been a separate piece of rock waiting for eons for its support to be taken away.
Mercer looked at Red.
“Like I said,” the Texan drawled, “weirdest damned thing.”
The bolt heads recently shot into the stone were silver bright.
They continued deeper into the tunnel. Heavy beams supported on timber balks had been placed every twenty feet. They used wooden columns because the fibers made popping sounds long before they collapsed, giving workers plenty of time to reshore the area or, if need be, to clear out entirely.
As they neared the working face, the sound of mine work became a teeth-shattering combination of steel on stone and the grind of heavy equipment. They passed several small mechanical shovels and a string of ore cars mounted on solid wheels. The awkward train, with its low-slung electric tractor, resembled a metallic centipede. Nearby was an even stranger insectlike machine, a four-drill drifter. The drifter was a platform mounted on crawler treads that could precisely position four of the heavy rock drills. The drills themselves were roughly the same size as machine guns and had the same wicked appearance. Hydraulic cables snaked from the machine like arteries.
The men at the tunnel’s limit worked in pairs using slightly smaller hammer drills to bore more holes into the stone. Rock chips and lubricating water spewed from the hundred-pound tools in a stinging rain. Sullen rainbows caught in the lights seemed to resent being caged in this stygian realm.
Mining had come a long way from the days when men hand-packed sticks of dynamite into drill holes and hoped for the best. Advances in explosives and techniques meant miners could peel rock with near-surgical precision. Here the men used the drifter to drill out the larger holes at the center of an expanding spiral pattern. The rest of the holes were hand-drilled using notes on depth and angle determined by the shift boss. This intricate arrangement allowed the explosives in the middle to core out a void in the rock face. Timed with microsecond delays, the next ring of charges blew debris laterally into the cavity, expanding it and creating space for the rubble from still more shots. The explosions corkscrewed out like a blooming flower and gave the men unprecedented control over how much material they excavated with each shot.
Red broke away from Mercer and Ira to tap the shift boss on the shoulder. With the drillers working full out, it was impossible to hear over the din.
Even before he turned, Mercer recognized Donny Randall just from his size and the slope of his wide shoulders. His blocky head made his helmet look like a finger bowl.
They’d met once in Botswana, at a retirement party for the underground manager of the Orapa mine. Donny had been at the stylish affair because an incentive contest gave an invitation to the shift boss whose gang held the monthly record for most ore removed. He’d basically brutalized his way in. As he partied that night, one of his men was in a hospital bed recovering from a slenectomy while another was learning to eat without front teeth, all thanks to Donny’s pick handle.
Mercer had learned about this and some of his earlier exploits in South Africa later, although even then he could sense Donny’s brute stupidity and elemental savagery. As one of the only Americans there, Donny had tried to speak with Mercer. He’d been drunk when he’d arrived at the hotel ballroom and could only slur his words.
The incident was one of the few times Mercer’s memory had failed him and for this he was grateful. He couldn’t recall what was said during their minute-long conversation, but he did remember that Donny had been thrown out of the hotel by a half dozen guards, most of whom went home with bruises or black eyes as souvenirs.
Randall had a brutal face, heavy brows and a mouth perpetually twisted into a smirk. His nose looked so often broken and reset there was little cartilage remaining. His hair was dyed jet-black and he sported sideburns like a latter-day Elvis. His eyes were dark and disturbing. It wasn’t their shade that was so unsettling, it was their feral quickness. They twitched from person to person as though he was a cornered animal seeking escape, or a liar waiting to be found out.
Mercer knew him to be both.
Randall’s eyes finally settled on Ira and he gave a mock salute. The fact that Admiral Lasko signed the paychecks did little to impress him. Red indicated that they should move back down the drive to get away from the din.
“What are you doing back here?” Donny demanded of Ira. Like many paranoids, he never understood that his brusque suspicion contributed to the cycle of animosity he encountered.
Ira let the lack of respect slide. “I’m here with the new shift boss to replace Gordon and Kadanski. This is Mercer.”
Donny made no move to shake hands, nor did it appear he recognized the name or Mercer’s face.
“We’re down to sixteen men, including him.” Randall tossed his head in Mercer’s direction. His voice was a strange combination of menace and petulance. “Because you won’t get more miners you can’t expect me to make your schedule.”
“I’ve seen the progress reports,” Ira replied evenly. “Even when you had three shifts you guys weren’t making three shots a day.”
“That wasn’t my fault. Gordon and Kadanski didn’t know what they were doing. Hell, if I hadn’t picked up their slack we wouldn’t have moved ten feet from the main shaft.”
Red Harding’s derisive cough wasn’t necessary. Mercer knew Donny was blaming the dead men to cover his failure.
It had taken only moments, but Ira had had enough, remarkable since Mercer had rarely known him to get upset. Randall had that effect on people. Ira stiffened, his bearing becoming that of a thirty-year naval veteran dressing down a subordinate. “Mercer will be in charge from now on, so you don’t need to worry about my schedule. All you have to do is work where and how he says or you’re through. Are we clear?”
Donny Randall muttered something unintelligible.
“What was that?” Ira snapped.
“I said yeah.”
“You will say, yes, sir.”
Donny’s defiance lasted a fraction of a second. It was a murderous spark that blazed behind his eyes, a savage glimpse into his capacity for rage. It vanished as abruptly as a cage door slamming. His expression shifted to an empty smile. “Yes, sir.” He stepped closer to Mercer to shake hands. “Welcome aboard. Good to meet you.”
“Likewise,” Mercer choked.
Fifteen hours later, Ira had returned to the main Area 51 complex for his flight back to Washington. Mercer had his crew working nights, leaving the day shift to Donny Randall.
The night sky was suffused with a blur of stars so startlingly close they appeared to hang just overhead. The air was still, timeless. Moonlight electrified the drab landscape, highlighting features with its silvery glow while outlining others in deepest shadow.
Don Randall gave no indication he saw the ephemeral beauty, let alone gave it any consideration. He strode across the desert with the single-minded determination of a migrating animal, driven by instinct rather than intellect.
He’d created elaborate excuses for the hour-long walks he took every couple of nights, although none of the men had shown the slightest interest in his activities. He took their silence as respect for his privacy, never considering they were glad for anything that got him out of the communal recreation hall.
His boots dug deep into the loose scree as he panted his way up a hillock two miles from camp. At the top of the hill he checked the loose piles of boulders he’d stacked around his cache. None of the tells he’d left appeared disturbed, nor were there any footprints that didn’t match his size-thirteen feet. He grunted his satisfaction and tore into the pile, heaving fifty-pound rocks as though they weighed no more than bricks.
Ten minutes after beginning his work, his fingers closed around the plastic handle of an armored suitcase and with one jerk he freed the case. He was careful to dust off the lid before opening it.
While the electronics within the case were state-of-the-art microminiaturization, the banks of batteries gave the crate its size and considerable weight. Also nestled inside the case was a compass. He set the box on the ground and rotated it until the retractable antenna pointed ten degrees east of due south, as he’d been taught. When he switched on the electronics he was greeted by a series of green indicator lights and the machine emitted a
