They were trapped. Unless the chief got to a door and unblocked it, that water would continue to rise until it filled the tunnels. And the chief, waiting for Jim’s signal up in the PWC operations station, might not even be aware that there was a problem. And even if he did, he’d have to get to the right grate. He saw that Branner had figured it out at about the same time.
“What do we do?” she said in a shaky voice.
Holding the flashlight under his right armpit, Jim fished for the collection of tunnel keys in his pants pocket and began fumbling until he found the one that unlocked the door. The water was now above their belts. There was no more current, just that inexorable rise. Jim could feel intense pressure in his ears now. He pushed the door, but it didn’t budge. Definitely blocked.
“We go back,” he said. “Try another door.”
“But-”
“They may have missed one. The radios don’t work. They don’t even know we have a problem. We can’t just stand here and drown. Let’s go.”
Branner fished her own flashlight out of her belt and they pushed through the rising waters, heading back toward the dogleg turn. Jim tried to figure out how Booth had known to flood the tunnel, but then realized Booth must have been listening to the radio circuit and heard them confirm the doors were blocked. Big mistake to have mentioned that.
His tunnels, not ours, he reminded himself as he pushed himself through the black water. It was slow going, and he found himself pulling Branner along with him. She still wasn’t 100 percent capable.
“We have another option,” he said. “We get to that vestibule above the storm drain before the water gets over our heads, maybe we can force those flaps open.”
“But the river grating is blocked, right?”
“Yeah, but that would dump the water. Give us time for the people in the PWC station to realize there’s a problem.”
“Not if it’s high tide.”
He thanked her for reminding him. His own brain wasn’t working all that well as the humidity rose. It was getting hard to breathe. Just then, there was a loud humming sound, and the cracks around an equipment room door to their right glowed momentarily with an unearthly blue-green light. Jim felt a tingling in the water as something big shorted out in the equipment room. Branner must have felt it, too, because she swore softly. They came abreast of the Fort Severn doors as another equipment room flared briefly. This time it was more than a tingle. Up ahead were a dozen more cabinets.
“They’ll know something’s up with that shit going on,” he said, puffing as he forced himself through the chest-high water.
“May be academic,” she gasped as she tripped over something on the floor. Jim tripped, too, and they both went down into the water, losing their flashlights. They came up blowing water out of their mouths, and then Jim dove back under to get his Maglite. Hers was gone.
“Deck plates are coming up,” he said.
“We’re getting nowhere,” she said. “You got a key for these doors?”
Jim stopped and looked apprehensively at the big oak doors. “Yeah, but we don’t want to go in there. It’s a damned cave-in waiting to happen.”
She pushed water away from her chest in an effort to stand upright. “No choice,” she said. “We’re outta time. We can’t get to the next door and find out it’s blocked, too. Which it will be.”
Another piece of electrical machinery shorted out down the passageway, and this one, sounding like a welding torch, blew vicious white sparks through the air vents and out into the passageway.
“Okay,” he said, getting the keys out. He held the light under his chin as he searched for the key to the left door. Even as he was looking, he knew this wasn’t a good idea. At the end of the Severn tunnel was that magazine, which was below the level of the main tunnel. Going in there would trap them like rats, unless they found the way up through that hole in the back. And he had never found out where that hole came out topside. If it came out topside.
“Hurry,” she said, hiccupping. “I’m treading water here.”
The water was up to Jim’s chest as he sorted through the bundle of keys. It seemed to be taking forever. Then he remembered that these doors took the antique keys. Why hadn’t he known that as soon as he began looking? The atmosphere was compressing hard and he was having trouble thinking. Oxygen mix must be off, he thought as his fingers found the big key.
He slammed it into the lock, but it didn’t work. Two doors. Two keys. He’d picked the wrong one. Back to sorting keys again. He found the second one and shoved it into the lock.
“I open this thing, we’re going for a ride,” he said, his brain beginning to spin from lack of oxygen. Branner said something, but he didn’t hear it. The air had filled with a white mist as the rising water compressed it. He was barely aware that there were more flashing vaults on either side of them as the supposedly watertight doors gave way.
He felt himself swept down the stairs and into the ancient brick-lined tunnel in a roar of rushing water. Just before he was tumbled down the arched passageway along with Branner, some detached part of his brain noted that the air was a lot better now. Somehow, he managed to hold on to his flashlight while trying to ignore what was happening to his arms, elbows, knees, and head as the tidal wave rushed them into the tunnel. He caromed off the small cave-in he’d caused the last time down and only just managed to grab Branner as she whirled past him. They didn’t stop until the wave of water came to the T junction leading down into the magazine area, and even then it was only because Jim got wedged across the intersection, with Branner plastered against him, yelling something he couldn’t hear above the roar of the water. He held on to the edge of the wall with one hand and grasped Branner with the other as the water quickly filled the tunnel.
Dumb idea, dumb idea, dumb idea, his brain chanted as he watched in horror while the water just kept coming. If they were dislodged, they’d be swept down into the magazines and pinned against that ceiling until they drowned. There’d be no time to get into that hole. They were screwed, blued, and tattooed.
Branner had managed to wedge herself in place and was yanking on his arm. He turned to see what she wanted and she pointed urgently at the wooden door in front of them. The door to the cross tunnel.
“Key?” she yelled above the roar of the water, which was now swirling back up to their chests and rising fast.
He grabbed for the keys and for one horrible moment couldn’t find them. Then he remembered he’d attached them to a belt reel. He reached way underwater and found the bundle dangling there. In the process, he dropped the flashlight, and this time it went down the stairs into the magazine vestibule before he could grab it. Branner saw it go. She didn’t hesitate. She launched off the wall and let the water take her down into the vestibule. By this time, only a few feet of air remained near the top of the tunnel, and Jim was left in total darkness. But the current was slacking as the tunnel filled, so he could relax his grip on the wall and push across the tunnel to the door. Except he couldn’t find it in the darkness. His grasping hands felt only tottering bricks, and he actually dislodged a couple of them while patting around for the oak door.
For a moment, he wondered if he’d become disoriented and was searching the wrong wall, but then he felt the smooth surface of the wood. Holding on to the key with a virtual death grip, he pushed it at the door, searching in the darkness for the lock. Now only about eight inches of air remained at the top of the arched ceiling, so he had to duck underwater to find the lock. It took him three tries, but he finally felt it. Then, amazingly, there was light as Branner surfaced alongside him, the Maglite in hand. He pointed with his chin, and they both went under, Branner pointing the light while Jim worked the key. The lock turned and the door swung open, and once again they went for a ride, but a shorter one this time, fetching up with a painful crash against yet another door at the end of the thirty-foot-long cross tunnel. This time, they managed to get to their feet as the water swelled through the open door behind them and filled the cross tunnel. When it was just about two feet from the ceiling, the current slacked off and Jim pointed to the open door.