‘Pretty smart set-up all around,’ Stratton agreed.
Hamlin looked at him, the trace of a scowl on his face. ‘You think I’m as dumb as you, don’t you?’
Stratton looked into his angry eyes and was reminded of how unhinged the man really was. ‘We’re the ones down here working for them,’ Stratton said, pushing it, curious about the old man’s mental state. Hamlin was probably a genius which, as the saying went, was often close to madness.
‘Not for long, my friend. These pricks’ll remember the day they locked Tusker Hamlin up in here. They said it would be the last anyone ever heard from me. Well, they’re wrong, Mister Charon. They’re wrong.’
Hamlin continued to stare at Stratton, his look turning to one of curiosity. ‘Charon,’ Hamlin said, this time pronouncing it ‘Kar-on’, a smirk forming on his lips. ‘That’s very amusing . . . Now I know who you are.’
Stratton held his gaze. Since the guards were within earshot he was prepared to defend himself against any accusation that Hamlin might make.
‘You’re the ferryman.’
Stratton had no clue what the man was talking about.
‘The Styx ferryman,’ Hamlin continued. ‘Karon was sent by the gods to carry the dead souls of evil men down the Styx river and into hell.’
Stratton remembered the mythological story although he did not recall a ferryman. Hamlin had had him worried there for a moment.
‘OK, you guys,’ the guard called out. ‘Let’s get going. See yer later,’ he said, waving to his colleagues.
Stratton and Hamlin watched the miners trudge into the mine entrance. ‘What’s it like in there?’ Stratton asked.
‘Dunno,’ Hamlin said. ‘Never wanted to find out. Another reason I made myself an indispensable engineer. ’
The two men followed their guard further down the low-ceilinged tunnel for a short distance and stopped outside a large airlock door set in a broad reinforced concrete wall. The door had originally been painted blue but most of the coating had fallen off to reveal rusting metal below.
‘Jed at the air room,’ the guard said into his radio as he looked up at a black semi-sphere fixed to the ceiling above them.A second later there was a loud hiss, followed by a heavy clunk, and the door moved but only a couple of inches. The guard leaned his shoulder against it to help it open. ‘Piece o’ shit door,’ he grunted as he put all his effort behind it. The door opened slowly and he stepped back, out of breath, to let Hamlin and Stratton lead the way inside.
Two things struck Stratton with some force as the door opened. One was the sudden increase in machinery noise, the other was an intense smell like rotten eggs.
‘You’ll get used to it,’ the guard said, pushing him in.
Hamlin stepped through the door as if eager to get on with the job. ‘I find it almost refreshing,’ he said above the increased noise, sucking in the air as if it was nectar.
‘You would, you strange motherfucker,’ the guard said.
Hamlin pulled two pairs of ear defenders out of a box by the door and handed one set to Stratton. They afforded some relief from the high-pitched noise.
They were in a cavernous space, the largest single chamber in the facility. A thousand miles of ducts twisted in and out of several machines and up to the ceiling which they practically covered, finally disappearing through the walls in several places. In the spacious centre was a large wooden workbench covered in various machine parts and tools, with power jacks dangling from the ceiling. It was a dishevelled-looking place, untidy, rusty and disorganised, like the bowels of a neglected supertanker. Metal stairways led up to various service gantries and walkways surrounding the bigger machines.
‘I’ll leave you guys to get on with it,’ shouted the guard.
‘Don’t hurry back,’ Hamlin replied caustically.
The guard waved him off and stepped back through the door, which closed behind him and sealed shut.
When Stratton looked back at Hamlin the man was grinning at him. ‘Welcome to my office,’ Hamlin shouted.
Stratton walked into the cavern, turning around to take it all in. ‘How much of the prison’s air does this place scrub?’ Stratton asked.
‘These only run the mine and inmate levels now. You’d need twice the number of scrubbers, all working efficiently, plus a couple thousand litres of oxygen a day to cover the entire place. There’s a mother of a surface barge takes care of the living quarters . . . The desalinators over there only provide part of the potable water. Those pumps’re pretty essential, though,’ he said, indicating four squat machines along one of the far walls, two of them running and responsible for much of the noise. ‘They dump a lot of the water. If they fail you’re lookin’ at shuttin’ down the entire lower sections, including the mine.’
‘If this place is so important how come they let you down here on your own?’
‘They got pretty lax with me over time. I do a good job, I’m twenty-four seven, and I’m free. I guess they think I’m harmless. There’s nothin’ serious I can do down here - or so they think. But they don’t know Tusker Hamlin as well as they think they do.’
Stratton chose not to question the remark and walked over to dozens of large steel gas bottles stacked in frames along a wall. They were an argon-oxygen mix, all connected together through an array of high-pressure pipes.
‘OCR emergency gas,’ Hamlin said. ‘It ain’t essential, though. Just a back-up.’
Stratton reckoned that two men could barely lift one of the bottles, never mind carry it very far. He had no specific interest in them and was simply filing away anything that might be of value.
‘Shall we get on with it, then?’ Hamlin asked, standing behind him.
Stratton had not heard him draw close. He looked around at the man and saw that he was wearing a strange smirk.
‘The door,’ Hamlin said. ‘Let’s test your theory.’
‘You mean open it?’
‘Sure. What else?’
‘It’s not something you can test and put away for another day. They’ll know in OCR as soon as it opens. We’ll only get one hit.’
‘Time’s running out for the both of us, especially for you,’ Hamlin said. ‘Gann ain’t the patient type. He’s gonna make his move soon.’
Hamlin was attempting to manipulate him by playing up the Gann threat. But the older man did not know how right he was. Gann was coming after him because he was the only witness to the ferry sabotage. This was no longer just a mission to get the tablet from Durrani. It had also become largely about Stratton’s survival.
He suddenly felt overwhelmed, his confidence about completing the mission in tatters.There was no way out for him, either. Even giving himself up and telling the truth about why he was in Styx was not going to save him. It would only make matters worse since his credibility as a witness would be too high. Stratton had bounced into the operation, all cocky and confident, not only about getting hold of the tablet but also making an historic escape.What an arrogant prick he was, he thought.
Stratton could feel his temples tighten as he realised the true level of his desperation. He was well and truly screwed. And now Hamlin wanted to open the door. But into what? Stratton had no idea where to go or what to do.Was everything down to waiting in ambush in some dark corner in the hope that Gann would amble past so that he could jump him? That was the best Stratton could come up with. It was pathetic. He felt like an amateur.