The Moroccans load and launch a third trial.
We wait a bit, and when no sound comes, Rutger throws the switch on the box and gets behind the wheel of the car. Craig slaps me on the back. “We’re ready, Mr. Pierce.” Craig takes the passenger seat, and I sit on the bench in the back. Rutger cranks the car and drives recklessly into the mine, almost crashing into the rails at the entrance but swerving at the last minute to straddle them and then straighten the car as we plow deeper into the earth like characters out of some Jules Verne novel, maybe Journey to the Center of the Earth.
The tunnel is completely dark except for the car’s dim headlamps, which barely illuminate the area ten feet ahead of us. We drive at high speed for what seems like an hour, and I’m speechless, not that I could say a word over the racket of the truck in the tunnel. The scale is staggering, unimaginable. The tunnels are wide and tall, and much to my chagrin, very, very well made — not treasure-hunting tunnels; these are subterranean roads made to last.
The first few minutes into the mine is a constant turn. We must be following a spiral tunnel, like a corkscrew boring deep into the earth, deep enough to get under the bay.
The spiral deposits us into a larger staging area, no doubt used to sort and store supplies. I barely get a glimpse of crates and boxes before Rutger floors the car again, roaring down the straight tunnel with even more speed. We’re on a constant decline, and I can almost feel the air growing more damp with each passing second. There are several forks in the tunnel, but nothing slows Rutger down. He drives madly, swerving left and right, barely making the turns. I grip the seat. Craig leans over and touches the youth’s arm, but I can’t hear his voice over the deafening racket of the car’s engine. Whatever is said, Rutger doesn’t care for it. He brushes Craig’s arm off and bears down harder than ever. The engine screams and the tunnel zooms by in flashes.
Rutger’s putting on this little thrill ride to prove he knows the tunnels in the dark, that this is his territory, that he has my life in his hands. He wants to intimidate me. It’s working.
This mine is the biggest I’ve ever been in. And there are some giant mines in the mountains of West Virgina.
Finally, the tunnel opens onto a large, roughly shaped area — like a place where the miners had searched for direction and made several false starts. Electric lights hang from the ceiling, illuminating the space, revealing pockmarks and drill holes along the walls where blasts had started new tunnels, but were abandoned. I see a stack of the other black cord, laying in a bundle next to a table that holds another phone, no doubt connected to the surface.
The rail lines end here as well. The three mini rail cars sit in a row at the line’s termination point near the end of the room. The top part of two of them have been blown away, no doubt as they hit methane pockets along the way. The third sits quietly at the front of the other two; its flame jumps wildly as it claws for drifting pockets of oxygen in the dank space.
Rutger kills the engine, hops out, and blows out the the candle.
Craig follows him out of the car and says to me, “Well, what do you think, Pierce?”
“It’s quite a tunnel.” I look around, seeing more of the strange room.
Rutger joins us. “Don’t play coy, Pierce. You’ve never seen anything like it.”
“I never said I had.” I direct my next words at Craig. “You’ve a methane problem.”
“Yes, a rather recent development. We only began hitting pockets in the last year. Obviously we were a bit unprepared. We had assumed that water would be the biggest danger on this dig.”
“A safe assumption.” Methane is an ever-present danger in many coal mines. I never would have expected it down here, a place with seemingly no coal, oil, or other fuel deposits.
Craig motions above us. “You’ve no doubt noticed that the mine is on a constant grade — about 9 degrees. What you should know is that the sea floor above us slopes at roughly 11 degrees. It’s only about 80 yards above us here — we believe.”
I realize the implication instantly, and I can’t hide my surprise. “You think the methane pockets are from the sea floor?”
“Yes, I’m afraid so.”
Rutger smirks like we’re two old women, gossiping about the boogie man.