Attack at Dead Man's Bay

by Paul Adam

  ‘There’s no fence or gate,’ he said. ‘The road just goes straight into the mine. This first building on the left, here, is the storeroom, where they keep all the supplies. Food, clothing, machine parts – everything from truck tyres to toilet paper. It all has to be brought in by ship. The only things that aren’t stored here are the refined platinum, the fuel for the vehicles and the explosives. They’re kept separately, in these buildings here.’

  Dmitri pointed to three squares on the left-hand side of the plan, then his finger moved to the right. ‘This is the main processing plant, the crushing mill and flotation tanks. These buildings are offices and the canteen for the workers. And here is the entrance to the bunker.’

  ‘What’s it like?’ Max asked.

  ‘Just a door in an old tin shed,’ Dmitri replied. ‘Inside, there was a lift, but it wasn’t working. That’s why we took the stairs down into the bunker.’

  ‘Was the door locked?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I can deal with that, I’m good with locks,’ Max said, feeling in his pocket for the piece of wire he still had with him.

  Dmitri clicked off the torch and stowed the plan away in his rucksack, then stood up and headed across towards the mine. Max stuck close to him, feeling butterflies in his stomach. He was on edge, looking out for danger.

  They rejoined the road for a few metres, then entered the site, pausing in the shelter of the storeroom to survey the ground in front of them. There was a wide open yard, illuminated by floodlights, and beyond that a cluster of concrete office blocks and the huge frame of the processing plant that had to be at least two hundred metres from end to end. Parked against the wall of the storeroom was a line of high-backed trucks and a couple of jeeps. Dmitri crept along behind them, then paused again, gesturing across the yard at an access road next to the offices. Max nodded. Dmitri checked there was no one around, then sprinted across the yard. Max went after him, listening to the soft pad of their feet on the ground, watching their shadows changing shape as they raced away from the lights.

  They ducked into the cover of an office block and ran along by the wall where it was darkest. Dmitri turned right between two buildings and slowed, signalling to Max to do the same. They crept to the end of the wall and peered cautiously around the corner. On the far side of another floodlit yard was the entrance to the bunker. Max could see the door – a big, solid-looking metal panel with a keyhole on one side. As he watched, the door opened and two men – wearing uniforms like soldiers – emerged. Slung casually over their shoulders were sub-machine guns. They both lit cigarettes and smoked them, chatting idly to each other in Russian.

  Max and Dmitri retreated, taking shelter behind one of the office blocks.

  ‘I think you’re right,’ Dmitri said softly. ‘The bunker is back in use again.’

  ‘Can we get inside it?’ Max asked.

  Dmitri shook his head doubtfully. ‘Not through that door, it’s too risky. I’ve never seen guards around the mine before. With guns like that. They’d shoot us if we tried to get in.’

  Max’s stomach was churning, a mixture of nerves and excitement. His suspicions were correct. Something was going on in the bunker, something that needed armed men to guard it. That could only be Clark’s brainwashing programme – nothing else made sense. And that meant Max’s dad had to be down there. Max didn’t want to delay. He wanted to find his father and rescue him. But the guards were a problem. How were they going to deal with them?

  ‘You’ve got your rifle,’ Max said. ‘Could we burst in through the door and hold the guards up at gunpoint?’

  ‘Bad idea,’ Dmitri replied firmly. ‘There are two of them and they have machine guns. I only have an old hunting rifle. And there may be more guards inside. It would be crazy to rush in.’

  ‘Then what do you suggest? We have to get in there, Dmitri. It’s vital. Is there another entrance?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe.’

  ‘Maybe? What do you mean?’

  ‘The old miner who took me down there, he said something about a back way, an exit that could be used in an emergency.’

  ‘Did he say where it was?’

  ‘Down one of the old, abandoned mine shafts.’

  ‘Do you know which one?’

  ‘No, but I suppose we could work it out. If we had to.’

  ‘Dmitri, we have to,’ Max said.

  ‘It’s risky.’

  Max took hold of Dmitri’s shoulders and looked him directly in the eye. ‘My dad is down there,’ he said fiercely, his voice low and intense. ‘Julius Clark’s scientists could be pumping him full of Episuderon, interrogating him right now. They might even have killed him. We can’t afford to wait. We have to do something.’

  Dmitri gazed back at him uncertainly. Now they were here at the mine, his resolve seemed to be weakening. ‘I’m not sure …’His voice trailed away.

  ‘Well, I am sure,’ Max said. ‘Julius Clark murdered your father, Dmitri. He kidnapped him and gave him a dangerous drug that killed him. Do you want him to get away with that? Is that the kind of son you are?’

  It was a harsh thing to say, but it had the effect Max intended. Dmitri’s eyes hardened. He looked away for a moment, as if he were remembering his father, remembering the years they’d spent together. Then he gritted his teeth and nodded.

  ‘No, Clark isn’t going to get away with it. I’m going to make him pay.’

  ‘The two of us together,’ Max said. ‘We can do it. Now let’s take another look at that plan.’

  Dmitri took the paper out of his rucksack and they studied it again by the light of the torch. Dmitri pointed to three or four printed circles in different parts of the site. ‘Those are the old shafts.’

  ‘Can you still get down them?’ Max asked.

  ‘I don’t know. There used to be lift cages for taking the miners underground, but I don’t know whether they’re still there, whether they still work. They might have filled the shafts in.’

  ‘How big is the bunker? What kind of area would it cover?’

  Dmitri traced an invisible line on the plan with his finger. ‘About that, I think.’

  ‘So it spreads over here to the north of the site. That rules out those three shafts. They’re too far away. It has to be this one here, near the workers’ flats.’

  Dmitri stared at the plan. ‘I know that shaft,’ he said. ‘It’s the oldest on the site, worked in the nineteenth century by miners looking for gold. It doesn’t have winding gear or lift cages. The shaft goes horizontally into a rock face.’

  ‘Let’s check it out,’ Max said.

  ‘We’ll need some equipment first.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘You’ll see. Follow me.’

  They ran back along the access road and across the yard to the storeroom. Dmitri took a key from his pocket and unlocked the door.

  ‘You have a key?’ Max said incredulously when they were safely inside the building.

  ‘I took one of the spares when I worked here,’ Dmitri replied, grinning. ‘I was a stores clerk for part of the time. That’s how I know they won’t miss all the stuff I steal. The record-keeping is terrible. Give me a second.’

  Dmitri clicked on his torch and vanished into the depths of the warehouse. When he reappeared a few minutes later, he was carrying a coiled rope and a heavy steel crowbar. He passed the rope to Max. ‘Best to be prepared,’ he said.

  Leaving the storeroom, they avoided the yard and went west towards the mine workings. Dmitri stopped outside a small one-storey concrete building that had no windows and a sturdy looking metal door. He jammed the crowbar into the narrow gap next to the lock and wrenched it back, breaking the door open.

  ‘Wait here,’ he said, handing the crowbar to Max and slipping into the building.

  He was gone less than five minutes. When he came back his hands were empty.

  ‘What were you doing?’ Max asked.

  Dmitri didn’t seem to hear the question. He took bac
k the crowbar and headed off, moving quickly but carefully round the far end of the processing plant. There was no one about. The plant wasn’t working, nor was the mine. The only places showing a light in this part of the site were the workers’ flats. Down below the flats was a bare rock escarpment about twenty metres high into which a hole had been cut. The opening was roughly the size of a standard household door and it was blocked off by a barred metal gate held closed by a padlock.

  Dmitri shone his torch through the bars, revealing a passage that had been hacked out of the rock. It was less than a metre wide and only just high enough for a man to stand up in. Max examined the padlock – it was much newer than the gate, which had been eaten away by rust. He took the piece of wire from his pocket and used it to pick the padlock. Dmitri watched, impressed by his skill.

  ‘That’s pretty good.’

  ‘I’ve had a lot of practice,’ Max said.

  He tugged on the gate. It was stiff, but it swung open with a piercing squeak that set his teeth on edge. He looked apprehensively into the opening. The passage sloped down slightly into the cliff. He wondered how long it was, what they would find at the bottom. His stomach was knotted again – he was venturing into the unknown and he sensed danger. Would this be the last lock he ever picked? Was his career as an escapologist coming to a close? He shook off his fears by thinking of his father. Alexander Cassidy was somewhere down there in the darkness. And only Max could save him.

  ‘You ready?’ he said.

  Dmitri nodded. Max took the torch from him and stepped into the passage, the beam of light playing over the rock walls. Dmitri followed, pulling the metal gate to behind him. They walked in single file for thirty metres, the incline getting gradually steeper, then Max came to an abrupt halt, holding out an arm to stop Dmitri. He was shining the torch straight down at a vertical shaft in the ground. He moved a little to one side so that Dmitri could step forward next to him. The shaft was about three metres in diameter and maybe forty or fifty metres deep. In the torchlight they could just see the bottom of it.

  ‘This has to be it,’ Max said. ‘The emergency escape route from the bunker.’

  ‘How would anyone get up it?’ Dmitri asked. ‘It’s just a hole.’

  Max shuffled cautiously forward to the edge of the shaft and crouched down, shining the torch around the sheer walls. On the near side, only visible if you leaned out over the opening, was an iron ladder bolted to the rock.

  ‘That’s how,’ he said. He directed the beam lower and swore under his breath.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Dmitri said.

  ‘Look.’

  Dmitri stepped to the edge and gazed down. The iron ladder continued for only three or four metres, then stopped. The lower sections were no longer there. ‘That’s why I brought the rope,’ he said. ‘Just in case. You ever abseiled before?’

  ‘Only a couple of times,’ Max replied. ‘On a school outdoor pursuits course.’

  ‘I’ve done it a lot, with my dad. Up in the mountains near here. Let me go first.’

  Dmitri put his hunting rifle and the crowbar on the ground. Then he lay flat on his stomach, his shoulders and arms hanging out over the edge of the shaft, and tied the end of his rope to the top rung of the ladder. He tugged hard on it a few times. It seemed to be holding.

  ‘Light the way for me,’ he said. Then he put the crowbar in his rucksack, slung his rifle around his neck, looped the rope under his left arm and around his back and finally kicked the rest of the coil down the shaft. It unravelled as it fell, the last few lengths landing at the bottom with a faint slap. He lowered himself over the edge and began to abseil down, paying out the rope slowly as he descended, his feet pressed against the rock wall. Max watched, shining the torch down the wall so Dmitri could see where he was going. He took it cautiously – one metre at a time – but it was clear that he knew what he was doing. His feet touched the bottom of the shaft and he let go of the rope and stepped away, looking up at Max.

  ‘Throw me the torch,’ he called softly.

  Max let the torch fall and Dmitri caught it safely, then shone the beam back up the shaft. Max looked at the rope dangling from the top rung of the iron ladder. He wasn’t sure about this. It was true that he’d abseiled before, but that was with a safety line tied around his waist and a proper harness, an instructor on hand to tell him what to do. And it had been in daylight on an easy rock face, not underground in the dark, down a deep shaft that was smooth and slippery with moisture. He looked down. Dmitri angled the torch beam away from his face so it didn’t dazzle him.

  ‘You OK?’ he called.

  ‘Yes,’ Max called back, though he didn’t feel OK. There was no room for error – one slip and he could plunge fifty metres to his death.

  He knelt down on the edge of the shaft, then twisted round and lowered his legs into the opening. When his feet found the ladder, he descended a few rungs until he could grasp the iron side struts with his hands. The metal was cold and clammy. He could smell the damp, stale air in the shaft. He climbed lower, stopping when his feet reached the bottom rung. The ladder creaked under his weight and he thought for a moment that he felt it give a little. He went still. No, he must have imagined it. The ladder was as solid as the rock to which it was attached.

  Very slowly, he took his left hand off the side strut and grasped the rope. Then he removed his right hand and pulled the rope around his back and under his armpit as Dmitri had done. He leaned out a little, letting the rope take his weight, and shifted his feet from the bottom rung to the bare rock below it. Bracing himself, his heart going like a triphammer, he leaned back further, so he was almost perpendicular to the wall, and began to abseil down.

  He was gripping the rope so hard his knuckles ached and he could feel the tension in his muscles. He payed out the rope bit by bit, feeling it sliding over his back. Then he heard a sharp crack of metal breaking, felt a sudden lurch and he dropped a few inches and jolted to a stop. Had the rope slipped? He looked up and saw to his horror that one side of the ladder had come away from the wall. A bolt had snapped clean off and the ladder was now fastened to the rock at only one point. He glanced over his shoulder. He was still twenty metres from the bottom of the shaft.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Dmitri called up. He evidently couldn’t see the ladder dangling from a single bolt.

  Max didn’t reply. He didn’t want to speak, didn’t want to open his mouth in case the movement caused the ladder to break free entirely. He inhaled slowly, staring up at the bolt. It was holding his weight now, but how much longer would it last? It must have been there for years: the metal would be old, brittle – it might fracture at any moment. The missing sections of ladder should have given them a warning, told them it wasn’t safe, as they’d obviously come away and fallen off at some point in the past. And now the last remaining piece was about to do the same.

  It was too late to try to climb back up. And too dangerous. Hauling himself up would put even more strain on the bolt than continuing his descent. So he kept going. He payed out a little more rope, trying to do it evenly, avoiding sudden jerks that might snap the bolt. His heart was in his throat. His life was hanging on that one tiny piece of metal. He dropped a metre, then another. The bolt seemed to be holding. He let out more rope and glanced down again. Dmitri was gazing up at him anxiously. He must have seen, or sensed, that something was wrong.

  Max looked back up the shaft. He was so deep he could no longer see the ladder clearly. It was outside the direct beam of the torch, which Dmitri was focusing on the wall by Max’s feet. He dropped a couple more metres, trying to go faster. That was a big mistake. His left foot slipped on the greasy surface of the rock and his body lurched downwards, pulling sharply on the rope. He heard the snap of metal again, felt the ladder come away from the wall, then he was falling backwards through space. Falling rapidly down towards the bottom of the shaft.

  He heard Dmitri cry out in alarm, felt the cold air rushing up past his face. He flailed his a
rms wildly, trying to slow himself down, but he kept falling … Falling. Then he landed. He’d expected something hard, a sudden impact with the rock floor, but it was soft like a body, and he realized that Dmitri had caught him. The torch clattered away and the shaft was plunged into darkness.

  Max felt Dmitri collapsing, both of them tumbling to the ground. His hip and shoulder thudded heavily onto the rock, sending a stab of pain through his body, a shower of stars across his eyes. The impact knocked the wind out of him. He felt as if he were suffocating. He tried to suck in air, but it was like a vacuum – there was nothing there. Then a trickle of oxygen seeped through the hoop around his chest, a trickle that quickly became a gush, then a flood. He could breathe! He filled his lungs and rolled over.

  ‘Dmitri?’

  There was a strangled grunt from close by. Max reached out with his hand and touched clothing, then flesh – Dmitri’s face.

  ‘You OK? Dmitri?’

  ‘Yes.’ The word was like a groan, squeezed out with difficulty.

  Max scrabbled around on the ground, found the torch and clicked it on. Dmitri was lying on his side, struggling to breathe. Max helped him sit up and supported him as he gradually got his breath back. The ladder and rope were tangled up together at the side of the shaft – it was a miracle that they hadn’t hit Max or Dmitri as they crashed to earth.

  Max rubbed his hip and flexed his leg. He’d taken a bad knock, but nothing seemed to be broken. Dmitri, too, appeared to have come off without serious injury. He pulled away from Max and felt his limbs, massaging his bruises.

  ‘Thank you,’ Max said. ‘That’s the second time you’ve saved my life.’

  Dmitri forced a weak smile. ‘Are you hurt?’

  ‘Just a few bruises. You?’

  ‘The same.’

  ‘We were lucky.’

  Max shone the torch around the shaft. Set back half a metre into the wall was a metal door, orange with rust, that had to be the entrance to the bunker. Then he looked across at the rope and broken ladder again, and up to the top of the shaft. They’d managed to get down all right, but one thing was certain: they wouldn’t be going back out the same way.