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 was 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.
Mercer was just turning away so he could get ready for his shift when a shadow on the rock wall caught his attention. He almost ignored it, figuring the blemish was the result of the camera’s low resolution, but he sat back down and studied the mark.
Red sensed his sudden tension. “What is it?”
“Not sure,” he said. “Nothing probably.” Mercer watched for another minute. The stain remained unchanged. And still he felt a premonition. The geologic reports said they were roughly thirty feet from the subterranean reservoir, so it couldn’t be water, but what was it?
He made a quick decision. From a wall rack he grabbed a portable air cylinder and a mask with an integrated intercom. “Stay here and keep an eye on the camera. I’m going below.”
“Sure you don’t want me down there with you?”
“Positive. If that spot on the wall changes, tell me.”
“What do you think it is?”
“Probably an inclusion in the rock, but I don’t want anyone going down until I’m sure.” Mercer grabbed his hard hat and jogged from the trailer.
The elevator operator was just climbing from his control booth when Mercer entered the cave. “Mike, fire up the skip and don’t leave your station. I might need you to haul me out fast.”
“What’s up?” the worker asked even as he swung himself back into his elevated chair.
“Possible pressure seepage.” Mercer slammed the cage doors closed and barely heard the warning bells before the car dropped away. He fitted the oxygen tank onto his back and checked his communications link with Harding. “You reading me, Red?”
“Loud and clear.”
“Any change?”
“Nothing yet. You think the report was wrong and that we’ve already hit the water, don’t you?”
“Maybe.” The motes of dust swirling in the beam of his light were like a snow flurry that became a full-blown
