The road leading up to the mine was bumpy, and the Crown Vic’s headlights cut the darkness in jagged swatches of light, like the ebb and flow of lines on a heart monitor. Soon the car crested the entrance to the bowl, its headlights illuminating the remains of the destroyed helicopter, then the new helicopter standing beside it. The Crown Vic made a long arc toward the entrance to the mine and the SUV and two pickups parked in front.
Two men stood off to the side, each with AR-15s slung over their shoulders. They watched the car slow and stop, and then watched the driver’s door open.
“Evening, Sheriff,” said one of the men. “Crazy night, ain’t it?”
Nova didn’t answer. He approached the men with his head tilted down so the brim of the hat obscured his face. Leonard Smith was a rotund man, so the pants and shirt were a little baggy, but he was hoping the two men wouldn’t notice in the dark.
The distance between them was maybe forty yards. The men didn’t speak as Nova neared them. It was only as he was twenty yards away that the man tried again.
“Sheriff?”
When Nova still didn’t answer, when he didn’t even lift his head up for them to see his face, the men knew something was wrong. They reached for their weapons, but the effort was in vain. Steel scraped against leather as Nova slid his sidearm from its holster and fired first at the one man, then the other man, one bullet each to the chest, never slowing his stride. The men hit the ground, still alive, and Nova stepped past them, shooting them each once more, this time in the head. He tossed the hat aside, bent and took the AR-15s from the men. He checked both loads, then strapped one of them over his shoulder, hefted the other one in both hands.
He continued up the incline into the tunnel. It was dark, with only a few lights spaced out along the walls. It curved toward the right and began to descend, and then he saw the glass door at the end.
A keypad locked the door by the handle. Leonard Smith had gladly told Nova the combination, running through the numbers at a frenzied clip as if he was relieved to get them off his chest. Nova punched the numbers as quietly as possible. A light on the keypad lit green, and a mechanical click sounded, so soft and slight it was almost like a whisper on the wind.
Nova pushed down on the handle, quietly swung the door open.
A walkway led farther into a cavern. Here the lights were bright and showed the vast production Connolly had created. A steel room with the vats and tubes of a laboratory sat in the center. Around it were several tables and chairs, computers and TVs.
Connolly and his assistant—Samuel, Leonard Smith had called him—and another man dragging Jessica were headed toward him.
For a moment nobody moved. Nobody spoke.
Then Nova raised the AR-15. “Let her go.”
Connolly said, “You called the cops on me, Bartkowski?”
“It’s over. You lost.”
“You should know better. A true soldier never surrenders.”
The group was clustered together, maybe fifty feet away. Connolly stood at the forefront, his assistant and the man holding onto Jessica behind him. No way Nova could open fire without hitting her. There was a chance, sure, but he wasn’t willing to take that chance, especially with the meth lab directly behind them.
Suddenly a gun was in Connolly’s hand. He yanked Jessica from the man and pointed the barrel at her head.
“Drop the weapons, Bartkowski. All of them, or I’ll kill her.”
Jessica didn’t even struggle. She just stared back at Nova, less fear in her eyes than fury. “Don’t do it.”
“Shut up!” Connolly barked, pressing the barrel to her head.
The other man—not Samuel—now had a gun in his hand. He didn’t raise it yet, but it was at his side, just waiting.
The lights in the ceiling of the cavern were spotlights, maybe two feet wide. There were a half dozen of them spread throughout the space.
“You kill her,” Nova said, “you lose your hostage. That a wise idea?”
Connolly’s gaze was steady. “I might lose my hostage, but either way she’s dead.”
Nova was silent for a long beat. Then he said, “Fine, you win.” He held the rifle out to his side, the barrel pointed toward the ceiling. “Let her go.”
“You first. Put all the weapons down.”
Nova didn’t move immediately. He just stared back at Jessica. He wasn’t even sure what he was trying to communicate with the stare. An apology, maybe, though that might not have been it either. It didn’t matter anyway. Whatever this had been, it was now over.
He looked back at Connolly. He said, “I hope you’re not afraid of the dark,” and opened fire at the cavern ceiling.
A lot of things happened quickly then. First one lamp went out, then a second. Shards of glass rained down everywhere. The man with the gun opened fire on Nova. Jessica, still grasped by Connolly, turned and kneed him in the groin. Connolly’s grip loosened, just enough for Jessica to slip free. She started forward, toward Nova, but Connolly was turning toward her, bringing up the gun, so she bolted away in the other direction.
Nova fired at another lamp in the ceiling, then hit the ground and rolled, came back up and returned fire. One of the bullets clipped the man in the shoulder. He spun away. Beyond him, Connolly was chasing after Jessica. Samuel just stood there, weaponless, looking left and right, before taking off after his boss.
The man Nova had shot hadn’t let go of his gun. As he started to raise it at Nova, Nova fired two more rounds into him.
Jessica had disappeared around the laboratory, followed by Connolly and the assistant. She cried out, and Nova heard a door slam shut. Then Connolly’s voice filled the cavern.
“We’re leaving now, Bartkowski. The girl’s locked in the lab. You might want to get her out, or you might want to save your own ass, that’s completely up to you. Because this entire place? It’s rigged with C-4. We built it that way in case we ever had to destroy it fast.”
As outrageous as it sounded, Nova didn’t doubt the man. If Nova had constructed a multi-million dollar drug lab in the middle of nowhere, he might have done the same thing. The evidence wouldn’t be completely destroyed, but it would take the authorities a very long time before they managed to retrieve anything through the rubble, and even then much of it would be compromised because of the destruction.
Connolly and Samuel were on the other side of the laboratory. Nova could see them through the glass windows. He could just as easily head back the other way, meet the two men around the other side, but he also spotted Jessica, splayed out on the floor of the lab. She was moving, slowly, sitting up and touching the side of her head, which was now fresh with blood.
“I don’t have to choose,” Nova said. “I can just kill you first, then save her later.”
“Is that right?” Amusement in Connolly’s voice. “And how are you going to get her out of the lab?”
Nova turned the corner. The first thing he saw was the table with weapons and ammunition laid out on top. Rifles, handguns, even a few grenades. Then he saw the door. There was a keypad by the handle, just like the keypad on the door leading into the cavern. The sheriff had only provided him with the one code, and Nova highly doubted that code opened this keypad. He tried the handle by itself, but it was locked. He punched the numbers in that had worked on the previous keypad. A red light lit up this time instead of green.
“I wouldn’t punch the wrong code in more than twice,” Connolly said. “Trust me, that might get … messy.”
A bluff? Maybe. Right now Connolly was working for time, just enough to get himself out of the mine. He’d say or do anything for that to happen. But what if he was telling the truth?
Nova raised his gun at the window, but paused when he considered the chemicals inside. A stray bullet could cause tremendous damage. So could a ricochet. There was a reason most redneck meth labs went up in flames.
On the other side of the cavern, Nova could hear Connolly and Samuel hurry up the ramp toward the door.
He stepped around the corner, aiming at the two men.
“I wouldn’t do that, Bartkowski,” Connolly said, holding up the grenade in his hand. “You shoot me, I let this go, the whole thing goes up in flames. Is that what you want?”
Inside the lab, Jessica was climbing to her feet. She was having a hard time of it, keeping one hand to the side of her head to stanch the flow of blood.
Nova turned back to Connolly and Samuel, but they were already headed up the walkway. Samuel went through the door first, and Connolly turned back, the grenade held high in his hand.
“Two minutes,” Connolly said. “Enjoy them.” He slipped through the door.
Nova sprinted toward the walkway. If he could get to Connolly in time, without Connolly knowing it, maybe they had a chance. Take Connolly out, even with the grenade in his hand, and at least then Connolly wouldn’t have a chance to detonate the C-4 … if there even was C-4.
But halfway to the ramp, the door exploded. Rubble burst everywhere as the tunnel crumbled in on itself. The blast was enough to knock Nova off his feet. He hit the ground, rolled, sprang back up. Stared hard at the only exit to the cavern, as if some new door would materialize out of the debris, but the truth was clear. They were trapped.