Fifty feet above the people watching him in rapt suspense, he stopped and beamed his light up the shaft. The ladder abruptly ended only six feet ahead of him, but twelve feet below the floor of the tunnel above. Climbing two more rungs, Pitt extended an arm and grasped one of the cables. The woven strands were five-eighths of an inch thick, ideal for a good grip. He released his hold on the ladder and hauled himself hand over hand up the cable until he was four feet above the level of the tunnel floor. Then he swayed back and forth in an arc, gaining a couple of feet with each sweep before finally jumping onto solid rock.

"How is it?" shouted Marquez.

"The ladder is broken off just below the tunnel, but I can pull you the rest of the way. Send up Dr. O'Connell."

As Pat climbed toward Pitt's light, propped with its beam pointing down the shaft, she could hear him pounding something with a rock. By the time she reached the last rung, he had chiseled a pair of handgrips into some old timber and lowered it over the edge.

"Grab hold of the center board with both hands and hold on."

She did as she was ordered without protest and was quickly dragged onto firm ground. Minutes later, Marquez and Ambrose were standing in the tunnel beside her. Pitt aimed his light up the tunnel as far as the beam could penetrate and saw that it was clear of rockfalls. Then he switched it off to conserve the batteries.

"After you, Marquez."

"I probed this tunnel three years ago. If I remember correctly, it leads straight to the Paradise entrance shaft."

"Can't get out that way because of the avalanche," said Ambrose.

"We can bypa.s.s it," Pitt said, studying the monitor of the computer. "If we take the next crosscut and go a hundred and fifty yards, it meets a tunnel from a mine called the North Star."

"What exactly is a crosscut?" asked Pat.

"Access through perpendicular veins driven at right angles to a working tunnel. They're used for ventilation and communication between digging operations," answered Marquez. He looked at Pitt doubtfully. "I've never seen such a pa.s.sage, which doesn't mean it doesn't exist, but it's probably filled in."

"Then keep a sharp eye along the tunnel wall on your left," advised Pitt.

Marquez nodded silently and set off into the darkness, his miner's lamp lighting the way. The tunnel stretched on and seemed endless. At one point, Marquez stopped and asked Pitt to shine his stronger beam at a rock fill between the timbers.

"This looks like what we're looking for," he said, pointing to a hard granite arch above the loose rock.

The men immediately went to work clearing the debris. After several minutes, they had dug through. Pitt leaned in and aimed his beam into a pa.s.sage barely large enough to walk through. Then he checked his compa.s.s. "It heads in the right direction. Let's clear a crawl s.p.a.ce and keep going."

This tunnel was narrower than the others, and they were forced to step over the ties supporting the ore cart tracks, making the going slow and torturous. An hour of endless walking over the tracks in the gloom, with only the miner's lamp for illumination, sapped what little stamina they had left. Everyone caught their feet on the uneven ties and stumbled one step for every five that were unimpeded.

Another cave-in that could not be penetrated caused a seemingly endless detour that cost almost two hours. Finally, they were able to bypa.s.s through a shaft that sloped up three more levels before ending at a large gallery that contained the corroded remains of a steam hoist. They struggled up to the top and trudged past the great steam cylinders and reels still holding a mile of cable.

The strain of the past few hours was beginning to show on Marquez. He was in good shape for his age, but he was not conditioned for the exertion and emotional stress he had endured the last several hours. Ambrose, though, looked as though he were on a walk in a park. He appeared remarkably calm and unruffled for a cla.s.sroom professor. The only amus.e.m.e.nt came from Pitt's mumbled curses. At his six feet three, the hard hat, loaned to him by Pat because she was several inches shorter, struck overhead timbers with frustrating regularity.

Trailing behind, Pitt could not see their faces in the dim and cavorting shadows, but he knew that each one of them possessed a stubbornness that would keep them going until they dropped, too proud to be the first to suggest a rest break. He noted that their breathing had become more labored. Though he still felt fresh, he began panting loudly so the others could hear his seemingly desperate plea.

"I'm done in. How about stopping to rest a minute?"

"Sounds good to me," said Marquez, relieved that someone else had suggested it.

Ambrose leaned against one wall. "I say we keep going until we get out of here."

"You won't get my vote," said Pat. "My legs are screaming with agony. We must have stepped over a thousand railroad ties."

It was only after they all sagged to the floor of the tunnel, while Pitt casually remained standing, that they knew they had been tricked. None of them complained, everyone happy to relax and ma.s.sage sore ankles and knees.

"Any idea how much farther?" asked Pat.

Pitt consulted his computer for the hundredth time. "I can't be absolutely positive, but if we can climb two more levels and are not blocked by another cave-in, we should be out of here in another hour."

"Where do you reckon we'll come out?" asked Marquez.

"My guess is somewhere right under the main town of Telluride."

"That would be the old O'Reilly Claim. It was a shaft sunk not far from where the gondola runs up the mountain to the ski slopes at Mountain Village. You do have a problem, though."

"Another one?"

"The New Sheridan Hotel and its restaurant now sit directly on top of the old mine entrance."

Pitt grinned. "If you're right, dinner is on me."

They went silent for the next two minutes, lost in their thoughts. The only sounds came from their breathing and the steady drip of moisture from the roof of the tunnel. Despondency gave way to hope. Knowing the end was perhaps in sight, they felt symptoms of fatigue begin to wash away.

Pitt had always suspected that women had more acute hearing than men, from the times his various lady friends had visited his apartment and complained that the volume on his TV was too loud. His suspicions were confirmed when Pat said, "I think I hear a motorcycle."

"A Harley-Davidson or a Honda?" asked Marquez, laughing for the first time since leaving his house.

"No, I'm serious," Pat said firmly. "I swear it sounds like a motorcycle."

Then Pitt heard something, too. He turned and faced the tunnel from the direction they had come and cupped his hands to his ears. He made out the undeniable sound of exhaust from a high-performance off-road motorcycle. He stared soberly at Marquez. "Do the locals ride around old mine tunnels on motocross dirt bikes for a thrill?"

Marquez shook his head. "Never. They'd become lost in a maze of tunnels, if they didn't plunge down a thousand-foot shaft first. Then there's the danger of their exhaust noise causing rotted beams to collapse and a cave-in to crush them. No, sir, n.o.body I know is fool enough to joyride underground."

"Where did they come from?" Pat asked no one in particular.

"From another mine that's still accessible. Lord only knows how they happened to be in the same tunnel as we are."

"A peculiar coincidence," Pitt said, staring up the tunnel. He felt a sense of uneasiness. Why? He couldn't be sure. He stood without moving a muscle, listening to the rattling sound of the exhaust as it grew louder. It was a foreign sound in the old mine labyrinth. It did not belong. He stood still as the first flash of light showed far down the tunnel.

Pitt couldn't tell yet if it was one or more motorcycles coming through the tunnel. It seemed a reasonable a.s.sumption that he should treat the biker or bikers as a threat. Better safe than sorry. As ancient and hackneyed as the words sounded, they still had meaning, and his cautious nature had saved him on more than one occasion.

He turned and slowly walked past Ambrose and Marquez. Absorbed in the approach of the sound and lights, they took no notice as he slipped along one wall of the tunnel in the direction of the approaching bikers. Only Pat focused on Pitt as he un.o.btrusively stole into the darkness of a portal leading into a narrow bore between the timbers. One moment he was there, the next he had vanished like a wraith.

There were three bikers. The front of their machines were packed with an array of halogen lights that blinded the exhausted survivors, who shielded their eyes with their hands and turned away as the engines slowed and idled in neutral. Two of the intruders dismounted their bikes and walked closer, their bodies silhouetted by the bright lights behind them. They looked like s.p.a.ce aliens in their black, sleek helmets and two-piece jerseys worn under chest protectors. Their boots came halfway to their knees and their hands were encased in black, ribbed gloves. The third biker remained on his machine as the other two approached and raised the shields on their helmets.

"You don't know how happy we are to see you," said Pat excitedly.

"We sure could have used your help earlier," said Ambrose wearily.

"My compliments on making it this far," said the figure on the right, in a voice deep and sinister. "We thought sure you'd drowned in the Amenes chamber."

"Amenes?" Pat repeated, puzzled.

"Where did you guys come from?" demanded Marquez.