Midnight In Madrid

SIXTY-SEVEN

MADRID, SEPTEMBER 18, EVENING

Trapped in the claustrophobic hell of the small, rancid underground tunnel, Alex pushed with her arms. She prayed. Oh, she prayed! She almost prayed out loud, and she cursed herself for getting this far along. She stretched out her arms with every inch she could, dug her fingernails into the sandstone that formed the floor of the narrow passage, and she pulled with all the strength she could muster.

Nothing.

She tried again. There were tears forming in her eyes.

Nothing.

She tried a third and final time, pulling in her breath, trying to scrape through.

Nothing.

Then, something.

She groped along. She moved an inch. Then a few more inches. Then, ahead of her, a small trickle of sand and a mini cave-in.

She fought to suppress the panic. Once, years ago, she had read about miners who had been trapped in a cave-in. She felt in her gut the terror of their claustrophobic ordeal as water rose past their knees, their waists, their shoulders, their necks until they had only a few inches of breathing room at which time rescuers found them.

Well, that was them. This was her. She closed her eyes against the dust ahead of her and figured she was dead.

But she wasn’t. The dust had loosened the tight walls of the passage. She pushed the sandy dirt away and she started moving again, pushing the lantern forward with her head.

Then suddenly she could move a few inches at a time. Crawling on her stomach like an infantry soldier under live rounds, she was able to push several inches ahead at a time. Then her motion was unabated. She pushed forward with her knees and traveled several feet. The other end of the tunnel loomed in front of her.

Six feet. Then three. Then two and then her head nudged the lantern forward and it rolled forward and dropped with a clack. But she could still see the light of the lantern. And she could hear a sound of a person working.

Or something.

She reached the end of the tunnel with her hands. She dug in with her fingers and pulled herself free, the greatest feeling she had ever encountered in her life. And then she was on her feet, covered with dirt and crap and coughing and so delirious with joy over just being free and alive that she was almost oblivious to why she was in this damp, dark chamber and what she was looking for.

She coughed again.

Then she saw that there was one more small chamber where there was a light similar to hers. She managed a glance at the GPS. She knew that she was under the embassy. She heard footsteps.