Silence, then: “Edward!” The voice was faint, shrouded in static, but it was unmistakably the Belgian’s. “I can hear you! Where are you?”
“Above the north end of the temple. You?”
“I’m descending from the southwest! Can you see me?” Chase looked up. Sure enough, he saw Castille’s suit lights approaching. “Are you okay?”
“Kari’s suit’s damaged—and mine’s screwed as well. I’ve got a leak and no thrusters. We need to get to the surface, fast.”
Castille shone his light over Chase’s suit. “There’s your leak,” he said, pointing at its waist. Chase realized the cause. When he’d used the knife to cut his equipment belt, its sharp tip had pierced the polycarbonate shell. Even as he watched, another tiny air bubble popped out and shot upwards.
“You got anything we can use to patch it?”
Castille shook his head. “Edward, listen, something’s happened on the surface. I heard—”
Clank.
“What the hell was that?” Chase asked. The unexpected noise sounded like metal tapping against stone. He turned. Something gleamed faintly, an object lying nearby. He moved closer to examine it. A spanner.
Clong!
Another noise, much louder and sharper. They all whirled to see a long pole standing upright on the stone roof. It keeled slowly over and skittered away down the temple’s sloping side.
Castille swam after it, stopping when he realized what it was. “It’s a boat-hook,” he said. “Why is—”
In his peripheral vision, Chase became aware of other objects falling around them, a metal rain. He looked up—
“Hugo! Move!”
Too late.
The Evenor’s helicopter crashed down tail-first onto Castille like a javelin. The Belgian was hammered down onto the temple roof.
One of the rotor blades stabbed through his deep suit.
“No!” Chase roared. He tried to swim towards his friend, but the shockwave as the rest of the helicopter’s fuselage smashed against the stones knocked him back.
A dark, swelling cloud obscured Castille’s spotlights.
Blood.
“Hugo!” The wave subsided; he swam again, kicking furiously, ignoring the pain in his arm.
Kari grabbed his suit, using her thrusters to pull him back. “He’s gone!” she cried. “We’ve got to get out of here! Now!”
Chase rounded on her, full of anger and despair. “I can’t leave him behind!”
“You have to! Look!” She pointed upwards—
More debris was raining down. Tools, hatch covers, pieces of railing, even a section of the Evenor’s radar dome.
And something larger, a hulking yellow shape charging at them through the gloom—
Kari blasted away at full power, dragging Chase with her as the Sharkdozer plummeted past and punched straight through the temple roof, barely missing them. A chain trailed behind it, its links rasping hideously over the stones. The crane at the other end crashed down onto the temple, then scythed down the slope right behind Kari and Chase. They both felt its passage through the water as it passed just inches from their feet.
Kari leveled out as she cleared the temple. More debris fell around them, slow-motion explosions erupting as objects smacked into the seabed.
Chase looked up. “Oh, fuck! Go right! Go!”
She obeyed, turning her head to look—and her heart jumped in terror.
It was a constellation of falling stars, a pattern of lights racing to engulf her.
The Evenor!
Emergency lights still ablaze, monstrous groans of metal echoing through the ocean, the ship was a three-thousand-ton missile dropping straight at them!
Kari jammed her thumb even harder on the thruster control as she pulled herself and Chase out of the path of the plunging vessel—
The Evenor hit the seabed like a bomb.
The bow was crushed flat on impact, the force of the water driven back through the ship’s interior ripping apart seams and welds as destructively as any explosive. What little air was still trapped inside gushed from the hundreds of new rents in the hull. Rivets, portholes, even doors blew outwards like shrapnel from a grenade.
Caught in the shockwave and almost deafened, Kari and Chase could do nothing except be carried along as pieces of the wrecked ship whirled around them, smacking against their suits.
Another awful screech of tortured metal moaned through the depths as the Evenor slowly but inexorably toppled over, falling sideways and slicing through the temple like a guillotine blade, no amount of architectural precision able to withstand the sheer destructive force of thousands of tons of steel.
The temple roof blew outwards as the Evenor displaced the water inside the main chamber. Support gone, the walls collapsed, crushing everything within.
The Temple of Poseidon, the very heart of the citadel of Atlantis, was now truly lost forever.
The noise subsided. Head ringing, Chase was almost startled to realize that he was still alive.
Kari…
They had lost their grip, become separated. He turned, trying to catch sight of her. “Kari! Where are you?” There was no sign of her lights in the darkness.
“I’m here,” she said weakly through the distortion. “Behind you, about five meters below. I’m coming up.”
Chase looked down. Still nothing. “I don’t see you!”
“My lights have gone. Hold on.” A moment later, an orange glow appeared, the ghostly outline of her suit rising behind the small glow stick in her right hand. “My air system’s failing—it’s getting harder to breathe.”
“Are your thrusters still working?”
“Yes. What about your leak?”
Chase squirmed inside the suit. The coldness had spread. “Shit. I think it’s getting worse.”
“It can’t be a big hole, or you’d be dead already—but it’s only going to deteriorate.” Kari reached him, holding the glow stick in front of the damaged area.
“Is there anything you can do to plug it?”
“No. But there’s something you can do.”
“What?”
“Put your thumb over it.”
“Oh.” Chase felt oddly embarrassed for not thinking of that himself. He looked down at the temple. A few of the Evenor’s lights still burned amid the wreckage. “Hugo …”
“It’s Nina I’m worried about,” said Kari. “For all we know, she was in the ship. Qobras doesn’t leave witnesses.” Even right next to him, the radio interference at a minimum, her voice was still weak.
She fired her thrusters, beginning their ascent. Chase held her belt with one hand, the thumb of the other pressed against the crack in his suit. There was a little digital depth gauge inside his helmet, the number decreasing.
Decreasing too slowly. With his extra weight, Kari’s suit could only manage less than half its top speed.
He struggled to work out how long it would take to reach the surface. At least twenty minutes. Probably more like thirty. And with Kari’s air supply damaged …
“How’s your breathing?” he asked.
“It’s getting harder. The regulator sounds like it’s sticking. I’m not getting a full supply.”
“How are you feeling?”
“Light-headed. And … and a little drowsy.”
The first symptoms of hypoxia, Chase knew. Oxygen starvation. There was no way Kari could stay conscious long enough to get them to the surface. Which meant he would have to work the thruster controls.
Which meant… he would have to take his thumb off the hole in his suit. He’d need both hands to hold onto her—the control stick wasn’t designed to bear a load. If he put all his weight onto it, it would snap, condemning them both.
“Kari,” he said, trying to sound calm as much for his own benefit as for hers, “keep your thumb on that wheel for as long as you can, okay? If you have any trouble, I’ll take over. Don’t worry. We’re going to get to the surface.”
“But if you take the c
ontrol, won’t you …”
“Don’t worry about me. We’re going to make it. Okay?”
“Okay …” she replied, voice drowsy.
They rose in silence for another few minutes. Chase checked the depth gauge: 650 feet. Still a long way to go.
“Eddie?”
“Yeah.”
She sounded on the verge of falling asleep. “I’m sorry about Hugo. I liked him.”
“I’m sorry too,” he replied, a surge of anger rising inside him. He fought to keep it down. It wouldn’t help. Yet. “I don’t normally do revenge, it’s unprofessional—but Qobras is going to regret it.”
“Good. We’re so close, he can’t stop us …”
“So close to what?” No reply. “Kari?”
The thrusters stopped. Kari’s left hand dropped limply from the control stick.
“Oh, bollocks,” he muttered. Six hundred feet. At that depth, his suit was still under almost twenty atmospheres of pressure. If the crack widened, the water coming in wouldn’t be a trickle. It would be a jet.
But he had no choice.
He swam up, taking hold of Kari’s waist with his aching left hand as he closed the right around her thruster control. The cold dampness inside his suit was spreading. He shivered.
No time for that.
He pushed the control to full power. The thrusters whined to life again, the depth gauge ticking down, foot by agonizing foot. He swam, doing whatever he could to increase their rate of ascent. Despite his training and physical conditioning, he was rapidly tiring, the pressure and cold of the ocean sapping his strength.
Five hundred feet. Still nothing above but darkness. The damp chill spread up his body.
At four hundred feet, the first hint of light from the surface reached him, absolute blackness giving way to a strangely beautiful ink-blue glow from above. More fish appeared as they ascended, flitting past the interlopers with cold-eyed disinterest.
He looked at Kari. Her eyes were closed, and she looked almost serene. Chase couldn’t even tell if she was still breathing. Either her breaths were so shallow he couldn’t make out the tiny movements of her nostrils … or she was already dead.
Two hundred feet, and Chase realized he could see the sun, a brighter patch of light. The depth counter flicked down, one foot at a time …
The thrusters died.
Chase jabbed his thumb harder on the control, hoping the cold had merely numbed him, making his hand slip. It hadn’t. The knurled wheel was pushed as far as it would go.
The deep suits were meant to be used in conjunction with a submersible for descending—and ascending again. They weren’t designed to make the journey on their own.
The batteries were dead.
And they were still over a hundred feet below the surface.
“Buggeration and fuckery …”
He stared at Kari, then shook her, willing her to wake up and help him. Her eyes remained closed. It was all up to him.
He swam with all his remaining strength, pulling Kari with him. She weighed less than ten stones, but the extra bulk of her deep suit meant the effort was like dragging a burly commando, complete with pack, up a ladder.
Ninety feet. Eighty. Seventy.
Each foot on the depth counter took an eternity to traverse. He wanted nothing more than to stop and rest, regain his breath and let the burning in his muscles die away, but he had to get Kari to the surface.
Forty. Thirty.
Flashes of sunlight glinted mockingly against the waves above. But the counter was still falling. Ten feet, nine, eight…
He could feel the swell of the waves, his suit bumping against Kari’s. Five, four … He was gasping for breath now, his muscles about to give up …
Clear!
He broke the surface, blinking at the fat red sun hanging above the horizon. Straining, he pulled Kari up with him. Water streamed down her helmet. Under water it had been impossible to gauge her true color; now, even in the warm sunlight, her skin looked pale and blue.
The suits were closed with multiple clips and locks, meant to be removed with the help of two people, but that wasn’t an option. Chase clawed at the seal around her neck, numbed fingers struggling to unfasten the latches. He wrapped his arm around the helmet, fighting for enough leverage to turn it.
It twisted, the locking pins coming free. He pulled the helmet off and tossed it aside. Kari’s head lolled.
“Kari! Come on, wake up!” Chase patted her cheek, trying to hold her upright so water wouldn’t slosh over the neck of her suit. She needed the kiss of life, but it would be impossible for him to remove his helmet without letting go of her.
“Kari! Come on!”
She took in a sharp breath, then coughed, gasping for air. Her eyelids fluttered. “Eddie?” The word was barely more than a whisper.
“Hey, hey, you’re alive!” said Chase, breaking into a huge smile. “We made it! Are you okay?”
“I feel sick … and I have a really bad headache.”
“But you’re alive, that’s the main thing. Give me a hand, help me get this fucking bucket off my head.” She tugged at his helmet latches. “Aw, shit.”
“What?”
He gave her a defeated look. “It’s not going to matter. We’re still a hundred miles out in the Atlantic, and our ship’s in pieces all over the bottom. It’s a bit too far to swim.”
To his surprise, she smiled. “I don’t think we’ll need to swim.”
“Why not?”
“Because I can see Captain Matthews rowing towards us.”
He looked around. “Well, fuck me.” The lifeboat was a hundred yards away, but Matthews was clearly visible in his white uniform at its prow, waving. “So Qobras left ’em alive …”
“That’s not his style,” said Kari, puzzled but relieved. “Something must have happened; he must—Oh God.” She grabbed Chase’s arm. “Nina! He must have taken Nina!”
“Why would he do that? He wanted her dead—why would he change his mind now?”
“She must know something,” Kari realized. “Some thing we saw in the temple, some piece of information valuable enough to trade for the crew …”
“Well, we can ask ’em in a minute. Come on, get this helmet off.”
“Actually, it’s probably better if you keep it on until you’re in the boat.”
Chase frowned at her. “Why?”
“Because I get the feeling your suit radio is the only one we have…”
Five minutes later, Chase finally took a breath of fresh ocean air.
Kari was right: the Evenor’s crew had been set adrift with no radio. Once the lifeboat rejoined its fellows on the fringe of the debris field from the sunken research vessel, one of the engineers set to work on the deep suit’s transmitter. It wouldn’t have much range, but it didn’t need it. The Gulf of Cádiz was, by maritime standards, a busy place. However, as Matthews pointed out, they couldn’t use it just yet—there would be no point issuing a distress call if the closest vessel was Qobras’s ship.
Chase and Kari used the interim to learn what had happened aboard the Evenor. “So Nina voluntarily gave herself up to save you?” Kari asked.
Matthews nodded. “Even though Qobras told her he was still going to kill her. We all owe her our lives.”
Kari fell silent, staring pensively towards the sunset. Chase put an arm around her. “Hey, hey. She’s still alive, for now. Whatever she knows, she won’t have just blurted it right out to him. She’ll drag it out for as long as she can. We can still find her.”
“How?” Kari asked gloomily. “Even if we trace his ship back to port, he won’t be on it. He’ll have been picked up by a helicopter or gone ashore in a speedboat long before we can get anyone to intercept it.”
“We’ll work something out.” Chase leaned back, looking up. The first stars of the night had appeared, twinkling gently in the clear sky.
“Actually,” said Matthews, “Dr. Wilde had a message, although I’ve got no idea what it means.
She said to give it to you if I saw you.”
Chase sat up again. “What did she say?” “Not much. Just that… she’d send you a postcard.” “A postcard?” Kari’s forehead creased, questioning. Her confusion increased as Chase started laughing, a cackle of sheer glee. “What? What does it mean?”
He managed to bring himself under control, a wide grin practically splitting his face in two. “It means,” he announced, “that I know exactly where she’s going.”
TWENTY-THREE
Tibet
The sun had not yet risen over the Himalayan peaks, but Nina could see the predawn glow to the east as the helicopter clattered through the mountains.
She sat under guard in the rear compartment of the aircraft, an armed man on either side. Opposite were Qobras, Starkman and Philby. Her former mentor hadn’t once dared to meet her gaze during the flight.
Following them, she knew, was a second helicopter carrying more men and something concealed inside a large crate. She doubted it was anything good.
“Go on,” prompted Qobras. “You were saying about the eruption …”
“Yeah.” The image of the final inscriptions from the temple returned to her mind’s eye. “The island was subsiding, and the volcano at the northern end was active—they knew the writing was on the wall. I don’t think they realized how fast the end would come when it finally happened.”
“Not fast enough,” said Qobras. “Some of them escaped.”
Nina shook her head. “You really do have some serious issues with the Atlanteans, don’t you? Considering that their empire was destroyed eleven thousand years ago, it’s a long time to be holding a grudge.”
“Their empire was never completely destroyed, Dr. Wilde,” Qobras said. “It still exists, even today.”
“Oh, this would be the mighty and invisible Atlantean empire, I guess.”
Qobras ignored her sarcasm. “If you mean ‘invisible’ in the sense that nobody knows it is there, then yes, you’re right. The descendants of the Atlanteans are still among us, seeking control over those they believe to be their inferiors. The difference now is that their control is not solely through force of arms, but through force of wealth.”
“Sounds like we’re in conspiracy theory territory now,” Nina scoffed. “I suppose you’re going to tell me that the Atlanteans are really the Illuminati.”
The Hunt for Atlantis_A Novel Page 33