‘You were pointing a gun at my chest five minutes ago,’ Hassad growled.
‘And you bloody deserved it,’ Porter snapped. ‘But unless we work together, none of us has a chance of getting out of here alive, so let’s just get free of this place, and then carry on our fight later if we have to.’
Throwing the AK-47 he had taken from Hassad across his back, Porter knelt down, and tied the strip of wet cloth across Katie’s face. It would help the keep the fumes out of her face. Then he slipped a strip around his own mouth, knotting it tightly around the back of his head. He hoisted Katie into his arms, and headed for the corridor. She was a good-sized woman, at least five eight, and when she was fit would probably have weighed considerably more than she did now. He could feel at once how frail and weak her body had become. Even a fit person would have trouble walking through these fumes, he thought bitterly.
For a weak one, it could be fatal.
‘Try not to breathe too deeply,’ he muttered.
Porter stepped out into the corridor, pressing Katie’s face into his chest to try and keep her mouth away from the smoke. The fumes were so heavy, and the light so poor, it was impossible to see more than a few metres ahead. From somewhere, Porter heard a shout, telling him that not everyone was dead. Not yet anyway. Hassad was already striding towards the meeting point. Porter plunged forward, ignoring the carnage all around him. As he stood alongside Hassad at the centre of the mine, there were at least five bodies strewn across the ground, all of them burnt beyond recognition.
‘How the hell do we get out of here?’ Porter shouted, though his voice was muffled by the wet cloth strapped across his mouth.
‘All the exits are blocked,’ said Hassad.
Porter glanced around. The timbers the miners had wedged into place to hold up the roof years ago had been incinerated in the blast. Some were still burning and the roof was starting to sag badly: Porter reckoned it might not be long before the whole thing came down, bringing a couple of hundred tons of rock collapsing onto their heads. The staircase that led down from the lift into the meeting point had been totally destroyed. Flames were still licking upwards where the timber frame of the stairs had once been. It was totally impassable.
‘We’ll take the back way,’ said Hassad.
Along one of the tunnels, Porter could hear an explosion. There was suddenly a blinding flash of light that cut through the fumes and illuminated the meeting point. Porter shielded his face as he felt a blast of heat wash over him. He gripped tighter onto Katie, and tried to follow Hassad. He’d already started marching towards a tunnel, motioning to Porter to follow him. Porter stepped forwards. The fire was gathering pace behind him, and he could hear a scream as it collided with one of the men trying to escape, frying him in an instant. Keeping hold of Katie, he followed Hassad into a narrow channel cut into the rock. There were a couple of bodies at its entrance, but Porter just stepped over them and pressed on. Behind him he could hear the sound of another roof collapsing somewhere, and more screams.
Hassad was twisting his way through a tunnel that was narrowing all the time. The light from the flames licking up around the meeting point had illuminated the first few metres, but it was fading fast, and within a few seconds Porter was struggling to keep track of Hassad through the darkness. A wall loomed up ahead of them, but to the right-hand side, there was a crack that appeared to lead upwards. It was part of an old ventilation shaft that must have been built years ago. ‘Here,’ said Hassad. ‘This will take us to the next level. Where the lift is.’
‘The lift won’t have survived this carnage,’ said Porter.
‘There’s another exit from there. If we can get through …’
Hassad started to lever himself up into the hole in the rock. There was enough room for a man to crawl through it — just — but not enough to carry Katie.
‘You push her, I’ll pull,’ shouted Hassad as he disappeared into the tunnel.
With a heave of his forearms, Porter hoisted Katie up to the mouth of the tunnel. He pushed her into position, ignoring the cry of pain as she smashed her elbow into the rock. ‘Just grab his hand,’ he shouted, struggling to make his voice heard over the crashing of collapsing timbers behind them.
Porter pushed her again, then pulled himself up into the vertical tunnel. It measured just three feet in diameter: enough space for a person to crawl through, but only just. The surface of the tunnel was pitted and rough, but there were plenty of places to get a grip on the rock. Using the muscles in his legs to propel himself forwards, his arms pushed Katie up. Hassad was dragging her along with his arms. It was hard going but they were making steady progress. Porter could hear a couple more explosions behind him but he reckoned most of the blokes down there must be dead by now. They were lucky just to have made it this far.
They were getting closer. Another ten metres, Porter thought. He could see Katie was using her fingers to try and claw her way to the surface, but she was so desperately weak it was hard for her to summon the strength to propel herself upwards. Hassad was reaching the surface now. He paused, then pulled himself free of the narrow tunnel. Turning round, he held out a strong hand, pulling Katie up, while Porter pushed her from behind, following swiftly in her wake.
They had emerged into a dark cavern that must have once formed a part of the main mine. It was so dark, Porter had no idea how big it was or where it led: the only light was the soft glow sneaking up the tunnel from the fires raging one level below them. ‘Where the hell are we?’ said Porter.
‘One level below the surface,’ said Hassad. ‘It’s a big mine, and we were using only a tiny part of it. These tunnels go on for miles.’ He nodded in front of him. ‘But to get out we have to go that way.’
Porter picked Katie up again and looked ahead. He could see nothing through the darkness. ‘How far?’
‘About seven hundred metres along this tunnel, there should be an old emergency exit that will take us up to the surface.’
‘You think it’s on fire?’
‘How the hell should I know?’ snapped Hassad.
Porter hoisted Katie onto his back. He was still wondering if Hassad was tricking him, maybe leading him straight into a troop of Hezbollah fighters on the surface. I’ll fight that battle when I get to it, he told himself. ‘Then we better get moving.’
From down below, another explosion echoed towards them. There were tons of munitions down there, Porter realised, and one by one, the flames were reaching the stockpiles of weaponry, igniting vicious fireballs. The ground beneath them shook, and a pile of dusty debris scattered loose from the ceiling, showering them with fragments of rock and ore. Porter started to pick up the pace, jogging alongside Hassad. As they moved away from the shaft they had climbed up, they lost all contact with the light. Within seconds, they were shrouded in darkness. It was too dangerous to run: they could see nothing, and the path was littered with rocks and pits they could easily trip over. Hassad was hugging the wall, feeling his way forwards with his hands, and Porter was following on behind. The metres were covered painfully slowly. A couple of times Porter could feel himself starting to fall as his feet collided with a rock — and a fall might easily finish Katie off in her weakened condition — but he just about managed to recapture his balance in time.
Eventually they reached a doorway. A light was shining underneath it: the glow of burning flames. Even standing ten feet from it, Porter could feel an intense heat from the other side. ‘It’s on fire,’ he said, looking towards Hassad. ‘There must be another way.’