When no reply came the controllers looked at each other, unsure what to make of the lack of response.The operations-control technology was sophisticated when it came to the general running of the prison but there were few sensory or diagnostic transmissions from the ferries, apart from indications of the vessel’s depth and its progress along the cables. Since the opening of the prison there had never been a problem with the ferries apart from some minor incidents and the OCR relied on the communications system and standard procedures to monitor the craft.
‘Ferry four, this is Styx control,’ the senior controller said again, frustrated that it was all he could do at that moment to contact the vessel. ‘Do you copy?’
The only sound from the speakers was the gentle hiss of the carrier wave.
‘Still moving towards us,’ the assistant controller said, an observation that his boss could make for himself. ‘Maybe it’s an electrical glitch.’
‘The alarm sounds and there’s no one on the end of the radio?’ the senior controller said.‘That’s good enough for me something’s gone seriously wrong. Alert the standby divers,’ he ordered as he strode across the room and reached for a phone on the main console. ‘Call the surface dock. Tell ’em to launch the rescue boats and to start looking for escape suits . . . Mr Mandrick,’ he said into the phone. ‘OCR duty officer. I think we have a situation . . . it could be a serious one.’
Gann had intentionally left the emergency escape-room door unbolted because the room needed to flood if his evidence during the inevitable subsequent investigation was going to be believed. It was that post-incident phase of the operation that had caused him his only misgivings about this task. If it was discovered that the ferry had been sabotaged then any investigation would become a murder inquiry. A motive would have to be found, which could lead to a scrutiny of the goings-on in the prison. If the feds learned that Gann was possibly involved his past would come flying out of the closet and he would never see the light of day again. Gann had a lot riding on the prison’s future, hence the personal risk he was willing to take to save it. Everything would be fine as long as the incident looked like an accident.
As he zipped up his suit and positioned the hood on top of his head he pondered the risks to his own survival one more time. He looped the strap attached to the small diving bottle over one shoulder and faced the emergency escape tube. Water was streaming in through the gap in the open door to the main cabin and had reached the opening to the tube.
Gann got down onto his knees, felt for the hatch under the water and pushed it open against its counterweight springs. He took a breath, dipped below the surface, reached up into the tube and pulled himself inside. The tube was dry and he could breathe the air. He climbed up into the narrow space like a grub making its way back inside its cocoon, pulled his feet out of the water and stood on the inside rim of the hatch.
The tube was a tight fit for a man Gann’s size and he had not forgotten how hard it had been to reach down and close the hatch during his training course. It had become easier once he’d developed a few techniques. He reached down with a foot and kicked the hatch away as hard as he could. When it sprang back up he caught the inside wheel with his foot and held the hatch shut while stretching one arm down. With an effort, he managed to get a couple of fingers to the wheel, his face pressing painfully against the tube’s sides, and, aided by his foot, he turned the wheel several times to screw the locking cleats into place. When the wheel would turn no further Gann wiggled himself upright, his head an inch below the wheel of the top hatch and a small built-in light that shone in his face.
He looped the air-bottle harness over his head, making sure that he knew where the mouthpiece and mask were on the other end of the hose and, by the glow from the small light, he found the breathing tube that was plugged into the vessel’s air supply. He placed the mouthpiece between his lips, took a couple of breaths to confirm it was working and turned the flood valve in front of him.Water immediately began to gush into the tube and bubble up over his legs.
‘Palanski!’ Stratton shouted. If the threat of drowning didn’t wake the guard no amount of yelling was going to. Stratton felt around with his feet and found one of Palanski’s legs. He dragged it closer with his heel and stamped on it repeatedly.‘Palanski! Get back here! Wake up!’
Palanski began to choke as the water lapped over his mouth. He suddenly made a move towards consciousness as his eyes fluttered open and he fought to raise his head out of the water.
‘Palanski! Concentrate! You have to get us out of here! The chain-release lever. Palanski!’
Palanski battled to get a hold of himself as blood continued to seep from the wound on his head. He looked around, suddenly conscious of the desperation around him. Men were screaming, pulling at their chains. One was praying loudly, begging God to forgive him for his sins.
Palanski made an abortive move towards Stratton. But when he put his weight onto his broken elbow he cried out as the pain shot through him like a bolt of lightning.
‘Fight it, Palanski!’ Stratton shouted.
The sudden pain seemed to help Palanski stay conscious and he appeared more focused as he locked stares with Stratton.
‘The chain release,’ Stratton shouted. ‘Get us out of here.’
The guard pushed himself away from the bulkhead with his good hand.
‘That’s good. Keep coming!’
Palanski reached out and Stratton offered a shoulder for the guard to take hold of. Palanski pulled himself alongside.
‘Under my seat. The lever. You know where it is.’
Palanski nodded, his breathing laboured, and shuffled around to face the end of the row.
‘Come on, Palanski!’ the man beside Stratton shouted past him. ‘All you gotta do is pull that fuckin’ lever.’
Palanski reached down and felt for the box and the small opening on the face of it. His face dipped into the ever-rising water as he reached inside the opening and then he appeared to give up.
‘Palanski. We’re going to die if you don’t get us out,’ Stratton urged.
Palanski looked dazed. ‘Gettin’ . . . a . . . breath,’ he muttered. He winced against the excruciating pain, then gritted his teeth, took a breath and plunged beneath the surface of the water that was now lapping at the prisoners’ chests.
Ramos, shorter than the others, was crying out as he struggled to keep his chin above the froth.
Palanski surfaced, choking and coughing. ‘Can’t . . . can’t reach it,’ he stammered.
‘It’s there, Palanski! You know where it is. All you have to do is grab hold and pull it. Forget the pain. You’ll have years to remember it.’ Stratton was becoming stressed, his mind chasing ahead to what little he could do even if he did get free of his chains.The first problem was going to be everyone else. If Palanski did release them there would be half a dozen men thrashing around in an ever-decreasing space. It didn’t look good and Stratton was starting to try and come to terms with the fact that he was not going to survive this one.There was just too much to overcome. The water was now up to his shoulders.
A high-pitched scream made him look over his shoulder to see Ramos going absolutely frantic, yelling insanely as he forced his mouth up above the rising water as far as it could possibly go. The water began to pour into it and he spat it out as quickly as he could.
Stratton looked back at Palanski in time to see him take a deep breath and disappear below the surface. He watched the swirling space that Palanski had occupied a second earlier, knowing that he himself would soon be beneath the water.
Ramos was spitting and gurgling as the water finally covered his mouth. He stretched to take another breath and his eyes bulged as he held on to the last few precious seconds of his life. He shook violently as he made a final Herculean effort to free his hands and then the water covered his eyes. Bubbles broke the surface around Ramos’s head and he went still.
Stratton looked up at the ceiling but what he was seeing in his head was
the chain-release mechanism, having studied it and every other device in the ferry and the prison that had anything to do with escape. It was a ring-shaped handle inside a tube in a box, not the most convenient design, low to the deck, intended to prevent easy access by a seated prisoner. Palanski had to get close to the floor and reach inside before he could grip the ring and pull it towards him.
As the water touched Stratton’s chin he put his head back a little. He was cold but that was the least of his problems. His mind singled out the smell of the sea, an indication of how tuned his senses had become as adrenalin coursed through his body.The shouting had all but ceased. Stratton wondered how many prisoners were already dead.Those that still lived were, like him, coming to terms with the approaching end.
The water reached Stratton’s mouth and as he automatically stretched his neck and head up to hang on for as long as he could he felt his hands move up an inch from the seat, enough for him to forget his imminent death for a moment. He took a breath, dropped his head below the water and felt between his thighs for the hook in the seat. Palanski had not managed to pull the handle all the way and had only partially released the securing cable. Stratton yanked on it with all his remaining strength. It suddenly came up another inch and he unhooked his chains and burst to the surface. A second later the man beside him appeared, spluttering and gulping for air. None of the others, including Palanski, joined them.
All Stratton could think of now was that he’d been given a little more time, only seconds perhaps, and that he had to find a way to survive this. He believed in his theory that there was always a solution, the only limitations being his inability to find it.
The airlock door to the OCR hissed and clunked as it opened inwards and Mandrick entered. ‘What’s the situation?’ he calmly asked the senior controller who was standing at the console looking at a row of monitors. A couple of them showed murky, poorly lit exterior images. A white blob in the distance was the slowly approaching ferry.
‘We think it could be flooded,’ he said, looking vexed.
‘It’s rolling heavy,’ the assistant controller offered.‘The buoyancy’s way off. See how low in the water it is? It’s almost in the milk,’ he said, referring to the bizarre white phenomenon that covered the sea bed like a mist in that part of the Gulf.
‘Anything from the surface?’ Mandrick asked.
‘Nothing.They say it’s pretty calm up there. If anyone makes it to the surface they’ll see ’em . . . It’s gonna go into the milk,’ the senior controller said, stepping closer to the monitor.
Mandrick came alongside him to scrutinise the monitors. ‘It’s still moving.’
‘Slow but coming on.’
‘How long before it reaches the dock?’ Mandrick asked.
‘Four, maybe five minutes.’
Mandrick looked at the other monitors, one of them showing the arrivals dock where two men dressed in thick wetsuits were hurriedly donning tanks, aided by other guards. ‘If it is full of water it won’t be able to surface in the dock. Isn’t that right?’
‘Yes, sir,’ the senior controller acknowledged. ‘It’ll be too heavy. Soon as it comes beneath the pool we’ll stop it. The divers’ll open it up right away and get some air in there.’
‘What’s your guess?’ Mandrick asked him.
The controller shrugged as he stared at the monitor. ‘I don’t want to even begin to.’
Stratton and the surviving prisoner faced each other, illuminated by a dim emergency light, their heads pressed against the ceiling, the water at their chins.
‘Any ideas?’ the man asked, placing his hand against the relief valve, which was still letting in water, in a vain attempt to stop it.
‘Top of my list is the emergency escape tube. Or we can try and get air in here using the console.’
‘I don’t know anything about the console but I can check out the escape tube.’
‘If you can get up inside it there should be a breathing hose.’
‘I’ll come back and let you know,’ the man said as he took a deep breath and disappeared.
Stratton couldn’t help thinking how a promise to return was not something he would have expected from a desperate prisoner. He headed along the cabin, the bodies of the dead men in their seats under his feet. He stopped above the console where high-pressure air pipes entered the cabin from the tanks outside and then he ducked below the water to search for anything he could use to break one of them.The escaping air would increase the cabin pressure and stop the leaks. It might even reverse the flooding to some extent. But all he could find was the empty chain that the wrench had been attached to. He broke the surface to find the air gap even smaller and grabbed the air pipe in the hope it was loose. But it was solidly fixed to the bulkhead and with no tools he would die trying to break it with his hands.
The other prisoner resurfaced, choking and gulping for air. He looked for Stratton, saw him at the other end of the cabin and made his way over to him. ‘The hatch is shut tight. I tried to turn the wheel but I couldn’t even budge it.’
That meant the outer hatch was open. There was a hand-crank mechanism for closing the outer hatch but Stratton was not sure exactly where it was located. If they could close it they would then need to drain the tube before opening the lower hatch. To do that they would need to operate the control valves which were located somewhere on the side of the tube.They simply did not have the time.
‘What’s next on your list?’
‘This is all I have left,’ Stratton said, gripping the wheel that operated the hatch of the docking system.
‘We take a breath, open it and then what?’ the man asked.
‘Follow the cables to the dock.’
‘That easier than heading for the surface?’
‘Depends how close we are to the dock.’
They held their lips to the ceiling as the water lapped at their cheeks.
‘The valve’s stopped leaking,’ the man observed, his lips beside it.
‘We’ve got enough air for another minute. We go or we stay,’ Stratton said, gripping the wheel.
The man glanced at him. ‘I’m going for the surface,’ he said after some thought.
‘Take your boots off,’ Stratton suggested as he ducked below the surface.
The man followed Stratton’s lead and they removed their boots and socks. When they surfaced they both gripped the escape-hatch wheel.
‘Which way you going?’ the man asked, unsure of his choice.
‘The dock.’
The man thought about it some more and for a second he found the funny side of it. ‘Decisions, decisions, ’ he quipped.
‘I hope it’s not your last,’ Stratton said sincerely.‘Good luck.’
‘Name’s Dan,’ the man said.
‘John.’
‘Good luck to you, John. Hope to see you again.’ They tugged at the wheel and it began to turn.Water seeped in through the seal, the flow increasing with each revolution of the wheel. Stratton took a final deep breath as the air gap disappeared.
Gann filled the narrow escape chamber, his eyes blinking in the murky water, air escaping from the sides of his mouthpiece with every exhalation as he heaved up the outer escape hatch. After the initial effort it opened easily and the remaining air in the tube combined with the bubbles escaping from Gann’s mouthpiece and made its way up into the gloom. He looked up to see the ferry cables illuminated by the dim light from inside the tube and felt around his body for the air bottle attached to the nylon harness looped around his neck. He found the valve on the end of the bottle and followed the hose to the attached mask and mouthpiece.
Gann made ready to swap breathing devices. He hoped he had calculated the distance correctly and that he had enough air to get to the dock once he left the safety of the tube. But there was one major thing bothering him, despite the dangers of the moment, and that was Palanski.
When the time came to be questioned about his actions Gann had planned to say that the ferry floode
d so quickly that he’d charged into the emergency escape room to organise the suits and escape tube while Palanski was supposed to free the prisoners. By the time Gann got his suit on the ferry was almost completely flooded. When he went back to find Palanski there was no sign of him and the water was already above the heads of the prisoners, who had obviously drowned.
The big problem was how he was going to explain Palanski’s injuries. He had never intended to give Palanski a beating. Palanski wasn’t supposed to have attacked him. The only way that Gann could resolve this problem was to go back into the ferry to remove Palanski’s body entirely. He could open the outer docking hatch and adjust his story to make it appear that Palanski had not unchained the prisoners as ordered and had in fact panicked and opened the escape hatch, killing everyone. There were a few holes but it was better than leaving Palanski’s corpse inside the ferry. If he hurried he might be able to get away with it.
Gann took a deep breath, removed the mouthpiece attached to the escape tube and pulled the full-face mask over his head. Holding the top of the mask firmly against his forehead he exhaled through his nose in order to remove the water in the mask by forcing it out of the bottom. He managed to do this after a couple of breaths, having learned the technique in the diving course he had attended as part of his pre-prison officer training.
He pulled himself out of the tube but did not take account of the motion of the ferry moving through the water. As he emerged he was forced against the side of the hatch, which he grabbed in a moment of panic. He had not reckoned on how travelling at even a slow speed underwater could create such a force. He looked ahead to see if the dock was close, discovering in the process that the ferry was almost in the milk. It was like some strange underwater snow scene. He’d seen the strange substance from the prison windows but it looked even more surreal from this close. Above the white blanket in the distance was a collection of hazy lights; the ferry cables led to the largest cluster, which marked the entrance to the dock. He gauged it to be a hundred yards or so.
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