Slip and Slide

by Patricia Logan

Haney looked back and forth between the two of them. He finally sighed and lowered the gun. Jarrett looked at his brother. “Take it from him, Elijah.”

  Elijah nodded, looking just as deadly as Jarrett did when he was really pissed off. “Got it, bro.” He was holding his own service revolver in his right hand and Thayne was damned glad to see it. Elijah switched the gun to his left hand and took Haney’s shotgun from him.

  Jarrett glared at Haney. “Now. Tell me where my brother is, fucker.”

  Thayne watched as Haney swallowed hard. He lifted his head. “Yes, sir, but you’ll never get to him in time.”

  ****

  Thayne felt the breath punch out of his lungs in a rush. If he hadn’t been standing beside Jarrett holding a gun on Doug Haney, he would have thought the man had somehow managed to cold cock him. Since Haney had given him his sad story about how he’d nearly lost everything at the hands of Jeffrey Boggs and the Red Hills Mining Collective, Thayne had been feeling sorry for him. Now, he felt like he was looking into the face of pure evil.

  Jarrett stepped forward and grabbed the man by the front of his shirt, dragging him forward until they were nose to nose. As Thayne watched, Jarrett stared down into the man’s face and Haney’s eyes widened in horror as he began to tremble when he realized Jarrett’s gun was pressing into the middle of his chest.

  “That was the wrong thing to say. You know where he is? Tell me what you mean right now.” The growl in Jarrett’s low voice was terrifying.

  “I—I—He—he…”

  “Spit it out, man!”

  “The congressmen’s men… th—they took him down into the mine a few hours ago. When they came out, they was alone. They told me to stay until it were done.” Haney began to cry and shake uncontrollably. Large fat tears ran down his face.

  “Until what was done?” Jarrett bellowed.

  “Until the charges went off. I—I think they set charges to blow up the mine.”

  Fear settled in the pit of Thayne’s stomach as he stepped forward. “And you told no one? Called no authorities?”

  Haney turned wide eyes on him. “They threatened my family… my wife and daughter. They said if I called anyone, my family would die. I swear I didn’t want to do it but they threatened my family.”

  Jarrett shook him until his teeth rattled and Elijah stepped forward, taking hold of his brother’s forearm. “Jarrett, we got to go down there and bring him out. You need to hold it together until we can get to Jase.”

  Thayne watched as Jarrett’s vision seemed to clear as he stared at the brother he was closest to. He finally nodded and let go of Haney’s shirt collar. The man stumbled back and Thayne stepped forward to take the shotgun from his hands. Haney was sobbing and began wringing his hands as Thayne spoke to him.

  “How much time do we have before those charges blow?”

  Haney stared at him, seeming stunned and then he looked down at his watch before glancing back up. “They said they were gonna lure y’all here. They wanted the ATF to go down there and blow up along with yer brother. I think ya have less than an hour.”

  Thayne stared at him for long seconds, disbelief flooding his veins. “How the fuck did he think he was going to get away with it?” Thayne asked.

  “I have no fuckin’ idea but I know this bastard is gonna take us down there and show us where Jase is,” Jarrett spit out.

  Thayne didn’t think he’d ever heard his partner’s voice laced with such contempt, even when he’d spoken to Virgil, the man sent to kill him and Thayne several months ago. He couldn’t imagine how Jarrett was feeling about knowing his innocent young brother had been at the hands of Geary’s men for hours, and now his life was in desperate peril.

  “I—I can’t go down there! The mine’s gonna blow. None of y’all can go down there,” Haney said, shakily.

  “You will take us down there or I might just slip and shoot ya right in the head,” Elijah said. “Call it friendly fire if you want.” He stepped forward and pressed the barrel of his service weapon to Haney’s forehead and the man’s eyes widened so big, Thayne thought they’d pop out of his face. He raised his hands and tried to back up, hitting the side of his office trailer.

  “Okay…okay! Put down the gun. My life ain’t worth nothin’ anyway. I’ll take ya down there, dammit!” Haney said, turning his face away as Elijah lowered his pistol to his side.

  Jarrett backed away as well, keeping his gun trained on Haney. “Get us gear, SCSR devices, hard hats, everything!”

  As Haney faced them again, he nodded. “Okay, okay, put down yer weapons. I’ll cooperate.”

  “We’re not going to shoot you as long as you get us the equipment,” Thayne replied.

  The man stared at him for a few seconds and then finally nodded, putting his hands down as Jarrett kept his gun on him. He moved away, opening a lock box built up against the side of the trailer. Lifting the lid, he pulled out the SCSR backpacks like the ones they’d used before, handing one to each of them. Thayne took his and put the straps over his shoulders. He’d really hoped he’d never have to see one of those again. Haney handed them hard hats and then headed for the battery-powered personnel carrier they’d used the first time they went down into the mine.

  Thayne really dreaded going down into the dark mine shaft the way they’d done before. Just remembering how he’d nearly panicked the last time he’d been down in the mine had him shaking. Remembering how the cavern had felt like millions of tons of rock from the mountain was right above them when they were down there had his knees knocking all over again. This time, they’d be going down there with charges set to explode and collapse the mine with them inside it. He and Jarrett and quite possibly Elijah, due to his Marine Corps training, had been trained in diffusing all types of bombs and incendiary devices, but doing it in a controlled environment was much different than going down into the mine not knowing what the fuck they’d be facing.

  Before gearing up, Thayne placed a call to Sales and Lafford telling them what had transpired out at the mine and who was responsible, asking them to trust them for a complete explanation after Jase was safe. They promised to rally the miners from their beds if necessary and prepare for a mine rescue. They told Thayne that Steel had hunted them down outside the sheriff’s station and the entire Pocahontas County sheriff’s department was already on the hunt for Geary and his men. The mayor had promised Steel the congressman wouldn’t slip the grasp of the sheriff and his deputies even if it took the manhunt across all of West Virginia and back again.

  Thayne watched Jarrett and Elijah strap on their gear and he realized he had to do this for his lover and Jase. If nothing else, he and Jarrett would be facing the danger together and that just felt more right than he’d ever thought it would. The thought actually gave him peace.

  When they were done gearing up and had walked over to the mantrip, Jarrett turned to face Thayne, coming close to stare him down. He looked ruggedly handsome in the miner’s gear. The yellow-billed hat made him look just like the stud he was and Thayne knew he couldn’t hide the emotions that showed on his face. Jarrett reached out and touched his cheek.

  “You think you can do this, Thayne?” Jarrett’s ice-blue eyes were questioning and concerned. They’d never spoken about Thayne’s feeling of panic when he’d been on their earlier mine excursion but somehow, Jarrett had read him correctly. Now he was asking if Thayne would be all right? Thayne nodded vigorously.

  “I’m not afraid. We can do this. We have to do this, Jarrett. We have to rescue Jase before that whole place goes up,” Thayne said with a hell of a lot more determination than he was feeling.

  Jarrett stared at him for a few seconds and then Elijah gently cleared his throat behind him, breaking the spell.

  “We better get going, bro.”

  Jarrett blinked and Thayne gave him a little smirk before Jarrett fin
ally turned away and followed his brother into the mining vehicle.

  ****

  Haney drove them deep into the now-familiar Red Hills Mine. They passed the area Harlan Sizemore had been found in, recognizing the large orange X that had been drawn on the ground with spray paint by the rescue party after he’d been located. Haney said he didn’t know precisely where Jase would have been taken by the men, but since they weren’t miners and seemed hesitant about going in at all, he figured they wouldn’t have taken Jase far. If it were him doing it, Haney had told Jarrett that he would have put him in the B Left section that had collapsed previously because it was the most vulnerable to collapse. If the timbers and roof straps might have already been loosened or weakened, collapsing that section shouldn’t take more than a few small charges, but they weren’t going to take that chance. He knew they needed to move fast and the mantrip seemed to be crawling along at a painstakingly frustrating pace.

  “Can’t this thing move any faster?” Thayne urged.

  “I nearly got it at top speed. Any faster than this and it’s gonna kick up so much coal dust, it’ll be dangerous.”

  Thayne, Jarrett, and Elijah all wore dusk masks but he remembered Jarrett telling him that one of the worst dangers in a coal mine was suspended coal dust, not because it could be inhaled into the lungs, though that was deadly after years of exposure, but because it was flammable. The thought of it igniting and blowing them all up was one of the things that terrified Thayne. As used as he was to being around explosives in the ATF, having helped to diffuse a bomb or two himself, it hadn’t prepared him for being surrounded by microscopic particles that could literally ignite and set the whole world around him on fire.

  “Coal dust, firedamp, and afterdamp are gonna be the least of your problems if you don’t get us to my brother in time. Remember, gunshots will also ignite coal dust but that’ll be the last memory you have when the bullet’s traveling through yer brain,” Jarrett warned, holding his gun at Haney’s chest level.

  Haney visibly blanched in the dark of the mine as his eyes widened. The speed of the battery-powered personnel carrier increased as he held up a hand.

  “Just keep your shirt on,” he said, shakily. “No need to blow us all up now. Lower that weapon and I’ll get ya there as fast as possible.”

  Thayne couldn’t help but smile as the mantrip accelerated. They passed the power station they’d seen before and continued down toward the B Left section of the mine off the central shaft where each crosscut marked the individual branches. It was eerie going back down into the mine and no less worrisome than it had been before. Thayne hated the dark closed-in feel of the place. When they got to the B Left shaft, Haney turned the mantrip and drove down into it. Soon the rock sides seemed to become more narrow and Thayne remembered just how dangerous it had felt to know that there was only one way out.

  They kept an eye out for Jase as they got closer to the area that had collapsed before. The lighting in the mine, which was strung on either side of the shaft along the top of both walls, cast weird shadows plunging parts of the mine into darkness this far underground. The halogen lights on their cap lights were the strongest lighting in the place but every time Thayne cast his light around the walls, he couldn’t help but see the eerie shadows.

  Jarrett kept his gun trained on Haney as he drove. The man had finally stopped trembling, probably because he was paying little to no notice to Jarrett who watched him like a hawk. Thayne and Elijah watched out the front of the mantrip, shining their lights at anything they could see. Finally Elijah gave a shout and Thayne instantly turned to where his cap light was pointing. They’d traveled almost to the end of the shaft, where they spotted the continuous mining machine in the same place it had been before. The four massive wheels with the huge steel teeth that were used to literally dig in to solid rock, were still raised in the position Thayne had seen them before. Sitting on the ground, bound and bleeding and leaning with his back up against the one large rubber tire of the machine, was Jase.

  “Jase!” Jarrett yelled.

  Haney brought the mantrip to a halt and Jarrett and Elijah hopped out, running toward their youngest brother. Thayne looked at Haney who sat in the cab of the vehicle with his hands on the controls. He pulled out handcuffs and got out of the battery-powered personnel carrier, motioning to Haney to do the same. There was no way he was going to leave him to drive off with their transportation, leaving them all stranded.

  “Get out of there.”

  Haney grumbled as he got out of the cab. “We have no time. This place blows up and we’re all dead. The methane down here will just increase the size of the explosion.”

  “Shut the fuck up!” Thayne fastened one of Haney’s wrists into the handcuff and clicked the other side around the steering wheel, taking the key out of the ignition and slipping it into his own pocket. “You should have called us immediately, asshole. If those charges go off and collapse this mine, you’ll share in our hell.”

  Haney said nothing and began to shake again as Thayne walked away.

  Jase was seated on the ground, slumped to the side, leaning with his back to the massive tire of the continuous mining machine when Thayne walked up to where Jarrett squatted beside him. Jarrett took both of Jase’s shoulders in his hands and righted him. Elijah was searching the nearby walls with a high-powered flashlight, probably trying to locate the charges. Thayne stood over Jase and Jarrett and watched his partner reach up and gently take the end of the bloody duct tape over Jase’s mouth and peel it aside. Jase had been brutally punched in the face and had two black eyes, a cut on his left cheek that had dripped blood down his face and onto the duct tape, and a swollen lip where it had been cut also. His T-shirt, the only clothing the kid had on, was stained with droplets of blood.

  Thayne could see the kid was shaking from the cold down in the mine and he was pale. He slid the backpack off his shoulders, letting it drop to the dirt floor and began yanking open the snaps on his long-sleeved thick plaid flannel shirt. Once he had the shirt open exposing his long underwear underneath, he yanked it off, squatted beside Jase, and began pulling it onto his limp body that Jarrett had freed from the ropes tying up the young man. Jase’s bare arms felt like ice, but when Jarrett patted his cheek, he began to groan. As relieved that the kid was alive as they all probably were, Thayne nudged Jarrett and his lover glanced at him.

  “Go. Go help Elijah find those charges. Team building, remember? I’ll make sure Jase’s okay. You and Elijah save us both.”

  Jarrett, obviously reluctant to leave, finally blew out a breath and nodded, taking up the flashlight he’d laid on the ground as he muttered something about fucking team building. He walked over to the wall opposite Elijah and began shining the light on the walls and searching around the timbers, the best place to set the charges to cause the most complete collapse. Thayne turned his attention back to Jase, reaching out to vigorously rub up and down both of his arms and warm him. Jase moaned, still out of it. Eventually, his eyes began to flutter open and he stared at Thayne with an unfocused gaze.

  “Thayne?” he asked weakly.

  Thayne smiled at him and patted his cheek. “There you are. We were worried about you, buddy.”

  “Are we in the mine?” the boy asked.

  “Yes, Jase. Jarrett and Elijah are here with us.”

  Jase suddenly sat bolt upright, straightening his spine faster than Thayne had ever seen before. “We’ve got to get out of here. Geary’s men set charges. They’re attached to C-4. They said they were gonna pack enough explosives in here to blow up the whole mine!”

  Thayne turned to look at Haney when the man started to wail in fear and yank at his cuffs. He looked back at Jase.

  “Do you know where, Jase?” Jarrett said, walking over and squatting beside his brother who was rubbing the back of his neck.

  “On the front of the continuous minin
g machine. There’s two of them. They were going to put them next to the compromised timbers over there, they said.”

  Jarrett immediately stood and called out to Elijah who was searching the timbers twenty feet closer to the entrance of the shaft. “Over here, Elijah!” Jarrett called out.

  Elijah began to run toward Jarrett as he took off toward the front of the continuous mining machine and Thayne reached out, taking Jase’s shoulders in his hand. The boy looked at him.

  “Can you get up? We gotta get you out of here, Jase.”

  Jase nodded. “Yeah. Just… a little…”

  Thayne reached out and caught the hand and elbow Jase offered, hauling him to his feet. He walked him toward the mantrip and helped him climb inside before bending to speak to him. “I’m gonna go back and help Jarrett diffuse those bombs. You wait right here. I’m going to send Elijah back here to drive you out of the mine. If it those devices blow up, we want you two safe.” Jase looked at Thayne with a frantic expression on his face, shaking his head.

  “No time, Thayne. We’ve all got to go now,” Jase said. “I can smell methane.”

  “You wait here. Don’t move,” Thayne ordered, ignoring Jase as he turned and bolted toward the front of the continuous mining machine where Jarrett and Elijah frantically searched for the two devices.

  “Found one!” Elijah yelled as Thayne ran up. He bent to where Elijah bent, pointing his flashlight at a cracked timber on the wall. The bomb was duct-taped to the timber and Thayne noted that it was made up of four large bricks of C-4 forming an oblong square with wires and a timing device on it. Duct tape covered the digital clock mechanism so that the numbers were obscured.

  “Got the other one!” Jarrett yelled. He was fifteen feet away, bending down next to another cracked timber imbedded in the wall, illuminated by the powerful beam of his flashlight.