The Balkan Escape (Short Story) (2 page)

“Will you tell me why you here?” Sokolov asked again.

“Please tell us,” a new voice said. “I want to know answer to that question.”

Petar Varga entered the chamber.

Today he was dressed in more stylish clothes, his dirty work overalls gone. He approached the spot where she and Sokolov stood, each step crunching loose gravel beneath his soles, his swagger that of a man in charge.

“You can stick it up your ass,” she said.

Varga’s arm swept up and the back of his hand smacked the side of her face. The blow jarred her, but she regained her balance and was about to pounce when Varga produced a pistol.

“You’re tough with a gun,” she said. “How are you in a fight?”

He laughed. “Not so good. I like advantage of you not knowing what I do.”

She rubbed her cheek and her stinging jaw. He’d regret doing that. Just one opportunity, that’s all she’d need.

“I hope last night show you we are not to be ignored,” Varga said. “Why you here?”

She decided to play him, since it really didn’t matter what she said. “I came to find you.”

Varga’s face twisted. “For who?”

She turned away and stepped close to the altar where some fist-sized rocks lay scattered. The chamber was large for a Thracian tomb. Some research done a few days ago had revealed that, usually, the rectangular-type vaults consisted of three separate rooms, each rich in ornamentation with columns, friezes, and caryatids. This one, though, displayed only frescoes.

Which was odd.

She wondered if the other two exits led to more chambers or tunnels. Impossible to know for sure. Power cables snaked a path into the darkness of each. Unfortunately, she could not make it to the exit that she knew led to fresh air, because two armed men guarded it, one on each side.

She lifted one of the stones and tested its weight.

Plenty heavy.

“What do you do?” Varga said. “Throw rock at me?”

She stole one last look around and grabbed her bearings. “That would be stupid. But—”

She whirled the rock at the light bar.

It slammed into the center of the panel, the bulbs erupting in a frenzy of blue-white sparks. The chamber
plunged into blackness and she ducked behind the altar. Using the faint light from bulbs beyond the three exits as beacons, she shifted her position, rushing the fifteen paces across the blackness toward the opening. She had no idea where it led, but anything was better than here.

The men were screaming Russian at one another.

She kept on course and hoped she did not slam into any of her captors or rock.

She found the tunnel and plunged forward.

Two shots rang out from behind.

Far more darkness loomed here than light, the bulbs fewer and farther apart. She slowed her pace. Her boots caught on loose gravel, and she kept one arm extended, groping the air ahead.

She came to a place where the tunnel drew to the right. A light appeared behind her as she angled around. Flashlights were headed her way. She kept moving, one arm out front, the other tracing the tunnel wall.

One moment she was walking on firm earth, the next she was falling.

Her stomach folded up into her throat.

For a few seconds she was weightless.

Then she slammed into hard ground and consciousness slipped away.

She opened her eyes, but a cascade of water forced her lids shut. The cold liquid rushed over her with the force of a waterfall. She pushed herself up from a rocky floor, swiping wet eyes with her sleeve. Darkness surrounded her save for a hole in the ceiling ten meters above. Her vision was blurry but slowly revealed Varga and Sokolov, each holding a flashlight, staring down at her through the opening.

“I thought water might help,” Varga called down.

Her legs were sore, and the small of her back ached, but nothing seemed broken. Her hair and clothes were soaked and a chill began to work its way toward her skin.

“Good you find hole,” Varga said. “Save me trouble of dumping you here. Let it not be said that I not a fair man.” He tossed down his flashlight, which she caught. “At least you won’t be in dark. As long as batteries work.”

Then Varga disappeared, apparently walking off.

Only Sokolov’s face remained.

“Go left,” he whispered.

Then he, too, vanished.

The light from above receded and darkness overtook her.

She switched on the flashlight and walked to the right, specifically ignoring Sokolov’s instruction.

The walls were bone-dry, and the path ahead angled. Turning the corner, she spotted something on the floor, a red glow rhythmically pulsating, like a tiny searchlight. As she stepped close, her light revealed a digital timer attached to a thick bundle of pink material.

Numbers were clicking down.

Recognition was instant.

A bomb.

The timer at 15 seconds.

14. 13. 12.

She raced in the opposite direction, leaping forward just as the plastique exploded.

The impact shook the mountain and sent rock crumbling in an avalanche that quickly consumed the tunnel behind her. As the ceiling collapsed she scrambled
to her feet and bolted away, the opening Varga and Sokolov had filled a few moments ago gone.

She dashed to another corner.

The tunnel walls behind her were imploding, rock pounding rock, dust rising in a dense storm, the air rapidly being replaced by a suffocating pall. She stared ahead and saw the tunnel end ten meters away. Even worse, another red glow pulsated at the base of a stone barricade. She ran forward and the light revealed another digital timer attached to another bundle of explosive, this clock at thirty seconds.

Go left?

Sokolov’s idea of help?

The first explosion had annihilated the tunnel behind her, blocking any escape in that direction, and a bomb lay at her feet, less than twenty seconds from exploding.

She trotted back to the corner and shone the light. The first tunnel was cannibalizing itself. A loud crack split the air as a chunk the size of a Mercedes slammed down and disintegrated into boulders.

She shielded her eyes, then peered through a veil of dust.

Her mind was keeping count. Probably less than ten seconds. She whipped the beam to the left, then right, and spotted a smile forming in the remaining wall that was quickly expanding into a yawn.

She made a decision and leaped.

Another blast pulsated the mountain.

Behind her, the entire tunnel vanished but the crush of rock onto rock became muffled by a barrier of rubble, sealing off the hole that had existed only moments before.

Rumbles continued for another minute, then faded.

She lay on her stomach and held her breath.

Absolute darkness devoured her.

She exhaled and tried the flashlight.

The bulb still worked.

She examined her prison. The chamber was not tall enough to allow her to stand, maybe a meter and a half, the ceiling and floor slanted upward. To her dismay she was trapped inside a long, narrow box sealed at both ends. Her wet clothes were caked in dust, as were her face and hair.

She cleansed her lips with a spew of breath.

The air was breathable, but motes of dust hung thick like a blizzard.

She worked the flashlight around the confines and forced any negativity from her mind. The suspended dust bounced the photons back at her like tiny stars. She swiped a clear spot of air where she could breathe.

And noticed something.

She stretched out her hand and gently probed the beam.

No, it wasn’t her imagination.

The particles were moving—slowly, nearly imperceptibly, but definitely shifting to the right.

She belly-crawled forward.

The floor sloped toward the ceiling. At the end of the chamber the floor gave way and, a few centimeters down into the blackness, she spotted a slit, a good meter long and a third that high. Rock filled the space, but not tightly. She hinged her torso down and peered through the opening. Dark beyond, but it looked like a crawl space, large enough for her to fit into.

More movement in the air encouraged her.

She tried to dislodge the rubble. The stones were stacked loosely, but held firm. She swung around so her legs stretched forward and slammed the soles of her boots into the stones.

Three whacks and the rock gave away.

She cleared a path and saw that the space was negotiable. What encouraged her even more was that the air had freshened. She was proud of herself for staying calm. Tight places, though, had never been her weakness. Heights, especially from airplanes and helicopters, bothered her. She had a rule. If she couldn’t run around in it, she didn’t fly in it. Unfortunately, time after time that rule seemed to be violated. Trouble had a way of following her. One thing after another. Today seemed a perfect example.

She crawled forward on her elbows and wiggled down into an even smaller space. Her beam revealed another rectangular path, less than a meter square, which stopped a few meters ahead. In the floor, at the far end, she spotted yet another opening.

She worked her way forward on her elbows and peered down to see a drop, at an angle, like the laundry chute she recalled from her childhood home. The path then appeared to rise again, and she noticed dust drifting that way.

Could she make it over the hump?

Becoming stuck did not sound pleasant.

She folded herself forward to where the rock angled back up. The space seemed wide enough so she wiggled over and pointed the flashlight downward, spotting a rock floor about two meters away littered with lichens.

Freedom?

She curled over the hump and slid head first, hands extended forward, from her confines.

Her body came free.

She stood in what appeared to be a tunnel—roomy, long, extending in both directions—and brushed dust from her clothes.

She sucked a few deep breaths.

A light appeared to her right and grew in intensity. In the ambient glow she saw Lev Sokolov.

She readied a fist.

But released it when a gun appeared in the Russian’s hand.

“I am not the enemy,” Sokolov said.

“Go left? That’s what you told me to do.”

He nodded. “Bomb to right.”

“Bomb to left, too.”

His face registered surprise. “I thought only one. Sorry.”

She wanted to hit him, but there was the matter of the gun, so she opted for, “What are you doing here?”

“I come for you. I hope you make it this far. We are twenty meters below the chamber where we speak before. This mountain is a big maze.”

“Where are your pals?”

He motioned behind her. “Varga and the other two. I lose them. But you will never get past them. They are back there, behind me. Not a good way out in that direction.”

He handed her his weapon.

“I am not one of them. I am scientist. I hate Soviets. I hate Russians.”

She grasped the gun, checked the magazine, and—satisfied that it was loaded—wrapped her finger around the trigger.

“You
are
a Russian,” she said, motioning with the gun.

“I hate the country and everything it is. I want to leave.”

“Find an embassy.” She brushed past him.

Sokolov grabbed her arm. “I do not go back to Russia.”

In the flashlight’s glow she saw the desperation in his eyes. He was serious.

“Then leave. The Cold War is over.”

“Not for me. Russians will make me stay.”

There was nothing she could do. “Not my problem.”

“I save you,” he said, as if she owed him.

She stared him straight in the eye. “How have you saved me?”

“I can show.”

Which would buy her time to think and make a smart decision.

Besides, she held the gun.

“Okay. Show me.”

She stared at the spectacular scene.

They’d left the tunnel and were standing at the base of an inverted cone of towering rock. The funnel swept upward fifty-plus meters to a ragged opening that revealed a wind-ravaged sky.

A misty rain showered down.

The sides of the escarpment were stained black with moss and lichens. An irregular pool had formed in the floor beneath the opening high above, the water a blood red. A thousand raindrops disrupted its surface.

She stepped over and tested the water.

Warm. Red probably from iron.

She stared up to the sky. “What I wouldn’t give for a rope, some crampons, and an ice pick.”

She stepped back, allowing the rock to block the rain, and checked her watch. 8:20
A.M
. Amazing the thing still worked. She watched more clouds roll past above, driven by air that could only be heard.

“Chasm is here millions of years,” Sokolov said. “Formed when mountain formed.”

“What’s your story?”

“I am geologist. Oil research is my specialty, but Russians care not less. They need a rock expert. You are right. They want uranium. I come to confirm the find.”

The situation was infinitely better than just a few minutes ago, but she was still imprisoned. She should be home in France, working on her castle. Block by block she was re-creating the walls using the same tools and materials as 700 years ago. Medieval architecture was her passion. And, as Sokolov had correctly noted earlier, she could afford the indulgence. Yet here she was in southern Bulgaria, trapped inside a mountain with a man who she could not decide was friend or foe.