Vermilion Drift Read Online Free PDF Page A

When the cage stopped, Haddad threw back the gate and led Cork and Dross out. They were in a large excavation where two tunnels, each ten feet high and ten feet wide, led off to the left and to the right. The area around the cage station was lit with electric lights strung along the ceiling, but the tunnels were black. Up top the temperature was in the low seventies, but in the mine the air was twenty degrees cooler and Cork wished he’d brought a sweater. Dross was hugging herself for warmth.
    “Over here,” Haddad said. He moved to a wall not far from the cage. Spray-painted in red across the old mining scars were the words “We die. U die.” The message had been carefully done so that it looked very much like the printed messages Haddad and the others had received. The words seemed to drip blood.
    “When did you discover this?” Cork asked.
    “I didn’t,” Haddad replied. “It was Genie Kufus, yesterday. She came down to inspect this level, and there it was.”
    “She was alone?”
    “Yes.”
    “When was the last time anyone was down here before that?”
    “On this level specifically, a week ago. I sent a couple of men down to make sure the pumps were working. They checked every level except the last five.”
    “Pumps?”
    “Water. It leaks into the mine and has to be removed. The lowest levels are still flooded. It’ll be a while before we get those cleared for inspection.”
    “They didn’t report anything?” Dross asked.
    “No.”
    “Could they have simply missed it?”
    “Would you miss that?” Haddad replied.
    Cork said, “So this was done sometime between last Sunday and yesterday. How would they have gotten access to this level?”
    “Coming down the Number Six shaft is the only way.”
    “There are seven other shafts, though, right?”
    “All of them have been capped and sealed. I checked them myself yesterday after Genie reported what she’d found. None of them have been monkeyed with. Besides, none of the other shafts connect with the drifts that run off Number Six.”
    “Was anyone else in the mine at all during that time, on any level?”
    “Yes. Mike Chernokov and Freddie Brink. They’ve been working on the ventilation and the water pumps. And we had a small tour group in from the state legislature on Friday. They wanted to see for themselves what the DOE found so attractive about this site. I led it myself.”
    “Did you visit Level Three?”
    “No, I confined the tour to Level One, the Vermilion Drift.”
    “Vermilion Drift?”
    “In a mine, a vertical excavation is called a sink. An excavation that runs horizontally off a sink is called a drift.”
    “So mine shafts are sinks and tunnels are drifts?” Cork said.
    “That’s right. The Vermilion Drift was the first underground mining done in this location, and I thought it was appropriate for the group.”
    “Your two guys and the legislature group, that’s it?”
    “And Genie.”
    “Did you talk to your guys?” Dross asked.
    “Believe me, I talked.”
    “What did they say?”
    “That they went down, completed their work, came back up. They didn’t do anything, they didn’t see anything.”
    “Do you trust them?” Cork asked.
    “Listen, good-paying jobs on the Range aren’t that plentiful. Those guys are family men. They’d have to be stupid, which they’re not, or ideologically fanatic, which they also are not, to jeopardize their employment that way.”
    “Okay,” Cork said. “I saw a ladder running down the framework on the side of the shaft. Is it possible somebody from your tour group slipped away and climbed down here?”
    “There were only five in the group. All of them were in my sight the entire time.”
    “What about Kufus?” Dross threw out.
    Haddad looked surprised, then looked as if he was about to laugh. “Why would she do it?”
    “I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking. You said she was alone when she found this. When she reported it, how did she seem?”
    “Disturbed. If