Chapter 7 - THE DEPTHS OF CONSPIRACY
Jake didn't hesitate. He took a deep breath of compressed air from his tank and threw himself backward off the catwalk into the murky, churning runoff.
Crack-crack-crack.
High-velocity rounds whipped through the surface of the water, leaving trailing wakes of cavitation bubbles inches from Jake’s face. The pressure waves slapped against his chest like hammer blows. Submerged in the black, freezing sludge, Jake couldn't see his own hands. The beam of his dive light was swallowed by the thick suspension of rust and coal dust, illuminating nothing but an eerie amber fog.
He kicked hard, using his familiarity with local river currents to navigate by feel. He kept one hand along the slimy concrete foundation wall, pulling himself along the submerged perimeter toward the base of the valve assembly.
He checked the submersible pressure gauge on his chest console: 400 PSI.
His air was half gone. The heavy exertion and freezing water were making his heart race, burning through the tank's reserves at double the normal rate. He had less than three minutes before the regulator ran dry and he’d be forced to breathe the toxic fumes gathering in the air pockets beneath the ceiling.
Above the surface, the gunfire paused. The mercenary was likely scanning the water, waiting for ripples or bubbles to betray Jake’s position.
Jake surfaced beneath the lip of the steel catwalk, keeping only the dome of his dive mask above the foul-smelling orange foam. Through the rusted grating, he could see the boots of the shooter standing directly on the walkway above the valve wheel. The man was reloading, sliding a fresh magazine into his rifle.
Jake unclipped the heavy iron tire iron from the D-ring of his harness.
Silently, using the sound of the cascading water to mask his movement, Jake reached up through a broken gap in the catwalk grating. He hooked the curved claw of the tire iron around the mercenary’s ankle, took a bracing grip on an overhead structural beam, and yanked downward with all the leverage his legs could generate against the submerged concrete.
The man’s leg was ripped out from under him.
With a muffled yell, the mercenary crashed hard onto his back against the iron grating, his rifle slipping from his hands and plunging into the deep runoff below. Before the man could draw his sidearm, Jake surged up through the gap, driving the blunt end of the tire iron into the soldier’s tactical helmet.
The composite shell cracked, and the man went limp, rolling off the edge of the catwalk and splashing into the deep drainage channel, swept away by the roaring current toward the lower mine levels.
Jake didn’t pause to catch his breath. He scrambled onto the platform beside the valve wheel.
The water was already lapping against his chest. In the bunker above, Walter and his father were running out of time. If the water breached the secondary air seals, the electronic servers containing twenty years of evidence against Sterling would short-circuit, destroying everything his parents had sacrificed their lives to preserve.
Jake took the tire iron and jammed the flat wedge between two spokes of the iron wheel, creating a two-foot lever arm.
He leaned all his weight onto the iron bar.
SCREEECH.
The rusted threads sheared through the encrusted calcite. The wheel turned a quarter rotation. Jake shifted his stance, ignored the screaming pain in his cracked ribs, and hauled the lever down again.
Half turn.
Full turn.
The massive hydraulic gate began to descend into its steel channel. The sound was deafening—a grinding, groaning wail of metal fighting metal against the fury of millions of gallons of pressurized water. With every rotation, the roar of the incoming cascade diminished slightly, changing from an explosive torrent to a sputtering, choked waterfall.
Jake spun the wheel with frantic, rhythmic thrusts until it slammed against the bottom seating stops with a final, solid thunk.
The roar died.
The water level in the gallery stopped rising, hovering inches below the catwalk deck, slowly beginning to drain through the lower gravity weep holes.
Jake collapsed against the valve housing, his chest heaving. Inside his mask, the regulator made a dry, hollow clicking sound.
EMPTY.
The air supply was completely exhausted.
Panic surged through him as the mask pulled flat against his face, suffocating him. He ripped the rubber straps over his head, tearing the mask free and gasping for air.
The atmosphere in the cavern hit him like a physical blow. The air was thick with volatile chemical solvents and the suffocating reek of rotten eggs. Jake’s eyes burned instantly, watering so hard he was blinded. A violent coughing fit tore through his chest, each breath feeling like he was inhaling broken glass and kerosene.
He dropped the SCBA harness, letting the heavy steel tank splash into the remaining sludge, and scrambled toward the access ladder in the dark.
He climbed on sheer muscle memory, his vision tunneling into a pinpoint of gray light. His lungs felt like they were on fire, the toxic vapors burning his bronchial passages with every ragged breath. At the forty-foot mark, his hands lost their grip on the greasy rungs; he slipped, barely catching a lower bar with his elbows, tearing the skin from his forearms.
“Come on…” he rasped, his voice reduced to a dry croak. “Move.”
He hauled himself up the final ten feet, reaching the threshold of the bunker floor.
Two hands caught him under the armpits.
David Miller, dragging his portable oxygen concentrator behind him with one hand, hauled his son across the lip of the hatch with the desperate strength of a father refusing to let his child slip into the dark.
David slammed the hatch shut, dogging the levers down tight, and immediately shoved a spare oxygen cannula into Jake’s nose, cranking the flow valve to maximum.
Pure, cool medical oxygen rushed into Jake’s scorched airways. He rolled onto his side on the cold steel floor of the server room, retching and coughing up bitter, chemical-tasting bile, but breathing.
“You did it,” David whispered, kneeling beside his son, his own breathing ragged and thin. “The water’s stopped. The seals held.”
Jake wiped his mouth with the back of a trembling hand, looking around the room.
Walter was still in the chair, but his eyes were closed, his face pale as parchment, his pulse weak and fluttering beneath Jake's fingers.
On the main console screens, the exterior camera showed Victoria Sterling standing near her black sedan in the meadow above. She was checking a diamond-encrusted wristwatch, looking toward the house with cold impatience.
Beside her, Marcus Vance lay motionless on the ground, his briefcase ripped open, its contents scattered across the mud.
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Then, over the bunker’s external audio pickup, Victoria’s voice came through the speakers, speaking into a secure satellite phone:
“The water pressure dropped. They must have reached the manual valve. Bring the thermite charges from the van. We aren't waiting for the flood. Burn the foundation and bring the whole house down on top of them.”
