Night Probe! (Dirk Pitt 6)

"The farmer who once owned the land." This from Heidi, who was perched on an overhead bunk.

"Where did you come by that tidbit?" asked Lubin.

"A kindly editor, a female I might add, got out of her boyfriend's bed to open local newspaper files for me. The story is that about thirty years ago, three scuba divers drowned inside the shaft. Two of their bodies were never found. The farmer sealed up the entrance to keep people from killing themselves on his property."

"Did you find anything about the landslide?" Pitt asked her.

"A dead end. All files prior to nineteen forty-six were destroyed by a fire."

Sandecker pulled at his red beard thoughtfully. "I wonder how far those poor. bastards got before they drowned."

"Probably made it to the main quarry and ran out of air on the return trip," Pitt speculated.

Heidi spoke the same thought that suddenly crossed everyone's mind. "Then they must have seen whatever is in there."

Sandecker gave Pitt a worried look. "I don't want you to make the same mistake."

"The victims were undoubtedly weekend divers, untrained and under equipped "I'd feel better if there was an easier way."

"The air vent is a possibility," said Lubin.

"Of course!" Sandecker exclaimed. "Any underground mine needs air ventilation."

"I didn't mention it before because it would take forever to find it in this fog. Besides, whenever a mine is closed, the air portal is filled in and covered over. There's always the hazard of a cow or a human, especially a child, falling in and vanishing."

A knowing look crossed Pitt's face. "I have a feeling that's where we'll find our friend Brian Shaw."

Lubin stared quizzically. "Who's he?"

"A competitor," said Pitt. "He wants to get inside that hill as badly as we do."

Lubin gave an offhand shrug. "Then I don't envy him. Digging through a portal shaft the width of a man's shoulders is a bitch of a job."

Lubin would have got no argument from the British.

One of Lieutenant Macklin's men had literally stumbled and fallen on the scar in the earth that hid the ventilator shaft. Since midnight the paratroops had been feverishly laboring to clear the rubble-filled passage.

The work was backbreaking. Only one man at a time could dig in the narrow confines. Cave-in was a constant threat. Buckets hastily stolen from a neighboring orchard were filled and pulled to the surface by ropes. Then they were emptied and dropped for the next load. The mole dug as fast and as hard as he could. When he was ready to drop from exhaustion, he was quickly replaced. The excavation went on without pause. "What depth are we?" asked Shaw. "About forty feet," replied Caldweiler. "How much further?"

The Welshman furrowed his brow thoughtfully. "I judge we should strike the main quarry in another hundred and twenty feet. How deep the ventilator was filled, I can't say. We could break through in the next foot or we might have to fight to the last inch."

"I'll settle for the next foot," said Macklin. "This mist isn't going to shield us much longer."

"Any sign of the Americans?"

"Only the sound of vehicles somewhere behind the hill."

Shaw lit another of his special cigarettes. It was his last one. "I should have thought they'd be swarming over the hillside before now."

"They'll get a jolly hot reception when they show," said Macklin, almost cheerfully.

"I hear American jails are overcrowded," Caldweiler muttered. "I don't relisly spending the rest of my life in one."

Shaw grinned. "Should be a piece of cake for a man of your experience to tunnel out."

Caldweiler knocked the ashes out of his pipe. "Nothing like looking at the fun side. Though in all seriousness, I can't help wondering what in bloody hell I'm doing here."

"You volunteered like the rest of us," Macklin said.