Deep Fire Rising m-6 Read online

  The bells rang again and the bottom fell out from under them.

  Ira clutched at a safety rail while Red and Mercer suppressed knowing smiles. The first descent into a mine was a terrifying experience that many could never repeat. Lasko finally released his grip on the railing when he’d regained his equilibrium.

  “And I thought commuting to work around Washington was bad,” he said to cover his apprehension. “Is it always like that?”

  Red shook his head. “The horizontal tunnel we bored off this shaft is eight hundred feet below us. In South Africa, some of the men work ten times deeper. To get them there quickly, you damn near free-fall the whole way.”

  “Hell of a way to make a living,” Ira remarked as they dropped into impenetrable darkness.

  Mercer ignored the sarcasm. “It sure is.”

  Several minutes later, the rattling car slowed and a yellowish glow seeped up from around the elevator’s edges. They were nearing where men drilled and blasted toward the subterranean cavity the Department of Energy planned to use as their temporary storehouse.

  Red threw open the gate when the car stopped bouncing at the end of its eight-hundred-foot tether. The chamber was the size of a railway tunnel and well lit. They were that much closer to the earth’s core, so the workings were appreciably warmer too, though not uncomfortably so. In ultradeep mines, ventilated air was forced through massive refrigeration units just to maintain a temperature of one hundred degrees. Littering the antechamber were hydraulic compressors for the drills, mechanical scrapers and other specialty equipment designed to operate in the claustrophobic confines of the tunnel.

  At the far end of the room was the main tunnel, lit by a string of bulbs that vanished far into the distance. “How long is the drive?” Mercer asked.

  “Twelve hundred feet,” Red said as he stepped over snaking coils of hydraulic lines and power cords as thick as his wrist. “The lab coats who told us where to dig wanted the access shaft sunk fifteen hundred feet from the pocket.”

  “What about the sump under the hoist?”

  “The shaft bottoms out three hundred feet below this level.”

  Meaning they could store more than a hundred thousand cubic feet of water below the level of the drive. “Why so deep?”

  “The lab coats again. They say we’re blasting toward an underground lake. When we cut through they want to keep as much water as possible. Some sort of irrigation project, right, Mr. Lasko?”

  “That’s right, Red.” Ira gave Mercer a significant look. Red didn’t know the details of the project. Mercer cut short his questioning.

  Once they stepped out of the well-lit antechamber, the three men switched on flashlights and continued deeper into the guts of the mountain. The ceiling was a roomy eight feet and the passage was fifteen feet wide. Mercer assumed it was sized to accommodate the nuclear containment casks. Under the beam of his light, the stone was a featureless gray.

  Ira asked about the puddles of dirty water on the floor.

  “You use water to cool and lubricate the drill bits. Nothing to worry about,” Mercer replied, then added, “It’s when you see clear water that you should be concerned. This far down any sediment in the water has been distilled as it percolates through the rock. Clean water means seepage.”

  A thousand feet down the tunnel, they came to where part of the hanging wall had let go. The debris and the bodies had been removed so the area looked sanitized. The only evidence of the tragedy was that the ceiling was double its normal height. The break where the stone had split appeared clean, as if the section that collapsed had been a separate piece of rock waiting for eons for its support to be taken away.

  Mercer looked at Red.

  “Like I said,” the Texan drawled, “weirdest damned thing.”

  The bolt heads recently shot into the stone were silver bright.

  They continued deeper into the tunnel. Heavy beams supported on timber balks had been placed every twenty feet. They used wooden columns because the fibers made popping sounds long before they collapsed, giving workers plenty of time to reshore the area or, if need be, to clear out entirely.

  As they neared the working face, the sound of mine work became a teeth-shattering combination of steel on stone and the grind of heavy equipment. They passed several small mechanical shovels and a string of ore cars mounted on solid wheels. The awkward train, with its low-slung electric tractor, resembled a metallic centipede. Nearby was an even stranger insectlike machine, a four-drill drifter. The drifter was a platform mounted on crawler treads that could precisely position four of the heavy rock drills. The drills themselves were roughly the same size as machine guns and had the same wicked appearance. Hydraulic cables snaked from the machine like arteries.

  The men at the tunnel’s limit worked in pairs using slightly smaller hammer drills to bore more holes into the stone. Rock chips and lubricating water spewed from the hundred-pound tools in a stinging rain. Sullen rainbows caught in the lights seemed to resent being caged in this stygian realm.

  Mining had come a long way from the days when men hand-packed sticks of dynamite into drill holes and hoped for the best. Advances in explosives and techniques meant miners could peel rock with near-surgical precision. Here the men used the drifter to drill out the larger holes at the center of an expanding spiral pattern. The rest of the holes were hand-drilled using notes on depth and angle determined by the shift boss. This intricate arrangement allowed the explosives in the middle to core out a void in the rock face. Timed with microsecond delays, the next ring of charges blew debris laterally into the cavity, expanding it and creating space for the rubble from still more shots. The explosions corkscrewed out like a blooming flower and gave the men unprecedented control over how much material they excavated with each shot.

  Red broke away from Mercer and Ira to tap the shift boss on the shoulder. With the drillers working full out, it was impossible to hear over the din.

  Even before he turned, Mercer recognized Donny Randall just from his size and the slope of his wide shoulders. His blocky head made his helmet look like a finger bowl.

  They’d met once in Botswana, at a retirement party for the underground manager of the Orapa mine. Donny had been at the stylish affair because an incentive contest gave an invitation to the shift boss whose gang held the monthly record for most ore removed. He’d basically brutalized his way in. As he partied that night, one of his men was in a hospital bed recovering from a slenectomy while another was learning to eat without front teeth, all thanks to Donny’s pick handle.

  Mercer had learned about this and some of his earlier exploits in South Africa later, although even then he could sense Donny’s brute stupidity and elemental savagery. As one of the only Americans there, Donny had tried to speak with Mercer. He’d been drunk when he’d arrived at the hotel ballroom and could only slur his words.

  The incident was one of the few times Mercer’s memory had failed him and for this he was grateful. He couldn’t recall what was said during their minute-long conversation, but he did remember that Donny had been thrown out of the hotel by a half dozen guards, most of whom went home with bruises or black eyes as souvenirs.

  Randall had a brutal face, heavy brows and a mouth perpetually twisted into a smirk. His nose looked so often broken and reset there was little cartilage remaining. His hair was dyed jet-black and he sported sideburns like a latter-day Elvis. His eyes were dark and disturbing. It wasn’t their shade that was so unsettling, it was their feral quickness. They twitched from person to person as though he was a cornered animal seeking escape, or a liar waiting to be found out.

  Mercer knew him to be both.

  Randall’s eyes finally settled on Ira and he gave a mock salute. The fact that Admiral Lasko signed the paychecks did little to impress him. Red indicated that they should move back down the drive to get away from the din.

  “What are you doing back here?” Donny demanded of Ira. Like many paranoids, he never understood that his brusque susp
icion contributed to the cycle of animosity he encountered.

  Ira let the lack of respect slide. “I’m here with the new shift boss to replace Gordon and Kadanski. This is Mercer.”

  Donny made no move to shake hands, nor did it appear he recognized the name or Mercer’s face.

  “We’re down to sixteen men, including him.” Randall tossed his head in Mercer’s direction. His voice was a strange combination of menace and petulance. “Because you won’t get more miners you can’t expect me to make your schedule.”

  “I’ve seen the progress reports,” Ira replied evenly. “Even when you had three shifts you guys weren’t making three shots a day.”

  “That wasn’t my fault. Gordon and Kadanski didn’t know what they were doing. Hell, if I hadn’t picked up their slack we wouldn’t have moved ten feet from the main shaft.”

  Red Harding’s derisive cough wasn’t necessary. Mercer knew Donny was blaming the dead men to cover his failure.

  It had taken only moments, but Ira had had enough, remarkable since Mercer had rarely known him to get upset. Randall had that effect on people. Ira stiffened, his bearing becoming that of a thirty-year naval veteran dressing down a subordinate. “Mercer will be in charge from now on, so you don’t need to worry about my schedule. All you have to do is work where and how he says or you’re through. Are we clear?”

  Donny Randall muttered something unintelligible.

  “What was that?” Ira snapped.

  “I said yeah.”

  “You will say, yes, sir.”

  Donny’s defiance lasted a fraction of a second. It was a murderous spark that blazed behind his eyes, a savage glimpse into his capacity for rage. It vanished as abruptly as a cage door slamming. His expression shifted to an empty smile. “Yes, sir.” He stepped closer to Mercer to shake hands. “Welcome aboard. Good to meet you.”

  “Likewise,” Mercer choked.

  Fifteen hours later, Ira had returned to the main Area 51 complex for his flight back to Washington. Mercer had his crew working nights, leaving the day shift to Donny Randall.

  The night sky was suffused with a blur of stars so startlingly close they appeared to hang just overhead. The air was still, timeless. Moonlight electrified the drab landscape, highlighting features with its silvery glow while outlining others in deepest shadow.

  Don Randall gave no indication he saw the ephemeral beauty, let alone gave it any consideration. He strode across the desert with the single-minded determination of a migrating animal, driven by instinct rather than intellect.

  He’d created elaborate excuses for the hour-long walks he took every couple of nights, although none of the men had shown the slightest interest in his activities. He took their silence as respect for his privacy, never considering they were glad for anything that got him out of the communal recreation hall.

  His boots dug deep into the loose scree as he panted his way up a hillock two miles from camp. At the top of the hill he checked the loose piles of boulders he’d stacked around his cache. None of the tells he’d left appeared disturbed, nor were there any footprints that didn’t match his size-thirteen feet. He grunted his satisfaction and tore into the pile, heaving fifty-pound rocks as though they weighed no more than bricks.

  Ten minutes after beginning his work, his fingers closed around the plastic handle of an armored suitcase and with one jerk he freed the case. He was careful to dust off the lid before opening it.

  While the electronics within the case were state-of-the-art microminiaturization, the banks of batteries gave the crate its size and considerable weight. Also nestled inside the case was a compass. He set the box on the ground and rotated it until the retractable antenna pointed ten degrees east of due south, as he’d been taught. When he switched on the electronics he was greeted by a series of green indicator lights and the machine emitted a high-pitched tone. It had found the satellite hanging twenty-two thousand miles from Earth.

  The complexities of the heavily encrypted satellite phone were beyond him. All he knew was what direction to point it and how to turn it on. He’d tried using it once to dial a phone sex service, but the machine wouldn’t access the number. It could only reach the people who’d paid him to make reports about the mine.

  He snatched the handset from its cradle, hit a button that activated the phone and waited for a single ring for an electronically muffled voice to answer.

  “Go.”

  Donny licked his dry lips. The voice had always given him an uncomfortable feeling, like there was nothing human behind it, like he was taking orders from a machine. “We’ve got a problem.”

  “What is it?”

  “The replacement for Gordon and Kadanski is here.”

  “We expected there would be one. You know what to do.”

  “It ain’t that easy. The new guy — it’s Philip Mercer.”

  For the first time in all his conversations, the person/ machine paused. “Very well. Do nothing for now. We will deal with him when the time comes.”

  “Okay,” Donny replied, but the connection had already been cut.

  THE DS-TWO MINE, NEVADA

  The floor of the box canyon was in shadow long before sunset, making it easier for Mercer to pretend it was almost dawn rather than a few minutes until dusk. Just one of the tricks he used when working a graveyard shift. The other mental games he played weren’t doing much to alleviate the tension cramping his shoulders, the nagging pain in his lower back or the gritty, red rims around his eyes. He hadn’t spent as much time at the mine as the others, yet he’d pushed himself so hard he felt the deep exhaustion infecting them all. The work pace had been brutal and he hadn’t yet recovered from Canada.

  In the command trailer he stooped over the seismograph, his attention focused on the steady line of ink trailing across the revolving drum of paper. The stylus remained motionless but wouldn’t for long. Although it meant reporting to work an hour before his shift, he’d gotten in the habit of watching the results of Donny Randall’s blasts.

  Red Harding stepped into the trailer where they kept the seismograph and several other pieces of scientific equipment. He placed a cup of coffee at Mercer’s elbow. Mercer acknowledged with a nod. Observing the seismograph had become a “morning” ritual for both men.

  “Still haven’t figured it out, huh?” Red sipped from the Pepsi that gave him his jolt of caffeine.

  Outside, the men of Donny’s team made their way past the trailer on their way toward their rooms for showers, dinner in the mess, and bed. The schedule left most too tired to bother with the satellite television, pool table or other amenities in the rec hall.

  “Not yet,” Mercer said absently. The big clock on the wall showed that a minute remained before Donny would fire the charges his men had just planted.

  Harding scratched his sunburned bald spot. “He has a different technique is all.”

  Mercer had noticed the anomaly over the course of the ten days he’d been on-site. Both work shifts removed similar amounts of rock with each blast, although Donny used slightly more explosives. What tickled the back of Mercer’s mind was that the seismograph readings indicated Donny’s shots were slightly smaller than Mercer’s. Somehow Randall managed to reduce the amount of seismic shock from the charges he laid, creating less stress in the surrounding strata, something miners strove for. Mercer had watched him working but had found nothing to indicate how he was doing it.

  It was ego driving him to find the answer, he knew. He didn’t want to admit the possibility that Randall the Handle was the better blaster.

  “And if you average out our teams,” Red added, “we have cleared six feet more tunnel than he has. He ain’t better than us. He’s just overpacking his holes after he places his ’splosives. That accounts for the damping effect.”

  “You’re probably right,” Mercer replied, not wholly satisfied with the answer but unable to find another.

  The earth and the stylus jumped at the same instant. The bump at the soles of their feet w
as much less dramatic than what happened on the seismograph. The steel needle traced a jagged line on the paper like an EKG recording a heart attack. A moment later the shock waves dissipated and the machine flat-lined as if the patient had died. On an adjoining computer Mercer brought up comparison patterns from previous blasts. Like before, Donny’s shot showed a two percent decrease in shock waves from what Mercer’s team managed. The six additional feet that his men had excavated wasn’t enough to make up that difference.

  Mercer’s mouth turned down at the corners.

  The trailer door crashed open. Randall loomed at the entrance, his face and clothes covered in dirt. Pomade and dust turned his hair into a shiny helmet that clung to his skull. The dye he used to keep his hair unnaturally black bled down his forehead in gray streaks of sweat. “How’d I do?” His voice crashed unnecessarily loud.

  “Three point two,” Red mumbled, as if betraying his supervisor with the answer.

  “Hah,” Donny sneered. “I hot-loaded that shot with ten extra cartridges of Tovex. Had you made that shot, the graph would’ve spiked at four-oh, minimum.” He walked away without waiting for a reply.

  “As if we needed another reason to think he’s a jerk,” Red commented to Mercer.

  Mercer said nothing. What could he say? He checked the sensors monitoring ventilation for fume and dust concentrates. It would take a half hour for the massive fans to clear the workings of the choking mixture. Next he called up the video feed from a shielded and stabilized camera placed just back from the end of the tunnel.

  It took a second for his eyes to adjust to the swirling clouds of dust blocking the camera’s view. It looked like a furious sandstorm. He sipped his coffee while the ventilators drew the smog to the surface. After a few minutes he could see rubble strewn on the floor of the tunnel, the debris blasted from the rock face by Donny’s charges, and then the end of the tunnel resolved itself from the haze. The stone was remarkably uniform considering the explosive onslaught it had just endured. Donny’s blast had been clean.