No Immunity

feet above them. Fox was bracing himself, ready to leap the moment it hit ground.
    The boards of the car bam shimmied. At any moment the whole building could collapse on top of her. She forced herself to wait, to gauge the right moment.
    On the ground in front, Connie and Louisa shifted in unison. It wasn’t them moving, she realized. The ground was shimmying.
    “This way, McGuire!” She ran out under the copter. The maelstrom from the blades threw dirt and snow into her face. She ran, but the wind was so strong, it blew her back. She leaned almost horizontal, pushing off hard with each step. The Weasel was yelling, but she couldn’t make out words over the frantic beating of the blades. “The shed, Weasel. They’re in the shed. Come on, we’ve just got time.” She bent lower, using all her strength to keep going. She was under the copter when she shot a glance back at the Weasel. The man wasn’t moving. “Weasel, you want the boys or not? How’ many million dollars?”
    She didn’t wait for his reaction. The ground was snapping up and down like a trampoline. Like a tent roof. Like a skylight ready to crack. Beneath the thunderous clap of the blades she could hear the groan as the earth gave way. The mine roof was caving in. The helicopter blades skimmed her head, knocking her forward. She flung her shoulders back, desperate to keep from falling, being sucked down into the growing hole. She was almost across the cavern. The gray soil was rushing down all around. She grabbed for the edge of the hole, her legs pedaling like mad as the ground beneath her collapsed. She flung herself onto the rim and rolled.
    Only then did she turn and look back. She could see Fox’s horror-widened eyes. He yelled at the pilot. The copter jerked, head up. The engine screamed. Then it stalled and the copter smashed down on its side into the collapsed mine. The hole was fifty feet deep at the center, and soil was rushing in from all sides. Under the blade she spotted the Weasel, legs flailing against the rushing dirt. He wouldn’t be coming out without help.
    She needed time to catch her breath, but there wasn’t time. Once the dirt settled, Fox and his pilot would get themselves out. “The boys!” Skirting the growing hole, she ran back to Connie. Connie lay two yards from the growing hole; she had pulled her arm under her head. Her face was gray. But she was breathing. Kiernan pulled her back near the grass. “The boys, Connie, where are they?”
    “Hoist house.” She pointed to the looming structure on the low hill. “Upstairs, trapdoor.”
    Ignoring the men’s angry screams in the hole, Kiernan ran for the decaying mine building, clambered up the wooden stairs onto the tracks leading to the ore shoots. One side was blank wall, the other empty windows through which ore must have been poured. At the end of the open hall the ore bin stood empty, rusting. She slowed, looked down, kicking away the dirt till she spotted a metal loop handle.
    The trapdoor lifted with surprising ease.
    The room below was lit by a camping lantern. Wooden walls, wood floor, table, chairs, and in the shadows a cot with two forms, huddled together on it. Heat from the tiny space flowed up through the hole.
    She lowered herself onto the rang ladder and climbed down. She was holding her breath. At the bottom she turned toward the boys. They looked so small, so wasted. But their fevers had broken and they were alive.

CHAPTER 53

    Brad Tchernak leaned back in the seat of the fine gold Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo. “So, Kiernan, ‘after you got out of the burning pit,’ as my father used to say—”
    “Excuse me?”
    “Well, he said it about those old Saturday-morning serials in the movie theaters, the ones that ended with the hero trapped in the burning pit and a promise of great excitement next week. Dad spent the whole week trying to figure out how the hero could possibly extricate himself. The next Saturday he would rush to the theater, ready to see the great escape. What he’d get instead would be the next episode starting with the hero saying, ‘After I got out of the burning pit, I went on to…’ So?”
    Kiernan laughed. She was slumped in the passenger seat, and her bare feet were braced against the windshield. “I don’t know how long it took Fox to get himself and crew—and the Weasel—out of the not-burning pit, but I moved like a whirlwind hauling the boys, Louisa, and Connie into Connie’s truck. I knew I didn’t have