Bolan crawled along on bruised hands and knees, a slow, tedious journey only faintly illuminated by a miner's helmet perched on Libertad's head. The terrorist leader was far ahead, and at times Bolan was plunged into absolute blackness when the small lamp that was the only source of light disappeared around a corner of the twisting horizontal shaft. The ground below him was hard and uneven. At times a rock, invisible in the gloom, would score his face or limbs. The darkness was oppressive, as forbidding as midnight in a graveyard, the silence broken only by the labored breathing of the gang members in the thin air. There was a foul smell to the tunnel, wet and sickly, like the air trapped in a long-disused crypt. Occasionally something would crunch under his palm, a squashed bug dying stickily on his fingers. Sweat dripped into his eyes, already sore and strained from peering into the murk. He had no way to estimate the length of time he had been traveling underground.
