Zero Hour nf-11 Page 7

  He pumped a smidgen of air into the bladder like a motorist trying to top off his tires to the perfect pressure. One quick hiss, then another one. The descent slowed.

  The depth gauge soon read two hundred and forty feet, and Kurt still saw nothing outside. At two hundred and forty-five, he put a slight bit of pressure on the air switch again. And by two and forty-seven, his nerves gave out.

  He jabbed the switch until the speeder reached neutral buoyancy. The descent stopped, and the speeder hung motionless in the dark.

  Kurt slid his thumb upward and tapped the light switch. He hit it just hard enough to send some juice through the circuit, but not enough to fully switch it on. The lights flashed dimly and went dark again. In a brief flash, they revealed a world of neon red and the corroded top of the laboratory a mere three feet below him.

  “At least I’m in the right place,” he muttered.

  If this ungainly construction was indeed a laboratory, there had to be a way in. Toxic water or regular, the safest, most efficient way to build an airlock in a marine environment was to put it underneath the structure.

  Kurt risked another flash, got a bearing on the edge of the structure, and went over the side. Dropping downward once again, he began to make out a soft glow around the bottom of the lab: illumination spilling from the airlock.

  “Nice of someone to leave a light on for me,” Kurt muttered.

  At just that moment, the speeder tilted violently to the right, and a strange metallic twang reverberated through the water.

  Kurt knew instantly what had happened. Drifting down, he’d hit one of the guide wires that held the dome and its shaft of pipes in place. The impact had wrenched him to the side and spun him around. Far worse, it sent a vibration through the water like the striking of a gigantic guitar string. The noise reverberated off the walls of the pit and came back at him in a shadowy echo.

  Kurt righted the ship and looked around for leaks. The cockpit appeared to be secure. He breathed a sigh of relief and continued on downward, hoping to avoid any more trouble.

  * * *

  “What was that noise?”

  The question was posed to Janko by one of his men, who was nervously placing a block of plastic explosives beneath a set of computer servers.

  “I’m not sure,” Janko admitted. He’d listened to all kinds of creaks and groans during his time on the station, especially when the techs were testing the dome or drawing power from it, but nothing like the strange reverberation they’d just heard.

  “Water has a way of distorting sound,” one of the techs mentioned.

  That was true, but Janko was not alone in wondering if the structure was safe. One didn’t need to be a scientist to imagine acids slowly etching their way through the metal walls.

  “Who knows what the chemicals in this lake have been doing to our hull all these years,” he said. “Finish setting the explosives. I want to get out of here and blow this thing before it dissolves around us.”

  The men seemed to agree. They doubled their labors, and moments later the demolitions expert slid out from under the computer bank. “All set.”

  “Good,” Janko said. The explosives would tear apart the circuit boards and memory banks. The fire that followed would melt the remnants to sludge before the water poured in. Even assuming they had the ability and fortitude to recover the remnants from beneath nearly a thousand feet of poisoned water, the high-tech labs of the world’s intelligence agencies would get nothing from what they found.

  That meant only one job remained.

  He turned around and pointed his rifle at a pair of gagged figures sitting on the floor. One man, one woman. Both with their hands tied behind their backs.

  The man was either law enforcement or military. Strong willed, he stared at Janko, almost daring him to shoot them. The woman was softer, pretty, with strawberry blond hair, and fear in her eyes. Janko figured he would shoot her first. Put her out of her misery. He raised the weapon.

  “Are you insane?!” the tech shouted.

  Janko glared at him.

  “We’ve turned the oxygen to full,” the tech explained. “We also opened the acetylene tanks. This whole station is filling with flammable gas. If you pull that trigger, the whole place might go up in flames. You want to kill them, use a knife.”

  Janko lowered the rifle and looked back at the captives. Had they realized this? Had they been goading him into destroying himself? It didn’t matter. They would face the painful fate of an explosion and fire on their own in a few minutes.

  “Set the timer,” he said. “We’re getting out of here.”

  Janko watched as the demolitions man set the timer to 10:00 and pressed INITIATE. The clock ticked over to 09:59 and began winding down. Without glancing back, Janko turned and made his way toward the main ladder. Their submarine awaited.

  * * *

  Joe stood on the beach, considering his options. As much as he believed Kurt would make it back one way or another, waiting around for him to return wasn’t going to work for Bradshaw. Nor was Joe interested in a half-mile swim through a toxic lake to retrieve the amphibious truck.

  His mind turned to the dead vehicles. They had chargers in them. Assuming he could get one of them started, he could power up the radios and call for help. It would come in the form of a helicopter or three — one to whisk the gravely injured chief of the ASIO to a hospital and two or three more filled with military commandos or SWAT teams to surround and secure the lake.

  It was a two-hour drive to Alice Springs but only thirty minutes by air. For Bradshaw, that might be the difference between life and death.

  “If only these things came with hand cranks,” Joe muttered, thinking of vintage cars.

  He considered push-starting one of them. The two Jeeps had manual transmissions, and the beach sloped down to the water. That would help, but he wasn’t sure he could get up enough speed.

  He reached into one of the Jeeps, put the transmission in neutral, and put his shoulder into the doorframe. Pushing with all his might, Joe got the rig moving. But the sand was soft, and he couldn’t get the speed up beyond the pace of a slow walk. He stepped aside as the vehicle reached the water’s edge.

  He expected to see the front wheels roll into the water and stop, but the nose of the vehicle went over, and the cabin filled with water from the open door. Seconds later, it plunged downward and disappeared beneath the surface. The last thing he saw was the trailer hitch that stuck out from the rear bumper like the battle flag on the aft end of a sinking ship.

  He glanced over at Bradshaw, who appeared to be out cold. “You didn’t need to see that anyway.”

  Joe stood perplexed for a second, wondering about what had just happened. Then it made sense. Like most open-pit mines, the entire excavation was done in terraces. A steep slope, then a flat section, and then another steep cut. The beach was nothing more than a wide terrace. A sixty-foot wall lay behind them at an almost vertical angle. A similar drop must lie just beyond the water’s edge.

  Joe looked around at the remaining vehicles, and a new plan formed in his mind. It would cost the ASIO at least one more vehicle, but if Joe was right, it would get the other Jeep started.

  * * *

  Kurt looked upward into a pool of cherry-colored light. He’d brought the speeder in beneath the station and found the airlock.

  Carefully, he maneuvered into the bay and surfaced. The pool and the surrounding deck space appeared empty.

  Kurt nudged the throttle and bumped it up onto a shelf of some type. He popped the canopy back and stepped out onto the deck. A moment later, he was through the primary airlock and into an equipment room.

  A pair of tanks and two full-face helmets sat nearby. The same type of equipment the ASIO had in one of their trucks.

  The dive team had made it this far, he thought. But where were they now?

  Kurt had managed to bring the short-barreled M4 carbine, but the odd, almost nervous energy that he’d quickly begun to feel to
ld him he was breathing a high-oxygen mix. That was surprising.

  He would have expected a tri-mix of gasses, or even an oxygen-helium mixture, that worked better at sustained depths. To be sure he wasn’t imagining it, Kurt spoke briefly. “Four score and seven years ago…”

  He should have sounded like Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck, but he sounded exactly like himself. There was no helium in the air, or very little of it anyway. He put the rifle aside. There would be no gunfight at the bottom of the Tasman Lake. One shot would destroy the entire place.

  He pulled a large dive knife from a sheath on his leg, wondering if this turn of events made his odds better or worse.

  Twenty feet down a hall, he found water at the base of a ladder. He went up it and explored the next floor, finding two rooms filled with stacks of batteries. A wall panel displayed power states, most in the green and a few odd ones in yellow or red. Kurt wondered where they were getting the power to charge the huge stack or what they were using it for.

  He went up another level and found what looked like the crew’s living quarters. Empty lockers and unmade beds gave him the impression the place had been abandoned.

  He moved back to the central ladder, ascended to a third level, and found the next hatch resting on its stops. He was about to open it when he heard the sound of footsteps pounding down the ladder toward him.

  He held completely still.

  Voices echoed. “Come on,” someone shouted. “Move.”

  Kurt was about to slide back down a level and hide, when the footsteps abruptly moved to the left, pounding on the deck above, and headed away from him. It sounded like several people in a hurry.

  He opened the hatch just a sliver and looked through. No one there.

  Quietly, he pulled himself up and peeked around the corner. Three men stood in front of another airlock. This one reminded Kurt of the revolving doors in a center-city office building. As it opened, two of them went in and the third waited.

  The sound of more footsteps descending the ladder came next. Kurt looked up just as another man dropped in beside him.

  “What the…”

  Kurt clapped a hand over the man’s mouth and plunged the carbon steel blade into the man’s chest, slamming him against the wall in the process. A second man dropped in, landing on Kurt’s arm and knocking the knife to the floor.

  Kurt spun around and threw an elbow into the second attacker’s temple. It sent the man sprawling to the deck near the airlock.

  By now, a third man had come down the ladder, his hands and feet sliding on the rails instead of using the rungs. He landed and grabbed Kurt from behind, wrapping an arm around Kurt’s throat and trying to choke the life out of him.

  Kurt pushed backward, ramming the man into the bulkhead wall. The grip loosened only a bit. Kurt pushed back again, this time trying to snap his head back in a reverse head butt of sorts.

  The second impact shook the man loose, just as the airlock pinged like an elevator in a hotel lobby. Kurt was pushed to the ground as this third assailant rushed past.

  By the time he got up, the airlock door was closing. The four remaining men were crammed into it, looking back at him. One of them shook his head, smiling sadistically.

  Four against one, and they’d run off. Kurt could only think of a single reason for that: they were about to scuttle the station.

  A quick glance at the dead man in the ladder well confirmed it. He carried wire strippers in his breast pocket, a roll of electrical tape on his belt, and a length of red-and-blue flat cable. In all likelihood, the station was set to explode.

  Kurt grabbed the wire cutters and continued up the ladder. Based on the escaping group’s show of haste, he doubted there was much time.

  ELEVEN

  Joe’s plan was in full bloom now. He’d set up a pulley system, running the cable from the front of the last Jeep, around the tubular steel brush guard on one of the SUVs, and attached it to the tail end of another SUV.

  His plan was simple: push the hooked vehicle into the water and over the edge. As it dropped, the cable would drag the Jeep forward rapidly enough for Joe to pop the clutch and get the engine going.

  Ready to go, he checked on Bradshaw once more, crossed his fingers, and moved to the SUV he was using as a deadweight. He couldn’t open the windows without power, so he smashed them in. He opened all the doors and the tailgate and even popped the hood. Anything to let air out and water in to help the SUV sink faster.

  He put the transmission in neutral, released the brake, and then hopped out. Digging his feet hard into the sand, Joe began pushing. Little by little, the SUV began to move, its pace quickened as it reached the firmer soil at the water’s edge. With a last great shove, Joe pushed it off and stepped back, almost losing his balance and tumbling into the toxic soup.

  The SUV rolled out and began to fill with water. It nosed over just like the first vehicle had, then stopped as the wire cable pulled taut.

  Joe ran back to the Jeep and hopped in. He made sure the key was turned and released the brakes. It began to move forward, slowly at first, but then picking up speed as the sinking SUV pulled on the cable.

  Joe waited as long as he could and then popped the clutch.

  The engine surged, stuttered, and then fired up. He pressed in the clutch and held it as he hit the brakes. The Jeep stopped a few feet shy of ramming the pulley vehicle.

  Foot still on the clutch, he gave the Jeep some gas, revving the engine. After a few seconds, it began to hum nicely, and when he finally let off the gas, it went into a steady idle. With the parking brake firmly set, Joe got out and moved to the winch at the front of the Jeep.

  He put a hand on the release lever and yanked it downward. The jaws of the drum parted, releasing the metal cord. It flung forward under great tension and whiplashed across the pulley car, shattering the windshield, before sliding across the sand and following the sinking SUV down into the lake.

  Joe gave a salute to the departing vehicle and climbed back into the Jeep. He put the radio on the charger and watched as the red light lit up.

  He glanced at his own reflection in the mirror. “You’re good, Zavala,” he said to himself. “You’re very good.”

  Guessing it would take several minutes for the radio to store up enough power to be useful, Joe decided to check on his patient.

  He jumped out of the idling Jeep and moved quickly to where Bradshaw lay. The man was unconscious, but he was still breathing.

  “Hang in there,” Joe whispered.

  Out on the lake, the water began to stir. A slight bulge was forming near the center, halfway between the shore and the floating truck. Something was moving beneath the surface, like a killer whale charging the beach.

  For a second, Joe hoped it might be Kurt in the speeder. But the object broke through and revealed itself as a twenty-foot-long submersible with a wide, rubber-skirted bottom. The reason for that design became clear seconds later as the sub rose up out of the water and began racing across the surface, leaving a wide swath of foam beneath and behind it.

  “A submersible-hovercraft,” Joe marveled. “That’s even better than a truck that swims.”

  For twenty seconds, the hovercraft traveled northward along the surface, then it turned slightly to the east, raced out of the water on the far side of the pit and up onto the ramp.

  Joe realized he was witnessing the group who’d ambushed the ASIO making their escape.

  “I don’t think so,” he said. He rushed to the idling Jeep and climbed in. He paused for a second, considering Bradshaw. There was nothing he could do for him. But as soon as the radio was charged, he’d call for help.

  He jammed the transmission into gear and stomped on the gas pedal. The tires spun in the gravel as he tore off after the fleeing hovercraft.

  * * *

  Down in the empty station, Kurt continued to look for Hayley. He climbed and checked two additional levels as quickly as he could before finally pushing through the uppermost hatch and coming out
in some kind of control room.

  In the far corner, two figures sat bound and gagged on the floor. Kurt ran over to them and pulled the gag off Hayley’s mouth.

  “Explosives,” she blurted out, not even uttering a hello. “Under the panel.”

  Kurt cut her loose and left her with the knife as he rushed to the panel and slid beneath it. He found the blocks of plastic explosives and the timer. It read 01:07 and was counting down by the second.

  He took out the wire cutters as Hayley freed the guy beside her. He was about to snip one of the wires when they rushed up behind him, crowding him more than he would have liked.

  “Either of you know anything about explosives?” he asked.

  They shook their heads.

  “We should get out of here,” Hayley said, gulping.

  The clock hit 00:59. They had less than a minute. Kurt shook his head. “We’ll never make it.”

  The guy from the ASIO reached for the timer. Kurt slapped his hand. “Press the wrong button and you’ll blow us to bits.”

  He pointed. A tiny lock symbol was illuminated at the top of the screen. If Kurt was right, they would need to enter a code to stop the countdown.

  “We can’t just sit here,” the guy said.

  “Forty seconds,” Hayley mentioned.

  Kurt studied the detonator. It was a standard industrial design, not a bombmaker’s toy. He’d used similar devices scuttling a few ships. If he was right, it should fail-safe instead of fail-deadly. It was connected to two wires, red and blue.

  “Thirty seconds.”

  The ASIO guy bumped Kurt, trying to get a better look.

  “What’s your name?” Kurt asked.

  “Wiggins.”

  “Back up, Wiggins,” Kurt said.

  “Twenty seconds,” Hayley said stressfully.

  “What good will that do?” Wiggins asked.

  “It will get you out of my space.”

  They eased off of him a bit, and Kurt opened the wire strippers as wide as possible.