Page 94 of Dead Mountain

Feeling around the edges of the door, Nora discovered a small handle, also camouflaged. She gave the door a pull and, with a screech of metal, it opened an inch.

“Let’s clear this stuff away,” Corrie said.

They stomped down some baby trees and shoved snow away with their boots, clearing an area for the door to open. They heaved again. The door opened six more inches with another screech, then stopped.

“Let’s tie a rope to that handle so we can both pull,” Corrie said.

Nora returned to the snowmobile and grabbed a length of rope, picking up their two packs at the same time. She looped the rope through the handle, then they each took an end and pulled. With a final screech of protest, the door opened wide and they stumbled backward. A black passageway revealed itself, exhaling a warmish, dead-smelling air.

“Oh, Jesus,” said Nora, backing up and waving a hand before her nose. “You bring a canary with you?”

“I’ve got a candle lantern,” said Corrie, “and a carbon monoxide alarm I took from my apartment.”

“Good thinking.”

The open door had a spring to it, which wanted to pull it shut, so Nora took the rope and tied its free ends to a stout tree. Then, to make sure, she pried a rock from the cut nearby and wedged it in place so that the door, if it somehow slid free of the rope, could not swing fully shut.

They donned their packs and put on headlamps. Corrie took out her candle lantern, lit it, and hooked the CO detector on the back of her pack.

They stood a moment on the threshold. The beams of their headlamps stabbed into the darkness ahead. The corridor looked to Nora as if it went on endlessly, straight into the mountain—a featureless tunnel of concrete, like the path to some golem’s lair.

She took a step forward, but Corrie placed a hand on her shoulder. “Me first—okay?”

“Be my guest.”

Corrie stepped inside and Nora followed. She turned and, raising her light, saw another keypad on the inside of the door. “I wonder . . . ,” she began.

“You wonder if there’s a different code to get out than to get in?” Corrie finished the sentence for her.

“Yes.”

“And you’re also wondering if, maybe, O’Connell didn’t have that second code?”

Nora looked at Corrie’s face, pallid in the artificial light. “Exactly.”

51

AS CORRIE MOVED farther and farther down the passage, she began to feel like a character from some dreadful Twilight Zone episode: trapped in an endless tunnel of concrete, destined to walk down it forever and ever. It was featureless, stained here and there by water but free of cracks even after three-quarters of a century. The air, while stale, was warm and moist. The candle kept burning brightly and the CO detector didn’t go off.

From time to time, she glanced back down the corridor. The light of the exit dwindled into a tiny dot of light and soon vanished completely.

Feeling warm, she partially unzipped her monosuit. “When is this going to end?” she whispered to Nora.

“God knows. If the bunker is on the far side of the range, this tunnel might go all the way through the mountain.”

“Must’ve cost a fortune to build,” Corrie whispered.

“Why are we whispering?” Nora answered, with a short laugh. “There’s no one here.”

Corrie snorted. “You’re right. Only the dead . . . maybe.”

“You really think we’re going to find the body?” Nora asked.

“Yes. And along with it, the real solution to the mystery.”

Ahead now, a door became barely discernible in the beams of their lights. As they approached, it seemed almost to materialize out of the darkness: a gleaming mahogany door with a polished brass knob of the kind that might grace an elegant mansion—weirdly out of place in this concrete rathole. Corrie reached out and grasped the handle, hoping to God it wasn’t locked.

The handle turned almost effortlessly. The door made a squeaking sound as she eased it open, sounding uncannily like a small animal being hurt.

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