FIFTY-THREE

Present Day

Dubnik Mine, Slovakia

    I waited until Val had sucked her bail-out bottle dry and was halfway through mine. Then we headed up through the cloud of silt.

    I fought the panic monster through the cloud. It wasn’t as bad as before, probably because I was worried about what we would find waiting for us in the gallery.

    When we finally surfaced, I helped Val pull off her facemask, and she took great, gasping breaths of air. I pushed from behind and helped roll her onto the ledge. I stripped off her rebreather, and she lay on her back and stared at the roof.

    I quickly shrugged out of my suit and gloves. I helped Val get dressed so she could warm up. As soon as I got her lying down I hurried over to George and Sue.

    They both lay next to where the winch had been. Sue’s arms hugged her stomach. George lay face-up with his head turned away from me.

    “They took Mr. Morgan,” Sue breathed in my ear. “We have to get him back.”

    “You’re not going anywhere yet,” I said. I straightened her legs, unzipped her coat, and pulled up her shirt. The bullet had entered just below her navel, a couple inches to the right of center. It had left a hole less than a half-inch across. Blood seeped around its edges.

    “I’m going to have to turn you,” I said.

    She nodded, then let out a cry as I rolled her toward me. I leaned over her and saw that the bullet had exited on her side, an inch below her left hip. There was just a trickle of bleeding from the quarter-sized hole.

    “How bad is it?” Sue asked as I rolled her onto her back.

    “Not as bad as it must feel,” I said. “It looks like you twisted away just in time. The bullet exited cleanly.”

    She nodded and gave a big sigh. “Thank God,” she said. “How about George?”

    “Just a sec,” I said. I used my dive knife to cut a strip off the bottom of Sue’s shirt. I handed it to her. “Use this for the bleeding.”

    She took the cloth, and I knelt next to George and righted his head.

    He was breathing, but not well. Bright red blood dripped from the corner of his mouth. His eyes were open and unfocused. I looked down at his chest, and I saw a small, bloody hole on the left side of his shirt, close to the bottom of his rib cage. I reached around him, but I could find no exit hole in his back.

    I held his cheeks in my hands. “George, can you hear me?”

    He blinked, opened his mouth, then closed it again.

    “I can’t sit up to see him-is he all right?” Sue asked.

    “He’s still breathing-but it looks like his lung was hit.”

    “What can we do?”

    “We can treat him for shock.” I turned Val’s diving suit inside out and slid it under George to insulate his body from the cold ground. Then I dragged her broken rebreather over and put it under his feet so the blood flow to his vital organs would increase.

    “We have to get him out of here,” I said. “He needs more help.” I rolled Val’s empty bail-out bottle into my t-shirt and slid it under his neck.

    Sue frowned. “What’s wrong with Val?”

    “Her rebreather conked out-and I didn’t notice it fast enough. She needs a few minutes to recover.”

    She shuddered. “We’re going to have to get out of here and rescue Mr. Morgan. Can you help me stand?”

    I wasn’t sure if Sue should be walking, but it would save time if I didn’t have to drag her out. I placed my arms under hers and lifted.

    “Wait!” She winced and lowered her head. After a minute she looked up. “Okay, the rest of the way now.”

    I lifted, Sue gasped and wrapped her arms around my neck, and then she was standing.

    “Can you walk?” I asked.

    “Give me a minute.” Then she unwrapped herself from me and stood on her own. “It hurts like hell, but I can do this.”

    “Do you think you can help with George?”

    She nodded. “Whatever it takes.”

    I helped her step over to him, and she reached out and grabbed his foot. “Hang on, Georgie.” Then she turned to me. “How are we going to get him out of here?”

    Good question. Then I thought about the carts outside of the mine entrance. “Maybe we can roll him up the tracks.”

    “Those carts are piles of rust.”

    “It’ll be easier than carrying him.” I said.

    She twisted to grab George’s hand, but then she let out a cry and grabbed my shoulder. “I need to sit down.”

    I lowered her to the floor right next to George. She reached out and caressed his face.

    “I’ll get the cart,” I said. I headed toward the stone staircase leading up to the tunnel.

    BOOM!

    A shock wave came blasting out of the tunnel entrance and knocked me over. I banged my head on a rock, and it took me a minute to get my bearings and sit up. The air was full of dust, and this darkened the gallery. I couldn’t see more than a couple feet.

    “You guys all right?” I called.

    “I’m here, and George is okay,” Sue said.

    “Val?”

    No response. I crawled along the ground back to where I had left her.

    Val lay face up. She was breathing, but she didn’t open her eyes when I shook her.

    “Did you find her?” Sue called.

    “She’s unconscious,” I said.

    “Bring her over here, and I’ll keep an eye on her while you get the cart.”

    That sounded good, especially since the dust had settled enough for me to see Sue and George. I scooped up Val into my arms and carried her across the gallery. I set her down so Sue was between Val and George.

    I looked up toward the tunnel and saw the lights were out, so I grabbed both Val’s and my wrist lights before I headed up the stairs.

    The dust was thicker in the tunnel, and I banged my head on the first low point. I crab-walked through the next two dips and avoided further injuries. Then I straightened up for the last section, and I slammed my shins into a large boulder.

    As I pitched forward, I tried to contain the damage by landing on my hands. My wrist lights illuminated a pile of rocks just before I crashed into it.

    I scrambled up and used my lights to trace the contours of the rock pile.

    What I saw dashed my hopes: large boulders, the smallest at least two feet in diameter, filled the tunnel all the way to the ceiling. I scrambled my way up the pile and tugged at the top-most stones, but they were wedged in, and despite my efforts, they wouldn’t budge.

    I crept back the length of the tunnel, down the stairs, and into the gallery.

    Sue looked up. “No cart?”

    I shook my head. “They seem to have blasted the tunnel up close to the entrance, and it’s now full of huge rocks. We can’t get out that way.”

    “Can’t get out…” Her eyes widened, and she reached out to George. “He needs medical attention, Scott-he’s barely getting any air. He’s got a tension pneumothorax.”

    “A what?”

    “A collapsed lung. Every breath forces more air through the bullet hole into his chest cavity, and it’s squeezing against his organs.” She pointed to George’s neck. “See how his veins are bulging? That’s the pressure building up against his heart. He’ll die, Scott, unless he gets immediate help.”