Deep Fire Rising

by Du Brul, Jack

  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 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 blizzard as he plunged into the depths. His visibility was down to thirty feet by the time the elevator reached the substation eight hundred feet below ground.

  The geologic reports said they were well back from the underground lake, but he couldn’t discount that the blemish really was water seeping through the earth’s crust. The pressure behind it would be unimaginable, and the rock dam between the water and the tunnel could withstand only so much. If it was water, the next set of drill holes could easily cross that threshold and the whole thing would let go in a catastrophic flood. It was possible that even now the rock was breaking up and would explode.

  Mercer couldn’t risk sending his men down here until he was sure. The fear of drilling into an undetected aquifer was one more on the long list of mining dangers, one very few survived to talk about. More than cave-ins or fire, miners feared a flood in the shafts. He recalled the long three days he’d spent in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, consulting with local experts to rescue six trapped workers caught in an unexpected flood. Getting them out safely had been one of the closest calls he could remember.

  His emotions were torn between urgency and caution, but like so many times in his life, he let his dedication to his job push him on. He ran down the drive, his boots splashing through puddles and echoing dully in the tunnel’s confines. His breath hissed behind his face mask. The beam from his helmet lamp danced with each long stride.

  If they had hit water, he’d have to keep men out of the mine for a minimum of thirty-six to forty-eight hours to monitor the seepage rate. Then they would have to change their blasting techniques. Finding seepage this soon would slow them down dramatically.

  The vent fans were doing a good job clearing the air. As he approached the working face, his visibility had increased slightly. He stepped past the camera.

  “I see you, Mercer,” Red called over the radio.

  “How’s my butt look?” he joked to ease the strain in Red’s voice.

  “Your overalls make your ass look big,” Red teased back. “The spot hasn’t changed.”

  “I’m looking at it now.”

  From a tool locker built into one of the small electric bulldozers, Mercer grabbed a six-foot steel pry bar. The ground was a jumble of rocks, some as large as car engines, others reduced to pebbles by the explosives. Although the ceiling looked pretty good, he tested some fissures with the pry bar to make sure none of it would collapse on to him. He jimmied loose a few stones, dodging aside as they crashed to the floor. It took him a further ten minutes to safely approach the blemish. Red called down to tell him the air was cleared enough to breathe. Mercer removed his face mask and unlimbered the air tank.

  The beam of his light slashed across the spot and reflected off its slick surface. It looked like water had seeped from the reservoir through microfissures in the rock.

  Mercer bent closer. The rock itself wasn’t exactly wet to the touch. It almost felt like a snake’s skin, merely hinting at moisture. He returned to the toolbox to get a piece of chalk and traced the perimeter of the two-foot stain. The outline would give him a reference if more water filtered into the tunnel.

  Sitting back on his heels, he studied the spot, breathing slowly through his mouth because dust continued to flow past on the ventilation currents. For five minutes his concentration didn’t waver as he watched to see if the mark was growing. Had it expanded even a fraction of an inch he would have run from the mine as fast as he could.

  Red’s voice on the intercom finally drew his attention. “It’s water, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, but I think it’s stable.” Mercer stood. “There’s no indication of continued flow.”

  “You want us down there?”

  “Not yet. Give me a few more minutes.”

  Mercer turned his attention to the mounds of rubble displaced by Donny’s last explosive blast. The wet spot was low down on the left side of the tunnel so Mercer concentrated there, using the pry bar to pick through the debris. He was looking for evidence of how deeply they’d already mined into the waterlogged rock. Unwilling to risk any other men in the tunnel, he strained to roll some of the larger boulders by himself. His body was soon bathed in sweat.

  It took ten minutes to find the first chunk of stone showing water saturation. It was darker than the surrounding material, almost oily to the touch. Once he knew the appearance of the hydrostatically altered rock, he found several more farther down the drive. It became clear that Randall had ignored the evidence of seepage when he drilled the shot holes for his last charges. With the crews generally blasting three times during their shift, he wondered how many times Randall had knowingly risked his men by drilling into the dangerous formation.

  Mercer felt his body grow taut with rage. “Red,” he called into his comm link, his voice cracking like a whip. “It looks like Donny drilled his last shot holes knowing he’d hit seepage. Get a team together to check the overburden he sent up during his shift. I want to know if any of it shows further saturation.”

  “Roger. Anything else?”

  “Yeah. I don’t want anyone else coming down without my express order. Get a portable seismograph ready. I want to take direct measurements of the working face. It looks like it’s holding, but there could be tremors I can’t feel.”

  “Okay.”

  “And find the Handle.” Mercer had returned to the rock face so he could move the camera closer to the damp spot.

  T
he water stain hadn’t expanded beyond the chalk outline he’d drawn. By releasing the counterpressure of rock against the water, it didn’t appear they’d increased the flow rate. Mercer was relieved and thankful. He bent close once again, moving so his face was an inch from the shiny stone. He deliberately stuck out his tongue to lick the grainy surface.

  And he recoiled at the alkaline taste.

  “What the . . .?” He licked another spot just to make sure of what his senses had just told him. The water percolating from deep inside the earth was salty. After being filtered through untold hundreds of feet of rock it should have been as clear as a mountain spring.

  “Not just salty,” he said aloud, baffled. “It has the exact salinity of seawater.”

  Mercer had everyone working straight out for the next three hours. Ignoring Ira’s prohibition to draw attention to themselves, he had every light at the facility blazing away as sweep lines of men scoured the tailings recently excavated from the mine. With each empty pass his anger ebbed slightly.

  Sleep-dazed and pissed off when he’d been roused from bed, Donny Randall insisted he hadn’t seen any water when his men drilled the last holes on their shift, and it appeared evidence supported his claim of innocence. None of the overburden pulled out prior to the final blast showed that water had seeped past. Randall’s curses had evolved into snide comments by the time Mercer admitted that he’d been wrong about Donny putting his men in jeopardy.

  Randall sat in the command trailer wearing sweatpants, heavy boots, and a leather jacket over his bare chest. The trailer was only slightly warmer than the desert night. He was picking at his fingernails with a folding knife when Mercer entered. Randall’s dyed hair shimmered like an oil slick under the fluorescent lights. He dropped his feet off the desk when he saw Mercer. “Since you didn’t find shit, I’m going back to bed.” He stood over Mercer in an attempt to intimidate him. “I guess your Ph.D. and your thousand-dollar-an-hour consulting fee and the fact that Ira Lasko thinks the sun shines out your ass don’t mean much, huh?”