After the flash of light vanished, they were again enveloped in blackness. Cash carefully felt down to her holster, unsnapped the keeper, and eased out the Glock. She waited in the tense darkness with her hand on the slide, ready to rack in a round. The killers were playing with them, trying to spook them. Well, they wouldn’t be spooked.
The silence engulfed them as they waited—waiting for her to lead, she realized. It was clear they needed to get the hell out; they were in an unknown environment, facing an unknown number of enemies who were carrying unknown weapons.
“Okay,” said Cash in a low murmur. “We’re gonna move fast. Colcord, you navigate, calling directions to Holder in front. Johnson, you cover us from the rear. Stop, look, and clear every turn. Fire at will. No point in silence—they know where we are. On my signal, flashlights on full lumens and we move.” She paused, listening and waiting. She had a terrible feeling that they were being set up and that the longer they waited, the more time the other side had to surround them.
“Now,” she said.
The flashlights sprang on, and ahead she saw the scramble of dark shapes, vanishing from the beam.
“Straight ahead, and then left at the T,” said Colcord, phone in hand.
They started forward at a jog, the flashlight beams bobbing as they moved. At the T, Holder paused at the corner and then spun around, flashlight and rifle pointing ahead.
“Clear,” he said.
They continued, moving fast, Colcord calling out the directions and Holder pausing at each turn and fork to check the way ahead. Cash wondered where the figures shadowing them had gone—had they retreated? If they only had hand weapons, it would be madness to engage in a firefight with two guards carrying assault rifles. Or so she hoped.
“At the branch, take the middle passage,” Colcord said as they made progress retracing the crazy warren of tunnels, passageways, holes, and channels.
Suddenly, a sound filled the tunnel, loud and distorted: mocking laughter, coming from everywhere and nowhere at once. Holder halted, shining the light up and down, back and forth, evidently searching for the source of the sound.
“Ignore it,” said Cash sharply. “Just keep going.”
Another burst of laughter erupted around them, freakishly close, and it continued to echo and roll about through the spaces after it ceased.
“What the fuck?” Holder crouched instinctively, swinging his rifle around with the light. They were in a space with a dozen or more cracks and channels going off in different directions, and it seemed to Cash their pursuers were using these channels for sound propagation.
“Keep going,” said Cash. “It’s just a cheap trick.”
A sudden, deafening burst of gunfire erupted from Johnson, in the rear, as he fired his weapon on full automatic, the rounds stitching across the roof of the tunnel, triggering a shower of rock. They all instinctively dropped to the ground. For a moment, Cash wondered what the hell had gotten into Johnson—until she saw, as he fell backward, that a small spear had gone right through his neck, from one side to the other. His rifle ceased firing and clattered to the ground as he landed on his back and writhed, silently clutching and scrabbling at the imbedded spear, blood gushing out.
Holder rushed back to his fallen partner and knelt in front of him, firing three-round bursts into every dark hole and crack from which the spear might have come—resulting in more mocking laughter surrounding them. A second spear came flashing out of the darkness, striking off Holder’s body armor. He pivoted and fired in the direction it came from.
They had been ambushed in a really tight place. “Holder!” she yelled. “Help me grab Johnson—take his other arm. Colcord, get his weapon and cover us as you lead us out.”
Colcord shoved his Beretta back in its holster and grabbed the AR-15, sliding the strap off the body and over his shoulder, holding his smartphone in his left hand.
Cash wrapped her arm around Johnson’s shoulder and Holder took the other, and they began dragging him down the tunnel. She could see he was a goner, nobody could survive a wound like that, but no way was she going to leave his body to these monsters if she could help it. Johnson was heavy, weighed down by his body armor and pack.
Now the air was filled with a kind of chanting, like what she’d heard on the tape. It was strange, distorted, resonant.
“Left up ahead,” said Colcord.
Dragging the body, she and Holder took the left. Holder held his flashlight in one hand, aiming it behind them, the beam wobbling. Cash saw several flashes of torches among the side tunnels and channels, and she could smell burning grass and moss.
Holder gave a yell and dropped Johnson’s arm, lowering his weapon and firing into the darkness behind. He’d been hit with a spear, which flew out of the darkness and struck his shoulder just above the body armor with a loud smacking sound and penetrating right through the clavicle and shoulder blade, coming out the other side.
Colcord fired a short burst in the direction from which the spear had come, and Cash fired several rounds into the darkness behind them. But it was stupid to be shooting into the dark, without even muzzle flashes to aim for.
There was no way Holder could continue pulling Johnson’s body with the wound he had just received. Colcord had to navigate and cover them. She alone was left to pull Johnson along, struggling to drag his body, but the man was heavy. She took out her knife and cut off his pack and tried hauling him again, but still it was not going to work. Holder tried to help, grabbing an arm with his other one, took a few steps, and fell to his knees.
“Leave the body,” said Colcord. “We gotta keep going.”
“No,” Holder said, staggering with his hand on the end of the spear sticking from the top of his shoulder, blood pouring down. “You go on. I’m gonna make a stand.”
“That’s flat-out suicide,” said Cash. “Johnson’s gone.”
Holder tried to stand and managed to get to his feet but was having trouble remaining upright. Blood was pouring out of his shoulder, more than she ever thought possible from a shoulder wound, and she realized the spear, in going through the clavicle, must have struck an artery.
“Press your hand to the wound,” said Cash. “I’ll support you. Don’t pull that thing out.”
He followed her instructions, pressing on the wound with the spear sticking out between his fingers. She wrapped her arm around his good shoulder, keeping him steady. “Okay, let’s go.”
After a hesitation, Holder acquiesced, and they went on, leaving Johnson’s body behind. Colcord covered them from the rear, while at the same time looking at his phone and yelling out directions. Cash supported Holder, who was quickly losing blood and soon barely able to stagger. They finally reached the central gallery. The laughter and chanting grew more distant as they moved across the open space and retraced their journey back to the outside.
They emerged into the bright afternoon sunlight, dazzling after the dimness of the mines, Cash gulping down the fresh air. Holder sank to the ground, and she helped ease him down, slipping off his pack. He lay heavily on his back on the ground. “We need to go back in … My partner … Johnson’s body …”
“I know,” said Cash. “We’re gonna call in SWAT teams right now, get them up here ASAP to go back for your partner.”
“My partner …”
“Don’t think about it.” Cash opened Holder’s pack, pulled out the medic kit, and took out the roll of gauze. She unrolled it, folded it, and pressed it down on the still bleeding wound. Christ, it was hard to believe a shoulder could produce so much blood. Holder began passing in and out of consciousness.
“Sheriff, cover the entrance in case they come out,” Cash said as she pulled out her radio and called the lodge, one hand still pressing down on Holder’s wound. She got McFaul.
“We have a man down,” she said. “He’s bleeding. Get a chopper and medic up here—bring blood and saline.”
“What the hell happened?”
“We were attacked in the mine. Johnson is up there, dead. We need the immediate deployment of SWAT teams up there to retrieve Johnson’s body, sweep the mine, and go after the killers. And I mean now.”