Books by Linda Conrad

by Conrad, Linda

  “You stay here and keep watch,” he said as he moved past her. “I’ll check out the inside first and make sure it’s safe.”

  “Hold it,” she demanded. “I don’t need you to make sure anything is safe. I can take care of myself. As a matter of fact, I took classes on the components of booby traps at Quantico.

  “I do agree that one of us needs to stay out here and guard our backs, though.” She used her free hand to flip out her flashlight. “So you stay here. I’ll only be about ten or twenty minutes. Yell or whistle or something if anyone shows up.”

  Lucas was not at all happy about letting her go first. But she was a trained special agent. And it was vitally important that there be no possibility anyone could ambush them from behind.

  So he stood at the mine entrance, with one foot in the shadow of the opening and one foot out in the sunshine. He would listen and watch in both directions.

  Close by but hidden in the shadows, the Skinwalker Burrowing Owl set the last trick of his surprise. He was happy to have thought about doing this particular dirty deed when he had.

  So what if one of these two Navajos was killed? They didn’t matter in the larger scheme of things. All that mattered now was that the Navajo Wolf would be pleased by the chaos created if either an FBI agent or a Brotherhood warrior died today.

  Searching the more intellectual side of his brain, the Burrowing Owl thought of one scenario that would be even more effective. What if both these two humans were somehow either physically or emotionally destroyed at the same time?

  Wouldn’t that be better yet?

  Yes, he was sure it would be. He decided definitely to stick around and look for a good opportunity to cause even more damage. Flapping his wings silently in triumph, the Burrowing Owl slipped into his burrow and waited.

  The minute Teal stepped into the darkness inside the mine opening, she knew they had found the right place. There was plenty of evidence that people had been here recently. In fact, judging by the litter scattered around the place, some group had been using this spot for meetings.

  She flipped her flashlight beam out toward the distant reaches of the mine. It looked like this might’ve been a natural cavern originally; fingers of side caverns reached off into the dark oblivion.

  Then, maybe a hundred years or so ago, someone had apparently converted it to a mining operation. More recently, like a few weeks or months ago, a table and chairs had been added about twenty-five feet inside the mine entrance.

  Funny, none of the environmental groups she had interviewed would admit to knowing such a place as this existed. Obviously, judging by the wadded-up plastic wrappers, discarded plastic drink cups and twenty-four-ounce soda bottles, some group had met here not long ago.

  A tiny scurrying noise sounded off in the far reaches of the mine. A chill ran down her arms. Bats? Or mice maybe? Either way, Teal didn’t much care for the idea.

  “Teal, are you okay?” Lucas’s voice echoed throughout the chamber from his spot at the entrance.

  “Fine,” she shouted back to him as she holstered her weapon. “Stay where you are. No one’s hiding. But they’ve been here. That’s for sure. I’m going back a ways to gather evidence.”

  “Don’t go too far. It might not be safe. Why don’t you let an evidence team do the gathering?”

  She ignored him as she continued checking the rough floor and roof of the mine for booby traps. Moving slowly, she swung the flashlight beam around in a one-hundred-eighty-degree arch trying to spot any signs of tampering.

  Watch out. Go back.

  Teal spun around at the sound of the strange voice. That hadn’t been Lucas’s voice. It was too high-pitched and sounded very close by.

  “Who’s in here? Show yourself.”

  The minute she’d spoken the words, Teal knew the truth. The warning had been all in her head. There was no one else in the mine with her. She must be really spooked to start hearing voices in her head again.

  From the mine opening, now nearly out of sight, came Lucas’s voice calling out, “What did you say? Do you need me?”

  “Stay there,” she shouted. “I’m okay.”

  Taking a deep breath and straightening her spine, she took a few more steps and peered into the darkness ahead. Something shiny flashed in her beam, and about fifteen feet ahead was another pile of trash on the floor.

  Lucas shifted his thoughts from worrying about what Teal might be facing to the autumn sun that was easing lower in the sky. During this season the grasses on the sheep plains were never the same deep green color as in the spring. They were a soft golden hue instead, and the sunsets were tinted a lavender-blue color with deep rose tendrils reaching out across the skies from west to east—more beautiful to his artistic soul than at any other time of the year.

  Fall rains would be coming soon, at least to the western flank of the Chuska Mountains. The air and cloud formations were already starting to change.

  Drawing on the Navajo Way, Lucas tried to make sense of the accidents that had been happening near the coal mines. He’d been taught that there is an order to everything, and he could find the reasons if he just looked for a pattern.

  But there didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason for senseless accidents. Would environmentalists use vandalism tactics after years of openly and legally picketing the mines? That made no sense at all. Why now?

  In fact, Lucas had heard rumors that the power plant would be shutting down soon. If that happened, there would probably not be any reason to keep the coal mines open at all. Simple economics would win the day for the people who really cared about the ground-water and the air surrounding the plant.

  The more he thought about it, the more Lucas became convinced that there was more to the accidents than simple protests. Where was the pattern? It seemed there was none. No pattern, no reason. Acts done for simple chaos.

  Skinwalkers!

  Turning toward the gold-mine entrance, Lucas began shouting, “Teal, get out of there. Now!”

  He heard nothing.

  Taking two hesitant steps inside the shadowed opening, he tried again. “Bright Eyes! Answer me or I’m coming in after…”

  A bright flash of light and noise from an explosion interrupted his too-late warning. Hot orange-colored air, all smoky and dirty, blasted him in the face.

  He coughed, sputtering blindly inside a filthy haze. Automatically stepping back, he covered his mouth and nose with his arm.

  “Teal, are you okay?” he choked out after a moment. “Teal!”

  By now the dust was beginning to settle and Lucas ran straight into the mine, shouting her name as he went. About twenty feet inside the opening he came to a halt at the results of the explosion. A cave-in. But how thick was the rubble? Could he dig his way through to her with just his hands?

  Beginning to dig, he grappled with the dirt and rocks until his fingers were bloody and he could barely breathe anymore. Dashing back outside, he took a deep breath of fresh air and pulled out his satellite phone.

  Lucas needed help. He needed the Brotherhood.

  Teal dragged herself from the ground and dusted off. Slightly disoriented because of the darkness and the ringing in her ears, she went down on her knees and felt around looking for either her flashlight or the lantern she’d lit a few minutes ago. But everything was covered in a heavy layer of silt and dirt.

  What had happened? Had that blast been a cave-in or maybe a booby trap that she’d missed?

  Whatever it was, it seemed to have caused the ceiling of the mine to fall down somewhere between her and the mine entrance. She shook her head, trying to comprehend what that meant.

  Teal understood immediately that she was cut off from Lucas and the sunlight. But by the time she found her flashlight and dusted it off, too, she knew there were far worse things than light to worry about.

  She flipped her flashlight beam around and saw the wall of rubble between her and the mine opening. It looked as if the rocks and wooden beams from the ceiling were total
ly blocking her way out.

  Good thing Lucas was outside when it happened. He had been outside the mine like he promised, right?

  Of course he had. He was fine and probably out there this minute digging through the rubble to get her out.

  Claustrophobia? No, no, no. She’d never been nervous about being cooped up before. She absolutely refused to start being upset by other things that may or may not be in her head at this stage. The voices she’d been hearing in her mind were bad enough.

  Okay. So she was alive and well and not the least bit claustrophobic. Should she help herself get free by digging from this side?

  Reaching as high as she could by standing on tiptoes, Teal began pulling dirt and rocks off the pile. But huge clouds of dust and dirt rained down on her.

  That wasn’t going to work. But right then, another far darker thought occurred to her.

  Air. Was there going to be enough oxygen in this mine for her to wait for Lucas to break through the wall of rubble?

  Oh. My. God. She was going to die. Suffocate to death.

  Move back into the cavern, Bright Eyes. There is air enough.

  Huh? Where was that voice coming from? It wasn’t Lucas’s voice, and that definitely was not all in her imagination.

  “Who’s speaking?” she asked to the darkness.

  “You will find more air. Step back.”

  Well, as hot as she was, that voice had been chilling.

  She threw the flashlight beam toward the back of the mine shaft. That voice couldn’t be in her head. It just couldn’t be.

  Needing to think before she moved another inch, Teal halted but kept the light flitting around the cavern’s shaft. The voice had called her Bright Eyes. Lucas was the only one who ever did that. Could it really be him? Was the man playing some horrible practical joke?

  Or perhaps it was possible that he was sending her messages by psychic power. Could he do that? Could he think of something and have it fly through space and land in someone else’s head?

  Oh, come on, Teal, she chided herself. That’s not even close to possible.

  But then, who was speaking?

  She pulled her weapon from its holster again and pointed it out toward the darkness in the back of the mine. “I demand that you answer me. Who’s here?”

  “Look up. You will see light and air.”

  “You can’t see air, for heaven’s sake…” She still didn’t know who was speaking. But she flashed her beam upward and did see a spot way up in the ceiling where a low, filtered light was coming through a tiny hole.

  A way out? No. She immediately realized the hole was at least fifteen feet up and the sides of the mine shaft were not made for climbing. They were rough, but not rough enough to allow for footholds.

  “Is someone up there? Can you get me out?”

  Not a sound could be heard, save for the echoes of her own voice through the darkness. No help from that quarter. But at least she was not going to suffocate while she waited to be rescued.

  She sat down directly under the airhole and turned off her flashlight to save the batteries. If someone else was in the mine shaft with her, she would hear them rustling around in the dark and her weapon was at the ready.

  In the meantime, Teal wanted to consider what had happened. She was almost positive the explosion that caused the cave-in was not the result of natural earth shifting. It had sounded much more like a man-made bomb to her.

  She searched her memory for any sound or unusual movements that she might have noticed right before the explosion. What or who had caused it?

  Thinking back to what she’d been noticing right before the flash, she remembered the trash pile. Of course. She remembered her basic chemistry lessons on terrorist-style weapons from Quantico.

  All you needed to make a bomb was aluminum foil, an empty two-liter soda bottle and bathroom drain cleaner. There had certainly been plenty of half-filled soda bottles lying around the ground at the time of the explosion.

  But such bombs only had about a ten-minute timing delay after being set. She was sure she’d been alone in the mine for at least twenty minutes before the explosion.

  Was someone else hiding inside this mine with her and she’d somehow missed him? Or had some bad guy used a radio or cell wave to set off the bomb? Such things were fairly easy for anyone who knew a little electrical engineering.

  Wondering now whether her cell phone would work from this far underground, she pulled it out of her jacket pocket and flipped it open. No bars appeared. No service here.

  And what was worse, her batteries were going dead.

  And she was starting to become very thirsty.

  And ravishingly hungry.

  11

  L ucas spun on the balls of his feet and stormed back into the mine. He had reached the Brotherhood by satellite phone only to find out that there was no one within an hour of his position. Kody and Hunter were both on the way, along with a rescue team from the Navajo Tribal Fire Department, but would Teal have enough air?

  This was one of those times he’d mentioned to Teal when backup was too distant to be of much help. Nearly desperate with worry about her well-being, Lucas vowed that whatever it took, he would find a way of reaching her.

  Digging into the dirt once again, Lucas ignored his bleeding hands and the lack of adequate fresh air in the tunnel. Absolutely positive that she was still alive and just on the other side of the debris, he refused to consider any other possibilities as he kicked at the heavy wooden beams that had fallen from the ceiling and created the rubble wall of her prison.

  Teal would make it out of this mine shaft alive.

  As he fruitlessly dug in the rock and dirt, Lucas tried to concentrate around his panic. Was there a chant he could use that might help her? What good was being a medicine man and having special gifts if you couldn’t help someone you loved?

  Love. Had he really just thought that word? It wasn’t a concept he easily understood. For his whole life he’d wished only to be accepted. To become a friend instead of an outsider.

  He was positive by now that he and Teal had become friends. But friendship was a far cry from something as lasting and overpowering as love.

  Pushing the confusing thoughts from his conscious mind, Lucas stepped back to study the thick pile of debris. If he continued digging at the bottom, the entire wall of rock and wood could come down on him—or on Teal if she lay injured on the other side.

  There must be a way to go about this in a smarter manner. He turned and ran out of the mine shaft. Determined to find a safer method of digging her free, he made the decision to run back to the spot where they’d left the SUV. It was parked a mile back down the hill on the last of the level ground. But a small shovel, blankets and extra water were stashed in the spare tire compartment. If he turned on the speed he could get there and back in under twenty minutes.

  He hated leaving. Hated going any distance away without knowing for sure that Teal was alive. But this seemed the only real way of saving her life.

  The decision made, Lucas Tso, champion Iron Man runner, took off down the sandy gravel hillside. If he managed his best mile-time, he wouldn’t be gone for long. And this idea seemed to be her only hope.

  Teal swiped the sweat out of her eyes and tried to concentrate on the airhole at the top of this shaft. Staring at it hard, she could swear she saw blue sky and passing clouds through that hole.

  Danger. You must go now.

  Oh, hell. The voices were back. She must be freaking out.

  A smart comeback tumbled from her mouth. “If I could go, I sure as hell wouldn’t be…” A cough and then a sputter were the next things out of her mouth.

  Trying to take a deep breath of air to clear her throat, Teal quickly discovered why she’d been choking.

  Smoke! There was a fire nearby. She sniffed now, trying to find out where the smell of smoke was coming from. And hoping like hell it wasn’t coming from her lifesaving hole in the top of the shaft.

  No, she
realized as she heard a close crackling sound. The smoke was not coming from anywhere nearby. It was here. In the mine shaft with her.

  She flipped the flashlight on and threw the beam toward the wall of debris behind her. Then she spotted it. Tiny orange embers in the middle of another pile of trash suddenly burst into tall flames right before her eyes.

  How could it turn to full fire mode so fast? The embers couldn’t have been smoldering for very long. She’d only just now noticed the smoke.

  Racing over to the fire, she tried throwing sand and rocks on the blaze. But the more she worked, the worse the flames rose. The fire was totally out of control within seconds.

  Now she allowed herself to panic.

  “Help! Someone help me,” she screamed uselessly. “Get me out of here.”

  “Move back. Hurry.”

  “Back where?” she shouted at the darkness.

  “Go now. The other way out.”

  There was another way out? “How? Help me,” she sputtered past another cough.

  Hearing the flutter of wings, she cringed at the thought of bats in the shaft with her.

  “Move. Stay to the right.”

  The heat from the flames was hot enough now to fry the clothes right off her body. Her eyes watered from the smoke. There wasn’t much time to save herself.

  So, bats or not. Spooky voices in the dark or not. Teal had little choice but to exercise some of her special agent’s self-discipline, find the right side of the shaft wall and move away from the fire as fast as she could go.

  Stumbling through the thick smoke, she managed to keep her feet under her as she scurried back down the dark mine shaft. Within ten yards, the wall she’d been following disappeared from under her fingertips. She found herself grappling about reaching for thin air.

  “Now what? Tell me where to go,” she choked as she took a few steps straight ahead.

  “Stay right.”

  At this point she didn’t give a rip who was speaking, just as long as they were telling her the truth. She fumbled back to the mine wall through the thick haze of foul smoke and discovered the shaft had taken a turnoff to the right. She followed it quickly.