Ready to Kill

by Andrew Peterson

  And now, although Franco had the stranger pinned down in the mine, the stranger had his gold—and the ability to protect it. Seeing the blood-stained bar had rattled Franco. He’d been stockpiling his private stash for years, constantly moving it around so it never remained in the same place for too long. As a supplement to his pay, Macanas let him keep 10 percent of all the gold extracted from Santavilla’s mines. The problem was he’d amassed closer to 20 percent, and if Macanas ever found out he’d been skimming, he was as good as dead, or worse. Macanas had criminal friends in high places all over Central and South America, and Franco knew he’d die an agonizing death if his secret leaked. Over the last few months, he’d considered cashing it in, but the spot price of gold had really plummeted.

  Which left him here, facing one of his worst fears: someone had stolen his retirement money. And he’d have to chase this jerk into the mine to recover it. Not an easy mission, especially alone. Franco would have preferred to conduct a leapfrog advance down the mine’s main gallery, but one of his men was unconscious and the other couldn’t walk. The two men he’d dropped near the wooden bridge were headed for the lumber mill, and their orders were to stay there until relieved. At the time he’d given that order, he hadn’t known the lumber mill had been compromised and his gold stolen. Other than his bleeding cousin, which could be total BS, Franco didn’t know the status of any of his men permanently stationed in Santavilla. Right now, he was strongly motivated to go in there, kill the guy, and find out what the hell was going on in town. He’d deal with Estefan Delgado then.

  For a moment, Franco forced himself to imagine what it must feel like to be trapped in the mine, facing the business end of his M-4. It had to be hellish at best, pants-pissing at worst. He knew the foreigner had taken at least one bullet before going in there. Lucian had reported seeing the guy fall down and hobble into the opening. Franco couldn’t be sure, but he believed he scored another hit with his second-to-latest salvo. He didn’t know the seriousness of the stranger’s wounds, but it must add to the pressure he was feeling in there. Alone in the dark, bleeding and trapped, the guy’s outlook was bleak. Franco knew a hopeless situation often forced a man into making reckless decisions. He’d need to be mindful of it. A trapped and wounded animal could be unpredictably vicious.

  He turned his goggles to maximum gain, aimed his M-4 from the shoulder, and silently slipped inside the mountain.

  After finishing his task just inside the entrance to the left-hand crosscut, Nathan approached the ore car he’d seen before. Moving past the light stick, he held a hand out to block its brightness. Three yards short of the car, he pulled a ten-foot length of fine fishing line from the small spool he always carried with him on ops. Even though the light stick remained ten yards behind him, it provided plenty of light to work with. He tied one end of the line around a fist-sized rock and repeated the same procedure on the other end. Before placing the rocks, he dabbed his thumb and forefinger into his thigh wound and coated the length of fishing line with blood to darken and dull its surface. He also bloodied the areas where the fishing line encircled the rocks. Then he scooped up some powdery material from next to the rail and sprinkled it along the wet line. Next, he rubbed the rocks in the powder, camouflaging the fishing line around them. Finally, he smoothed the area he’d disturbed and covered it with gravel.

  After placing one of the rocks inside a waist-high crevasse in the wall, he looked for a similar place on the other side of the crosscut and found one at knee level, a little closer to the ore cart. Perfect. He didn’t want the trip wire to be level or straight across the tunnel. His initial plan had been to string the line across the top of the rails and connect it to a stun grenade, but that plan assumed Raven would be walking between the rails, not on top of them. Nathan had used the rails to move silently and believed Raven would too.

  He finished rigging the trip wire and checked his handiwork. Both rocks were secure and wouldn’t fall out of their small alcoves without being pulled. He placed a small flat rock on the rail eighteen inches short of the trip wire, so he’d know where to step over it when he returned. Moving silently, he eased back toward the T junction and picked up the light stick. Hoping Raven wasn’t looking, he threw it across the junction and into the right-hand crosscut. It bounced three times and came to rest about halfway between the junction and the other light stick. Both of the light sticks now lay in the right-hand side of the crosscut tunnel.

  Nathan kept going and slowly peered around the corner down the main tunnel. He thought he saw movement just past the overturned car but couldn’t be sure. He turned around and eased along the rail back toward the other ore car. With no light sticks left in this side of the crosscut, the available light kept decreasing with every step. Soon, the telltale speckling in his goggles returned. Just ahead, he could see a dimmest outline of the ore car and a few ceiling crags, but the floor of the tunnel was pitch-black. When he closed to within ten or twelve feet of the car, he began sliding his foot along the rail, feeling for the rock he’d left.

  And couldn’t find it.

  Where was it? It should have been right here. Could it have fallen off the rail? He didn’t think so but wasn’t 100 percent certain. Refusing to second-guess himself any longer, he dropped to his hands and knees and extended his sliced arm. Realizing his mistake, he quickly withdrew it and rolled his sleeve back down to avoid dripping any blood on this side of the crosscut. With the wound covered, he extended his hand again.

  Still nothing.

  Was he looking on the wrong rail? No way. He’d placed it on the left rail on the low side of the trip wire.

  His Sig.

  He could activate its laser for a split second without creating too big a flare. To be even safer, he put his left forefinger over the laser’s aperture and pressed the button.

  Nothing happened.

  What the hell?

  Then he remembered turning it off after leaving the tool alcove to avoid accidentally activating it while he crawled. The mistake hammered his nerves. He’d just forgotten something that might’ve cost him his life. Pursing his lips, he flipped the button on the base of his Sig and pressed the button a second time. The tip of his forefinger brightly glowed and an image from the movie E.T. flashed, unbidden, in his mind.

  There. Just beyond his reach, the flat rock sat on the rail. Feeling relief that he was still grounded in some sense of reality, he pushed the rock off. Leaving the laser on, he held his glowing finger tight against his body to minimize the light and carefully stepped over the trip wire.

  Before moving past the car, Nathan took off his pack and gently placed it where he couldn’t possibly trip over it later. He leaned his rifle against the far side of the car so none of its form could be seen from the junction. Just past the car, he found the opening into the secondary crosscut where the huge slab of rock had been removed from the ceiling . . .

  And stepped inside.

  Now came the hard part.

  Franco advanced to the overturned ore car and saw something flash at the end of the tunnel. He froze, not wanting to create any discernable movement. The ore car offered him cover, but he’d hoped to keep his presence inside the mine undetected.

  Whatever flashed seemed to have come from the end of this main tunnel, but it had happened too fast to see properly. The glow down at the end looked about the same as it had before. This cat-and-mouse game would be much more difficult if it migrated deeper into the labyrinth of passages. He would have to guard against letting the stranger slip out behind him undetected, a difficult task given the nature of this system of tunnels. Although Franco hadn’t been in this mine in several months, he had a fairly good idea of its layout. This main entry tunnel ended at a T junction, branching to the right and left. The left side held more secondary passages and would offer more places to hide. It was likely his prey would set up an ambush on that side. Even though he couldn’t know where his enemy would
conceal himself, Franco felt he had the advantage. He wasn’t wounded, possessed a fully automatic M-4, and had a state-of-the-art pair of NV goggles, complete with an IR illuminator for pitch-black environments.

  One thing was certain, the guy was bleeding and from the look of things, pretty badly. Blood was smeared everywhere. He smiled. With a little luck, he’d walk up to a dead body. If the guy carried through with his threat and hid the gold, finding it shouldn’t be difficult. This linear environment didn’t offer many hiding places. Franco wasn’t worried.

  He was worried about that damned light stick fifteen yards farther down the tunnel. Its presence prevented a stealthy advance. Shooting it from here wouldn’t be easy. Throwing it down the mine had been a smart move on his enemy’s part . . . On closer inspection, though, it also afforded him an opportunity. The light stick had ended up on the outside of the left rail, nearly up against it. If he hugged the right side of the wall, he’d be in the shadows when he got closer to the light stick. He considered a balls-out run to the light stick so he could hurl it back toward the entrance. Shoving it in his pocket wasn’t an option because his opponent’s NV would see the light through the fabric. He might as well paint a bull’s-eye on his crotch—not an appealing visual.

  Because of the light stick up ahead, Franco concluded the best way to advance down the gallery was a low crawl. He left his sniper rifle in the tool alcove, slung the M-4 over his shoulder, and pulled the pistol he’d taken from his mortally wounded man.

  Feeling like a snake entering a gopher hole, he began slinking down the tunnel.

  Nathan knew his way around rock climbing, but he’d never attempted it in total darkness. From this point on, he’d be caught in the clutches of a silent, black world. The dust on the walls presented a problem. Nathan would never be able to climb into the opening over his head without leaving handprints and scuff marks. The good news was, Franco wouldn’t be able to see the disturbed areas without an artificial light source, and the instant Franco activated his IR illuminator—assuming his device had one—Nathan would have the upper hand. Brutally, the reverse was also true.

  This showdown in the dark would become the ultimate test of wills.

  Who would blink first and turn on the lights?

  A step inside the secondary crosscut, he flashed back to when he’d activated his IR and formed an image in his mind. This connecting tunnel acted like an overly tall hatch on a naval ship. The ceiling was about ten feet high and extended upward at a shallow angle before intersecting the lighter-colored rock and rising much more steeply. From there, it went about thirty feet higher. The floor contained blasted rocks of all different sizes, but the miners had leveled it somewhat with smaller rocks and gravel.

  Nathan didn’t need to climb very high; he just needed to wedge himself about five feet above the tunnel’s floor. Rock climbers called it a chimney climb, and it was one of the easier ascents they performed, assuming the gap didn’t become too wide.

  He felt for a foothold and found a sharp crag at knee height. Using his right arm, he reached across the narrow passage and braced himself. His clothes issued a barely audible whisper as he hoisted himself up eighteen inches. He extended his free foot to the opposite side and found an angled spot to bear his weight. He repeated the process three more times. With adequate light, he could’ve made this ascent in a few seconds, but blindly feeling for footholds and handholds had taken over a minute. He achieved a stable position by resting his bent knees on one side of the chimney and his back on the other side. He now wished he had his pack. These walls were far from smooth, and he felt every imperfection with perfect clarity.

  If he had to stay like this too long, it was going to turn ugly.

  Franco hadn’t seen or heard anything in a long time. He didn’t know how much time had elapsed since the tall man had entered the mine, maybe seven to ten minutes, but he did know a blood trail when he saw one. Rather than continue a low crawl down the main tunnel all the way to the light stick, he unslung his rifle, popped up, and ran the remaining ten yards, careful to tread only on the ties wherever possible. His footfalls made noise but not too much. He hurled the light stick as far as he could back toward the portal and quickly dropped prone. If any bullets were going to come his way, he expected them right now.

  Nothing happened.

  This gallery remained utterly silent other than the occasional sound of dripping water.

  Could his quarry already be unconscious from blood loss? Franco had seen a lot of blood, but even superficial wounds could bleed freely. And he hadn’t seen strong enough evidence to believe the guy had taken anything but superficial wounds. Blood was smeared along the left rail, but it was likely from bullet fragments, not a direct hit. Either way, his prey had to be under a tremendous amount of stress.

  Without the light stick’s blinding source in front of him, he could see a glow coming from the right side of the T junction. The left looked dark.

  Franco gained his feet.

  Aiming his rifle from the shoulder, he silently eased deeper into the mountain.

  Once Nathan found a stable position, he reached into his thigh pocket and removed the stun grenade. Feeling its form, he quickly identified the dual-safety-ring system. Keeping his hand firmly around the cylindrical device, he gave the circular ring a clockwise twist and pulled it free. Rather than let it drop to the floor, he pocketed the ring. He left the triangular ring in place for now. If he pulled the secondary ring, the grenade would detonate if he released the handle. Even with the triangular ring still in place, he felt like he had a handful of sleeping wasps. Once he tossed it, detonation would occur in approximately two seconds.

  Nathan waited and listened. He couldn’t hear water dripping anymore. He strained to hear even the slightest sound and got nothing.

  This was frigging unbelievable.

  If there was such a thing as buzzing silence, this was it.

  Did absolute silence exist? Did molecules make noise at the subatomic level? He didn’t think so but wasn’t sure.

  After two minutes of being wedged in the chimney, he began to feel fatigue in his back and legs. He slowed his breathing and tried to remain calm, but a sense of resentment washed through him. He resented hiding in here like this. He resented Raven’s turn toward crime. He resented this hole in the mountain and everything it represented. Greed. Power. Money. What real value did any of that crap have?

  In less time than he’d hoped, his back was killing him, and his legs burned beyond all hope of ever recovering. At any moment, a crippling cramp threatened to seize one or both of his quadriceps.

  His sense of time became a pain gauge, complete with a black needle. Each second moved the needle closer to the red zone and . . . failure.

  It really frosted him that Raven might win this battle. How could he let that happen?

  He tried to use his heartbeat to count seconds, but the burning in his legs overruled his ability to keep track of numbers. All he saw was the slow creep of the pain needle toward the end of its arc.

  He had to hang in there a little longer.

  He’d been through worse . . .

  No!

  He shouldn’t have thought that—gone there—but it was too late to pull back now.

  He’d opened the door.

  It happened suddenly. Like a boiling kettle beginning its shriek, Nathan’s mind reached critical overload.

  Within seconds his entire body trembled. He closed his eyes and clenched his teeth. Shit! Not now . . .

  The last time he’d felt this coming on, Harv had been there to help him suppress it. If he didn’t compose himself, he’d end up charging the entrance in a panic just to get out of here.

  Things got worse when the dark entity living in his soul saw an opportunity to test its chains. Hate-filled memories surged across his brain like time-lapse videos of dying flowers. Life and death, love and hate,
strength and weakness all collided. He felt as if his body were being stretched and compressed at the same time. Nausea took his stomach as a sense of weightlessness made him gasp. He banged his head against the wall to verify he was still wedged in reality. His brain registered the impact but little else. Somewhere in the depths of his being, he knew this downward spiral had to end or he would die. If he didn’t trigger his mental safety catch, the Other would get a foothold and climb out of its cage.

  He couldn’t let that happen. Bowing his head, he reached for a virtual switch he hoped was still there . . .

  And found it.

  Click.

  Blackness turned to color as he pictured himself inside a grove of autumn-colored trees. A gentle breeze swayed the branches, freeing their leaves. Each descending leaf drained a small piece of hatred and malevolence from his soul. The leaves fell by the hundreds, then by the thousands. They swirled around his body and tumbled away on the wind.

  Through the falling leaves, he caught a glimpse of Holly’s face and extended his mind toward it. Like running toward a train, Nathan used the visual to stay focused. He had to get aboard before it left the station. A split second before the doors closed, he slipped inside.

  And had her.

  Holly’s face filled his vision, giving him warmth and hope. She was so incredibly beautiful. He missed her and knew he had to survive in order to see her again.