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“I think there might be something in the water. I’m going to swing the UAV around for a better view.”
WITHOUT LIGHT, Max had no way to determine how much air remained in the tank, but he estimated he had been crawling for twenty minutes. As much as he had tried to keep his breathing as shallow as possible, he knew he was using up the precious air at a prodigious clip, and there was no end in sight. The tunnel ahead was as inky as the length stretching out behind him.
Another ten minutes and he could feel it growing more difficult to breathe. The tank was approaching empty. Soon, he would be breathing the last of the air trapped in his suit, and then he would begin to suffocate. Spending so much of his life at sea, Max had always thought he’d die drowning. He had just never considered drowning in a vortex of noxious jet exhaust.
Doggedly, he plodded on, gaining a foot with each four-legged pace. The outer suit was a charred ruin, and pieces of it were tearing away, especially at the knee. Fortunately, the single layer of protection remaining was more than ample.
Kyle will be okay, he thought. He was certain that, no matter what, Juan would rescue his son again. And because of the fiasco the first time, he would use a different shrink to help deprogram his mind. The Chairman never made the same mistake twice, even if he didn’t know what had caused it in the first place. Max even believed that he would figure out that it was Dr. Jenner who had betrayed them, though he knew Juan would never guess Jenner’s true identity. He could hardly believe it himself.
Dying to rescue a child, he mused. He couldn’t think of a single greater cause to die for. He hoped someday Kyle would come to recognize the sacrifice, and he prayed his daughter would forgive her brother for their father’s death.
“Pain . . . can . . . be . . . ignored.”
It felt as though he were climbing Everest. He needed to breathe as deeply as possible to suck in enough air, but each time he did he ribs screamed. And, no matter how deeply he inhaled, or how much he ached, his lungs never felt full.
His hand smacked something in the darkness. His engineer’s sensibilities were instantly insulted. An exhaust shaft like this should be completely clear of obstructions in order to get peak efficiency out of the turbines. He felt around the object and gave a giddy laugh. It was the spare air tank that had been sent tu
mbling down the duct. In its mad flight up the exhaust vent, it had finally come to rest with its more aerodynamic top facing into the flow.
Max hurriedly unplugged his nearly depleted tank and jacked in the fresh one. The air was just as stale and metallic, but he could care less.
Fifteen minutes later, he saw the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. The duct widened and flattened into a diffuser, to help mask the hot exhaust from thermal imaging. The stealth bomber and fighter used something similar. The pressure of hot exhaust diminished when he removed his tank and got on his belly to crawl into the diffuser. There were thin vertical bars over its mouth to prevent someone from entering the duct.
He could see the ocean surging about eight feet below him. It had to be high tide. Otherwise, water would pour down the exhaust duct when it came in. He imagined the vent had a cover that could be lowered in the event of a storm. Forcing the bulky helmet through the vertical bars proved impossible, so he had no idea what lay to the right or left of his position. He would just have to rely on luck.
He spun around so that he could ram one of the bars with the air tank. Lying on his side, he couldn’t get that much momentum, so he pushed himself back a bit and tried again. He could feel the impact through his hands as he hit the grille again and again. Weakened by the combined effects of salt air and corrosive exhaust, a weld on one of the vertical bars snapped with the fifth blow. He repeated his assault on a second bar and then a third.
Satisfied he had enough room to squeeze through, he gripped each thin metal bar and bent it outward. He poked his head outside. There was a narrow platform immediately below the diffuser, and a ladder to his right that led upward. He was just turning to look to the left when he was grabbed by the shoulders and yanked out of the exhaust shaft. It happened so fast he had no time to react before he was thrown onto a dock. Two guards stood over him, each with a submachine gun slung under his arm. Unlike the kid Max had knocked unconscious back in the generator room, these two had the look of professionals.
“And just what do you think you’re doing, mate?” The guard spoke with a thick cockney accent.
With the helmet on and his ears ringing from so much time spent in the duct, Max saw the guard’s lips moving but couldn’t hear the words. As soon as he moved to pull his helmet off, their fingers tightened on the triggers. One guard stepped back to cover his partner, who tore the helmet away. “Who are you?” he demanded.
“Hiya, fellas, I’m Dusty Pipes from the Acme Chimney Sweep Company.”
CHAPTER 36
"IT’S MAX!” HALI CRIED, AS SOON AS HE SAW THE guards haul a figure wearing a silver suit out of the exhaust vent.
Juan snapped around to look at George Adams. “Last resort. Let’s go!”
The chopper pilot threw a toggle on his console that put the aerial drone into a mile-wide circle. It would maintain that pattern until someone took over the controls or it ran out of fuel. He swung the camera so it pointed directly at the dock and hit a button so it would track, to keep the dock in frame. “Giddy-up.”
Cabrillo launched himself across the room, heading for a stairwell to the aft deck, the long-legged Adams barely keeping pace. Juan’s mouth was set in a tight line, but his body was loose and relaxed. He was wearing black fatigues, with one of the flex-screen panels sewn onto a sleeve. He carried a pair of FNs, Five-seveNs, in kidney holsters, and another two slung from his hips. With the chopper’s stability in question, he wasn’t going to risk anyone else on a flight, so he purposefully overloaded himself with weapons. In his thigh pockets were four stick magazines for the Heckler and Koch MP-5 machine pistol already stowed in the Robinson.
“How’d he do it, ya wonder?” George said.
“I keep telling everyone, he’s a crafty one.” Juan turned on his combat radio. “Comm check. Do you read?”
“Right here,” Hali replied.
“Helm, Wepps, do you copy?”
The man and woman manning the weapons station and the ship’s helm control responded immediately.
“Wepps, I want you to take over control of the drone from your console and fire up its laser designator. I’m going to use its camera to call out targets. When I laze ’em, open fire with the one-twenty.”
The Oregon’s fire control was nearly as sophisticated as the Aegis battle space computer aboard a Navy cruiser. The small laser in the chin of the drone would light up a target, the computer could automatically calculate its exact GPS coordinates, raise or lower the ship’s 120mm cannon, and send any number of types of rounds downrange.
