White Fire

The door was set back into the tu

The engine sound got louder. Corrie began to panic. She stripped off her gloves, grabbed her lock-pick tools, and tried to insert a bump key, but it was immediately apparent the lock was frozen with rust and unpickable. Even as she fumbled around she could hear the approaching roar of the snowmobile.

She grabbed the bolt cutters from her pack, but they were not heavy enough for the jaws to fit over the thick bar of the lock. They did, however, fit partway across the hasp. She jammed the jaws of the cutter over the hasp and drew down hard, the jaws closing with much effort. Taking the hammer, she gave the partially cut hasp a tremendous blow, then another, bending it enough for her to cut it the rest of the way through. Even so, everything was so solid with rust she had to pound the pieces with the hammer to shake them loose.

She threw herself against the iron door but it hardly budged, letting out a great screech of protesting metal.

The approaching snowmobile engine gave a sudden roar; she saw a flurry of snow; and then it appeared at the mouth of the mine, driven by a man in a black helmet and puffy snowsuit. He rose from the machine, undoing his helmet and unshipping his rifle at the same time.

With an involuntary cry she threw herself against the door, almost dislocating her shoulder in the process, and with a loud scree it budged open just enough for her to squeeze through. Grabbing her backpack she rammed herself through the opening, then turned and threw herself back against the iron, thrusting the door shut again — just as there came a deafening boom from the rifle, with a round clanging off the door and ricocheting into the mine, sending up sparks as it splintered on the rocks behind her.

A second push shut the door completely. Bracing against it, Corrie fumbled out her headlamp, pulled it on over her balaclava, and turned it on. A pair of rounds smacked into the door with a deafening noise, but it was made of thick iron and they left only dents. And now she felt a person slam into the door on the other side, pushing it open a few inches. Once more, she threw herself against it hard, slamming it shut again, and then she yanked the wrecking bar out of her pack and wedged it under the door edge, giving it a blow with a hammer, then another blow, until it held, even as she felt the man on the other side shouldering the door, trying to force it open.

He pounded furiously on the door, the bar sliding back just a little. It would hold only so long. She cast about. Broken rocks lay everywhere, along with old pieces of iron and ancient equipment.

Wham! The man was now throwing himself against the door, jarring the wrecking bar loose.

She hammered it back into place and began piling rocks and iron against the door. Down the tracks she could see an old ore cart, and with great difficulty she got it moving, levering it off the tracks so that it tipped over against the door. She rolled some larger rocks in place. Now the door would hold — at least for a while. She sagged against the rock wall, panting hard, trying to recover her breath and figure out what to do next.

More shots were fired against the door, producing a series of deafening clangs in the enclosed space and causing her to jump. Grabbing her pack, she turned and retreated down the tu

She started down the tu

She had bought some time, but eventually the man would manage to wedge open the door. The old map she had indicated that a section of the Christmas Mine co

And nobody knew she was up here. She hadn’t told anyone. My God, she thought, what a mess I’ve gotten myself into.

At that moment she heard a shriek of metal, then another. She looked around the corner of the passage, back toward the distant door, and saw a wedge of light. Another screech and the wedge grew wider.

The man was prying open the door. She made out a shoulder, a cruel-looking face — and an arm with a handgun.

She ran as the shot was fired.

57

The shots came screaming past her, sparking off the stone floor of the main tu

She skidded around the corner and kept ru

“You can’t escape,” came a yell from behind. “It’s all dead ends in here!”

Bullshit, she told herself with a bravado she didn’t feel, I’ve got a map.

Another pair of shots came, but they struck to the rear and she felt the spray of rock pepper her jacket. She looked around. Another tu

She took it, ru

She staggered to her feet, her limbs aching, a burning cut on her forehead. She was in a broad, low seam, barely five feet high, with pillars of rock holding up the ceiling. It extended in two dimensions as far as the beam of her headlamp could penetrate. She ran at a crouch, zigzagging past the pillars, briefly shining the light ahead to see where she was going, and then turning it off again and ru

The flashlight beam of her pursuer lanced through the darkness behind her, wobbling as he ran, probing this way and that. She moved behind a pillar and pressed herself against it, waiting. He was now off course and heading past her. In a moment she could see him slow down and look around, a pistol in his right hand. Clearly, he realized he had lost her.