Let fate decide, she thought, and pulled out the random number calculator hanging from her neck. An even number would cause his death; an odd number would postpone the decision. She pushed the button. 3224 flashed on the screen. The random number indicated death, but it caused a counter-reaction that was immediate and certain. This isn’t what I want, she thought. This isn’t who I am. She concealed the device before Boone emerged from the car. “I found some sterile bandages and gauze.”
“Do you think one of your men wounded him?”
“I doubt it. Doyle probably bought a knife and cut out the tracer beads inserted beneath his skin.”
Maya reached into her waistband and pulled out Boone’s automatic. He stood calmly-as if he expected to be executed-but she reversed the weapon and handed it to him. “Don’t make any noise as we walk up the hill. We’ll become an easy target the moment we step into the light.”
Priest had supplied her with a sawed-off shotgun that had a leather carrying strap. It reminded her of the
The first building was a clapboard house with a sheet metal roof. Light glowed through the old newspapers taped to the windows. “What’s inside?” Maya asked.
“This where the two guards sleep and cook their meals.” A wooden plank creaked when they stepped onto the porch. Maya tried to peer through the windows, but the newspapers completely covered the glass. She raised the shotgun and whispered to Boone. “Open the door and step away.”
He turned the knob slowly, then pushed the door open. Maya charged inside. The house was one long room filled with a refrigerator, a propane stove and a kitchen table. A dead man lay on the floor next to an overturned chair. A blotch of dark blood was the middle of his white T-shirt and there was a second wound below his belt buckle.
“You know him?”
“He’s a former Austrian policeman named Voss.”
“Where are the children?”
“We put some cots in the building where they refined the ore.”
They returned to the darkness and continued up the hill past the stamping machinery used to crush the rocks. After the ore was reduced to gravel, it was sent through filtering screens and metal troughs, then loaded into handcarts and pushed over to the refinery shed.
Lights burned inside the shed, and Maya could hear cheerful music coming from a television. She pressed the shotgun stock against her shoulder, then yanked open the door. Folding cots were in the middle of the room. A television placed on a table played a video of dancing animals. Another dead man lay a few feet away from the television with his mouth and eyes open.
“Only two people worked here?”
Boone nodded. “Maybe Doyle took the kids out to the desert.”
“I don’t think so. It’s dark. He couldn’t find them if they ran away. Let’s go to the mine.”
They left the shed and followed the narrow railway track that once guided the handcarts. Near the top of the mountain, a framework of steel struts had been built over the mine shaft. An electric motor powered a winch that raised and lowered a steel cage. When the mine was active, the handcarts were filled underground, rolled into the cage, and raised to the surface.
“This works like a freight elevator?”
“That’s right,” Boone said. “If he’s got the children down in the mine shaft, they can’t run away and we can’t save them.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Doyle will hear the winch moving when we raise the cage up to the surface. He’ll kill everyone before we reach them.”
Maya left the area near the mine shaft and began to search the site. “Did you ever read Sparrow’s book,
Boone nodded.
“There’s a chapter about evaluating your opponent. The weakest opponent is the one who expects a victory.”
“And you think Martin Doyle is in that category?”
Maya picked up an old towel covered with grease. “He’s waiting to hear the elevator, but that’s not going to happen.”
She ripped the towel in half, slipped the shotgun strap around her neck, and climbed onto the elevator struts. Wrapping the towel around the cable, she swung out into the middle of the shaft.
“I’m going to follow you,” Boone said.
“That’s not necessary.”
“This is my responsibility.”
Slide down a few yards. Stop. Slide down a little farther. Stop. A year ago, she had met her father in Prague and stabbed a man in an alleyway. Since then, her life had been shaped by what was hidden from view. Maya felt as if she were descending into a secret world. Somewhere beneath the surface, the innocent were about to be destroyed.
