Gunther led them across the bridge and made short work of the thin salt wall he had left at the end of the corridor. He worked with the vengeance of a man punishing himself. When the hole was large enough, Gunther leaned through it, like a sailor leaning through a porthole, swinging his flashlight through long broad arcs as he surveyed the tunnel beyond. He paused long enough to examine the plan, which he had pulled from the black metal briefcase. He looked at the plan, then stuck his head through the hole, comparing reality to the map. Finally, he turned to the others and spread the map on the floor of the corridor. Seth, Zoe, Morgen, and Stratton crowded against each other, trying to see.

“We’re here.” Gunther pointed to a spot on the map near the conjunction of two tunnels. “I thought we’d come out…” He moved a finger grimy with work to another spot less than an inch away, “right here.” There was pride in his voice now, leavening his sorrow. “We’re about fifty feet off. But that doesn’t matter as long as we know exactly where we are at all times.”

He folded up the plan and finished widening the hole, so that they could easily gain entrance to the tunnel in the Habersam mine.

On the other side, he insisted that they walk single file, each distanced from the other by at least twenty feet. Only Seth and Zoe violated the rule.

The metal detector had been lost with Richard. So Gunther used the page-by-page details of the mine to find the antipersonnel mines. He measured their progress accurately, using a hundred-foot tape measure that he let play out behind him as he walked. He gave the task of holding the other end of the tape to Father Morgen, who protested being given such a relatively safe task. But he yielded to Gunther’s insistence. To Zoe he gave the task of sprinkling small amounts of carbon black on the floor to mark their path, so that it would be easier to find their way out safely.

The carbon black came in containers the size of soft drink cans. Zoe quickly discovered that Ridgeway’s pack contained nothing but can after can of the inky black powder.

They all had their flashlights on now, scanning the corridor for signs of booby traps that might not have found their way onto the plans taken from the safe deposit box in Zurich.

They came to the first trip-wired machine gun at half past two.

“Wait!” Gunther shouted. They were approaching the intersection with another tunnel when they stopped. Gunther lowered his flashlight “Look here,” he called. There, in the middle of the intersection, was a thin wire stretched taut from one side of the corridor to another. Gunther motioned them on slowly. They followed his lead right up to the wire and then stopped. Gunther shone his light into the intersecting tunnel to his right. There was nothing but the post to which one end of the wire was attached.