Page 93 of Never Enough

Demon looked up at her. “What did they do with the ones they ‘lost’?”

“Not sure,” she admitted. “But they certainly didn’t send them out through the front gate. It’s possible they dumped them in a shaft in the mine, especially in a caved-in tunnel. They’re certainly deep enough, and those tunnels are unstable enough that no one goes in there without prompting. No one would find them.”

Demon grunted. “Sounds about right. And smart. Any gasses leaching out of the soil would cover the smell, too.”

“Okay, so Saturday the seventeenth.”

Haskell nodded. “They’ll be extra slow that day. Most of the men will have visited the fresh sex workers, so in their off time, they won’t be roaming around. They’ll be in the old infirmary they’ve created as a brothel.” She pointed to a building on the far west side of the compound with a green roof. “That one. The informally partitioned-off rooms make it perfect for the job.”

She turned back to Waters. “Our best bet is to go in early morning, just after the eight hundred shift change. Workers will be coming topside, some will be heading underground, and there will be some caught in limbo in both places. Once a lift starts, you can’t stop it until it reaches the top or bottom, but there will be fewer workers underneath since they will bring about half of them up before taking people down. Each lift will hold about twenty to twenty-five people, depending on size. And there are no guards in the lifts since there’s no way to geton or off during the ride. Nowhere to go. No side tunnels or anything like that.”

Waters gave his first set of orders. “Okay. So, TB and Steel will hit the back guard shack at eight hundred fifteen. Steel, you and TB will go clean out the infirmary. I want those women on the truck. Demon will go with you in case you need medical assistance.

“Medusa. You’re going to head to Bulawayo once we hit West Nicholson. How long before you reach the facility for extraction?”

“Forty-five minutes if I fly casual,” she replied. “Closer to thirty-eight if I hoof it.”

“Okay. We’ll want pickup at eight hundred twenty-five, so plan accordingly.”

She nodded.

“Loki, Gilgamesh, you’ll have your trucks at Beitbridge, timed to crash through the gates at eight hundred twenty. Don’t be late.”

Gilgamesh smirked. Loki just looked pissed at the mere thought of ever being late.

“We’ll drop Gem, Nemo, and the trio in West Nicholson on Thursday, early morning. Medusa, Midas, and I will stay overnight in West Nicholson, but you five will have to meet with Itai during the day. He’ll have a space for you to hang out. You’ll be loaded onto the boats into his hut space, and you won’t be able to come out until you hit the landing spot. TB, Demon, and Steel will be in the second and third boats. The huts are small, and they’re going to be a tight fit. It’s just over one hundred miles, so he said it will take about ten hours from start to finish without any patrol stops. He’s planning to leave before first light, whatever day we indicate. After we make sure you make it into the boats, I’ll circle around with Midas and set up a base in Beitbridge. We’ll coordinate from there.”

“Gem,” Loki called out. “These tunnels are pretty narrow. Is Nemo going to be able to follow you?”

“He should be able to. The shafts I’m looking at were carved out by miners with jackhammers. They’re not conventional tunnels, and they’ll be tight, but we’ve both been in tighter spaces.”

Her eyes flashed to Nemo, who was clearly holding back laughter. The smirk was impossible to hide, however. He held up his hands in surrender when he read her tight expression. “I didn’t say a word,” he pointed out.

“No, but you were thinking it, and that’s bad enough.” Haskell shook her head and rolled her eyes before focusing back on the conversation regarding the tunnels. “Many of the miners are smaller, it’s true. Extreme poverty leads to poor nutrition, and that’s what drives many of them to dangerous work. When you have no other options, you do what you have to in order to feed your family, but some of the miners are bigger men, as well. It takes a lot of strength to run the jackhammers for long hours. Strong constitutions to be in the dark, confined spaces. I picked this particular tunnel because its opening looks as if it was carved out by a larger person.”

“But that doesn’t guarantee that it doesn’t narrow once you’re inside,” TB pointed out.

“No, but miners tend to be territorial, especially if it’s a successful vein. A miner would not voluntarily leave his find. This one appears, based on the map, to be a successful vein, so the tunnel should be consistent with its opening.”

She reached to the extra table the men had dragged into the room, where all sorts of maps and blueprints were being kept. She searched for the original grid map Midas had made for her on the plane and the overlay map of the tunnels Nova had found in the email. Waters backed out of the way as she scooted between Loki and Gilgamesh.

Placing the overlay on top of the gridded map, she drew her finger along the tunnel line on the secondary map. “See how this goes all the way to the ceiling of the cavern? That means they drilled through to the actual mine area itself. A miner wouldn’t bother to do that if he hadn’t found a vein after about twenty feet. Maybe twenty-five.”

Steel connected the dots. “So this miner hammered his way at this starting point, and by twenty-five feet in, he found diamonds. He continues to follow until the vein either runs out, or he hits the mine operation below ground since he can’t go any farther without falling however many feet to the floor.”

“Exactly,” Haskell confirmed.

“What guarantees that we can get through that exit opening?” Nemo asked, now making short work of an apple.

Haskell grabbed it from him and took a bite. “Nothing,” she said through her chewing. She swallowed. “Chances are the hole is big enough for me to get through. You? Questionable, but not impossible.”

“What happens if Nemo can’t follow you through?” Waters asked. “And how will you get down into the mine itself without being seen? I imagine a woman falling out of the sky would be pretty noticeable.”

“We’ll rappel down. Nothing we both haven’t done before. And if he can’t get through, he’ll have to backtrack, and I’ll be solo.”

“Abso-fucking-lutely not,” Nemo growled. “There is no way you’re going solo. We’ve already established this. I won’t stop you from going?—”

“Good because you can’t,” Haskell interrupted.”

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