Текст книги "White Fire"

Автор книги: Lincoln Child

Соавторы: Douglas Preston
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Текущая страница: 22 (всего у книги 27 страниц)

54

At eleven o’clock that morning – Christmas Eve day – after buttering two hundred pieces of toast, washing twice that number of dishes, and mopping the kitchen from wall to wall – Corrie went back to her room, bundled up in her coat, and ventured out into the storm. The idea that Kermode or her thugs might be out in this weather, waiting for her, seemed far-fetched; nevertheless, she felt an electric tickle of fear. She consoled herself with the thought that she was on her way to the safest place in town – the police station.

She had decided to confront Pendergast. Not so much confront him, exactly, but rather to make another pitch about why he should share with her the information he’d apparently gotten on his trip to Leadville. The way she saw things, it was unfair of him to withhold it. She had, after all, discovered the Swinton connection and shared the name with him. If he’d found information about the old killings, the least he could do would be to let her include it in her thesis.

The wind and flying snow came buffeting down the street as she turned onto Main. She leaned into it, holding her cap. The business district of Roaring Fork was relatively compact, but even so it proved a damn long journey in a blizzard.

The police station loomed up through the blowing snow, its windows glowing with yellow light, perversely inviting. All were apparently at work despite the storm. She walked up the steps, stomped off the snow in the vestibule, shook out her woolen hat and scarf, and went in.

“Is Special Agent Pendergast in?” she asked Iris, the lady at the reception desk, with whom she had gotten friendly over the past ten days.

“Oh, dear,” she sighed. “He doesn’t sign in and out, and he keeps the oddest hours. I just can’t keep track.” She shook her head. “Feel free to check his office.”

Corrie went down into the basement, grateful for once for the heat. His door was closed. She knocked; no answer.

Where could he be, in a storm like this? Not at the Hotel Sebastian, where he hadn’t been answering his phone.

She turned the handle, but it was locked.

She paused for a moment, thoughtfully, still grasping the handle. Then she went back upstairs.

“Find him?” Iris asked.

“No luck,” said Corrie. She hesitated. “Listen, I think I left something important in his office. Do you have a key?”

Iris considered this. “Well, I do, but I don’t think I can let you in. What did you leave?”

“My cell phone.”

“Oh.” Iris thought some more. “I suppose I couldlet you in, so long as I stay with you.”

“That would be great.”

She followed Iris back down the stairs. In a moment the woman had opened the door and turned on the light. The room was hot and stuffy. Corrie looked around. The desk was covered with papers that had been carefully arranged. She scanned the surface with her eyes but it was all too neat, too squared away, to expose much information.

“I don’t see it,” said Iris, looking about.

“He might have put it away in a drawer.”

“I don’t think you should be opening up any drawers, Corrie.”

“Right. Of course not.”

She looked frantically around the desk, this way and that. “It’s got to be here somewhere,” she said.

And then Corrie caught a glimpse of something interesting. A page torn out of a small notebook, covered with Pendergast’s distinctive copperplate handwriting, its top part sticking out of a sheaf of documents. Three underlined words jumped out: Swintonand Christmas Mine.

“Is it over here?” Corrie bent over the desk, as if looking behind a lamp, while “accidentally” pushing the notebooks with her elbow, exposing a few more lines of the torn page, on which Pendergast had printed:

mete at the Ideal 11 oclock Sharp to Night they are Holt Up in the closed Christmas Mine up on smugglers wall there are 4 of

“ Really, Corrie, it’s time to go,” Iris said firmly, with a frown on her lips at noticing Corrie reading something on the desk.

“Okay. I’m sorry. Now, where didI leave that darn phone?”

* * *

Back at the hotel, Corrie quickly wrote out the lines from memory, then stared at them thoughtfully. It seemed obvious Pendergast had copied a note or old document that mentioned the place where the attack on the cannibals would take place: the Christmas Mine. In the Griswell Mansion, she had seen a number of maps of the mining district, with each mine and tunnel marked and identified. It would be simple to find the location, and maybe even the layout, of this Christmas Mine.

This was interesting. This changed everything. She’d suspected the mercury-crazed miners had been hiding in some abandoned mine. If they were killed in a tunnel or shaft, their remains could still be there somewhere.

The Christmas Mine…if she recovered a few bone and hair samples from the remains, she could have them tested for mercury poisoning. Such a test was cheap and easy; you could even send away for a home kit. And if the tests were positive, it would be the final feather in her cap. She would have definitely solved the old murders and established a most unusual motivation.

She thought about her promise to Pendergast – to stay in the hotel, to abandon any attempt to find the person who’d shot at her and decapitated her dog. Well, she hadabandoned the attempt. Pendergast shouldn’t have withheld information from her – especially information of such crucial importance to her thesis.

She glanced out the window. The blizzard was still going strong. Since it was getting on toward Christmas Eve, everything was closed, and the town was almost completely deserted. Right now would be a perfect time to pay a little visit to the archives in the Griswell Mansion.

Corrie paused for a moment, then pocketed her small set of lock picks. The Griswell place would most likely have a period lock – no challenge at all.

Once again she bundled up and ventured out into the storm. Encouragingly, nobody except the snowplows was out and about as she made her way through the deserted streets. Some of the Christmas decorations, evergreen garlands and ribbons, had blown loose in the wind and were flapping and swinging forlornly from lampposts and street banners. Strings of bulbs had also come loose and were sputtering erratically. She couldn’t see the outline of the mountains, but she could still hear, muffled by the snow, the hum and rumble of the lifts, which had been kept running despite all that had happened and the almost complete absence of skiers. Perhaps skiing was such an ingrained part of Roaring Fork culture that the lifts and snow-grooming equipment simply never stopped operating.

As she turned the corner of East Haddam, she suddenly had the impression someone was behind her. She spun around and peered into the murk, but could see nothing except swirling snow. She hesitated. It might have been a passerby, or perhaps her imagination. Still, Pendergast’s warning echoed in her mind.

There was one way to check. She retraced her steps – still quite visible in the snow. And indeed: there were additional footprints. The footprints had apparently been tracing hers, but they had suddenly veered away and gone off into a private alley – at just about the point where she had spun around.

Corrie suddenly found her heart beating hard. Okay, someone wasfollowing her. Maybe. Was it the thug who’d been trying to drive her out of town? Of course it might also be coincidence, paired with her justified sense of paranoia.

“Screw this,” she said out loud, turned back, and hurried down the street. Another corner and she found herself in front of the Griswell Mansion. The lock, as she figured, was old. It would be a simple matter to get inside.

But was the place alarmed?

A gust of wind buffeted her as she peered inside the door panes for signs of an alarm system. She couldn’t see anything obvious like infrared sensors or motion detectors mounted in the corners; nor was the building posted with an alarm warning. The place had an air about it of neglect and penny pinching. Maybe no one felt the piles of paper inside had any value or needed to be protected.

Even if the place wasalarmed, and she set it off, were the police really going to respond? Right now they had bigger fish to fry. And in a storm like this, with high winds, falling branches, and ice, alarms were probably going off all over town.

Looking around, she removed her gloves and quickly picked the lock. She slipped inside, shut the door, took a deep breath. No alarm, no blinking lights, nothing. Just the shudder of the wind and snow outside.

She rubbed her hands together to warm them. This was going to be a piece of cake.

55

Half an hour later, hunched over a pile of papers in a dim back room, Corrie had found what she needed. An old map showed her the location and layout of the Christmas Mine. According to the information she had dug up, the mine was a bust, one of the first to become played out and be abandoned, way back in 1875, and as far as she could tell never again reopened. That was probably why the crazed miners had used it as a home base.

She took another, more careful, look at the map. While the mine was high up on Smuggler’s Wall, at nearly thirteen thousand feet in altitude, it was readily accessible by the web of old mining roads on the mountain, now used by four-wheelers in the summer and snowmobilers in the winter. The mine stood above a well-known complex of old structures situated in a natural bowl known as Smuggler’s Cirque, which was a popular tourist destination in the summertime. One of the buildings, by far the tallest, was famous for holding the remains of the Ireland Pump Engine, supposedly the largest pump in the world when it was constructed, which had been used to dewater the mines as the shafts were dug below the water table.

The Christmas Mine would surely be sealed – all the old mines and tunnels in Roaring Fork, Corrie had learned, had been bricked up or, in some cases, plated with iron. The mine might be difficult or even impossible to break into, especially considering the snow. But it was worth a try. She had every reason to believe the remains of the cannibals would still be there, perhaps secreted away someplace by the vigilantes who killed them.

As she looked over the papers, maps, and diagrams, she realized that – quite subconsciously – a plan had already formed in her mind. She’d go up to the mine, locate the bodies, and take her samples. And she’d do it now – while the routes out of town were still impassable, and before Pendergast could force her to return to New York.

But how to get up there, way up the side of a mountain in a furious storm? Even as she posed the question, she realized the answer. There were snowmobiles up at the ski shed. She would simply go up to The Heights, borrow a snowmobile…and pay a quick visit to the old Christmas Mine.

And now really was the perfect time: Christmas Eve day, when ninety percent of the town had left and everyone else was hunkered down at home. Even if somebody wastailing her, they’d never follow her to the mine – not in weather like this. Just a brief reconnaissance up to the mountain and back…and then she’d hole up in the hotel until she could make arrangements to leave town.

It occurred to her that it wasn’t just Kermode’s thugs she should be aware of, but the weather as well. If anybody else would be crazy going out in this storm, then wasn’t she acting a little crazy, too? She told herself she’d take it one step at a time. If the storm got too bad, or if she felt she was getting into a situation she couldn’t handle, she’d abandon the recon and head back.

Pocketing the old map of the mine and another map of the overall mining district showing all the connecting tunnels, she made her way back to the Hotel Sebastian, keeping an eye out for the suspected stalker but seeing no sign. In her room she began to prepare for the task ahead. She packed her backpack with a small water bottle, sampling bags, headlamp with extra batteries, extra gloves and socks, matches, canteen, Mars Bars and Reese’s Pieces, her lock-picking tools, a knife, Mace (which she carried everywhere), and her cell phone. She took another look at the Christmas Mine map she’d liberated from the archives, noting with satisfaction that the underground courses of the tunnels were clearly delineated.

The hotel concierge was able to provide – most useful of all – a snowmobile route map of the surrounding mountains. She also managed to “borrow” from hotel maintenance a claw hammer, bolt cutter, and wrecking bar.

She bundled up, loaded her car, and headed down Main Street in the storm, windshield wipers slapping. The snow was lightening a bit, the wind dropping. The snowplows were still out in force – snow clearing was amazingly efficient in this town – but even so the storm had gotten ahead of the clearing and there were three to four inches of snow on most of the roads. Nevertheless, the Ford Explorer handled well. As she approached The Heights, she rehearsed what she would say to the guard on duty; but when she actually arrived at the gate she found it open and the guardhouse empty. And why not? The workers would want to be home on Christmas Eve – and who in their right mind would be out in this storm anyway?

The heated road beyond was not bad, even though the snow was overwhelming the ability of the heating system to keep up. She almost got stuck a few times. But she shifted into 4L and managed to keep going. At least on the way out it would be mostly downhill.

The clubhouse came into view through the blowing snow, its lights on, the big plate-glass windows casting an inviting yellow glow. But the parking lot was empty, and Corrie pulled up close to the side of the building, got out of the car. In a storm like this, she doubted anyone would be inside. Nevertheless, she didn’t want any prying eyes observing her taking one of the snowmobiles from the ski shed. After stamping and brushing the snow off herself, she walked around to the front and tried the door.

Locked.

She peered in the little row of panes to the right of the door. Inside, the place was lit up and festooned with decorations. A gas fire burned merrily in a fireplace. But nobody could be seen.

Just to be safe, she walked around the rest of the building, staring through windows, the wind, though abating, still crying in her ears. It was the work of five slow, careful minutes to satisfy herself that there was no one home.

She headed back to the side of the building, ready to continue up toward the ski shed. As she walked across the parking lot, she noticed that the snow had almost ceased. The unpaved road leading to the shed would still be passable. She got into the Explorer, started the engine. Everything was going her way. She’d have her pick of snowmobiles to choose from…and she still had the key to the shed padlock.

But then, as she was pulling around the circular driveway to the clubhouse and back toward the main, heated road, she noticed a second set of tire tracks in the snow, lying on top of hers.

56

Coincidence? It was certainly possible. Corrie told herself that the tracks might be from someone in the development – after all, there were dozens of houses up there. Perhaps it was just some resident, hurrying home before the storm got worse. On the other hand, she’d been followed earlier, back in town. And why had the car pulled in to the parking lot? She felt a surge of apprehension and looked around, but there were no other vehicles in sight. She glanced at her watch: two o’clock. Three hours of daylight left.

The Explorer fishtailed up the road, Corrie gunning its engine. She skidded around the last bend and pulled the car up to the fence surrounding the shed. The snow had slacked off even further, but looking up she could see thick gray clouds that promised more on the way.

Keeping the car running, she double-checked her backpack – all was there, in good order. She didn’t have a snowmobile suit, but had put on practically all her layers of winter clothes, along with two pairs of gloves, a balaclava, and heavy Sorel snow boots.

She got out of the car and hefted the heavy backpack, slinging it over one shoulder. It was strangely still. Everything was bathed in a cold, gray light; the air was frosty, her breath condensing. It smelled like evergreens. The tree boughs were laden with snow and drooping, the roofline of the shed piled deep, the rows of icicles dull and cold in the half light.

She unlocked the padlock with her key and entered the shed, turning on the light. The snowmobiles were all there, neatly lined up, keys in the ignitions, helmets hung on a nearby pegboard. She walked down the line, looking them over, checking the gas gauges. While she had never driven a snowmobile, as a teenager back in Kansas she had spent a fair amount of time on dirt bikes, and the snowmobiles seemed to work the same way, with the throttle on the right handlebar and the brake on the left. It looked straightforward enough. She picked out the cleanest-looking one, made sure it had a full tank of gas, selected a helmet, and stowed her backpack in the under-seat storage compartment.

Stepping over to the main door of the shed, she unlocked it from the inside and slid it open with difficulty. Snow piled up against the door avalanched inside. Starting the snowmobile, she sat on the seat and looked over the controls, throttle, brakes, and shift, then turned the lights on and off a few times.

Despite the fear and anxiety that gnawed at her, she couldn’t help but feel a sense of excitement welling up. She should be looking at this as a sort of adventure. If someone was following her, would they follow her up the mountain? It seemed unlikely.

She put on the helmet and gave the machine a little gas, edging it cautiously through the doorway. Once outside she tried to shut the shed door, but the snow that had fallen inside prevented it from sliding.

It occurred to her that she was, in fact, stealing a snowmobile, which was probably a felony. But with the holiday, the snowstorm, and the police occupied with the arsonist, the chances of getting caught seemed nil. According to the map, the Christmas Mine entrance was about three miles away, up old mining roads that were now established snowmobile trails. If she proceeded cautiously, she could be there in, say, ten to fifteen minutes. Of course, a lot of things could go wrong. Maybe she wouldn’t be able to break into the tunnel, or would find it caved in; perhaps the remains would have been buried or hidden. Or – God forbid – she might find Pendergast there ahead of her. After all, she’d indirectly learned the location from him. But at least she’d feel she’d done her best. Regardless, she could be up and back in less than an hour.

She took a long look at her maps, trying to memorize the route, then tucked them into the glove box below the small windshield. She eased the machine farther into the snow, where it began to sink alarmingly. With a little more gas, however, it rode higher and more securely. Gingerly goosing the throttle, she accelerated up the service road that, according to her map, joined the network of snowmobile trails into the mountains, eventually leading to the old mining road that would take her to Smuggler’s Cirque and the mine entrance above.

Pretty soon she had the feel of the controls and was moving at a good clip, twenty miles per hour, the machine throwing up a wake of snow behind. It was unexpectedly exhilarating, flashing through the spruce trees, the frosty air rushing by, magnificent mountain peaks all around. She was plenty warm in her many layers.

As she attained the ridge, she came to the main snowmobile trail, conveniently marked with a sign. The heavy snow had obliterated any snowmobile tracks that might have been there, but the road cut itself was clearly visible as it went up Maroon Ridge, marked by tall posts with Day-Glo orange cards.

She continued on. As the altitude increased, the trees became smaller and stunted, some mere lumps of snow – and then, quite suddenly, she emerged above the tree line. She stopped to check her map – all good. The views were outstanding: Roaring Fork itself was spread out in the valley below, a miniature village, doll-like, cloaked in white. To her left, the ski area rose into the mountains in ribbons of white trails. The lifts were still running, but only the most hard-core skiers seemed to be out. Behind her stood the awe-inspiring peaks of the Continental Divide, fourteen thousand feet high.

According to the map, she was already halfway to the area of old mining buildings in the cirque.

She suddenly heard a distant buzzing sound coming up from below and halted to listen better. It was a snowmobile engine. Looking back down the route she had come up, she caught a glimpse of a black dot coming around one of the hairpin turns of the trail before vanishing into the trees.

She felt a wave of panic. Someone wasfollowing her. Or could it be just another snowmobiler? No – coincidence was one thing, but this was the third time that day she’d had the feeling she was being followed. It hadto be the stalker – Kermode’s hired thug, she was certain, the person who had menaced her, killed her dog. At the thought a fresh surge of fear swept over her. This wasn’t an adventure. This was sheer foolhardiness: she’d placed herself in a vulnerable position, alone on the mountain, far from help.

She immediately took out her cell phone. No service.

The sound of the engine grew rapidly. She didn’t have much time.

Her mind raced. She couldn’t turn around and go back – there was only one trail down, unless she went straight down the almost vertical ridge. She couldn’t pull off the trail and hide – the machine made such obvious tracks. And the snow was too deep for her to abandon the snowmobile and go on foot.

It began to sink in that she had put herself in real trouble. The best thing, she decided, would be to continue on up to the mine, break in if she could, and get away from the stalker in there. She had a map of the Christmas Mine and he surely did not.

Even as she started up the trail again, she saw the snowmobile come around the final bend before the tree line, accelerating toward her.

Goosing the throttle, she tore up the trail, notching the snowmobile up to thirty miles an hour, then thirty-five, then forty. The machine practically flew, an almost sheer cliff to one side of the trail, on the other a steep wall of snow. In another five minutes the trail came over the lip of a hanging valley and she found herself in the old mining complex, nestled in the broad hollow marked on the map as Smuggler’s Cirque: surrounded by high ridges, with derelict mining buildings scattered about, their sagging rooflines mantled with snow, some mere piles of broken boards. She paused briefly to orient herself with the map. The Christmas Mine was higher still, on a steep slope halfway up the mountainside, directly above the old buildings. Smuggler’s Wall. Map in hand, she squinted upward in the gray light, locating the entrance. The official snowmobile trail ended here, but the map showed an old mining road, still extant, that led up to the mine. As she looked at the steep wall of the cirque she made out the road cut, switchbacking up in a series of terrifying hairpin turns, with heavy drifts of snow lying across it.

Again, she could hear the snowmobile closing in behind her.

Stuffing away the map, she gunned the engine, riding past the old buildings and heading for the far side of the bowl, where the slope climbed upward again. She was surprised to see fresh snowmobile tracks among the buildings, somewhat snowed over but clearly made earlier in the day.

She reached the base of the road cut. This was going to be scary. But even as she contemplated the almost vertical wall above her, the sound of the pursuing snowmobile grew louder and she turned to see it coming over the rim of the cirque, not half a mile away.

Revving the throttle, she started up the trail, keeping as much to the inside edge as she could, blasting through drifts and fins of snow. The first hairpin turn was so steep and narrow, it just about stopped her heart. As she crawled around it, decelerating sharply, she almost became stuck in a drift and her efforts to get loose sent snow cascading down in a plume, the snowmobile tipping. She gunned it hard, spewing snow, and just managed to get back on the track. She paused, breathing hard, terrified by the yawning white space below her. It occurred to her that the avalanche danger on this steep slope must be high. She could see her pursuer was now riding through the old mining complex, following in her tracks. He was close enough for her to see the rifle slung over his shoulder.

She realized she had allowed herself to become cornered on the mountain. The road ended at the mine, and there was nothing but vertical cliffs above. And a killer below.

She made it past another half a dozen terrifying turns, driving recklessly through the deep snow, not letting the machine stop and settle. She finally reached the entrance to the Christmas Mine, marked by a rickety trestle and a square opening of massive, rotten timbers. She pulled the snowmobile right up to the opening, tore off her helmet, pulled up the seat, and hauled out her backpack. As soon as the engine was off she could hear the roar of the other snowmobile, much closer.

The door was set back into the tunnel about ten feet, which meant it was not drifted up with snow. The entrance had a rusted door set into a plate of riveted steel, deeply pitted by age, fixed with a heavy, ancient padlock.

The engine sound got louder. Corrie began to panic. She stripped off her gloves, grabbed her lock-pick tools, and tried to insert a bump key, but it was immediately apparent the lock was frozen with rust and unpickable. Even as she fumbled around she could hear the approaching roar of the snowmobile.

She grabbed the bolt cutters from her pack, but they were not heavy enough for the jaws to fit over the thick bar of the lock. They did, however, fit partway across the hasp. She jammed the jaws of the cutter over the hasp and drew down hard, the jaws closing with much effort. Taking the hammer, she gave the partially cut hasp a tremendous blow, then another, bending it enough for her to cut it the rest of the way through. Even so, everything was so solid with rust she had to pound the pieces with the hammer to shake them loose.

She threw herself against the iron door but it hardly budged, letting out a great screech of protesting metal.

The approaching snowmobile engine gave a sudden roar; she saw a flurry of snow; and then it appeared at the mouth of the mine, driven by a man in a black helmet and puffy snowsuit. He rose from the machine, undoing his helmet and unshipping his rifle at the same time.

With an involuntary cry she threw herself against the door, almost dislocating her shoulder in the process, and with a loud screeit budged open just enough for her to squeeze through. Grabbing her backpack she rammed herself through the opening, then turned and threw herself back against the iron, thrusting the door shut again – just as there came a deafening boom from the rifle, with a round clanging off the door and ricocheting into the mine, sending up sparks as it splintered on the rocks behind her.

A second push shut the door completely. Bracing against it, Corrie fumbled out her headlamp, pulled it on over her balaclava, and turned it on. A pair of rounds smacked into the door with a deafening noise, but it was made of thick iron and they left only dents. And now she felt a person slam into the door on the other side, pushing it open a few inches. Once more, she threw herself against it hard, slamming it shut again, and then she yanked the wrecking bar out of her pack and wedged it under the door edge, giving it a blow with a hammer, then another blow, until it held, even as she felt the man on the other side shouldering the door, trying to force it open.

He pounded furiously on the door, the bar sliding back just a little. It would hold only so long. She cast about. Broken rocks lay everywhere, along with old pieces of iron and ancient equipment.

Wham!The man was now throwing himself against the door, jarring the wrecking bar loose.

She hammered it back into place and began piling rocks and iron against the door. Down the tracks she could see an old ore cart, and with great difficulty she got it moving, levering it off the tracks so that it tipped over against the door. She rolled some larger rocks in place. Now the door would hold – at least for a while. She sagged against the rock wall, panting hard, trying to recover her breath and figure out what to do next.

More shots were fired against the door, producing a series of deafening clangs in the enclosed space and causing her to jump. Grabbing her pack, she turned and retreated down the tunnel. For the first time she could see the space she was in. The air was cold, but not so cold as outside, and it smelled of mold and iron. The tunnel ran straight ahead through solid rock, supported every ten feet or so by heavy wooden timbers. A set of ore tracks led into darkness.

She started down the tunnel at a jog. The sounds of the stalker trying to break in echoed down the passageway. Corrie came to a cross tunnel, turned in to it, and then, at a cul-de-sac, finally had to stop to rest. And think.

She had bought some time, but eventually the man would manage to wedge open the door. The old map she had indicated that a section of the Christmas Mine connected to other, lower mines, forming a maze of tunnels and shafts – assuming they were all still passable. If she could reach them, find her way out…but what good would that do? The snow outside was several feet deep, impossible to walk through. There was only one way off the mountain – via snowmobile.

And nobody knew she was up here. She hadn’t told anyone. My God, she thought, what a mess I’ve gotten myself into.

At that moment she heard a shriek of metal, then another. She looked around the corner of the passage, back toward the distant door, and saw a wedge of light. Another screech and the wedge grew wider.