Page 65 of Trapped with the Covert Ops Soldier

In the distance, her dim light reflected at her, revealing a pile of rocks that hadn’t been worn smooth. She lifted her light a little higher as she stepped closer. “Cave-in.”

Smitty lifted his light to join hers and they stared at the huge pile of stones and boulders clearly blocking the way. The walls of the cave were worn smooth up until the blockage. The rough edges of the rocks from the cave-in were much newer.

They used their lamps to try to see if there was a way around, but it completely blocked the way out, if this was a way out.

The breeze was moving from high above them, coming down like rain onto their heads.

“Must be some air holes way up there somewhere,” Smitty said. “One benefit of the Swiss cheese effect.”

“Don’t give it a name,” she moaned. “I’m nervous enough as it is.”

“I have great respect for this mountain,” he said without any trace of humor. “And I think your analogy is a good one. Something to keep in mind. The ceiling could fall, or the floor disintegrate beneath us at any time.”

“Not helping,” she said from between clenched teeth. “Let’s see what else is around here. Maybe there’s another way around all this.” Abby waved her hand at the rocks. They walked parallel to the cave-in and along the unbroken wall of the cave on the other side of it.

They’d gone about one hundred feet when something on the floor reflected the light from their lamps.

“Did you see that?” Abby said, moving her lamp until the reflection made it possible to pinpoint its location. She moved toward it and realized there was another smaller cave-in over here. Mixed in with the rocks and debris was a piece of glass.

Abby bent over and picked it up. It was dirty and thick. She held it up next to the glass of her lamp. They looked identical.

“People were here,” she whispered.

“I figured from the stuff we found in the man-made tunnel.”

She spun around and lifted her lamp up to examine this new cave-in. “Do you think anyone got caught in this?”

Smitty joined her in searching the stones. After a few seconds, he reached down and picked up something. A pickaxe.

She kept searching and found an object that was a lighter color than the surrounding rocks. After removing some of the debris around it, it became clear what it was. A skull. A human skull, covered in a thin layer of leathery skin and a few whisps of brown hair.

She pointed at it. “Well, here’s at least one person.” She kept sweeping away the rocks and dirt around it until she found more of the body. “Partially mummified.”

Smitty removed more of the debris around the body, uncovering an old, old style of hardhat, smashed, and cracked in multiple places.

Abby looked at the pattern of damage on the hat and noted the same pattern of breaks on the skull. She pointed them out. “He died in this cave-in.” She found the remains of clothing, torn and tattered. “His body has been here a long time.”

“A hundred years, give or take a few?” Smitty asked.

“It would take that long for the body to be mummified to this extent. There can’t be any insect or animal activity in here or we’d just be looking at bones.” She studied the body. “Was he alone? What was he doing in here?”

“I think I know,” Smitty said, his gaze on the rock wall above the cave-in.

Abby examined the wall but didn’t see anything unusual. “What?”

Smitty stood and went over to the edge of the rocks, then climbed over a few to lift his lamp higher. A golden metallic gleam reflected the light.

Abby got to her feet and moved closer. A vein of gold as thick as her arm ran through the rock wall, looking as though it came in through the cave-in in a wide arc, both ends of it disappearing into the fall of rocks. “Oh my God,” she whispered. “That is a lot of gold.”

“Enough to entice a lot of people to ignore their common sense.” Smitty’s voice was dry.

Abby agreed with him. “Greed makes a lot of people do disgusting, dumb things.”

Smitty moved away from the gold to shine his light over the cave-in, he paused a couple of times before looking at her. “There’s at least two more bodies under all this.” He bent to poke at the rocks again and pulled something out of the dirt. “Look what I found.” Dynamite. He pulled several more sticks of the stuff out of the debris and piled them on the cavern floor until more than a dozen rested there.

He shook his head. “This either happened at the same time as the mine collapse or shortly before.”

“How do you know that?”

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