The Siege (2 page)

     Alvarez put his weapon to McMillan’s chin and growled, “And if you don’t follow orders I’ll shoot you myself.”

     “Okay, okay.”

     McMillan crawled under the raised floor panel and timidly crept down the stairs.

     The assault was beginning.

     Sami watched the monitors intently at the control center and struggled to keep her voice steady.

     “The first man is in the tunnel. He’s looking around, but not moving forward. Like he’s looking to see if anyone is in it.”

     Mark was at the opposite end of the tunnel, where it entered into the mine. The tunnel was empty. But the man at the far end wouldn’t know that. It was over two hundred yards long, and the lights at Mark’s end had been purposely turned off. If McMillan had perfect vision, he might see that far. But he wouldn’t be able to tell who or what was sitting in wait in the darkness.

     Sami found her mojo. In a relaxed tone, she went on.

     “Okay, he’s finally moving forward. Very slowly. The other men are starting to come down the steps behind him. They’re also moving very slowly and cautiously.”

     John, Sami’s father, put a hand on her shoulder. It was
his turn to speak.

     Sami released the key on the microphone, and John keyed his walkie talkie.

     “Mark, are you at the box?”

     “Affirmative, John. It’s unlocked and open and ready to go.”

     “10-4. On my go.”

     “Roger.”

     They had considered the feasibility of posting men in the dark end of the mine. They’d have the advantage of being able to see the approaching invaders without being seen themselves.

     But they ruled that option out. There was a better way.

     Their logic was sound. It’s always better to avoid a firefight whenever possible. Once the bullets start flying, anything can happen. Especially in the small confines of a tunnel. Bullets can ricochet off of conduit or even the hard packed walls of the salt tunnel itself if fired at the right angle.

     And even though the bad guys would be firing blindly into a patch of blackness, they might get a lucky shot or two that actually connected with their target.

     No, this way was better. It was a feature they’d built into the tunnel from the beginning.

     For just this occasion.

     Sami’s voice came over the radio again.

     “The first man is spraying bullets all the way down the tunnel. He’s not aiming at anything. He just appears to be firing blindly, from his hip.”

     Mark couldn’t help but smile.

     “Just like John Wayne in the movies. That’s fine. Let him waste his ammo.”

     Time seemed to stand still, and the tension in the mine was palatable.

     Sami went on with her play by play.

     “Brad, there’s still no activity outside the mine entrance. The ones in the tunnel are passing by camera seventeen. Oops. They just saw the camera and shot it out.

     “That’s okay, though. I can see them on sixteen. There are seven of them, still moving slowly. Still firing occasionally in our direction.
”

     After she released the microphone John leaned over and kissed the top of his daughter’s head.

     “You’re doing great, sweetie. Like a real trooper.”

     Sami smiled. She was wounded in the skirmish as they’d evacuated the compound
two weeks before. Her shoulder still hurt, and she’d carry nasty scars on both sides of her body for the rest of her life. David had put in a total of forty one stitches, and she now considered herself ugly and flawed. And she was furious with the men who shot her. She wanted them all dead.

     Mark still hadn’t heard any shots, but he wasn’t surprised. It was a long tunnel, and the salt
was very good at absorbing sound. Even something as loud as a gunshot.

     “
I count seven in all, still in a tight group.”

     Mark spoke up again.

     “Sami, can you estimate how much space between the first man and the last?”

     “It’s hard to say. They’re still fifty yards away from camera sixteen. I’d guess no more than fifteen yards.”

     Mark was standing in front of a metal box, mounted on the mine’s wall near the tunnel’s entrance. The box had been there since they’d finished the tunnel, secured by a padlock and never opened, until now.

     His finger rested lightly on the first of four toggle switches, awaiting John’s “go” signal. It shouldn’t be long now.

     Sami said, “Brad, still no activity at the front of the mine. Mark, they’re nearing camera sixteen now…. Now they’re starting to pass under it.”

     They were now in the center of the tunnel. John gave the word.

     “Okay, Mark, go for it.”

     Mark hit the first of the toggle switches. Immediately, the group gathered at the tunnel’s entrance heard a muffled rumble in the distance, felt the slightest of shudders.
Forty yards inside the tunnel, two sticks of dynamite had been detonated in the tunnel’s ceiling. Tons of salt, rock and dirt immediately came crashing down, burying the tunnel from floor to ceiling for fifteen yards.

     On the camera, Sami and John watched as the blast wave shot down the narrow passageway, knocking the invaders off their feet, and then obscuring them in a dense cloud of white dust.

     “The lights have gone out now. Cameras sixteen and fifteen are still working and have switched to heat sensor mode.”

     At that moment, Mark flipped the second switch. This time the
thick pile of debris near the front of the tunnel muffled all sound. The only way Mark knew the second detonation happened was by listening to Sami’s words.

     “Okay,
we just had another blast wave coming from the other end of the tunnel. It knocked them all down again. No cloud of dust this time, though.”

     Mark smiled. He wasn’t the smartest tool in the shed, but he knew a little about physics. He knew the dust cloud didn’t come because to couldn’t push the air out of the way. The first blast had sealed the tunnel completely. It was now air tight
.

     In the compound, a puff of salt and dust came up through the tunnel’s exi
t, and coated most of the feed barn. If anyone had been left in the feed barn, they’d have heard a muffled roar, and felt the floor shake as the force of the explosion dissipated at the tunnel’s end.

     But there was no one there to hear it. No one there to see it. The rest of Alvarez’ gang was in the big house.

     They hadn’t a clue what just happened.

Chapter 2

     Inside the collapsed tunnel, the seven men were stunned. They were instantly rendered deaf, their ear drums shattered by the force of the first blast. They felt the wrath of the subsequent blast as it knocked them down a second time, but they couldn’t hear it.

     Now they were in a heap, laying on the tunnel floor in pitch
darkness, struggling to clear their heads and their lungs of the thick blanket of white dust that had overtaken them.

     Alvarez coughed mightily, struggling to clear his lungs and regain his breath. He’d inhaled
just as the first blast wave hit them, and both lungs were full of chalky and sticky salt dust.

     McMillan, on the other hand,
had the wind knocked out of him when the blast sent him flying. He was coughing, but not to the same degree. Mostly he was crawling, in dazed desperation, to get away from the direction the second blast had come.

     On hands and knees, in total silence and in
inky blackness, he crawled to the pile of dirt and debris that blocked his way to the mine. His eyes, wide in terror, couldn’t be seen by the others. They had their own problems to deal with.

     In mere moments, these vicious monsters of men were reduced to quivering and confused animals, stuck in a cage that would eventually cause their death
s.

     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 cause
d 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.”