Next, Stone lifted Alice’s slight form out of the tram and placed her next to Cheryl. Then it was Debbie’s turn.
After all of the women were loaded into the lift, there was precious little room left in the cramped space. Stone paused, and looked down at her, love shining in his eyes.
“Jenny…”
She didn’t let him finish. “No, Stone. Either put Gilbert and Paul in and then send it up to the surface, or we’ll all get in and take the risk together. I’m not leaving without you.”
There was no more time to argue, and he knew it.
“Fine, Baby. We’ll risk it together.”
Jenny helped him haul first Paul and then Gilbert into the lift. The men had to be squeezed in beside the women, and when they were inside, there was no room left on the floor at all.
Stone climbed in, carefully stepping over legs and between ankles, and then held out his hand to her.
She took it and stepped gingerly inside, squeezing right up next to him where he stood next to the jerry-rigged panel.
He leaned precariously to the side and rolled the metal door shut. It latched with a loud metal clang. The sound held a certain finality. Jenny quickly realized that it could very well be the sound of their tomb closing.
She squeezed her eyes shut and flung her arms around Stone’s chest as he pressed the operator’s button on the hot-wired panel.
The lift lurched upward. There was an unsettling whine, like metal cables being stressed to capacity, and then the lift began to rise. Slowly.
Jenny sighed in relief, then began counting the seconds in her head. Thirty…. Sixty… Ninety…. One hundred and twenty…
There was no way to know how long the ride would take, or if they would reach the surface at all.
She dug the flashlight out of her pocket and turned on the beam, then reluctantly let go of Stone.
Carefully, she stepped over sprawled legs and made her way to Alice, then quickly swapped the mask from her face to Alice’s.
The lift lurched, bouncing slightly on the metal cables that held it aloft, then resumed its upward climb once more. Now even slower. The metal cables squealed, and Jenny thought she could smell the faint tang of smoke in the stagnant air of the lift.
The lift began to shudder, vibrating the floor under their feet. The motion made Jenny’s teeth chatter together. She stepped over to Stone’s side again, and his arms surrounded her and pulled her in close.
If the lift cables broke, and she fell, at least they would be together in the last few moments.
Jenny closed her eyes and counted the seconds again. Thirty… Sixty… Ninety… One hundred and twenty…
The tanks were now out of oxygen.
She shuddered in the circle of Stone’s embrace. His strong arms tightened around her.
The lift continued to shudder and climb ever so slowly toward the surface.
Nine hundred seconds later, the lift lurched to a stop. Smoke sifted in through the crack in the metal door. But, so did light. And sweet, fresh air.
Stone kept a hold on her with one arm and reached over to haul the gate open with the other.
After the gloom of the caverns below and the dimness inside the lift, the light that glared in through the open door was almost too much to bear. Jenny’s eyes watered. She squinted and peered out the door.
Light flashed in her face, brilliant and blinding. Strobing. Unnatural.
Through the unnatural flashing lights, Jenny could just barely see that the lift opened out into a small room with a scuffed painted concrete floor. The light came from a multitude of cameras, flashing as the camera operators took photo after photo.
Stone stepped out of the lift. Jenny followed. A virtual army of paramedics, clad in bulky, yellow HAZMAT suits, swarmed forward, jostling past them to remove the rest of the group from the lift.
The throng of spectators and cameramen kept a careful distance from Stone and Jenny as they stood just outside the lift, letting their eyes adjust to the brightness.
Jenny took in a long, gulping breath, ignoring the broken-glass feelings in her abused lung tissues and enjoying the simple pleasure of breathing in fresh, clean air that was filled with life-sustaining oxygen.
A tall, thin man shouldered his way forward through the crowd, his ruddy, freckled face bearing a huge grin.
“Sam Stone! What trouble will you get yourself into next?”
“It’s good to see you, Dave,” Stone said.
The man stepped toward Stone without a qualm and grabbed him in a bear hug. Both men thumped the other’s back vigorously, recognizing their long-term friendship with the simple gesture.
Jenny smiled at the friendly reunion, then turned to the paramedic next to her. “Someone needs to turn on the air circulation pumps that provide fresh air to the museum immediately,” she began. “And, there’s a chemical substance that has been released below in the mines. It will need to be contained.”
“Some of the pumps are already on, Miss, fitted with filters to contain the biohazard and the toxic waste. They were started ten minutes ago at the museum site when the EPA took over the rescue and clean-up operations from the CDC. A team has already been sent down in the main lift to rescue the survivors still in the museum.”
Jenny stared at the paramedic in relief and amazement as the knowledge of their success slowly sank in. They’d done it. They’d managed to get help for the survivors. The risk to make the call had been worth it. And Dave really had come through for them. In a big way.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Jenny lay against Stone’s chest, inside the circle of his warm arms, as they both reclined on the leather couch in the living room of his ranch house. Brilliant sunshine crept through the open curtains to bathe them both in a buttery yellow light, doing much to chase away the memory of the constant dimness that they’d experienced in the underground tunnels.
The morning news was on the television, and though Jenny usually had no desire to see the sensationalized events of someone else’s life, for once, she was avidly watching the breaking story.
The anchorwoman was cheerily reporting that the dead tattooed man found at the bottom of the second lift in the Sareyville salt mines had been none other than Hugo Mack, a notorious killer-for-hire last known to reside in or near Chicago. The woman reported gleefully that Hugo Mack used to be number five on the Most Wanted List. Though there were few recent photos of the man, his identity had become known when social media had been flooded earlier in the morning with information that he’d scheduled to post automatically in the event of his death or disappearance. The perky anchorwoman on the TV news informed viewers that the information that had been sent out by the deceased’s accounts was even now being substantiated by some of their top reporters.
So far, it had been confirmed that the CEO of CHRE, a multi-billion dollar company also based in Chicago, which had made the bulk its money in the manufacture and development of various pharmaceuticals, had contracted with Mack to release the toxic chemical waste being stored secretly, and illegally in breach of the storage contract, in the USF vaults by their rival company VeraCities. When confronted with these allegations, the CEO of CHRE, Howard Wilsone, readily admitted his guilt in hiring Hugo Mack to release the chemical waste. Mr. Wilsone also admitted his guilt when he’d been questioned about the other allegations made by Hugo Mack’s posts. Thus far, Wilsone had admitted to knowingly, and willingly, facilitating the attempted murder of the more than one hundred people who had been guests and staff at the Strata museum on the night of the incident and also to embezzling more than three million dollars in funds from CHRE’s accounts over the course of his eleven years with the company. He had little hope of disavowing the allegations, since Hugo Mack’s proof had been so definitive, so Wilsone had thrown himself on the mercy of the public, hoping to plead his case for all the world to hear before it came to trial. The anchorwoman assured her audience that it would come to trial, promising that they’d have detailed coverage of that event too.
“He was willing to kill us all for higher profit margins?” Jenny asked aloud, her question more one of horrified surprise than one that needed an answer.
Stone seemed to understand this, because he simply tightened his arms around her and held her closer to his heart.
Jenny’s attention returned to the anchorwoman as she went on to explain that, after an anonymous informant had notified VeraCities that their illegally stored toxic waste had been discovered, it had been too late to stop the exposure of the museum visitors to the deadly compounds which had been comprised of a cocktail of deadly pharmaceutical by-products. Realizing this, the President of VeraCities, Jack Kowerd, had leveraged his longstanding friendship with Dennis Malnon, formerly of the CDC, in an attempt to cover up the chemical spill. Their plan had been a simple one: by allowing all survivors to perish from exposure, there would be no one left alive to tell the tale of what had actually happened that night at the museum.
Both Kowerd and Malnon, as well as several CDC doctors and their staff, had been arrested when their involvement was exposed. The discovery of this attempt at an unsanctioned cover-up by the former CDC personnel was entirely due to information provided by another informant, a one Logan Stanley.
Here, the anchorwoman paused to gaze solemnly at the camera for a moment before she continued with the story. Jenny shuddered within the circle of Stone’s arms, knowing what the woman was about to say. The anchorwoman reported that, though many of the visitors did perish, the twenty-seven survivors owed their lives, oddly enough, to an ancient bacteria that had been accidentally released at the time of the toxic chemical spill.
The camera point of view shifted here, going off scene to a laboratory setting in which a woman identified as infectious disease specialist Dr. Nancy Fein sat in front of a camera dressed professionally in a pristine white lab coat. The doctor explained that the ancient bacteria, freed from its contained environment, had found and fed on the chemical waste, causing the waste to become inert even as the waste caused the formerly harmless bacteria to mutate into a serious threat to human health. During this process, the mutated bacteria had multiplied exponentially at an alarming rate. This process of multiplication on such a massive scale had burned much of the stored oxygen in the underground caverns, depleting oxygen stores far more quickly than they would have been depleted under normal circumstances, which had been especially problematic for the museum visitors after the circulation of fresh surface air had been terminated by Dennis Malnon. Yet, during the process of rendering the waste inert, the bacteria had saved the lives of the museum visitors, in effect rescuing them from exposure to the toxic chemicals, though it then took many of those same lives later that very evening. Ironically, it had been discovered that it had been the bacteria that had also killed Hugo Mack, not the toxic chemicals that he’d released into the mines.
After the doctor finished her segment, the live feed once again returned to the newsroom and to the anchorwoman seated comfortably behind her desk. The woman bestowed an artificially whitened mega-watt smile upon the camera, and then continued in her careful diction, announcing that the few survivors also owed their lives to the diligent efforts of two local heroes who had managed to gain the attention of the EPA, and to the weak December sunshine. Interestingly enough, that anchorwoman reported, the ancient bacteria, in its mutated form, could not withstand direct sunlight or the Vitamin D produced by its human hosts when exposed to UV rays, either produced artificially or by the sun.
Here, Jenny’s attention wavered. She knew the rest of the story from a first-hand perspective. She didn’t need to hear any more. She switched off the TV using Stone’s sleek, silver remote and turned in his arms to look up at his face.
“Do you have any objections to moving the wedding date up a little? After recent events, which have just shown me how precarious and precious life really is, I’d like to get married sooner, rather than later,” she asked.
“No objections at all,” Stone told her as he bent down to kiss her lips.
Note from the author:
I hope you have enjoyed reading DEEP DOWN. I certainly had a lot of fun writing it. The idea for the book came from a visit to the real Strataca Museum, located in Hutchinson, KS. My visit was a great adventure, unlike what Stone and Jenny experience on their visit to the fictional Strata Museum. The Strata Museum in DEEP DOWN is a product of my imagination, and does not reflect, in any way, my visit to the Strataca Museum, which sparked the idea for the book. If you happen to have a chance to visit the real Strataca Museum, I suggest you take it. I promise that it will be a memorable experience.
If you’ve enjoyed reading DEEP DOWN, please consider leaving a review on Amazon. I’d love to hear what you thought of the book and if you’re interested in reading more about the adventures of Sam Stone.
If you’d like to be notified of upcoming releases, please visit my website at www.janeanworth.com and sign up for my newsletter.
Happy reading,
Janean
Do you like Suspense novels?
Keep reading to find an excerpt from GUARDING KAMI, a Christian Contemporary Suspense novel.
Chapter One
Gabe Mathews slouched down low in the seat of his car in front of the woman’s house, waiting to catch a glimpse of her stalker. That is, if she even really had one.
His back was already protesting his hunched over position as he recalled again the conversation that he’d had with Stan just the day before. The conversation that had resulted in this uncomfortable stakeout. Stan had approached him right after the church service was over, when everyone was filtering out of the building, and had taken him aside to ask about the woman’s problem.
“I’m telling you, Gabe, I think she’s in real danger,” Stan’s voice had shaken with emotion.
“Stan, true stalkers are not that common. Are you sure your buddy at the police station has it right?” Gabe had asked, hoping that Stan was wrong.
“He said that she’d received a threatening note from someone who claimed to be watching her. He didn’t go into details, because he couldn’t share those, but he said he wished that the police could do more for her, other than just keep an eye on her house periodically. She lives in that big house of hers all alone. I’m worried about her.”
The woman that Stan was so worried about was Kami Walker, a member of the congregation. Gabe had only met her a couple of times before, and at those times he’d gotten the feeling that she was quite a loner. She didn’t mingle with the rest of the congregation much. She’d been polite to him when she’d talked to him, but her manner had been decidedly cool.
Still, despite her coolness, he’d felt obligated to at least check out what Stan had told him. Not only was it his Christian duty to look into the matter, but Gabe couldn’t stomach the idea of a stalker harassing the woman. He’d seen the worst that could happen when a stalker took an interest in an unmarried woman, and he’d vowed that, if he had anything to do about it, that would not happen to another woman he knew.
So, Gabe now sat in his car near Kami Walker’s house, in the middle of the night, feeling a bit like a stalker himself.
The shadows cast by the overhanging branches of the mature tree he’d parked under hid his plain blue sedan from view fai
rly well. The glow of the streetlight couldn’t penetrate through the solid blackness of the thick shadows under the tree, and he was careful not to give his position away by using anything that would emit light. He didn’t want her to see him and worry, and he didn’t want to be spotted by the stalker, if she truly had one. He was as comfortable as he could make himself, which wasn’t that comfortable, and he settled in for a long wait.
From his vantage point across the street, he could see her through the big bay window that faced out onto her massive front lawn.
In his opinion, the bay window afforded entirely too much easy access for viewing her. He wondered why she didn’t realize that. He wondered why Kami hadn’t put up curtains or planted a large bush in front of the window to hide her from the view of the street.
Of course, he knew that the purpose of having an enormous bay window was for the view, so it would have been odd if she’d covered it up, but she was just so vulnerable behind that glass. So easily watched. So easily spied upon. So easily accessible to anyone who really, really wanted to get to her.
The thought of someone getting to her made him slightly angry. He wasn’t surprised to realize that he felt protective of her already, even though he’d only been there a few hours and had only known her story for less than a day. It was well known in the Private Investigator business that it wasn’t good to form a personal attachment to clients, but Gabe had always had a hard time with that rule. Even though Kami Walker wasn’t a paying client, he’d already begun thinking of her as one of his responsibilities, and he always seemed to form a personal attachment to his clients in one way or another. He’d stopped fighting it long ago and now he believed that it might even be an element of what made him so good at what he did. The personal attachments drove him to success. They made him excel. Not for his own selfish benefit, but for theirs. He was good at what he did, but he was good because they needed him to be good.
Deep Down (Sam Stone Book 1) Page 15