BEURY MOUNTAIN, WEST VIRGINIA
Mike Califano felt as if he’d been hit on the side of his head with a tire iron. The explosion in the lab had tossed him like a rag doll into a solid wall of jagged shale. He must have blacked out. As he gradually came to, he found himself lying prostrate on the ground, trying to figure out for the better part of a minute who he was, where he was, and what he was doing there. As he slowly worked through these questions, he gradually became aware of a strange dot of light in the distance. What is that? At length, he realized it was his flashlight, on the ground a few yards away.
With a great throbbing pain in his head, Califano rose slowly to his feet. He took stock of his physical condition. Other than the right side of his head, which hurt like hell, everything else seemed intact and reasonably functional. Nothing missing. Nothing broken. But everything sore. With considerable pain, he made his way over to where his flashlight lay and retrieved it from the ground. As he did, he noticed blood on his hand. He reached up and gently touched the right side of his forehead, which was wet. Then he looked down at his hand in the beam of the flashlight. Fresh blood . . . and lots of it.
Shit.
Ignoring the pain in his head and his aching muscles, Califano gradually made his way down the connecting shaft to the old Foster Number 2 mine, heading back the way he’d come in. This time, he did not need to perform the trial-and-error method to find his way out. He’d memorized the entire layout during his journey into the mine.
As the minutes ticked by, Califano’s muscles gradually loosened up, and he was soon able to pick up the pace to something close to normal walking speed. Ninth shaft. Turn right and then left. Eighth shaft. Turn left. He was making good progress at this, and even starting to feel a little better, when he suddenly started thinking about the two men with gas masks and guns he’d seen on the way in. Who were they? Were they responsible for the dead bodies in the lab? And the explosion? Suddenly, he stopped walking.
Where are they now?
Instinctively, Califano placed his hand on his weapon, reassuring himself that it was still in its holster. He stood motionless for some time, listening carefully to the ambient noise in the mine. Those men could still be down here, he realized. Lying in wait. For nearly a minute, he listened intensely but heard only the rhythmic echoes of dripping water and his own heavy breathing. He was alone.
He continued on, much more cautiously now. Fourth shaft. Turn left, then right. Third shaft. Left again, then right. Eventually, he reached the long ingress shaft where he’d originally entered and walked straight along this shaft for about ten minutes. He could feel the incline gradually getting steeper. He was getting close. Finally, he saw light at the end of the tunnel. Except instead of daylight . . . it was moonlight.
Califano slowly approached the mine’s entrance and puzzled over this fact. Why was it nighttime? He still had no answer to this question as he emerged cautiously from the mine entrance and enjoyed his first breath of crisp autumn air. The clean air felt good in his lungs and helped alleviate some of the throbbing pain in his head. But something wasn’t right.
Without moving, Califano looked up and saw a crescent moon high overhead in a starry sky. Strange. Before him in the moonlight was the thick tangle of old wooden timbers that he’d originally crawled through to get into this mine. Beyond that, he could see only the dark outline of the mountain forest and little else. He remained in this position for some time, straining to detect any evidence of danger. But, once again, the only sounds he heard were those of nature.
He checked his watch: 1:45 P.M., which was exactly what he expected. He’d entered the mine around 11:00 A.M., and he couldn’t have been down there longer than a couple of hours. Right? He pondered this question for a few seconds. Was it possible he’d passed out for the entire afternoon? He shook his head and eventually gave up trying to figure this out. Something was definitely awry.
Califano tapped the switch for his radio, and he heard it crackle slightly in his ear. “Ana?” he said quietly. “Bill?”
No response.
He let the radio time out and tried again. “Hey, guys, it’s Mike. You there?”
Silence.
Califano looked around one last time and then slowly began climbing his way through the thicket of old wooden beams. With his sore muscles and painful head injury, this proved much more difficult than it had been the first time, and much more time consuming. When he finally emerged from beneath the last wooden beam that separated the mine entrance from the surrounding forest, he scanned the dark tree line before him and immediately realized something was wrong.
He heard a noise and reached for his gun. But it was too late.
“Don’t move!” shouted a deep voice from somewhere in the woods. “Keep your hands where we can see them.”
We?
Suddenly, the entire area was awash in blinding white light as two pole-mounted spotlights in the woods suddenly switched on with the loud click of an electromechanical breaker.
Califano was momentarily blinded. After all the time he’d spent in the dark mine, the bright light was like a knife to his brain, making his head hurt much worse than it had before. He squinted and shielded his eyes as best he could with his hands. Through the blinding light, he could just barely make out three or four figures. They appeared to be wearing military fatigues of some sort. And they were carrying machine guns. Califano squinted harder and could now tell they were aiming their machines guns . . . at him.
Someone was now approaching from behind the spotlights. Califano could hear the crunching of feet on the dry leaves, and he watched in disbelief as the person’s face gradually came out of the blinding light and into focus. It was a large man in camouflage fatigues and combat boots. No insignia. No name tag. And he looked serious.
“Who the fuck are you?” Califano demanded.
The man said nothing and proceeded to frisk Califano thoroughly, shoulders to feet, front and back. Within seconds, he had removed Califano’s Glock from its holster, dropped the clip out, and ejected the chambered round. Obviously, this man knew what he was doing.
“Mr. Califano,” said the man in a deadly serious tone. “Please come with me.”