CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
Eli rode in the elevator, which purred in a steady, controlled fall to three hundred meter
s belowground. With Ivan around, he was glad to have Munoz with him. They were both armed with the weapons from the castle. Good thing, too, as surely there were Russian reinforcements waiting above. It was doubtful he’d make it away from the mine in one piece if Ivan was challenged. But he was no fool, either. Once the information on Czajkowski was located, no reason existed to keep him alive. On the contrary. Every reason existed for him to die. Ivan had shot two of his own men with no hesitation. He’d already told Munoz to stay alert, and at the first opportunity they’d make their escape, getting lost in the mine and finding another way out. Ivan could have the information for free. He just wanted this to end. What had, at first, seemed a profitable idea had turned into a disaster.
At least he still had five million euros and the Pantry.
Which the Russians apparently knew nothing about, as there’d been no mention of its existence.
The elevator came to a stop and the metal doors opened to a lit foyer and an unlit tunnel beyond. They stepped out into chilly air. The solitude of the uninviting blackness swallowed him as they entered the tunnel, their headlamps illuminating about ten meters ahead.
“Where you want to go is a long walk from here,” Konrad said.
“Then let us start,” Ivan said. “I don’t move so fast.”
Eli had always imposed a rigorous discipline on himself. He’d dealt with Israelis, Americans, French, Congolese, Chinese, South Africans, you name the buyers, anyone and everyone had been a customer. Unlike Olivier, who had an abhorrence for killing, he’d never harbored any such reservations. But killing this Russian would come with dire consequences.
And Ivan knew that.
Eli tried to dismiss the disturbing thoughts swirling through his brain, but couldn’t. Like fat on a man who’d always been lean, they slowed him down. But he forced himself to focus and kept following their beams down the wide tunnel.
“Amazing place,” Ivan said.
“It shows what forty generations of hard work can do,” Konrad noted. “They just kept digging, making money for the king.”
Eli was not ignorant of the salt mine. Though there were larger and older caverns in both Poland and Europe, they paled in comparison with this vast labyrinth, hundreds of kilometers long, so like the Minotaur’s lair. Everything about it screamed monumental. Mines had always fascinated him, particularly how the Nazis used them in Germany and Austria in the last war as secret vaults. Here the treasure had been far more practical.
Salt.
What a thing.
A rock, hard but fragile. But also a symbol, a measure of wealth, a spice, and a raw material. Once entire kingdoms depended on its trade.
Not so much anymore.
If he’d lived centuries ago and worked the mine, he would have wanted to be a treasurer. They ruled the underground. Miners simply called them He. No name. Just He. It was the treasurer who rewarded hard work and punished the lazy. The treasurer who delivered a harsh slap across the face to any miner who cursed. The treasurer who warned against danger, scampering through the tunnels, examining the ceiling and walls, blocking the path to places where trouble lurked.
They kept walking down the drift.
Konrad led the way, Ivan next, then himself, with Munoz in the rear. He wanted to keep the Russian ahead of him where he could see his every move. For whatever good that would offer. He could hear the fat man’s heavy breathing, obviously unaccustomed to a brisk workout. Maybe Ivan would have a coronary.
He could only hope.
Eli had not made a name for himself by being either bashful or cowardly. And he wasn’t going to embrace either weakness now.
Be smart and patient, he told himself.
The tunnel forked.
The right side was blocked by a sign.
WSTEP WZBRONIONY. No entry.
Dripping disturbed the silence from down the blocked path. Past a rope barrier, in the combined beams of their lights he saw water seeping from the ceiling. A respectable puddle had formed on the floor beneath. Not a recent leak, either. Crystallized salt, white as snow, painted the walls.
“Is that okay?” he asked Konrad.
“It happens all the time. We come down and make repairs.”
“What would happen if you didn’t?”
“The water would slowly eat it all away. One salt crystal at a time. But don’t worry, that would take about 150 years. We’re okay.”
“How far to go?” he asked Konrad.
“Another few minutes.”
He turned to leave and his helmet slipped from his head, clattering down the salt wall and finding the floor, the light beam dancing in the darkness.
“My apologies,” he said, retrieving the headgear.
Ivan stood facing him. Beneath those coveralls was a gun, too. Probably the same one used to shoot two of his own men back at Sturney Castle. Normally Eli stayed in control. At the head of the parade. Here he was nothing more than a spectator. He tried not to think of the darkness around him and what it might contain.
But one thing he knew for sure.
Nothing could be as threatening as a Russian.
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
Cotton followed Stephanie and their guide down the tunnel on Level IX. The trip into the bowels of the mine had required two elevators, one to Level III, then a second from there to Level IX. Patrycja had used her fob to activate both elevators, confirming her previous observation that not just anyone could descend this deep. She’d also noted that a count was kept of everyone who entered the mine, including every tourist. At the end of each day the ins and outs were reconciled so that nobody could remain. Cleaning crews worked during the day on the upper levels, so at night the mine was essentially shut down, the last tour switching off the lights, everything left in blackness until the following morning.
The time was approaching 6:00 P.M., another hour and a half before the site officially closed. They needed to work fast, staying ahead of not only the tourists but also the Russians, the Poles, and any new Americans who might show up.
A chilly, salt-laced breeze blew in his face, helping dissipate any feelings of claustrophobia. It wasn’t enclosed spaces that drove him nuts. It was enclosed, tight spaces he hated. He had to keep telling himself to ignore the fact that over nine hundred feet of rock lay between him and daylight. Patrycja told them that following the direction of the air served as a means of navigation, one the miners still used. The rough floor was full of obstacles and slippery in places. The silence pressed onto him as if the tunnel were collapsing. He imagined the sounds from a former time, when horses moved the heavy salt blocks, their hooves clunking on the hard floor. Railcars eventually replaced them, which came with the screech of metal on metal.
“You know your way around these tunnels?” Stephanie asked as they walked.
“I bring groups down here all the time. They grind salt like the miners once did.”
The whole place had an air that did not speak of things neglected. Offshoots appeared with regularity leading into more absolute blackness.
“I assume it would be easy to get lost,” he noted.
“More misdirected,” Patrycja said. “At some point you’ll come to stairs or an elevator leading up. It’s big, but it’s a finite world.”
He smiled at her sarcasm.
“Keep an eye out for the White Lady, though,” she said.
Had he heard right? A Dame Blanche? Obviously not a chocolate sundae. So he asked what she meant.
“The miners called her Bieliczka. Supposedly a spirit that roams the tunnels looking for a miner she’d once loved.”
Good to know.
The tunnel spanned about six feet wide and eight tall, and the steady breeze kept bringing a measure of comfort. The darkness seemed omnipotent and impenetrable, but not frightening. No sunrises or sunsets happened here. No midnights or middays. For those long-ago miners who worked here for weeks at a time, only the light from their lanterns had brought a reprieve.
He thought of those
miners and how they probably heard down here, for the first time, the sound of their own breath, their own heartbeat. How odd that must have been. But the silence was also threatening since it lulled the brain into a false sense of security. He had to constantly tell himself to stay alert. Trouble could be around the next turn. Or behind them? Hard to know anything for sure.
If Cassiopeia could see him now.
She would not be happy.
But at least he’d be done and back in Copenhagen by tomorrow evening. They’d have a great weekend. Dinner at Nyhavn. Then Tivoli on Saturday or Sunday. They both loved the amusement park. She’d stay until Tuesday or Wednesday, then head back to southern France. Her castle reconstruction project kept going forward. No surprise. She was a determined woman who could do anything she set her mind to.
He focused on thoughts of her as a way to avoid the obvious discomfort around him. How she painted her bread with butter in short, even strokes covering every square inch until the knife was shiny clean. Salt was always poured into her open palm before being dispensed. Never did she eat ice cream in a cone—too much pressure to perform before it melted. She hated apple juice, but loved apples, green ones especially. And potato chips. She loved them with only spicy mustard.
Everyone had their quirks.
God knew he had a long list of them.
He’d have to come clean about all that had happened this week, and she wouldn’t be happy to have been left out. But she’d understand, like always. That was their way. They both tended to find trouble. And they both always tried to handle it—by themselves. Admitting they needed help seemed a weakness.
But he trusted no one more than Cassiopeia.
She’d never let him down.
Nor would he disappoint her.
The tunnel drained into a chamber.
Several shadows, large and fast, detached themselves from the darkness and assumed form in their lights. Two weathered statues, whose florid features had fallen into a portrait of despair. They framed the entrance to a nave cut into the far wall through the salt.