Thorpe's Candle

THE MINE

“There's a clearing and a road down to the right,” said Captain Harper. He focused the binoculars on the lush green valley below. “That must be it.”

A thousand feet up the side of the mountain, Harper, a mineralogist from the Corp of Engineers along with two Army Rangers watched from a concealed ledge. “No dust kicked up by any trucks, no smoke from their generators. Strange kind for a mining operation.”

“No noise either,” Corporal Brooks added.

Harper turned to Lance Corporal Ferguson. “Check it again.”

Ferguson pressed a button on the STAR-LYNX module — a black box about the size of an external hard drive. A small, inverted, silver umbrella-shaped antenna fifteen centimeters in diameter extended from the top. A few seconds later, a number flashed on the red LED. “Reconfirmed, sir. We should be within sight of the mine.”

“Well, it just doesn't look right to me.” Harper wiped the sweat from his forehead. “And it doesn't help much being in this bug-infested shit hole. This is not what I had in mind when I joined the Corps of Engineers.” He didn’t mention his orders to search for any reference to something called Project Candle Power, whatever that was. And searching for korium seemed a waste of time. He figured that on the face of the earth, there was probably only enough to fill the bed of his F150.

“What now, sir?” Ferguson asked.

“It'll be dark in a few hours. We'll check it out then.”

“It's time to send a fix,” Brooks said.

“Do it.” Harper continued watching the valley below while the Ranger entered a series of numbers on the STAR-LYNX numeric keypad and pressed the send button.

A hundred meters away, a Cuban soldier lay concealed in the underbrush. He focused his field glasses on the spot where he had just seen movement and watched it intently. Then, when he was certain of what he saw, he keyed his radio and whispered, “The Americans are here.”

Harper slipped on his night vision goggles. Instantly the black jungle transformed into a surreal world of shimmering emerald green. He could see the flash of moth wings, and the gentle brush of the breeze across the tops of leaves made his surroundings come alive with movement. The damp smell of decay reminded him of the plant nursery he worked at in high school. He hadn't liked the smell then and he didn't like it now.

The gradual slope grew easier as Harper and the two Rangers moved down into the valley. He heard the sound of a small stream from somewhere off to his left. Insects buzzed constantly. After ten minutes, the men came to a single lane dirt track that ran like a jagged wound through the jungle. Harper checked the direction finder in his goggles heads-up display and pointed to the right. Ferguson and Brooks acknowledged with a nod. Then Corporal Brooks took his assault rifle from his shoulder and cautiously moved along the road, his boots crunching on the gravel surface. Harper waited until the soldier was about thirty yards in front of him before he followed. Ferguson brought up the rear.

An opossum waddled across the road ahead. Brooks paused the group until the animal disappeared into the jungle. Moving on for another ten minutes they finally came to a large, circular clearing about a hundred meters across, carved out of the jungle at the base of the mountain. To the right was a house trailer that probably served as the mining company office while to the left sat a military dump truck. A wooden building stood nearby that may have served as equipment storage. Lumber, chemical drums, pieces of plastic sheets, paper, metal, and garbage littered the area as if the crew had left in a hurry. On the far side of the clearing a pile of rocks stretched forty meters up the side of the mountain.

“Looks like we're too late,” Brooks said when the others joined him.

Harper picked up a candy bar wrapper lying in the dirt and brushed away some ants. “Not by much. This hasn't been here all that long.” He gazed around the clearing before pointing to the pile of rocks. “The mine entrance must be over there. Let's have a look.”

They walked across the clearing. If the entrance was beneath the mound, Harper thought, it would take some serious equipment to dig it out. They'd come a long way for nothing. “I'm going to look around and see if there are any other openings to the mine. You two check out the trailer and the shack.”

The Rangers headed back toward the house trailer while Harper investigated the pile of rocks. Finding nothing, he moved to the other side. Still nothing. He glanced over his shoulder to see Brooks and Ferguson standing on each side of the door to the trailer. While Ferguson covered him, Brooks reached for the handle and pulled.

Through Harper's night vision goggles, the fireball from the explosion seemed to take on the intensity of a super nova. He screamed as he covered his eyes. The shock wave slammed him against the rocks rupturing both his eardrums. The ground shook and caved in. He dropped into blackness and hit the bottom hard. Rocks and debris poured off the side of the mountain and covered the opening. In an instant, Captain Harper disappeared.

Dust and smoke filled the air as a Jeep came up the road and ground to a halt. Flames from the trailer lit up the clearing. Part of the floor and a portion of one wall were all that remained. Burning debris lay scattered across the clearing and into the trees on the far side. Captain Juan Ramirez, Regional Chief of Cuban Army Intelligence, along with three other soldiers, got out. Ramirez walked around kicking chunks of charred wood and twisted metal, and then turned to the soldiers. “Find the bodies,” he said. “Then we can close this matter forever.”