down…
“Wish granted.” She unbuckled straps, put the plane straight and level for a moment, half stood, and wiggled out of her parachute. “Tie the straps as tight as you can. When you fall, yank that cord there. You don’t have much room, and need time for the canopy to deploy. You’ll still land hard.”
“I’ve never used a parachute!”
“Neither have I.”
Hood groaned. “There’s no alternative?”
“This is what you get for chasing your Tibetan sweetheart. I’ll try landing back on the plain we crossed and check out that smoke. No house has only one door.”
He closed his eyes. “Igloos do.”
“So you’d better hope the Shambhalans weren’t Eskimo. Hurry up, we’re wasting gas! Pretty soon it might occur to Raeder to start shooting at you.”
Hood lengthened the straps for his frame and awkwardly put the parachute on. It felt bulky and flimsy at the same time. “To think I was bored.”
“What are you complaining about? Now I don’t have a parachute at all. Go, go, it’s getting dark!”
He glanced around. A cirque of mountains, frigid air, strange greenness below, enemies who’d vanished. The sun had long since set behind the mountains, and all was pale gray. Too awkward to jump with his rifle. He checked his Duncan Hale-issued government. 45. Taking a breath and trying to think of as little as possible, he grasped the rim of the cockpit and boosted himself out, tensing as the wind hit him full force. He clawed for a strut, trying to get in position to jump. Every instinct screamed not to let go.
But then Beth abruptly tilted the biplane and the cold air plucked him off.
Hood fell toward Shambhala.
27
Eldorado Mine, Cascade Mountains
September 6, Present Day
R ominy plummeted, slid, and dropped again. It happened so suddenly, in such disorienting darkness, that it was over before she could scream. She and Jake tumbled into a tangle at the base of some mine shaft, the rotting wood of an old lid piled around them. As her wits returned from the blast of adrenaline, the real fear began. What if they couldn’t get out?
“Rominy! Are you okay?”
“I can move.” She groaned, but when she tested her limbs they all seemed to work, thank God. “Barely.” She coughed. “I’m covered with dirt, my body aches, and I can barely see. I think my knees are getting scraped down to the bone.”
“I’ve got more bandages.”
Dim light filtered down from where the cave-in had occurred above. It was like looking at the top of a well.
“You know, you’re the worst date I’ve ever had.”
Jake coughed, too. “Ditto.”
She looked around. They’d tumbled at least forty feet and were in a wider cavity about ten feet high, which meant it was impossible to jump up to the narrow tunnel they’d fallen down. The walls and ceiling were rock, the floor dirt and rubble, and the darkness in every direction but up was profound. “This is very bad, Jake.” She tried to keep any tremor from her voice. “What now?”
He stood up, weaving a moment from dizziness before straightening and brushing himself off. “I’m guessing you found where X marks the spot. Maybe Great-grandpa came back to be some kind of hermit miner.”
“Great.” She wobbled to a stand, too. Yep, nothing broken. Not that it mattered if they couldn’t get back out. “It didn’t occur to him to dig sideways?”
“I don’t know. Maybe this is an old pioneer mine he found.”
“So why is it on his fingerprint map?”
“You’re asking all the right questions. Fortunately for us, I’m a Boy Scout, remember?” They’d fallen with their packs and he rooted inside for a moment before digging out a flashlight. “I’ll keep the other in reserve. Let’s see where this thrill ride goes.” The beam was as welcome as coffeehouse neon on a cold Seattle night. Gloom shrank back to reveal a horizontal shaft that must run toward the cliff face they’d spied from above; the old horizontal shaft would have opened to a view of Eldorado.
Mine timbers at the ceiling sagged from age. In a hundred feet, the tunnel ended disappointingly in a wall of rubble and snapped bracing.
“Cave-in,” Rominy said. “This place feels very unsafe.”
“You’ve got all the instincts of an investigative reporter.” He played his light on the blockage and then on the ceiling. Back and forth he shone the beam, like a paint roller. “Look at those streaks. Soot radiating from an explosion.”
“Which means?”
“That maybe this mine didn’t cave in, but was sealed. Dynamite, and boom. That closes the front door. We fell through the back.”
“So no way out.”
“Maybe there was a rope or ladder at one time. Would have rotted since the end of the war, of course.” He kept staring at the ceiling. “Looks pretty firm to me, but I’m not a mining engineer. Probably best to go back to where we fell in while we figure out what to do. But, you know, I don’t get it.” He sounded more puzzled than worried. “What did Hood expect us to find here?”
“My guess is an old gold claim,” Rominy said. “Maybe he thought his heirs could make something of this, but no way today. Too many environmental restrictions. I think we’re on federal land in the exact middle of nowhere.”
“Which means he definitely thought he had children, or a child. That’s interesting, isn’t it, because there’s nothing in the records about one living up here. So where was Great-grandma? Mystery upon mystery.”
“Jake, the mystery is how we’re going to get out of here.”
“Maybe I can lift you up until you can get a grip in that shaft.”
“I’m not much of a climber.”
“Consider the alternative.”
And then Rominy stumbled on something that gave way with an audible crack, an object softer than rubble on the floor. “Oh, Geez! What’s that? There’s something creepy, Jake.”
He shone the light. “Yuck. A shoe.”
A man’s dress shoe had been kicked out from the rubble by her stumble. There was a gleam inside. Barrow bent to peer.
“With a foot attached. You broke the bone.”
“Oh, my God. I’m going to be throw up.”
“It’s just a corpse, Rominy. Dust to dust.”
“Jake, let’s go. I’ll climb, I promise.”
“No, this is important. Great-grandpa led us to a body. The ankle bone is attached to the shin bone…” He sing-songed, playing the light. “There.” A bone projected from the loose rock, and near it was another shoe. “Hello. Looks like we really found someone.”
“This is so sick!”
“What if this is your illustrious ancestor?”
“Dunnigan said they found him in the cabin.”
“That’s right. So, in that case, who’s this?”
“I don’t think I want to know. I can’t take looking at bones, not when we’re trapped like this.”
“We can’t just walk away, girl.” He squatted and calmly began throwing aside rock. “Yep, there’s a whole dude in here.” What was wrong with him that he could just dig up the dead like that?
