“I think that ladder is hanging on a hook,” he said, shining the light past her body. “I guess it’ll hold if you grab it.”
She didn’t answer, putting all her remaining energy into the climb. He kept the light shining past her face and pointed at the bottom of the ladder. He noticed there was a series of hooks, with the lowest visible one right in front of his face. The shaft appeared to be thirty feet high. Booth probably climbed down the ladder, wedging himself like she was doing, and then repositioned the ladder to the next set of hooks.
Jim kept himself afloat by wedging his own legs against the far side wall. The only sounds came from Branner’s exertions as she inched up the wall and the occasional thump and rumble from one of the flooded tunnels outside. He wondered if the cave-ins would show up on the surface. Not until daylight, if then. He looked up again. She was making progress, but it was slow going. The pressure in his ears was so great now that he had a headache, not to mention several points of road rash from being tumbled around in the tunnels. He wondered where Booth was. And how he’d gotten out once he released the flood. There were going to be some red faces when they got out of here. If they got out of here. He had no idea of what was up at the top of the shaft, but that ladder must lead to some kind of escape. You hope, he thought.
He shifted position to see better and to keep the fading Maglite pointed up so Branner could see her objective. Sweat was running into his eyes and he had to blink repeatedly to clear them. He tried to focus on the hook in front of his face, then realized it wasn’t there.
Huh? Where’d it go?
He felt around in the water and found the hook, but it was no longer at face level. It was now at chest level. Which meant-what?
That the water was rising. That he was rising with it. There was obviously enough pressure to force the water column in the shaft to rise all the way to the top. But if the tunnel had collapsed, where was the water coming from? He couldn’t think straight.
Okay, keep it simple. Linear. If she doesn’t make it to the ladder, we’ll just float up to the ladder. And beyond, to the top. That’s the good news. But then we’d better be able to open whatever the access is, because all our air has to be leaking out of the shaft up there for the water to be able to rise behind it. Should he tell Branner? He looked up again, even as he felt the hook touch his stomach.
“How’s it going?”
“About five more feet,” she grunted. “This is harder than it looks.”
“It looks plenty hard,” he said. “Can you see what’s up there?”
“No,” she said. “Focusing on the ladder. How strong are these hooks?”
“They’re pretty big,” he said. He saw that she had stopped to catch her breath. In the silence, her breathing sounded very labored. He hoped like hell she didn’t fall, because there was no way he’d be able to get out of the way, and she was ten feet above him at least. In the dimming light, he could see that she had locked her legs across the shaft and had her whole back pressed against the wall, her hands down at her sides. He couldn’t see her face.
“I have good news and bad news,” he said, finally, when she didn’t move.
“Bad news first,” she said.
“The water is rising.”
“My brain isn’t working in all this mug; what’s that mean?”
“It means that we need to beat it to the top and the outside before it pushes all the air out of this shaft.”
“Wonderful,” she said after a moment. “What’s the good news?”
“I lied. There isn’t any good news.”
“Hate it when you beat around the bush like that.”
“I know.”
She started her climb again, causing a small cascade of droplets to fall around him. He tried to think of something clever to say, but he couldn’t. He felt for the hook. It was below his groin. Think positively, he thought. That air has to be getting out somewhere up there or the water couldn’t rise. Means that the shaft must come out near or on the surface. Has to. Or why would there be a ladder hanging up there?
Unless it had been hanging there for one hundred fifty years.
He banished that thought.
“Got it,” Branner announced from above. “Now what?”
“Climb the ladder,” he said. “Gently.”
“Gently?”
“Just climb it; see what the hell’s at the top. Call for room service.”
“Can you give me more light?”
“That’s it, I’m afraid.”
He heard her change position in the shaft, and then the creak of wood as she very slowly transferred her weight to the ladder. He didn’t look up; doing so hurt the back of his neck. He could feel the hook down around his knees now, and the weight of his Glock in its holster felt like a small brick pressing against the small of his back.
More creaking from above him, and, despite the cramp in his neck, he looked up. He could see Branner’s legs on the ladder as she climbed up into the gloom. The flashlight was really failing now, casting little more than a weak gray beam into the humid mist. But at least the hook appeared to be holding.
“We have a door,” she said at last. He heard a rattle. “A locked door. A locked metal door, in fact.”
He groaned. “Old or new door?” he called up to her.
“I think it’s old. Can’t tell with no light. Feels solid, though. Maybe iron.”
He gauged the distance to the ladder. He was still eight feet or so below the ladder’s lowest rungs. He was too tired and probably too big to do what she had done with that climbing maneuver.
“Is there a handle? Any kind of latches, top or bottom?”
He waited while she felt around the surface of the door. “Nothing,” she said. “Not even a keyhole, at least not that I can find. Nor any hinges.”
“Frame?”
Another moment. “Feels like wood. Ow! Yes, wood. I just got a splinter.”
“What’s above it?”
“Top of the shaft.”
“Brickwork or cement?”
“Feels like both. A veneer of cement over bricks, maybe? Hard to tell.”
He felt for the hook to gauge his progress up the shaft. He couldn’t find it. “Can you tell how the air’s getting out?”
“Wait,” she said. He kept as still as he could while treading water so she could listen. He felt around for the hook again, but it was gone. The bottom of the ladder wasn’t that far away anymore. Water was rising faster.
“I can hear some air moving, but I’m not sure where it’s getting out. Feels like there are hinges at the top of this door, like it’s some kind of flap, not a door? I think the air’s getting out around one of these hinges.”
“Can you stop it? Jam something in the crack?”
“I can try, I guess,” she said, and he heard the rustle of clothing above him, then a ripping sound. He put a finger out in front of his chest and pressed it against the wall facing him, his arm floating as level as he could get it. Almost immediately, his body began to rise above the level of his arm.
“There,” she said. “I ripped a sleeve off my shirt. Stuffed it in the crack. I can’t hear air moving anymore.”
He concentrated on the position of his arm. Had it stopped moving? He thought it had.
“Here’s what I think,” he said. His voice was getting hoarse in the hothouse atmosphere. “This shaft, and the other one, were pressure-release chambers in case there was a fire or explosion down in the magazine. That door probably is a flap, designed to let go under pressure and vent the chamber down below.”
“How does that help us?”
“That flap door isn’t going to open with a key. Can you feel around, down at the bottom of the flap? There has to be a latch plate of some kind, so Booth could get out.”
She moved on the ladder. Booth had probably rigged a latch arrangement on the other side using either the original latch or a new one. He would have left it open whenever he came down here, and latched it when he wasn’t down here.
“There’s something on the other side. I feel rivets or bolts. Can’t see which.”