Hostage (9 page)

'Not a pretty sight,' whispered Hex, panning the camcorder across the scene spread out below them. Alpha Force were lying in the snow at the top of a densely wooded ridge. Ahead of them, Daniel Usher's gold mine had gouged a huge, square scar out of the landscape. Behind them, the slope they had just climbed fell away steeply to the river.

Amaruk's mushing commands drifted up to them from the river, growing fainter by the second. He had taken his sled and set off to take Boomer home, promising to return that night to lead them back to the village. Amber's sled and team were still at the bottom of the ridge, hidden under the trees. As soon as Amber had embedded the snow-hook brake into the ground, the dogs had promptly dug holes in the snow, curled up and gone to sleep. Except for Ice. He sat like a dog made of stone, never taking his eyes from the place where Amber had disappeared and waiting for her return.

'I thought it would all be hidden underground,' gasped Amber, gazing over the top of the ridge at the raw devastation below.

'The old mine was,' explained Hex. 'But when all the richer seams of gold were worked out, Usher Mining started using the open cast method on the poorer grade ore.'

He pointed his camcorder at a deep pit on one side of the huge complex. 'That's where they quarry out the rock with explosives, then they use those big trucks to transport it to the leach pads down there.'

'Leach pads?' asked Li.

'Yeah. See all those square, murky-looking pools just below the ridge with the steam rising off them? They're full of crushed rock from the quarry.'

'I think they must be heated to stop them freezing over,' said Li, noting the generator at the edge of the pools.

'The dirty-looking liquid in them is sodium cyanide solution,' said Hex.

'Cyanide,' spat Li.

'It draws all the gold out of the rock, even particles too small for the naked eye to see. The trouble is, it also draws out any poisonous, heavy metals such as lead or mercury. Then the gold cyanide solution is piped into those sheds there, where they run it over carbon, which separates out all the gold.'

'And what do they do with the cyanide waste?' asked Paulo.

'According to what I read on the Net, it's supposed to be stored in specially lined vats, or recycled. But I don't think that's been happening here.' Hex shifted on to his other side and began filming the sheds. 'See how close the processing sheds are to the side of the ridge? The old mine workings go into the rock underneath us. My guess is that Usher Mining is dumping all the cyanide waste into the old mine workings. From there, it's trickling down through caves and tunnels in the rock and coming out at the bottom of the ridge on the other side, straight into the river.'

Alex finished his sweep with the binoculars and turned over on to his back to rest his injured shoulder more comfortably. 'They've got really good security,' he sighed. 'Perimeter fences, floodlights, security cameras, the lot. I counted ten guards around the processing sheds alone. You'd think there was gold in there,' he added wryly.

Paulo picked up the binoculars and studied the perimeter fence. 'We could cut that easily enough,' he said. 'It's not electrified.'

'Yes,' said Li. 'But look at the amount of open ground we'd have to cover once we were through. We'd be spotted in no time.'

'Maybe, if we worked out our hiding places in advance . . .' said Paulo, scanning the complex.

Alex shook his head. 'I already looked. Everything's too open. And after dark it's going to be lit up like a Christmas tree with all those floodlights. We're not going to get in that way without being seen.'

'We could come in through the quarry,' suggested Paulo. 'It all seems much quieter there.'

At that moment a red flag was hoisted in the quarry. Then a klaxon sounded, echoing around the bare rock walls. Seconds later, the ridge beneath them shuddered as an explosion ripped a slab of rock the size of a house away from the quarry wall. A huge plume of thick, brown dust rose into the air, then spread out over the quarry. The sound of the explosion reached them an instant after the ground shock, rumbling to a crescendo, then slowly fading.

'Much quieter, Paulo,' mocked Li.

Paulo grinned at her, then returned to his scan of the site. 'Wait a moment,' he said softly, focusing on the helicopter pad.

'What?' said Amber.

'There are two helicopters down there,' breathed Paulo. 'One is the standard issue company helicopter, for flying workers in and out. The other is a smaller, luxury helicopter. A private helicopter. It has the letters DU on the side.'

'Daniel Usher!' gasped Amber. 'He's here? The big boss is right here at the mine?' She glared down at the helicopter pad and at the low, windowless building next to it, looking for a glimpse of the man who'd had her parents killed.

Li snatched the binoculars from Paulo. 'Looks like it,' she said, focusing on the private 'copter. 'That makes it even better. We sneak in, get our evidence and sneak out again, right under his nose.'

'Come on, guys,' said Amber, shuffling backwards away from the edge of the ridge. 'Plan B. We go in from the other side, at river level.'

They made their way back down the ridge to the sled. There, Amber and Hex changed into the two dry suits. They were the obvious choices for going into the cave system. Amber was the most experienced diver and Hex was in charge of the camcorder. Carrying the diving equipment, Alpha Force tramped along the river bank until they found a small opening at the base of the ridge. A stream of water was flowing out of the opening and disappearing under the ice into the river.

'This must be the place,' said Amber, checking the air flow from her tank. 'There's obviously an underground water system that the waste cyanide is feeding into.'

'What if it's contaminated?' said Li, gazing down at the water.

Hex snapped his gloves into place and checked the wrist seals on his dry suit. 'It looks clear enough. They're not dumping all the time, remember. Kikik said the poisoning symptoms only appeared every week or so.'

'But if that is only pure water,' said Paulo, 'then why has it not frozen like all the other water in this icicle of a country?'

'Because it's underground,' laughed Amber. 'Look, even if it is contaminated, we've got vulcanized rubber dry suits and full face masks. They'll keep out any contamination. Ready, Hex?'

Hex slung his underwater camcorder around his neck and turned on the lamp that was strapped to his head. 'Let's see what we can find.'

They stepped down into the stream, pushed their tanks through the small opening and squeezed through after them. They emerged into a narrow tunnel, with a shallow stream running along the bottom.

'Looks like it opens out at the end,' said Amber, as they both shone their lamps through the tunnel. Strapping on their tanks, they waded along the pebble and sand bottom of the stream. Amber could feel her heart beating fast. They each had a safety line around their waist, connecting them to the others on the river bank, and Amber could hear the lines slapping the surface of the water as Li and Paulo paid out the rope behind them. It was a reassuring sound, but ultimately she knew that she and Hex were on their own. They were wearing the only two dry suits. If they became stuck or lost in the tunnel system, there was no way anyone could come in after them.

'Good luck!' called Alex from the entrance behind them and his voice echoed faintly along the tunnel, already sounding a world away.

Amber and Hex stepped out of the end of the tunnel into a cave about four metres wide and two and a half metres high. A long gallery stretched away ahead of them into the darkness beyond their headlamp beams. As they waded towards the far end of the gallery, the ceiling began to slope downwards until they were forced to stoop as they walked. The stream deepened until they found themselves crouched at the edge of a dark pool where the roof of the cave disappeared into the water.

'Oh, dear,' said Hex. 'Dead end. We'll just collect some samples and head back.' As he unclipped a sample jar from his belt, he felt relief wash over him that he did not have to go any further. As the roof had pressed closer and closer over his bent back, Hex had been feeling the beginnings of claustrophobia.

'It's not a dead end,' said Amber. 'Where do you think the water's coming from? There's an underwater opening down there somewhere. I'll go and investigate.'

She strapped on her mask, adjusted her air flow and waded into the deepening pool. When the water was up to her neck she dived and followed the roughly ridged, sloping ceiling down until the water funnelled into a small black opening ahead. Amber held on to the ridged ceiling as she studied the opening. There was not a strong current coming from it, which was good. They would be able to swim along it fairly easily. The problem was, the opening was too narrow to turn round in and she did not know how far the tunnel went on. It could be nothing more than a water gate through to a second chamber. Or it could wind its way on into the deeper reaches of the ridge, splitting into a whole system of ever-narrowing underwater tunnels.

Hex was waiting for her at the lip of the pool as she surfaced and lifted her mask. His face was pale under the beam of his lamp. 'Dead end?' he asked hopefully.

'Nope, there's an opening. It's only small, but we should get through.'

Hex turned even paler. 'Right,' he said. Hesitantly, he waded into the pool towards her.

'I'll lead,' said Amber. 'If it goes on for too long or gets too narrow, we'll just have to back out again, OK? Remember your ice axe at your belt. You can use it to help push yourself backwards if that's what we have to do. One more thing. We should probably take the tanks off and push them ahead of us. We don't want to hook ourselves up on a rock projection or something.'

They dived down beneath the sloping ceiling and swam down to the dark opening. Hex felt his chest squeeze painfully as he saw how small the opening was. Amber had already removed her tank and was swimming towards the hole, holding it ahead of her. Gritting his teeth, Hex slipped the tank from his shoulders and followed Amber into the tunnel.

Their lamps lit up the whole of the narrow space. The beams bounced off the rock walls and picked out tiny particles suspended in the water. Their air bubbles floated upwards until they became trapped against the tunnel ceiling like tiny silver balloons. Hex concentrated on breathing slow and steady as he followed Amber's kicking feet. The tunnel grew narrower and narrower, but still Amber moved on. Hex began to imagine the whole weight of the rock and earth in the ridge above him pressing down. He imagined becoming stuck and running out of air and dying in this narrow, underwater grave. He tried to turn his thoughts to something – anything – else, but they kept turning back to the tunnel and the dying and his breathing grew harsh and fast.

Suddenly Amber slowed to a stop ahead. She looked over her shoulder at him, then pointed ahead, turning on her side to let him see past her. Hex squinted along the narrow gap between Amber's body and the wall and saw that the tunnel kinked upwards. A tight band clamped itself round his chest and sweat popped out on his forehead behind the mask. Amber made an upward swooping movement with her hand, telling him that she was going to try to squeeze round the kink. Hex shook his head at her, but she had already turned away. He watched with growing horror as Amber forced her tank ahead of her. The metal cylinder scraped and clanged against the rock, then suddenly shot out of sight. Amber turned on to her back and eased herself round the kink, then she too disappeared.

Hex gazed in horror at the empty space where Amber had been. The thought of squeezing himself up into the bend was terrifying, but the alternative was to try and wriggle backwards along this worm-hole that was too narrow to turn round in. He forced himself to take a few calming breaths, then pushed his own tank round the kink. Turning on to his back, he began to squirm through after Amber with his arms stretched out in front of him. For one dreadful moment he was stuck in the bend, unable to move, then his groping hands were gripped by another hand and Amber pulled him through.

Hex gasped with relief behind his mask as his head broke the surface. They were in a long, shallow opening with a ceiling just centimetres above his head, but at least he could spread his arms out to the side without meeting rock. They swam along the narrow passage for ninety metres until the shallow air pocket widened into a large chamber with a banking clay floor.

Hex and Amber crawled out of the water on to the bank, dragging their tanks behind them. They sat on the cold clay in the darkness and took off their masks, then turned their heads back and forth, letting their lamps pick out the details of the vast chamber. It was about twelve metres high, and all around, from ceiling to floor, great frozen waterfalls of white calcite hung from the chamber walls. Pillars of rock supported the high ceiling and an underwater stream wound its way through the chamber, disappearing into the tunnel they had just emerged from.

Hex had never felt so glad to have so much space above his head.

'Are you OK?' asked Amber, watching him critically.

'I'm not enjoying this at all,' admitted Hex.

'But you loved diving in Hudson Bay,' said Amber.

'This is different. It's so . . . closed in.' Hex shuddered. 'I think I'm a bit claustrophobic,' he admitted, wiping the sweat from his forehead.

'Not a good time to find out,' said Amber. 'Do you want to stay here and wait for me?'

'No,' said Hex determinedly. 'Dive-buddy system, remember? We stay together.'

They strapped on their tanks and walked to the other end of the chamber where, again, the ceiling sloped downwards into another pool. 'It looks like a system of gentle overflows,' said Amber. 'The stream runs from one chamber to the next, all the way down through the ridge. They must connect up to the old mine workings at some point. That's how the cyanide gets through into the river. If we keep going, we should find a way into the mine. Ready?'

Hex nodded reluctantly and they dived again. This time the tunnel Amber led them into was wider, but long, pointed stalactites thrust down from the roof like the teeth of some huge monster and they had to weave their way through them, taking care not to tear their suits against the rough edges. A torn suit meant death from hypothermia in water this cold.

They came out into a circular chamber where water dripped constantly from the stalactites that hung from the low roof. Amber and Hex trod water and turned slowly so that the beams of the lamps strapped to their heads lit up the walls of the chamber. The rock rose from the water, sheer and unbroken on all sides. They had reached a dead end.

Hex wrenched off his mask and threw his head back, taking deep gasps of air. It was cold and damp, with a slightly metallic taste, but anything was better than having to suck air into his lungs through the confines of his mask. His feelings of claustrophobia were growing worse by the second and he was close to panic at the thought of diving back into the dark water and forcing his way through the forest of stalactites for a second time.

'Hex?' asked Amber, pushing off her mask and giving him a worried look.

Hex realized he was still gasping with his head flung back. With a great effort, he made himself relax and breathe more slowly. 'I can't believe you do this for fun,' he said, with only a slight quaver to his voice.

Amber studied his pale face in her headlamp beam. 'You know we have to double back, right?'

Hex nodded. He did not trust himself to speak again.

'You're doing fine, Hex,' said Amber, without a hint of her usual sarcasm. 'You just let me know when you're ready, OK?'

'Now,' said Hex promptly. 'Let's go now.' He was frightened that if he waited any longer, he would lose his nerve.

'Two things,' said Amber. 'You need to coil in your safety line as you double back. If you leave loose rope around, you're in much more danger of getting hooked up on something.'

'No loose line. Right,' said Hex. 'And the other thing?'

'Visibility might not be so good second time round,' said Amber reluctantly.

'What? How? It can't get any darker. This whole place is as black as Hell.'

'There was a thick layer of silt on the bottom of the tunnel,' explained Amber. 'And we're bound to have disturbed some of it as we came through the first time.'

'Oh, that's just great,' said Hex and his voice echoed hollowly around the cavern. 'We have to swim back through silt soup.'

'Just follow your line and stay calm,' said Amber.

As Hex swam towards the stalactite tunnel, he could see a cloud of suspended silt particles pouring out of the entrance like smoke from a chimney. With growing dread, he watched Amber disappear into the murky water. He had an irrational urge to return to the surface of the circular chamber and stay there until his air ran out, but he forced himself into the tunnel after Amber.

Almost immediately, visibility was reduced to nearly zero. His lamp beam could not penetrate the whirling silt particles. They acted like a wall, reflecting the light back at him. Just ahead of him, Amber was moving as smoothly as she could, but more silt was puffing up from the floor of the tunnel all the time. Hex felt as though he was crawling as slowly as a snail as he inched forward with one hand following his line and the other hand outstretched in front of him, but all too soon he was into the stalactite forest.

Using his hands to guide him round the rough-edged stalactites, Hex squeezed himself through the gaps. The clanging of his tank against the stone rang like hammer blows and he was finding it harder and harder to suck enough air into his lungs. Finally, convinced that his tank must be nearly empty, he stopped and checked his gauge in the dim circle of his lamp beam. There was plenty of air left in the tank. Hex felt relief flood through him and his breathing immediately became easier. He prepared to move on again, and realized he did not know which way to swim.

He had been taking up the slack on his safety line as Amber had told him, but he had dropped the coils of rope in his panic to check the gauge and now his line hung straight down from his waist. Was he pointing in the direction Amber had gone or was he facing back towards the circular chamber? Had he turned in the water as he checked his gauge? Hex decided he hadn't and pushed himself forward. He squeezed past one side of a jagged stalactite, then changed his mind and turned back, edging round the other side to his original position.

Hex emerged from the gap, then stopped and peered through the cloudy water at a stalactite less than a metre in front of him. It had a teardrop-shaped hole through its centre. Suddenly he was sure he had just passed that stalactite. He turned again and squeezed back into the narrow space between the jagged stalactite and the tunnel wall. He was halfway through when he came to a sudden halt.

Hex grabbed the rock projections on each side of him more firmly and pulled harder. He managed to squeeze forward a few centimetres before his safety line tightened around his waist. With a thrill of horror, he realized that he had forgotten to take in the slack before he moved off again. The line had become wrapped round the jagged stalactite and was anchoring him in place.

Stay calm, thought Hex. Just back up and free the rope.

He began to push himself backwards but was jerked to a halt as one of his tank straps caught on a spar of rock. Now he was truly stuck, wedged into the narrow gap between the wall and the jagged stalactite, unable to move forward because of the safety line and unable to move back because of the snagged tank strap.

Hex tried to draw his arms back into the gap in order to unfasten the harness that held his tank to his back. His elbows were too big to squeeze down into the space between his ribs and the rock. All of a sudden, the panic came flooding in. His chest and throat contracted and he could not breathe. The ability to think rationally deserted him and, desperate for more air, he ripped his mask off and let it drop. A flurry of bubbles burst past his face and he closed his eyes as he realized what he had just done. Now his mask was trailing in the water, somewhere below his chest, and there was no way he could reach it with his arms stuck out in front of him.

Hex struggled until his lungs were bursting, but he remained wedged between the stalactite and the tunnel wall. His face twisted as he slumped against the rock and tried to hold his breath for a few seconds more. His worst nightmare was about to come true. He was going to die, alone and trapped, in the dark confines of an underwater tunnel.