“Shush,” said Catherine sharply. “I hear the elevator.” She felt her blood pressure rising as she listened to the squeaking wheels of the rail car approaching. The blood was pounding in her temples as the squeaking passed within three feet of her. No pause, no change in speech. She was imagining the shapes of the thoughts in Dennis’ brain. “Do I tell Leon? Do I deal with it later? Shoot them now? Shoot them later? Kill them slowly? Shoot him, rape her and…?” She tried to stop the free-flowing anxiety, with little success.
But nothing happened. No doors were wrenched open. No execution squad appeared. Instead, she heard outer doors squeaking open at the American end of the mine. There were grunts and the noises of a reloading taking place. There was not much doubt in Catherine’s mind about what was going on. A load of BC Bud, or Afghan heroin, was making its way into the American homeland, within their hearing.
Catherine crawled through the ventilation tunnel and into the small underground money room, where Indy sat against one wall. She sat with him, listening to the sounds of what they agreed was an unloading at the south end of the tunnel. Then they heard the sound of the trolley heading north again, back toward the Canadian end of the mine. Once they heard the elevator, and felt sure that they were alone again, Catherine and Indy began discussing the situation in hushed tones. Soon they began to argue, in whispers.
“I’m going to check it out, Indy,” Catherine was saying.
“Like hell you are. Do you have any idea how dangerous these people are?” responded Indy.
“Well, yes I do, Indy. I’m in the business too, remember?”
“I know, Cath. But we’re dealing with a high-level importing scheme here. This is the border hole, and that means that millions of dollars worth of product goes through here every month. These guys will kill to protect it. The fact that you’re with the Force means nothing to them.”
“But all I’m going to do is go out there, maybe check out the plates, get descriptions, you know, the usual stuff. We may find out who these guys are. At the very least, we’ll know what they’re driving. The FBI will be able to nail them before they’re out of Montana. And I’ll stay hidden. I’m not going to strike up a conversation about the weather with these guys.”
“Fine,” responded Indy. “Go ahead. But please watch yourself. And please, when you come back, find some bolt cutters to get me out of this tomb.”
Catherine wondered suddenly if Indy’s real concern was over her safety, or due to his fear of being left alone in a bedroom-sized space, in the dark, deep within Devil’s Anvil. Trapped, really by his own fears and his memory of his near-death experience in the Fraser Valley, almost 20 years earlier. She sensed his struggle with the phobia, and heard the barely restrained panic in his voice.
“Don’t worry, Indy. If it’s the last thing I do, I will come back for you.” She tried to make her voice as soothing as possible. “I will.”
“Can’t do it if you’re dead, Cath,” he responded.
“I’m a big girl, Indy. I can look after myself.”
They sat silently, side by side, for a few minutes. Catherine held Indy’s hand and put her arm around him. The minutes stretched on and on. In what seemed like hours but was in fact less than 40 minutes, they heard the distant sounds of the elevator. Then the squeaking of the trolley’s wheels become louder, passed by them, and ultimately stopped at what was the Montana side of the mine. They heard the door open, and the sounds of what had to be a second off-loading. After a few minutes, the rail car came by again, heading toward the central elevator and the Canadian entrance. She heard Dennis’ voice.
“Two more loads, buddy, and we can call it a day.”
The other individual, whoever he was, did not respond. She heard the trolley squeak its way by, this time from south to north, presumably going for load three of four. She heard the elevator in the distance.
“Indy, I’m just going out there to reconnoiter,” she said. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
Over his objections, she wriggled back through the tiny, but now familiar, shaft, into the marijuana room, and darted out the door. She gingerly stepped into the main passageway, looking both north and south. Then she walked to the door of the money room.
“Indy, the coast is clear,” she said. “I can’t pick this lock. I have no equipment, and I’m not nearly as good at it as you are. You have to come through the ventilation shaft to get out. You need to do it now, while they’re busy.”
Indy was no coward. He had been undercover in extremely dangerous situations. He’d been shot at, beaten up, and nearly killed twice, the first time in the Fraser Valley incident, the second, in a high-speed chase. But crawling into a tiny ventilation tunnel deep underground in an abandoned coal mine? No, he would not, could not, do that.
“You go on Cath. You can get out of this mine. Just come back and get me, OK?”
“I’ll be back, Indy. Hang on. If you start dying of thirst, you can make it through the ventilation shaft. Hang on.”
Catherine ran toward the barn-like doors on the southern end of the tunnel. She swung one of them open and stepped into the sunlight of an American dawn. The majestic Flathead River Valley unfolded in the distance. The view was breathtaking. She closed her eyes and raised her face to the sunrise for a moment, ecstatic to be in the open air and out of the tomb-like environment of the mine.
When she opened her eyes again, she saw that backed up to the mine entrance was a five-ton box van with a power tailgate. It was a dirty white color, and the rear doors were open. Row upon row of cellophane bricks, obviously heroin, were stacked there. “Curious,” she said aloud to herself. “They’re wrapping the stuff in red cellophane now. Probably a marketing ploy. Afghan red, they’ll call it.”
The bricks weren’t the truck’s only contents. A couple of large tarps were piled up in a corner. Two large coolers were sitting along one side. She wondered if she had time. Thirty minutes from north to south, by her estimation. Ten minutes or so to load the rail car at the north end, then 30 before they got back here. Sure. She thought she must have a good 15 minutes, still. She hopped up onto the rear bumper of the truck, and from there into the interior. She pushed open the lid on one of the coolers. It took her only seconds to reach for a bottle of water and gulp its contents down. It was only after she had done so that she realized her foolishness, given the nature of the investigation, but her thirst had been overpowering.
She hopped out and ran to the cab, reaching into the glove compartment. The registration was Californian. A numbered company. No Visa or charge card receipts. She flipped open the central console. No surprise there. It was loaded with American bills — tens, twenties, fifties, and hundreds. Made sense, she thought. Just grab a briefcase full from the American money room. There was easily $1,000 in the console. Considering the millions and millions they had stashed in the mine, this was pocket change. Gas money. Fast food money. Play money.
She had no pen with her, and couldn’t see one in the cab, so she took the registration and insurance papers and pocketed them. Then she closed the doors, retreated to a hiding place behind a nearby rocky outcropping, and waited.
Twenty minutes later the mine doors opened, and a man whom she recognized as Dennis Lestage came out, accompanied by another man — smaller in stature, but quicker in movement. She tried to use her training to do a cursory ID of the second man: Mediterranean, perhaps, or East Indian? She watched the two men load the contents of the rail car onto the powered tailgate. It took them ten minutes at most to complete the task, and to stack the cellophane-wrapped drugs in the back of the truck. “One more load,” she heard Dennis say, as the two men retreated back into the mine. As they disappeared from view, she formulated a plan. She thought she had an hour or so before they were back. She waited five minutes, grabbed four bottles of water, and ran back into the mine, toward the central storage area. She opened the door of the marijuana room and scooted back into the room in which Indy was imprisoned. It was easier, psychologically, now that she knew how long the narrow, claustrophobic tunnel was.