“Just what exactly is that icehouse for?” asked Wang Sichuan. “And how come this windy tunnel seems just like a cooling duct?”
“That’s probably what it is,” said Ma Zaihai, but he was only a private. These were matters for specialists. His job was to take things apart and put them back together.
“What kind of thing needs such a fucking cold cooling device?” said Wang Sichuan, speaking his thoughts aloud. A muffled bang suddenly rang out behind us, as if the iron door had been dropped back into place.
Wang Sichuan and I glanced at one another. Shit, I said to myself. I turned and ran like mad back the way we had come. I scrambled wildly up the ladder and climbed onto the platform where we’d first dropped in. Sure enough, the door overhead was shut. Wang Sichuan pushed with all his might, but the door wouldn’t budge. He looked at me, his face furious and panic-stricken, then swore violently. Whoever was outside had not only shut the door, he’d locked it as well. I was dumbfounded. The spy! He existed and was trying to get us!
I could have slapped myself. How the hell had I been so careless? If Old Cat and the rest had come this way, then why was the iron door still hidden beneath the tarpaulin? Because someone else hadn’t wanted us to discover it! Everyone can get muddle-headed sometimes, but I’ve always felt myself to be a generally bright individual. Ma Zaihai had already lifted the tarp from the door when I first saw it, but how could I have failed to consider what it meant? There was far too much on my mind at the time.
Wang Sichuan grabbed the gun and made to fire it upward. At once Ma Zaihai and I snatched it back from him. This iron door was two feet thick and probably lined with some blastproof material that not even a grenade would penetrate, much less a gun. The bullet would just bounce off it and slice right through us.
Again we tried to force it upward. We cried out. I understood at last what had befallen Old Cat and the others. We were being plotted against. The door being blastproof meant it was basically soundproof as well. We could ruin our larynxes and still no one would hear. Unwilling to give up, Wang Sichuan twice bashed his shoulder into the door, very nearly wrenching his waist. The door was too heavy. Smashing against it wasn’t going to do the least bit of damage to the bolt.
Wang Sichuan let fly with a string of Mongolian curses. A burst of cold wind blew through, causing my teeth to chatter. If we didn’t find a way out of here quick, we’d freeze to death. Old Cat and the others had been trapped for at least ten hours. Who knew if they’d ever managed to find a way out? Another burst of wind came blowing through, so fierce it took my breath away. Having no choice, the three of us set out with our backs to the wind, Wang Sichuan calling out for Old Cat and Old Tang.
In today’s cities these electrical canals are everywhere, often filled with stagnant water and fiber-optic telecommunications cables as well as electricity. At each intersection in the tunnel, there’s a manhole leading up to the surface. For a while we encountered no such intersection. As we walked, we pondered whether we’d gone the wrong way. Should we turn around and face into the wind? Perhaps it would lead to the icehouse. But unlike inside that giant freezer, at least here the temperature was endurable. The farther we went in that direction, the more the temperature would drop and the wind increase. Something bad was sure to happen, and not one of us was willing to find out what. Avoiding cold and seeking warmth are bodily instincts, impossible to defy. Now that I think about it, people were in excellent physical shape back then. Despite the harshness of that environment, even someone like me was able to carry on.
After walking through that icy channel for about half an hour, we came upon the first intersection. A shaft led upward. Wang Sichuan pushed several times on the iron door overhead. It didn’t move an inch. It too was locked.
“For fear that the enemy will take advantage of these tunnels,” said Ma Zaihai, “regulations generally stipulate that all openings be locked up.”
Wang Sichuan cursed. “And if they’re all locked, then what?”
I patted him on the back. “Relax, there’s always a way out.”
But in my heart I was unsure. Choosing a direction, we smashed several marks in the ice and continued on. I prayed, whether to Buddha or Tengri it didn’t matter, to bless us and ensure our Japanese adversary had forgotten to lock just one or even half of an iron door.
The tunnels were hardly complex, but they were very long. It seemed as if all the wires for the entire dam ran through here. It took at least half an hour between each intersection. After three hours we’d found only four doors, each locked more securely than the last. The path ahead was pitch-black. Our eyebrows were covered in a layer of ice. Crystals had spread throughout our hair. Our hands and feet had gone numb. We were in a whole lot deeper than we’d imagined. That’s not idle talk . Wang Sichuan’s iron club had frozen to his hand without his noticing. As he switched it to his left hand, he tore off a layer of skin. Old Cat and the rest had surely found themselves in a predicament just like this. I hoped they’d already found a way out. If they hadn’t, then things didn’t look good for us. We were running out of options. All we could do was keep going.
Then, after we’d walked for a few more hours, a number of circular holes appeared in the concrete wall, each half as tall as a man. Not one of the power cables passed through them.
“Air vents,” said Ma Zaihai. We looked inside. There was light at the end.
CHAPTER 48
The Outer Edge
The light was very dim, probably emanating from one of the emergency lights we’d seen earlier. Who knew what was on the other side? But this was our last and only hope. Even if it ran through a tiger’s den or a dragon’s lair, so long as it led out of here, we’d have to charge ahead. There was no need to deliberate over which tunnel to take. The three openings clearly led to the same place. We wriggled into the middle one and crawled thirty or forty feet to the end. A frozen iron grate was fastened over the opening. Ice covered the space between the bars and a faint light shined through, but it was impossible to make out what was on the other side. Ma Zaihai removed the bullets from his rifle, then smashed the butt of it against the four corners of the grate. The space was extremely cramped. He couldn’t use much force. After working at it for some time, the grate finally opened and a powerful wind rushed in, stealing the breath from my lungs. I ducked my head at once and gasped for air. Covering my mouth with my overcoat, I looked out. It was utter blackness. Nothing was out there.
The three of us looked at each other. Beyond this tunnel wasn’t some room, it was the endless abyss. Looking out, we saw a stretch of nothingness. There was only the crazed wind pouring dizzyingly into the tunnel. The mist really had dispersed. Even our flashlight beams picked up nothing. Ma Zaihai yelled that he was going to stick his head out to look. We grabbed the hem of his coat. A gust of wind came from behind us as soon as his shoulders were outside, ballooning his clothes. He floated outward as if he were being pulled. His face turned pale with fright, but we held fast and he didn’t fall. “Quickly now,” said Wang Sichuan. “Take a look around and see what’s out there.”
He lay flat and shimmied his torso out. He shined his flashlight all about. Then we pulled him back in. “This is the bottom of the dam,” he said. “There’s a cliff about thirty feet below us. Beside the opening is a ladder leading down to it.”
“Is there any sign of Old Cat and the others?” I asked him.
“How am I supposed to make them out?” he replied. He could see the searchlight up above, but it was far away. This really was the very bottom of the dam, with only crisscrossing layers of cement and rock all around. The flashlight beam stretched only a short distance and nothing could be seen clearly.