CHAPTER Fifteen

 

 

Maybe it was too late.

Nate was afraid he had lost Colin to the effects of oxygen deprivation, which meant it was up to him to come up with a way out of here. Think.

“Hey, you didn’t answer me.” Colin sounded petulant.

“You didn’t ask a question.”

“Oh,” That tripped up the engineer for a moment. “Do you want to know why Emily stole those plans from the safe?”

Nate wavered with a slight bout of lightheadedness. Emily. He could see her now on those video images, crouched down, peering nervously over her shoulder before diving into Barcuda’s desk. Frightened. Beautiful. Determined. His angel.

“You said it was because people would die if this was built.”

Colin’s lips curved in sad acceptance. “Yes. True. The heating panels require the proper fluid emissions to ensure the ice doesn’t freeze up again and lock us in a coffin.”

The mental image made Nate shudder.

“If Barcuda constructed this and put it out in the field—” Colin shook his head. “Do you know that he wanted to test it in Antarctica?”

Nate nodded.

“Anyway, he would be killing that crew.”

“He wouldn’t test it unmanned first?”

“Couldn’t. Hey,” Colin brushed his fingertips against his shoulder. “I’m good, but not that good.”

“Ummm,” The influence of the oxygen loss was making him sluggish. Nate shook his head. “The bottom line is that it was your concept, your work, and not the property of NMD. You and Emily were right in what you did. I didn’t have enough time to gather all the facts the night I chased your sister down.”

He had to get to her. Dying in the Hyperion submersible was simply not an option. Nor did he intend to let her down on his vow to protect her gifted young brother, the man that now watched him with a curious tilt of his head.

Colin shook that head. “The reason she stole those plans was not to protect the world. It was to protect me. She worries too much. Maybe you can put in a good word for me and let her know I can handle things.”

It was hard not to smile at the blend of naïve conviction. “I’ll do that. For now, tell me what drilling is going to do for us.”

“Probably kill us.”

Nate struggled not to shake him. “Then why suggest it?”

“We’re going to die anyway. Why not destroy the Hyperion, demolish the hangar, and take out the heart of NMD—” his hand swept the air, “—their research and development core. Their nucleus.”

In the ensuing silence, Nate chuckled. Yeah, why the hell not?

“Alright, tell me what we have to do.”

***

For a moment they thought it was going to work. Colin’s adept hands had the Hyperion humming in anticipation as if she was about to launch into space. Perspiration clung to his forehead, glowing in the reflection of the instrument panel. Nate was a quick study and managed the heating system, pushing the levers to their limits and charging to the opposite side of the deck to mimic the procedure.

“Ready!”

Wild eyes shot up from the console. “The Hyperion is supposed to be put down in the water, or on top of ice before you turn the panels on—” Colin slammed his palm against a switch and the submersible shook, “not suspended from scaffolding.”

The temperature grew steadily until Nate worried that they would pass out before having a chance. “According to the settings, these are nearing full capacity. We’re ready, Colin.”

“I know!”

Fatigue was a siren seeking to possess Nate. He reached for the metallic wall for support, and then snapped his hand back as if bitten. The surface nearly blistered his palm.

“Damn,” he said aloud, and then added in a whisper, “We are going to die in here.”

Colin slammed another lever and nearly tumbled over when the craft bucked under his feet. “Nate! Benjamin. Can you make sure he’s secure? This is going to be a ride.”

“Yeah, no problem.” For a bewildered moment he almost lunged towards the vacant space behind Colin expecting to find the portly, wig-capped politician sitting there with a smug look on his face.

“Hold on,” Colin screamed.

For a suspended moment they floated. It was as if Colin had launched the Hyperion into space—as if Nate could glance out the windows now and witness a vast galaxy dotted with celestial strobes.

The weightless sense of rapture ended with the shock of impact as he was propelled across the floor of the ship. He would have completely lost consciousness were it not for the fact that his body slid into the scalding wall. Blistering heat against his right side kept him alert.

The Hyperion bucked and shuddered in an effort to move forward, the blazing nose boring against the immense hangar wall like a cattle prod. Nate sought leverage and latched his good arm around a chair soldered into the floor.

“Yee-haw!”

The cabin was aglow from the heat, and smoke had started to fill the deck from an unidentified source. In the midst of that red fog, Colin Brennan sat in the control seat, smacking the arm of the chair like he was riding a bronco in a rodeo.

“Colin,” He didn’t think his shout made it past the god-awful shriek of metal scraping metal. It was a hideous noise with the power to peel the flesh from inside your ears.

“Hold on, cowboy.” Colin cried out. “We’re making some headway here.”

That remark was stimulant enough to coax Nate forward, deeper into the boiling head of the submersible. To his amazement, through the smoldering glass he could see the torched nose of the vessel boring through the wall.

“Christ, Brennan, you’re doing it.”

In the smoke that was now enveloping the cabin, Nate located Colin’s wild grin. With painstaking effort he hauled closer to the controls and rose to his feet.

“Well, one of two things is about to happen,” the young engineer shouted over his shoulder. “Either we make it all the way, or the metal cools too fast and we get lodged halfway through the wall. Depends on how much they adhered to the design.”

It was impossible to maintain an upright stance as the Hyperion shuddered on a caliber far greater than anything registered by Richter. “If we make it through,” Nate’s voice trilled, “what then? We’re still trapped in here. There’s no oxygen.”

Colin tried to leverage his lanky body in the seat and use the strength in his arms to shove the levers to their furthest extent. He resembled a fisherman trying to bring in an 800-pound marlin. In response, the submersible surged forward, the sound of ripping metal reaching an inhuman pitch.

“If we crack through the outside wall, this deck is not going to hold up to the stress.” He craned his neck around. “That’s not ice we’re cutting through. Ice melts. This building is tearing the Hyperion up.”

Nate began to see signs of what Colin described. The hull was buckling in, and in some instances he could discern portions of the hangar wall slicing through the framework like a can opener.

“Damn.” He pitched forward and caught himself against the hull. “If it weren’t for the fire, air would be getting in here right now, wouldn’t it?”

Colin nodded, and tried to rise from his chair. “There’s not much more I can do.”

He nearly toppled forward but Nate caught his elbow. Together they crouched behind the console, a grim foreboding taming the dissonance. A sense of inevitability possessed Nate. This time he would not be resurrected. He sat back on his heels and awaited the fatal grand finale.

***

It played out just like Colin had anticipated. The smoldering nose of the submersible broke through the hangar wall and loomed, suspended over the next vast storage chamber.

And that was exactly where she stayed.

Without the aid of heat, the stern of the sub was unable to break free of the wall’s twisted metal fingers, which cooled to form an eternal grasp around the craft.

“Damn.” Nate coughed against the mounting smoke.

“Sorry captain, I gave her all she got.”

Nate heard Colin’s attempt at a Scottish brogue and cupped his shoulder with a quick squeeze before taking stock of the demolished deck. The walls smoldered and the heat blurred his vision. He managed to focus long enough to seek out what he was looking for.

“Come on,” he shouted. “This way.”

It was a fine fissure, but wide enough for a man to fit through. He saw Colin skeptically eye the serrated edge of metal.

“I’ll follow you, but we’re going to get sliced up like grated cheese when we squeeze through there.”

“Perhaps. But we don’t have a choice.”

“No, it’s just,” he glanced edgily over his shoulder, “Ben gave up that whole vegetarian stage, and well—”

“He’s going to have to suck it in.” Nate took Colin by the arm and coaxed him closer to the jagged fracture. “He’ll make it. I’ll see to it.”

Colin drew his arm away and stood rooted. The resistance reminded Nate so much of Emily. It made his stomach clench. “What?”

Somber, bloodshot eyes studied him. “You’ll be good for my sister.”

As absurd and futile as their dilemma was, those words pleased him. He managed a brief smile of reassurance before thrusting half his body through the twisted metal teeth, feeling their bite.

***

“Why are you going this way?” Colin stood at the bottom of the staircase, looking up. “Barcuda’s office is up there.”

“They are distracted by the commotion in the hangar. They’re probably sifting through the debris right now, thinking we’re still trapped inside. Regardless, I don’t want to walk straight in. We need an angle to gain an advantage.”

Nate tried to plug his code into the access panel, but it was rejected. Barcuda must have executed a global override, a trick Nate himself had taught him. That, or his fingertips had been seared to illegibility.

Screw it. He kicked the door in and a shrill chorus of alarm bells ensued.

“Wow, my hero,” Colin whispered.

Looking over his shoulder at the young, smoke-smudged face, Nate grinned. “Don’t learn from me.” He sobered. “Look, everything is on camera throughout this facility. This alarm will only alert them to which floor we’re on. If we move quickly enough, we have the advantage.”

Owl-like eyes blinked up at the ceiling. “I always suspected they had more cameras than what we saw. How else could they have known what I was working on during my lunch break?”

“True.”

Nate found his way back to the shaft and turned and caught the zeal stamped on Colin’s face. It was this keen desire to explore that Emily feared most in her brother. In the end, this man’s intelligent curiosity could cost them all their lives. And yet, it was a curiosity that Nate would never want to see restrained.

It troubled him that the halls were empty. Yes, it was possible that all of Barcuda’s men were occupied down in the hangar, but it was not like Barcuda to leave this level unsupervised after an alarm was triggered.

At the far end of the corridor lay the rear entrance to the man’s office. It provided a discreet exit for Barcuda who hated meetings with government bureaucrats. The main access to the suite was around the corner, a stately set of oak doors that offered glaring contrast against the steel and linoleum that molded this underground bunker. Barcuda’s front doors demonstrated opulence. The back door portrayed the real man. A chicken shit, greedy con artist out to make a buck from any unscrupulous source.

Nate knew they were being captured on a mobile lens, but he had grown reckless in his quest to reach Emily. This was where Barcuda had ordered his men to take her. If she was held captive behind this door nothing would stop him. He would not fail her.

“If anything happens in there, Nate—” A plaintive male voice beckoned from behind.

There was such gravity to that tone that he hesitated and turned around.

“—save my sister—just save my sister.”

Maybe people had a tough time understanding Colin Brennan. Maybe the young man played up his enigmatic role just for that purpose. But Nate found that there was no great mystery to Colin. He was a young, intellectually-gifted man with a heart too large for his lanky body.

Nate cupped a hand on his shoulder. “We’ll save her.”