Life Goes On by Tayell, Frank (large ebook reader txt) 📗

“I bet that tunnel, ultimately, links with the coal mine,” Tess said. “Looks to be a bit wider, and just as full of stashed supplies. A coal mine is a dry, stable temperature environment, making it a better place to store things than above ground in a desert.”

“But the petrol generator was bought by someone who didn’t get to order what fuel was brought in,” Zach said. “So was this all bought by the tunnel-guard?”

“Canoes,” Tess said. “He bought canoes. You know what that tells me? No one ever audited what he bought. After the tunnels were dug, and the crates of rifles were brought down, there was a lot of unfilled space. He asked his bosses, the sisters, if he could fill it with things he thought would be useful, and he went overboard. But no one checked. No one stopped him. No one more important than him looked. Or cared.”

“It’s not just rifles,” Clyde said, having stopped next to a stack of military transport-cases next to a pillar-prop.

“What’s that?” Zach asked. “Strewth, that’s a bazooka.”

“It’s a Swedish-made AT4,” Clyde said. “A single-use, anti-tank missile. Do not press the trigger,” he added as Zach picked it up.

“Six crates?” Tess asked, shining her light on the ground. “They were moved here recently. So the main supply, the important supplies, must all be further down that other tunnel. AKMs with no factory markings, and Swedish anti-tank missiles.”

“Whose tanks were they going to blow up?” Zach asked, raising the AT4 to his shoulder.

“That thing has a range of five kilometres,” Clyde said. “You could take out a building, or a ship, if you knew how to aim. You could definitely take out this mine, so keep your finger away from the trigger.”

“Why Swedish?” Tess asked. She shone her light around the boxes until the beam fell on the railway tracks. With the beam, she followed the rails into the tunnel, just far enough to catch the edge of a moving shadow.

“Hello!” she called. “Hola!”

A woman stepped out from behind the stacked boxes just inside the second tunnel. The boxes were wooden, similar in style and size to the AKM crates near the tunnel exit, and stacked to head-height, providing a perfect spot for eavesdropping on the conversation.

“My name’s Tess Qwong, from Australia,” she said. “Who are you?”

“La cura,” the woman said, bringing her hand up fast. Something flew from it, too fast for Tess to see, thumping and rolling across the loose-packed dirt.

“Grenade!” Clyde yelled, and dove on top of the thrown explosive.

Tess reached for her slung rifle even as she dropped to a kneeling crouch, but she’d only raised the weapon to forty degrees before the detonation.

The mine quaked. Dirt rained from between the wooden roof panels. Dust fountained from the tunnel while rock pattered from the ceiling.

“Zach?” Tess asked. “You okay?”

“Sorry, boss,” Zach said.

She turned towards him, and saw his face covered in blood and dust.

“Zach! Are you hit?”

“It’s not my blood,” he said.

She turned towards Clyde, except he was standing up, gun levelled towards the second tunnel.

“Dud,” Clyde whispered, his voice hoarse. “Grenade was a dud.”

“So what just happened?” Tess asked, shining her light on the rock-fall covering the second tunnel.

“Sorry, boss,” Zach said again. “That was me.”

“The—” Clyde began, coughed, and cleared his throat. “The AT4, right?”

“Yeah, I just… yeah, sorry,” Zach said.

The ringing in Tess’s ears dropped in volume, freeing more of her neurons to process the last ten seconds. Zach had fired the missile into the tunnel, well beyond the woman who’d thrown the grenade. The explosion had knocked them all from their feet, but where the antechamber had pillars supporting the roof, the tunnel’s mouth had none. The roof had fallen, blocking the tunnel, and crushing the woman.

“Back to the exit,” Tess said. “Zach, help Clyde. Clyde, help Zach.”

But she staggered her way over to the crushed corpse. The woman was dead. Only about thirty, so not one of the sisters. Dressed in beige cargo-shorts and shirt, with a long knife at her belt, and a bag around her neck from which another grenade had fallen. A river of dust fell from the ceiling, directly into the dead woman’s open eyes. Tess shone her light on the woman’s arm, and on the old tattoo: a three-leafed branch.

“Boss, you coming?” Clyde asked. “Because that roof’s about to come down.”

“She’s cartel,” Tess said, following them to the exit-tunnel. “Clyde, that C4 upstairs. Is there any chance the detonators were duds?”

“Like the grenade?” he asked. “Could be. I’ll check upstairs.”

“She was in the cartel?” Zach asked.

“That’s right. Someone senior. Had the tattoo, and had it for about a decade.”

Tess wasn’t sure of the last, but the certainty brought comfort, and not just to Zach.

“So I did okay?” Zach asked, just as a loud crash shook the tunnel, causing more dust to cascade onto the railway tracks.

“Next time, try a bullet rather than a bomb,” Clyde said. A growling creak came from behind them, as much a sensation beneath their feet as a sound in the air. “This time, I say we run.”

“The detonator looks real,” Clyde said, when they’d finally climbed back up and into the house. “There’s an obvious way to test it.”

“Not around here,” Tess said. “We shouldn’t stay, not when the ground is liable to collapse. Call the ship, Zach. Warn them about the tunnels.”

“Yeah, there’s no need to radio them,” Zach said, standing in the open door. “They’re outside.”

Four figures, all in hazmat-orange suits with transparent helmets, walked slowly across the courtyard execution ground. Two carried rifles: Oakes and Hawker. Avalon was recording video. Leo was almost swimming in sweat behind his transparent visor, hauling two bright-blue rigid holdalls, one over each shoulder.

“What did