Cotton navigated the boat across the lake and headed for the tunnel where Ivan had gone. He left the lit surface and entered blackness. If not for another illuminated lake about fifty feet ahead his visibility would have been zero. Things were also a little too close for comfort, as the ceiling was less than a foot away. The small electric motor provided nothing in the way of speed, so he puttered along at a snail’s pace.
He exited out into a lake smaller than the first, the salt walls at its edges rising up fifty-plus feet. Another wooden railing lined one side and bordered another walkway that led past the water. Only one tunnel opened out, so he kept going into another dark abyss. This one tighter, the ceiling barely a few inches above his head as he sat in the skiff. He navigated with one hand on the motor and the other holding the gun. For a guy who hated enclosed spaces he seemed to find himself in them more often than not. This place was bearable, though, given the ventilation and the lights he could see at the far end of the tunnel.
He also caught shadows on the water.
Movement.
He switched off the motor and allowed only momentum to send him toward the exit. With no idea what waited beyond, he lay flat on his spine making for a low profile, one hand on the motor, the other holding the gun. The boat emerged into another lit lake, this one bordered with more steep walls on three sides, the same wooden railing stretching from one side to the other.
He saw the other boat at the same moment Ivan fired a shot his way.
Which whined past overhead.
He was far enough away, and low enough, that Ivan had no clear angle without standing, which the big Russian apparently realized.
Cotton turned the motor off and sent the moving skiff straight at Ivan, who was having trouble maintaining balance while standing in the unstable platform. He bumped his bow into the side of Ivan’s boat, which sent the Russian down. The boat wobbled but remained upright. Ivan lost his grip on the gun, which clattered into the boat and discharged. Cotton’s skiff proved Newton’s third law—that with every action there was an equal and opposite reaction—as he recoiled back across the still surface.
He rose up and sat again on the center bench.
Ivan worked to regain control of both himself and the boat.
He allowed his adversary a moment.
Then pointed his gun.
Eli kept moving from one chamber to another, each adorned with a variety of exhibits from the days when all this had been a working mine. He’d come across no one, which was odd.
Where had they all gone?
He entered another of the junction rooms, this one full of more lime-washed timbers supporting the towering walls and accommodating a staircase that led up to the next level. Ahead, past the stairs, metal doors blocked the tunnel out, which explained where the visitors had gone.
Up.
He should follow them and disappear into the crowd. But something told him there might be danger up there. Security personnel could be waiting. Too late to use that route for escape. Years of dealing had taught him a lot about people. That’s how he’d been able to seduce Jonty into allowing him to become part of the deal. Find what someone wants. Get control of it. Then bargain. He’d made a fortune doing just that. The whole point of him being here had been in the hope of achieving that objective once again. But he’d never suspected that the Americans or the Russians would figure things out. If he’d had even an inkling of their suspicions, he never would have come near this mine. Nothing was worth that risk.
He and Munoz avoided the stairs and headed for the metal doors, which were merely closed and not locked. Made sense. Never would routes be locked off, made inaccessible, restricting movements.
Except maybe with a fire.
Which was not the case here.
He heard what sounded like a gunshot.
From beyond the doors.
Ivan?
He opened one of them.
And they slipped into the dark on the other side.
Czajkowski and Sonia stayed on Eli Reinhardt and Art Munoz’s tail. Their quarry had no idea they were being followed.
They came to a chamber that ran upward in a wide shaft to the next levels, filled with cribs of round timber logs fitted to support the walls and ceiling, all whitewashed. Between clusters of beams rose a staircase.
Did they go up? he mouthed to Sonia.
She shrugged and told him to wait there.
He watched as she hustled up the wooden risers two at a time, making not a sound. At the landing where the stairs right angled upward, she stopped and listened, staring up into the shaft in which the stairs rose.
She slipped back down.
“No one is up there,” she whispered.
Sonia motioned, and they headed for the metal doors.
Cotton watched as Ivan settled himself back into the boat. The gun had fired, but nobody had been hit. He wondered about the packet, but assumed it lay safely in the boat.
“You’re not getting out of here,” he said.
Ivan again held the pistol.
He displayed his, too.
“Neither of us is getting away.” Ivan chuckled. “You almost got me. I not able to swim.”
“That won’t matter here. The lake is loaded with salt brine. Nothing sinks. You could walk on this water.”
“Great comfort to know. But I still not like water.”
“And yet here you are. On a lake.”
Ivan shrugged. “Do what we must.”
“I want that packet.”
“Let’s be reasonable, Malone. Your president not reasonable. You’re not him. We use this information to do what Poland wants. No missiles. What’s the harm?”
“You killed a lot of people to get your hands on that packet.”
“I do job, Malone. We all do job.”
“I just don’t commit mass murder while doing mine.”
“You feel sorry for those people? They not your friend. They not America or Russia’s friend.”
He was trying to decide if Ivan was stalling or just unsure as to his next move. He’d only dealt with the man once before, but he’d never known any Russian foreign intelligence officer to be either stupid or cowardly. Especially not one of Ivan’s age and stature, surely starting young with the KGB then, once the Soviet Union fell, gravitating to the SVR. At best the man was immoral, more likely amoral, which only compounded the threat.
A lot was at stake here.
As Ivan had told him back in Bruges, Moscow did not want to spend billions of rubles deploying missiles of their own just to counter the American move. Not when the problem could be dealt with quickly and quietly with some good old-fashioned blackmail.
But all that was now in jeopardy.
Eli heard a noise from behind.
The metal doors had squeaked open.
He stood inside a chamber exhibiting a variety of salt sculptures, all artfully lit with floodlights casting an eerie glow.
Was it some of the frightened tourists coming their way?
“We need to see who this is,” he whispered to Munoz.
Then he heard voices.
From the opposite direction.
Ahead.
Trouble in both directions?
“You see what that is,” he whispered to Munoz, finding the weapon he’d brought along in his coveralls. “I’ll check what’s behind us.”
Munoz headed off.
He assumed a position in the shadows, gun ready.
And waited.