“If this rock is as rotten as you say, why haven’t these chambers come down already?”

“Oh, parts of this mine already have, way back in 1962, and pretty much around this same general area, only left of the shaft. You can’t see it now because the Yeagers backfilled the thing, but the ground just collapsed. No warning, not even a rumble. The hole was a hundred feet deep and four hundred feet wide. Lost a couple trucks and one of the change-out buildings. Killed seven miners,” Weller said, then added, “One of them was my dad.”

Hmm. Tom had a feeling there was a lot about Weller he just didn’t know. “What’s keeping this one from caving in now?”

“Whether or not a mine caves in depends on how well you shore it up. You can backfill the space with sand, but it’s expensive and Yeager Brothers was a cheap outfit. What they left behind instead were these real spindly rock pillars.” Weller skipped a finger to another rectangle penned immediately below the larger chambers. “The pillars in this one, where we’ll plant the bombs, are even worse.”

Like trying to hold up the second story of a rickety old house with toothpicks. “How are we going to get underneath and into that room without being seen?”

“We get in and out through the Ernst Shaft. You can’t tell on this drawing, but the Ernst is actually a little southeast of the mine’s main entrance. It connects up with the mine at regular intervals, starting at six hundred and seventy feet. We climb down the shaft, then hike over and up, plant our bombs, and hustle back out the same way. It’s about a half mile one way, so not bad. Might be a few stray Chuckies around, but we can handle them.” Weller shrugged. “All we need’s a little luck.”

“I don’t believe in luck.” Luck was just a synonym for a random event that didn’t kill you. Tom saw a dozen things that could go wrong. Designing the bombs to deliver maximum force where it was required would take doing. Without more sophisticated electronics, he’d have to figure out a way to time the explosions. Even if he managed to do that, the bombs might go off early, or not at all. And what if the Chuckies posted guards, or they ran into more than a few? Weller had said that groups moved in and out of the mine. This particular kind of plan meant they could send out only a very small strike squad: three people at most. Stumble on a crowd and things would get interesting in a hurry. Or what if they succeeded but ended up trapped? Or say they made it out of the mine only to die when the ground opened up under their feet? Knock out underground supports and the surface might cave in, too, as Weller said had already happened back in 1962.

“Weller, even if we manage to collapse the room just beneath the kids, they’ll still be above us,” he said. “What’s to stop them from using Shaft One or working their way over to that big underground road to escape?”

“They can’t. If you collapse the room, everything drops down. You knock out the guts of an apartment building, there’s no way to get to the fire escape unless you climb up. Same thing here. The Chuckies’ only choice will be to go down, but there’s no direct connection with the Yeager Shaft or the road at all. They’ll be trapped good and tight. They won’t be able to go down or up, and then those Chuckies either get crushed or suffocated or even drowned . . .” A nasty grin oiled over Weller’s lips. “I don’t care how they go, Tom, just so long as that mine’s gone, the way to Rule is clear, and those monsters are dead.”

67

Ten days later, Tom planted his left pole in the snow and kicked off hard, skating on his right ski before shifting his weight to his left and driving forward. He had a rhythm down now, and Jed’s old Timex told him that he was making excellent time. He’d passed their first lookout post, the bell tower of an abandoned Lutheran church, an hour ago. He was panting now, but the work felt good, his muscles limber and warm. The snow was perfect, three inches of fresh powder atop an icy, heavier two-foot base like frothy whipped topping on ice cream.

His destination was a different lookout post snuggled into the east rim of Devil’s Cauldron. The lake was man-made, and all that was left of the first Yeager Brothers mine: a rough, bowl-shaped gouge chunked from the earth that the Yeagers backfilled with water when the iron ore tapped out. The tailings—monstrous piles of rubble—had been covered with a thin layer of topsoil and were now home to snow-laden scrub and thin saplings on their way to becoming hardwood forest in another century or so. For now, the scrub offered good cover and an excellent view of the second mine to the west. The last quarter mile to the rim was all uphill, and he pushed himself, bounding up the slope, poling hard. By the top of the rise, Tom’s heart was banging. His breaths came harsh and fast as he armed away sweat from his forehead, but he could feel how much stronger he’d gotten. A good thing, too: he would need every ounce of muscle he could muster, because in three hours, with any luck, they would be deep underground.

As he slid to a stop, a muzzled dog slinked from a blind. A scruffy boy, all in winter-white, followed a moment later. “Hey, Tom,” the kid said.

“Chad.” Tom unclipped from his skis, then ruffled the dog’s ears. The kid had an Uzi carbine fitted with a suppressor—another of the toys Weller and Mellie had in abundance. “Is Luke here?”

“Yeah. He and Weller showed up twenty minutes ago.” Chad lifted a chin toward Tom’s pack. “Those them? Can I see one?”

“Okay.” Kneeling, Tom opened the pack and withdrew a steel cylinder the size of a soda can. Three metal legs, secured with duct tape, protruded several inches from one end.

“Whoa, that’s pretty funky,” Chad said. He ran a finger in a copper concave divot capping one end of the cylinder. “So this is like Iraq and Afghanistan, right? An IED?”

“On a smaller scale, yeah.” Tom pointed to the divot. “That’s your penetrator. Same principle as a bullet. Throw a bullet at a deer, it bounces off. But if you put a lot of force behind it, the slug punches through. A shaped charge channels energy. It’s why bullets are so destructive. It’s not the hole that kills you. It’s the energy transfer to the rest of your body—or, in this case, the rock.” It actually wasn’t that simple, but Tom wasn’t wild about giving any of the kids a crash course on explosives manufacturing. Bad enough that he was forced to take Luke, but working alone or with only Weller would take too long.

Returning the charges to his pack, he cinched the drawstring, then stood and offered his hand. “Later, dude.”

“Is it okay to wish you luck?” Chad asked.

In Afghanistan, guys had all kinds of superstitions, like never eating the Charms from an MRE. M&Ms were okay, except the blue ones. But Charms were the kiss of death. Charms they dropped in the burn shitter. Wish someone luck, you got your ass kicked.

“Oh, sure,” Tom said.

The others waited on a small rise behind a screen of scrub. Luke heard him coming first and tipped a wave. Weller only nodded. Mellie and the other lookout didn’t turn around. Ducking beneath brush, he squatted in the hollowed-out snow at Mellie’s shoulder. “Anything new?”

Mellie didn’t look up from a pair of 26×70s mounted on a low tripod. “I see some movement to the north, and there might be another group looping in from the west. Cindi?”

“Too far yet.” Peering through Big Eyes 25/45×100s, Cindi, a freckle-faced twelve-year-old, nibbled her lower lip. “But I think those guys dropping down the north approach road have prisoners.”

Tom’s stomach tightened. “How can you tell?”

“The flashlights.” Luke was fourteen and the oldest after Tom.

He’d attached himself to Tom almost right away; nearly all the kids had decided Tom was their big brother. He really didn’t mind. All these kids made him feel a little better. He worried, too, what would happen to them when he and Alex left. Maybe . . . take along the kids who wanted to come? Yeah, but could they really all manage?

One step at a time, he thought. Do this and then find Alex. The rest will sort itself out.

Luke sipped watered-down instant coffee from a mess cup. “We’ve been watching for a couple weeks. When there are flashlights, that usually means prisoners. The Chuckies don’t seem to need a lot of light to see where they’re going.”

That was interesting. It might be another reason why the Chuckies favored the mine. “Do you know how many?” Tom asked.

Cindi did a one-shouldered shrug. “Four, five in that group. Maybe more. The Chuckies have really stocked up, though. There are a lot of people already in the mine for . . . you know . . .”

“A snack,” Tom said. “Innocent people they’re putting by for a rainy day.”

“Aw, Christ,” Weller muttered.

“Tom,” Mellie said.

“Ah . . .” Cindi’s cheeks flushed a sudden, furious scarlet. Her eyes pinged from Tom to Mellie and back again. “Yeah. Anyway, when this group gets a little closer, I can tell better.”

“Tom, we knew there would be prisoners,” Mellie said. Her tone sounded more like a warning. “You’re okay with this, right?”

“Which part? The killing innocent people part, or the burying Chuckies alive part?” He knew it was the wrong thing to say, but he didn’t want this to be easy either. “This isn’t a video game, Mellie. Real people are going to die.”

“Well, isn’t it good we got ourselves a group conscience?” Weller growled. “Tell me something, Tom: you get all soft and gooey on patrol?”

“I got my job done,” Tom said.

“Glad to hear it.” Weller unscrewed the thermos and splashed coffee into his cup. “I guess that explains why you’re here instead of there.”

He saw Luke and Cindi exchange startled glances, and a surge of anger brought the blood to his face. “Listen,” Tom began.

“Tom?” Mellie pushed to her feet. “Let’s walk. Weller, why don’t you come with us?”