FIFTY-EIGHT

Present Day

Dubnik Mine, Slovakia

    Val wedged the blade of the pick-axe into a hairline crack she had found in the wall. I swung the hammer at the pick, but instead of widening the crack, the blade turned, and Val yelped as her fingers smashed into the wall for the eighth or ninth time.

    This was supposed to be the easy part. We were tired and making stupid mistakes.

    Val repositioned the pick-axe head, I swung the hammer, and again the axe head bounced out of the crack and twisted.

    I dropped the hammer and took the pick-axe head from her. Something wasn’t right, and we weren’t getting it. I let the axe head drop, and I slid down the wall to the ground.

    Val joined me. We slumped together in silence.

    Then she looked up. “We busted down the alcove wall yesterday. What’s different about this?”

    “Our tools,” I said. “We had George’s hooks.”

    “But at least they went into the wall when you hammered on them.” She picked up the pick-axe head. “This just bounces right out.”

    I watched as she hefted it. The way the metal was arced between the pick and the blade wasn’t helping; most of the force of my swings was deflected downward into Val’s hands.

    Val sighed. “Too bad old Ned didn’t leave you more detailed instructions.”

    “Too bad he left his hammer and not his mining genes,” I said.

    Then I thought about that hammer. “If we had a handle on the pick,” I said, “we could swing it at the wall instead of making puny little whacks on it with the hammer.”

    “Maybe you can just swing the hammer into the wall.”

    I picked up the hammer. Its head was too broad and its handle too short to cause any damage.

    But maybe we could do something else. I cleared out the hole in the pick-axe head with my finger. Then I slid the bottom of the hammer’s slender handle through the top of the hole, all the way down until the hammer’s head sat snug against the top of the axe head.

    “Now I can swing the pick-axe,” I said.

    Val smiled, and we stood up. I held the hammer like it was a tiny baseball bat, and I took a practice swing.

    “Hit with the pick side, and not with the axe,” she said.

    That made sense. I spun the handle around and aimed at a brick at my shoulder height. The pick hit the center of the brick and made a piercing ringing tone, and my hands stung from the handle’s vibration. But the brick cracked, and Val and I let out a whoop.

    After two more solid strikes, the first wedge of the brick came loose. Val teased it out by wiggling it back and forth, and the next hit sent the rest of the brick’s fragments flying.

    In only ten minutes we cleared an opening big enough for us to enter. I pulled the hammer and pick apart, shoved the pieces into my belt, and stuck my arm with its wrist light into the hole.

    We both peered inside. The tunnel ran straight ahead at a slight incline, and our lights petered out before reaching the end.

    “Let’s get going,” Val said.

    “You have the pistols?”

    She handed one to me, and I stuck it in my waistband. Then we climbed through the opening and headed up the tunnel.

    After fifty yards I stopped. I could hear the bats.

    The chirping sounded like a flock of baby birds. We followed it around a corner where the tunnel forked. We took the branch sloping up, toward the chirping.

    We climbed a flight of stairs and stood at an opening to a large gallery. Here the bats were much louder. The floor was covered with bat guano.

    I aimed my light up toward the roof, and we both cringed when it bounced off hundreds of tiny red eyes. “Let’s find the exit,” I said.

    We walked into the gallery. Our boots sunk through at least six inches of guano and slid along the floor, and I caught Val from falling into the muck. The stench slammed into us, and we both breathed through our mouths. Every now and then a bat would whir around the gallery, and we’d instinctively duck.

    We reached a wall at the far end of the gallery. We searched, but we couldn’t find an opening.

    “There’s got to be a way out,” I said.

    “I don’t see it.”

    “Let’s get the bats to help us.” I pulled out the pistol.

    She screwed up her face. “What are they going to do when you fire?”

    “Hopefully fly away, so we can follow them.”

    She shivered. “What if they attack us?”

    “You have a better idea?”

    She shook her head and stared at me wide-eyed.

    I flipped the safety and glanced at her. She scrunched her eyes closed. Then I fired, and we were engulfed in a maelstrom of flying hairy bodies, leathery wings, and harsh screeches.