The noise began to swell as the hole widened and more water gushed through. It was more powerful than any fire hose. Mercer knew if it somehow touched him the least that would happen was it would knock him flat. More likely, he realized as he ran, it would tear away whatever limb it encountered.
They raced on, pursued by the relentless flood. The water level rose and waves pulsed down the drive so that two hundred feet from the working face they kicked up spray with every pace. After five hundred feet the water was up to their knees. Red looked at Mercer, reading in his eyes the determination to fight on despite the lengthening odds.
Far behind them billions of tons of water tore at the rock, seeking release from its subterranean reservoir. The hole widened, allowing the flood to come through with such force that the stream remained airborne for fifty feet before the water column hit the tunnel floor. It swept past the utility tractor like a raging river, boiling around the four-ton vehicle until it too was dragged along in the torrent.
With Ken slung over his shoulder, Mercer could barely keep up with Red, and yet the loyal Texan didn’t leave him behind. They ran in step, fighting side by side as water climbed up to their waists. The speed of the water pulled them along and threatened to tear their legs out from under them. Both knew that to fall was to die.
After what seemed like an hour but was only eight minutes, Mercer saw the lights of the substation. He could even hear the water as it cascaded into the deep sump, a thunderous sound that shook the earth. He began to hope. If they could reach the skip, maybe they could be pulled out before whatever rock still damming the underground lake failed completely.
It wouldn’t happen.
There was just too much water, too much pressure. Rather than collapse in sections, the entire span of the tunnel, from floor to ceiling, failed at the same time. The wall of water hurtling down the tunnel filled every square inch of space, a solid barrier moving at forty miles an hour.
Because water cannot be compressed, the collapse formed a pressure bulge that shot through the flood. Mercer and Red were caught totally unaware.
Like a tsunami, the wave rushed over them in a near-solid sheet that left both men tumbling in its backwash. Mercer lost his grip on Ken Porter when he smashed against the wall, the precious last gulp of air he’d taken exploding from his lungs at the blow.
He managed to right himself in the tumult and came up gasping. The black water settled to its earlier level and he staggered to his feet, knowing the massive surge had been a preview. Red surfaced a short distance away. His breathing was labored and he couldn’t focus his eyes. This time Mercer couldn’t deny his instincts. Searching for Ken meant he’d lose Harding for sure.
He grabbed the smaller man by the back of his overalls to keep his head clear and charged down the tunnel like a rampaging animal. The flood had taken one man and he wouldn’t let it take another. He’d lost his helmet and its precious lamp in the swell so he focused on the distant constellation of lights ringing the substation. A fierce wind howled past his shoulders, driven to hurricane force by the wall of water bearing down on him.
Had the floor of the skip elevator not been an open mesh that allowed the water to vanish into the sump, the tunnel would have already flooded to the ceiling. However, this reprieve was double-edged. If Mercer and Red were caught in the cage when the main wave hit, their bodies would be diced against the heavy-gauge wire like cheese through a grater.
He staggered the last steps into the substation and allowed the torrent to sweep him off his feet so that he and Red were carried into the elevator and pinned to the floor. From there, Mercer clawed his way to his knees, his throat aching from swallowing so much water, his eyes stinging from the salt. He slapped his palm against the UP button and fell back so he was facing the tunnel. The car began to lift, water sieving through the floor. Mercer barely noticed. Far down the drive, he saw the lights strung along the walls begin to wink out as they vanished behind the rampaging flood. Two hundred feet. One hundred. Fifty.
The elevator had risen only three-quarters of the way above the tunnel.
The tidal wave exploded into the wider substation, filling every corner as it sought freedom. As if sensing an outlet, the wall surged toward the elevator shaft. The carriage had just climbed clear when the water hit the back of the vertical passageway and geysered through the floor. Mercer and Red were lifted bodily, slammed against the mesh roof and pinned there for many long seconds until the elevator lifted them clear of the water’s grip. Both dropped to the floor, lying in pitiable heaps, bruised and dripping and unable to believe they were alive.
Below them water thundered into the sump in a solid curtain that ran clear and green. A subterranean Niagara Falls.
“You okay?” Mercer asked through labored gasps.
Red needed a moment to answer. “Cracked my head, busted some ribs and I think my wrist is too. Yeah, I’m fine. Ken?”
Mercer needed a moment to come to grips with losing one of his men. As much as he hated it, Ken Porter wasn’t the first he’d lost underground, and as long as he stayed in the business he probably wouldn’t be the last either. That was the nature of the work. “He’s paying the butcher’s bill.”
Red held up two fingers and then three and then gave a thumbs-up. Two out of three was damn good considering what they’d just endured. “Question for you,” he said, palming water from his hair. “You notice this tastes exactly like seawater?”
Mercer nodded in the darkness, then answered when he realized Red couldn’t see him. “Yeah, I noticed.”
“You got an explanation?”
This time Mercer just shook his head as the elevator climbed for the surface.
THE LUXOR HOTEL LAS VEGAS, NEVADA
Because everything had to be trucked to the mining camp, including fresh water, showers had been strictly regulated to five minutes under a limp drizzle. So for the first time in nearly two weeks, Mercer relaxed under a pounding spray in his tiled bathroom, the steady beat of the near-scalding water working into his shoulders and back, loosening knots deep in the muscle. He’d already gone through the complimentary shampoo and lathered himself so much that only a sliver of soap remained.
His image in the vanity mirror opposite the shower stall was merely a watery outline hidden in banks of steam.
An hour after emerging from the flooded mine, Ira’s promised helicopters had arrived. One took off immediately with Red Harding, whose injuries were a lot worse than he’d led Mercer to believe. The crack he’d taken to his head had left a fist-sized depression in his skull. And while most of the men, including Mercer, had been ferried to one of the Boeing 737-200s the government used to shuttle workers between Area 51 and Las Vegas, two additional Blackhawks were dispatched to the mine area to search for Donny Randall. He had returned to the command trailer while Mercer and his team had gone to place the seismograph, but no one had seen him since. Most of his clothes were still in his room, but enough were missing to make it clear he’d made a run for it. Not that Mercer needed this further evidence to be convinced of the link between Randall and the misfiring of the explosives that caused the flood. He also now understood why Donny had used more explosives while working. He’d been hoarding the Tovex to flood the mine.
It took a second call from Ira Lasko to order Mercer away from the site. He’d wanted to assist in the search. Ira assured him that the infrared detectors placed all around Area 51 would pick up a lone man in the desert on the first pass. Randall would be in a cell inside of eight hours.