Before Pat could say another word, the miner had slipped through the hole and the chamber was thrown back into absolute darkness. Ambrose and Pat stood silent in a sea of suffocating blackness, the initial traces of terror and panic seeping into their minds. Less than five minutes had pa.s.sed before Marquez returned. They could not see his face because of the beam from his hard hat light in their eyes, but they sensed that he was a man who had seen and touched doom.

"I'm afraid the news is all bad," he said slowly. "The cave-in is only a short distance down the tunnel toward the shaft. I estimate that the fall extends a good thirty yards or more. It'll take days, maybe weeks for rescuers to clear the rubble, timbering as they go."

Ambrose stared closely at the miner, searching for any expression of hope. Seeing none, he said, "But they will get us out before we starve?"

"Starving isn't our problem," Marquez said, unable to hide the tone of despair that had crept into his voice. "Water is rising in the tunnel. It's already flooded up to three feet."

It was then Pat saw that Marquez's pants up to his knees were soaking wet. "Then we're trapped in this h.e.l.lhole with no way out?"

"I didn't say that!" the miner snapped back. "There's a good chance the water will run off into a crosscut tunnel before reaching the chamber."

"But you can't be sure," said Ambrose.

"We'll know in the next few hours," Marquez hedged.

Pat's face was pale and her breath was coming slowly through lips tainted with the dust. She became gripped with cold fear as she heard the first sounds of the water swirling outside the chamber. At first the volume had not been great, but it was increasing rapidly. Her eyes met Ambrose's gaze. He could not hide the dread that was written in his face.

"I wonder," she whispered softly, "what it's like to drown."

THE minutes pa.s.sed like years and the next two hours crawled like centuries as the water rose steadily higher until it surged through the hole in the chamber floor and pooled around their feet. Paralyzed with terror, Pat pressed her back and shoulders against the wall, trying vainly to gain an extra few seconds from the relentless onslaught of the water. She silently prayed that it would miraculously stop before it climbed over their shoulders.

The horror of dying a thousand feet under the earth, smothered in black gloom, was a nightmare too ghastly to accept. She recalled reading about the bodies of cave divers who had become lost in a maze of underwater caverns and been found with their fingers rubbed raw to the bone where they had tried to claw their way through solid rock.

The men stood quiet, their mood somber from the buried solitude. Marquez was unable to believe that some unknown party had tried to murder them. There was no rhyme or reason to such an act, no motive. His conscious thoughts languished on the grief that would soon overcome his family.

Pat thought of her daughter and felt a deep sense of desolation, knowing that she would not be there to see her only child grow to womanhood. It did not seem fair that she would die deep in the bowels of the earth within a bleak and barren chamber, her body never to be found. She wanted to cry, but tears refused to fall.

All conversation died when water reached their knees. It continued rising until it reached their hips. It was ice cold and stabbed their flesh like thousands of tiny nails. Pat began to shiver, and her teeth chattered uncontrollably. Ambrose, recognizing the warning signs of hypothermia, waded over and put his arms around her. It was a kind and thoughtful act, and she felt grateful. She stared in rapt terror at the hideous black water that swirled beneath the yellow glow of Marquez's lamp, reflecting on the cold forbidding surface.

Then suddenly Pat thought she saw something, sensed it actually. "Turn off your light," she murmured to Marquez.

"What?"

"Turn off your light. I think something is down there."

The men were certain that fear had caused her to hallucinate, but Marquez nodded, reached up, and switched off the hard hat's little light. The chamber was immediately thrown into h.e.l.lish blackness.

"What is it you think you see?" Ambrose asked softly.

"A glow," she murmured.

"I don't see anything," said Marquez.

"You must see it," she said excitedly. "A faint glow in the water."

Ambrose and Marquez peered into the rising water and saw nothing but stygian blackness.

"I saw it. I swear to G.o.d, I saw a light shining in the cleft below."

Ambrose held her tighter. "We're alone," he said tenderly. "There is no one else."

"There!" she gasped. "Don't you see?"

Marquez dipped his face under the surface and opened his eyes. And then he saw it, too, a very dim glow coming from the direction of the tunnel. As he held his breath in growing antic.i.p.ation, it began to brighten as if it was coming closer. He raised his head free of the water and shouted, his voice tinged with horror. "Something is down there. The ghost. It can only be the ghost that is said to wander the mine shafts. No human could be moving through a flooded tunnel."

What strength they had left drained from their bodies. They stared transfixed as the light seemed to rise through the opening into the chamber. Marquez switched his lamp back on as they stood frozen, their eyes staring at the apparition that slowly rose above the surface of the water, wearing a black hood.

Then a hand lifted from the murk, removed a mouthpiece to an air regulator, and raised a diver's face mask over the forehead. A pair of vivid green opaline eyes were revealed under the miner's lamp as the lips spread into a wide smile that displayed an even set of white teeth.

"It would appear," a friendly voice said, "that I have arrived in the proverbial nick of time."

4

PAT COULD NOT HELP but wonder if her mind, numbed by fright and the torment to her body from the frigid water, was playing weird tricks. Ambrose and Marquez stared blankly, unable to speak. Shock was slowly replaced with an overpowering wave of relief at suddenly having company and knowing the stranger was in contact with the world above. Cold fear abruptly evaporated, to be replaced with inspired hope.

"Where in G.o.d's name did you come from?" Marquez blurted excitedly.

"The Buccaneer Mine next door," answered the stranger, shining his dive light around the walls of the chamber before focusing its beam on the obsidian skull. "What is this place, a mausoleum?"

"No," answered Pat, "an enigma."

"I recognize you," said Ambrose. "We talked earlier today. You're with the National Underwater and Marine Agency."

"Dr. Ambrose, isn't it? I wish I could say it was a pleasure meeting you again." The stranger looked at the miner. "You must be Luis Marquez, the owner of the mine. I promised your wife I'd get you home in time for dinner." He stared at Pat and grinned slyly. "And the gorgeous lady has to be Dr. O'Connell."

"You know my name?"

"Mrs. Marquez described you," he said simply.

"How in the world did you get here?" Pat asked, still dazed.

"After learning from your sheriff that your mine entrance was covered by an avalanche, my team of NUMA engineers decided to try and reach you through one of the tunnels leading from the Buccaneer Mine to the Paradise. We'd only covered a few hundred yards when an explosion shook the mountain. When we saw water rising in the shafts and flooding both mines, we knew the only way left to reach you was by a diver swimming through the tunnels."

"You swam here from the Buccaneer Mine?" asked Marquez incredulously. "That has to be nearly half a mile."

"Actually, I was able to walk much of the distance before I entered the water," explained the stranger. "Unfortunately, the surge was more than I expected. I was towing a waterproof pack containing food and medical supplies behind me on a line, but it was torn away and lost after a torrent of water swept me against an old drill rig."

"Were you injured?" asked Pat solicitously.

"Black and blue in places I care not to mention."

"It's a miracle you found your way through that maze of tunnels to our exact location," said Marquez.