasurer. They ruled the underground. Miners simply called them He. No name. Just He. It was the treasurer who rewarded hard work and punished the lazy. The treasurer who delivered a harsh slap across the face to any miner who cursed. The treasurer who warned against danger, scampering through the tunnels, examining the ceiling and walls, blocking the path to places where trouble lurked.
They kept walking down the drift.
Konrad led the way, Ivan next, then himself, with Munoz in the rear. He wanted to keep the Russian ahead of him where he could see his every move. For whatever good that would offer. He could hear the fat man’s heavy breathing, obviously unaccustomed to a brisk workout. Maybe Ivan would have a coronary.
He could only hope.
Eli had not made a name for himself by being either bashful or cowardly. And he wasn’t going to embrace either weakness now.
Be smart and patient, he told himself.
The tunnel forked.
The right side was blocked by a sign.
WSTĘP WZBRONIONY. No entry.
Dripping disturbed the silence from down the blocked path. Past a rope barrier, in the combined beams of their lights he saw water seeping from the ceiling. A respectable puddle had formed on the floor beneath. Not a recent leak, either. Crystallized salt, white as snow, painted the walls.
“Is that okay?” he asked Konrad.
“It happens all the time. We come down and make repairs.”
“What would happen if you didn’t?”
“The water would slowly eat it all away. One salt crystal at a time. But don’t worry, that would take about 150 years. We’re okay.”
“How far to go?” he asked Konrad.
“Another few minutes.”
He turned to leave and his helmet slipped from his head, clattering down the salt wall and finding the floor, the light beam dancing in the darkness.
“My apologies,” he said, retrieving the headgear.
Ivan stood facing him. Beneath those coveralls was a gun, too. Probably the same one used to shoot two of his own men back at Sturney Castle. Normally Eli stayed in control. At the head of the parade. Here he was nothing more than a spectator. He tried not to think of the darkness around him and what it might contain.
But one thing he knew for sure.
Nothing could be as threatening as a Russian.