In mere moments, these vicious monsters of men were reduced to quivering and confused animals, stuck in a cage that would eventually cause their deaths.
They had no plans to show mercy on the innocents awaiting them in the mine. But here, now, it was a different story. Several of them began to cry out. Two of them whimpered, and then wept.
McMillan prayed, not knowing if God would hear his words. As many men are wont to do, he decided to wait until his worst time of desperation to go to God to ask for help. He hadn’t been to church since he was forced to as a small boy. He made a habit of scoffing at those who believed. Now, in his hour of need, he was of a different mind. He was begging for the mercy that he wouldn’t have shown the others.
Alvarez finally got the salt out of his lungs by standing up and leaning against the side of the tunnel. Salt dust didn’t rise, as smoke would have done. It was more dense, heavier than air. It therefore sank as it began to settle. By rising above the dust, Alvarez was able to get oxygen into his lungs again.
He still couldn’t stand straight. He still leaned on the wall for support, to keep from tumbling over again. He was dazed, and very confused, and still unsure what had happened.
The others lay on the tunnel floor, still covered in dust, still hacking, not discovering what Alvarez already knew. If they’d merely stand up, they’d find the oxygen they desperately needed. Alvarez, even if he had a mind to, couldn’t tell them. None of them could hear him even if he’d screamed at them.
And they, McMillan and Alvarez, stood, on opposite ends of the turmoil, leaning against the same tunnel wall, as the five men between them passed out, one by one.
Inside the mine, at the control center, Sami felt many things.
Relief was chief among them. The seven men were no longer a threat to the group. They’d been rendered impotent. No longer a danger to anyone.
She also still felt an almost unbridled anger. She’d had an unscarred body prior to the shooting. She felt pretty. She knew that she appealed to Brad, and she relished in that.
Since she was shot, though, she was covered in scars. Her body was no longer pristine, no longer attractive. In her mind, she was incredibly ugly. She insisted on undressing in the dark now, and refusing to let Brad see her naked. One of those bastards, there in the tunnel, took away her dignity. He caused her pain and made her ashamed of who she was.
And although she didn’t know which one of them had done it, she hated them all.
But beyond that, she also couldn’t help feeling a bit of pity for them. Not much, but it was there.
She held her composure and continued to inform the others what was going on.
“Okay, the cloud is starting to settle now. I’m beginning to get a clearer view.”
Mark spoke up with a question he was desperate to know.
“Sami, can you see both piles of rubble? Do they go all the way to the ceiling?”
“Yes. Both of them do.”
Mark smiled. Now it was just a matter of time.
Chapter 3
John continued to study the monitors, as he keyed the mike.
“Why don’t you guys at the tunnel entrance stand down and head back here? Both piles of debris are several feet thick and go all the way to the top of the tunnel. They’re not going anywhere.”
Bryan called from the bunker at the mine’s main entrance.
“What’s our situation here, John?”
“Still nothing on the monitors, Bryan. I’d like for you guys to continue to man the post, though. Now that the tunnel’s blocked, that’s our only other attack point, if the rest of them have any fight left in them. We’ll send you some relief in a little bit.”
“10-4.”
Two minutes later Mark walked up to the control center.
“Are those guys laying on the tunnel floor dead, you think?”
John had been wondering the same thing, but was doubtful.
“I don’t think so. I think they just passed out. There’s enough oxygen in the tunnel to survive, or the other two would be on the ground as well. I think they just lost consciousness because they weren’t smart enough to try to stand up. The clean oxygen was up high, not down low, as it would have been had it been smoke. They stayed down low, and were getting more salt in their lungs than air. I think they’ll probably come to once the salt finishes settling.”
As if on cue, one of the men on the floor began to stir, then sat up. What they were watching now, in the total absence of light in the tunnel, were the heat images given off by the men’s bodies. The camera’s view lacked detail and sound. But they could tell by the man’s violent shaking that he was in the midst of a terrible coughing fit. His body was still trying to rid itself of the salt dust in his lungs.
They could also see the warm spew of vomit the man expelled as he retched.
A couple of the others were starting to move now.
McMillan, the point man, was back on his hands and knees, crawling toward the front of the tunnel. He was still dazed, and frequently bumped into the tunnel walls. He reminded John of a drunk driver, weaving from side to side as he drove down the road.
Alvarez, meanwhile, was heading in the exact opposite direction. Their fearless leader, now scared and as helpless as a newborn kitten, no longer had any desire to fight. All he wanted to do was to get the hell out of the tunnel, and back into the compound.
To get there, he worked his way back through the blackness of the tunnel, using his right hand on the tunnel wall to guide him.
The people at the control center watching the monitors saw it coming. They knew what was about to happen. But they wouldn’t have warned him even if they had the ability to do so.
As Alvarez shuffled quickly though the tunnel, they saw him approaching the debris pile. And they watched with just the right amount of satisfaction as his feet caught the outer edge of the pile and tripped him up. They watched as Alvarez fell face first into the muck, then came up quickly to try to clear it from his airway.
Then they saw him sit on the pile, his elbows resting on his knees and his head in his hands.
They didn’t know it, couldn’t have possibly known it.
But Alvarez finally realized how desperate his situation had become. And he began to cry.
Sami asked John, “What do you think they’ll do next?”
John had no idea that the blast rendered the invaders all permanently deaf. If there had been light in the tunnel, he’d have been able to see the trail of blood streaming from some of their ears and put two and two together. But the vision on the screens now, of pitch blackness punctuated by the men’s body heat signatures, lacked detail.
“I suspect that once they get over their shock, they’ll regroup and come up with a game plan. I think the leader will get them together on one end or the other and tell them to start trying to dig their way out.”
“Do you think they’ll be able to?”
“No. The debris fields are too wide. I think it will take several days for us to clear them, and we have shovels. All they have is their bare hands and the stocks of their rifles.”
Mark asked, “How many hours of oxygen do you think they have?”
“I don’t know. A lot depends on whether or not the leader can get them to calm down and relax. You breathe much faster when you’re panicked. Also, you breathe much faster when you exert yourself, and when you’re hot. They’ve got all those things working against them. The longer they’re down there, the hotter it’ll be, and the faster they’ll breathe while their bodies try to cool themselves.
“Also, the harder they work, trying to dig their way out, the faster they’ll expend their oxygen. This is just a guess, but I’d say they have a day’s worth in there, maybe two. But no more than that.”
Alvarez was in full panic mode now, back on his feet and feeling his way down the wall of the tunnel in the opposite direction.
As far as he knew, he was the only one left alive. He couldn’t see or hear anyone else, and h
e thought he was trapped in this miserable tomb, doomed to die a solitary and agonizing death.
So he should have been relieved to a degree when he stumbled into one of his men who was struggling to his feet, halfway to the other debris pile.
But he wasn’t. He knocked the man down again and kept going, working desperately toward the front of the tunnel. Even if he was shot as soon as he emerged, he reasoned, it was still a better option than this.
Forty yards in front of him, at the debris pile, McMillan was screaming at the top of his lungs.
But no one could hear him.
He couldn’t even hear himself.
Chapter 4
Back in the compound, the rest of Alvarez’ gang was on edge. Although they had no clue of their leader’s plight, they were expecting an attack from outside the walls.
Martinez, Hance and Bennett had all spent time in the army. Hance, especially, knew a little about military tactics.
“I wish we knew how many of them there were.”
“How come? What difference does that make?”
“Because if they have enough men, it would make sense to them to do a counter attack, while half of our guys are out there in the woods looking for them. They’d have to know that’s when we’re weakest here, and they could more easily attack us.”
“Do you think they’re coming?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe not. It depends on whether they have the men and the firepower. I’m just saying it would be a smart move on their part, and that we need to stay on our toes. That’s all.”
“How long do you think it’ll be before Alvarez comes back?”
“I don’t know. I guess it depends on how long it takes him to find them. Alvarez is a stubborn bastard. He won’t give up until he does. When he does find them, we’ll be able to hear the gunfire from the roof. Who’s up there, anyway?”
“Douglas.”
“Go tell Douglas that if he hears any gunfire off in the distance, to fire a single shot into the air so we’ll know the battle has started. And tell him to stay on his toes in case we’re attacked.”
Bennett muttered, “Who the hell put you in charge?”
Hance, who’d been lifting weights in prison yards all over the country for twenty years, loomed large over Bennett.
He looked at Bennett and just clenched his teeth.
“Just go,” he said.
Bennett went.
Martinez asked, “What if the tunnel doesn’t lead to the woods? What if it leads to some underground safe room?”
“Then I expect Alvarez will be back any time now. He’ll shoot all the men and kids, then look over the women to see which ones he wants to keep. If I know Alvarez like I think I do, he’ll want to sample a couple of the women just to see what they can do. Then he’ll drag them back.”
Martinez smiled.
“Yeah, just as long as he doesn’t use them all up. I want me a taste too.”
“Why don’t you go to that building,. The one with the trap door. I don’t think it’ll happen, and if you tell Alvarez I said so, I’ll kick your ass. But just in case Alvarez is outgunned and gets shot, and they come out of that tunnel looking for us, I want somebody there to cover it. You go cover the tunnel, and I’ll head over and help O’Neal on the gate.”
Martinez was a bit smarter than Bennett, and a bit more able to hold his tongue. He ran off without another word.
Martinez made his way out of the building, across the open compound, and to the feed barn. The false floor to the tunnel entrance was still propped up with a two by four.
He cautiously peeked down into the hole and saw the steps that descended into a black abyss.
The entire building smelled of recently disturbed dirt. He looked around and noticed that the area around the tunnel entrance was covered with a thin coating of a salt and dirt mixture.
He thought it a bit odd, but otherwise paid it no mind.
Even if he had put two and two together and figured out that the tunnel had collapsed, he still would have held his ground.
Even if he knew that Alvarez and McMillan, in a desperate attempt to survive, were feverishly clawing at a twelve ton pile of dirt and salt and muck, it wouldn’t have mattered.
There was no way in hell he would go down those steps to help, or even to see what was going on.
Martinez was claustrophobic. He’d rather stay here and watch the tunnel exit, than to step into the tunnel itself.
Chapter 5
Mark stood at the security desk, mesmerized at the eerie figures on the monitors, fighting for their very lives inside the tunnel. He wondered why he felt no sympathy for them, or any remorse for having detonated the explosives that put them in their dire situation.
He should, by all rights, have at least a bit of empathy for their plight. If he didn’t, was he something less than human?
The truth was, he didn’t feel any sympathy for them because they didn’t deserve any. He felt no guilt because they were on their way to kill and plunder those that he loved.
So no, he didn’t feel anything but curiosity for these men. He wanted them to die and he wanted them to rot in hell. He was just curious to know how long it would take for that to happen.
Hannah walked up behind him and put her arm around him.
“Hi, honey. Where’d you come from?”
“David relieved me. He said if they attacked through the front door he wanted to be where the action was. He told me to go bake some cookies or something.”
“And you let him live? If I said something like that, you’d have pummeled me.”
“Well, he can get away with it because he’s the only dentist we have. And I might have a toothache someday. So he might come in handy.”
“And I won’t come in handy?”
“Well, yeah. Maybe. But it’s been so long since you’ve come in handy, I can’t really remember how, exactly.”
“Maybe I’ll show you later.”
“I’d like that. For you to show me later, that is. But for now, explain to me how come they look so funny.”
She was referring to the ghostly images on the security monitors from inside the tunnel.
“The lights went out when we collapsed the ends of the tunnel. The cameras automatically switched over to thermal mode. What you see is their heat signatures. The reds and yellows indicate how much heat their bodies are giving off.”
“How come only two of them are digging?”
“Don’t know. Maybe the others are injured from the blast. Or maybe they’ve given up. Or, more likely, they’re working two by two, in shifts. That’s got to be hard work, after all, clawing through tons of salt and rock and dirt with just their fingers. My guess is that when the first two get tired, they’ll switch off with two of the others.”
He gave the men in the mine too much credit. Alvarez hadn’t given the digging operation any thought at all. The truth was, he didn’t even know where most of his men were or what they were doing. He didn’t even know who was beside him, digging with him in the silky blackness.
He was panicking on a grand scale. He couldn’t see, he couldn’t hear. He wasn’t sure if his men were alive or dead. He couldn’t even be certain that he was alive himself. He might have been blown away and sent straight to hell. Maybe this was what hell was like.
All Alvarez knew was that he was going to claw his way out, no matter how long it took.
His hands were bleeding and raw. He didn’t even feel them. Tears were rolling down his face. He was pleading with a God he’d never known to spare his life. The big bad leader of men… the heartless bastard who was so willing to take the lives of innocents without so much as batting an eye, was now reduced to a quivering vessel of jelly.
And he wanted his mama.
“So, why are the men who are digging brighter and more visible than the men who are laying there? Is that because they’re working and sweating?”
“Exactly. They’re putting out way more body heat because they’re e
xerting themselves. The other men are at rest or already dead. They’re not physically active, so their bodies are putting out very little heat. Heat is the only thing the cameras key on in this mode.”
“So how do you tell if the ones on the floor are dead or just sitting there?”
At that moment, one of the men on the floor stumbled to his feet and started feeling his way toward the back of the tunnel.
“Well, I’m pretty sure that one is still alive.”
He turned to Hannah and grinned.
“No shit, Sherlock. Seriously, how do we know that the other four aren’t dead?”
“Well, truth is, we don’t, until we see them move. What we’ll do is watch them over the next few hours. If they never move, and if their heat signature starts to dim, then we’ll be able to assume they’re probably dead. When their heat signature disappears completely, and we can’t see them at all, then we’ll know for sure.
“The ultimate goal is for all of their heat signatures to fade away to black. That’ll mean all of them are dead.”
Mark turned again to look at Hannah, and saw a look of concern on her face.
“What’s the matter, honey?”
She hesitated.
Then she said, “Mark, I don’t feel right about this at all. I know those are bad men in there. I know they tried to hurt us, and they shot Sami. But they’re human beings. What kind of animals are we if we just stand here and watch them die a slow and miserable death?”
John spoke up.
“I know how you feel, Hannah. But the sad fact is that those men have no morals or empathy. They shot my daughter, and they could just have easily have shot you or your son.
“The fact that they chased us over here means that they weren’t content to just take over our compound. They could have settled for that, but they chose not to. And God only knows what they wanted when they decided to pursue us, but I can venture a guess.
“My guess is that they were going to kill most of us and use the rest for their pleasure or convenience.”
The Siege Page 2