Labyrinth by Sullivan Mark T

Author:Sullivan, Mark T. [Sullivan, Mark T.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: thriller, Suspense, Mystery, Adventure, Science Fiction
ISBN: 9781453268797
Goodreads: 15852654
Publisher: mysteriouspress.com/Open Road Media
Published: 2002-08-06T07:00:00+00:00

DEEP CAVE

June 17, 2007

7:00 A.M.

NASA ENCAMPMENT

JENKINS RIDGE

LABYRINTH CAVE

FOR THE THIRD MORNING in a row, Helen Greidel reported live from the Artemis Project. Wearing a bright red rain parka, she hunched under her umbrella before the wreckage of the old Jenkins homestead. Rain pelted her face.

“A story that has gripped the world in the past few days has now turned grimmer,” she began. “In the wake of the powerful earthquake that struck eastern Kentucky yesterday afternoon, NASA now admits that it has lost all signals from the electronic location beacons carried by those still trapped in Labyrinth Cave—escaped prison inmates, two hostages, and a team sent in to rescue them.”

The screen cut away to Angelis, the Mission Control chief, standing before a bank of microphones, the effects of the ordeal showing everywhere in his face.

“NASA has lost the signal being emitted from the beacons carried by Tom and Cricket Burke and the four men we believe are holding them hostage,” Angelis shouted over the calls of reporters. “We have also lost contact with the rescue team—Burke’s wife and three U.S. marshals.”

“Are they dead?” a reporter yelled.

Angelis stopped, sobered. “We are proceeding on the assumption that they are alive.”

The screen switched to a still shot of what looked like a gigantic drill mounted on the back of a flatbed truck Greidel spoke in voice-over: “Angelis also announced that the U.S. Bureau of Mines is rushing a rescue boring machine to the site. The machine will be used to reopen the entrances to the cave that collapsed during the earthquake and perhaps allow a second rescue team to enter the cave in search of survivors.”

The picture jumped a third time, to a black-and-white newsreel film showing filthy men working on mining equipment, over which Greidel spoke: “The effort under way here appears to be the largest and most complex underground rescue attempt since the one undertaken back in 1925 to save Floyd Collins, the famous Kentucky cave explorer who was trapped in a cave about one hundred miles to our southwest.

“Rescuers managed to reach Collins and kept him alive with food and heat for five days before a landslide blocked the passage to him,” Greidel went on. “It took twelve more days for engineers to sink a shaft and reach Collins a second time. All they found was his body.”

The camera returned to Greidel huddled under her umbrella. She opened her eyes wide in sympathy. “We can only pray that the rescue efforts now under way here at Labyrinth Cave prove more successful than those undertaken on behalf of poor Floyd Collins.”

Two miles north, the Furnace River had turned into a boiling maelstrom replete with whirlpools and the sort of standing waves big western rivers spawn at the height of the spring runoff.

Swain stood on the bank above the ferry, hunched over against a gale that drove the rain in sheets so thick that the Furnace’s north shore was but a dim gray line. He wore a yellow rain slicker, bib pants, and high rubber boots.

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