With his hands still cuffed to the Barracuda’s lift bar, Kurt swung the rest of his body outside the sub, kicking and pulling. In seconds he saw Joe doing the same thing, following his lead as promised.
Their only hope was to create an air pocket to breathe in while the rest of the plan materialized. And the only way they could do that was to get the Barracudaover on its back and get the oxygen flowing from the sub’s compressed-air tanks.
Then the inner section of the cockpit would act like an overturned bucket and fill with air for him and Joe to breathe.
The only problem was, even though the Barracudahad hit nose down, the sub’s weight heavily favored its lower half, where the main systems rested: the engine, the batteries, the impeller. And though the sub had hit the ocean floor almost vertically on its nose, it was already trying to fall backward.
The only force keeping it from settling keel down came from Kurt and Joe’s efforts, but they would wane in less than a minute.
Kurt kicked hard and yanked and pulled. He could feel his lungs burning already. If they could just get the sub a few inches past vertical, the weight would become their ally.
Straining with everything he had, Kurt’s feet found the silty ground and dug in. His left foot slipped through the muck and then jammed against a jagged rock, giving him some leverage.
This time as he pulled, the tail of the sub moved and began to fall toward him. He pulled again, getting both feet onto the rock’s surface and leaning all his weight into it.
Finally, the nose slipped backward and the tail fell toward them, and Kurt had to duck inside to avoid getting hit by the wing. The sub settled slightly askew, and propped up at a thirty-degree angle by the ruined canopy.
It wasn’t perfect, but it was good enough to rule phase one of his plan a success. But with his lungs screaming and his head pounding, he and Joe had precious seconds to get the air flowing or it would all be for nothing.
Neither he nor Joe could possibly reach the switch with their cuffed hands, but their feet were a possibility. Kurt stretched for the panel, pointing his toe and pressing near the oxygen switch time and again.
Each time nothing happened, and he felt his movements getting weaker and less coordinated. He fought the urge to open his mouth and inhale. He fought the shakes and tried one more time. He must have hit the light switch because everything went dark for a second and then lit up again.
By now his legs and arms felt as if they were made of lead, and he couldn’t get them to do what he wanted them to do. His mind began to work against him as his subconscious whispered Give up.
The thought made him angry, and he willed himself to make one more attempt, tensing what was left of his muscles. Before he could move, a sudden rush of bubbles came pouring into the cockpit.
Kurt could see only the turbulence at first, but as the bubbles began to fill the upside-down cockpit he saw an air pocket forming above him in what would have been the foot well had the sub been right side up. He twisted his body, stretched his neck, and pushed his face into the rapidly forming sanctuary.
Exhaling a huge cloud of carbon dioxide, he sucked at the air. He coughed and sputtered as he breathed in some water, but he didn’t care, he kept gulping. The air was life, another chance to roll the dice instead of dialing up a big fat seven on the bottom of the ocean.
As the bubble filled with air, he blinked away the salt water and looked around. The smiling face of Joe Zavala was next to him.
“What happened?” Kurt asked, realizing he had never actually taken his last shot at getting the air on.
Joe smiled and contorted his body, bringing a foot up out of the water. It was bare. No shoe, no sock. He wriggled his toes.
“Just like turning the tap off in the bathtub,” he said.
Kurt felt a laugh trying to break through. He didn’t have enough air for it yet, but the feeling was grand.
“I couldn’t hit the switch,” Kurt said. “I was blacking out.”
“You must have been short on air,” Joe said. “Long rambling conversations with lunatics on the surface will do that to you.”
Kurt nodded. Next time he’d just keep his mouth shut and breathe through his nose. With the Barracuda’s air starting to feed into his body, he felt his strength returning.
“Never thought I’d owe my life to your gorilla-like feet,” he said. “Good work.”
Joe laughed, then turned serious. “The vents are full open, and the system is trying to compensate for the bleed-off. That’ll keep us in this little oasis for a while, but the supply won’t last. Maybe twenty minutes before it’s exhausted.”
Kurt looked around. The Barracudarested at an odd angle, and while Kurt and Joe were able to keep their heads and shoulders in the air pocket without too much trouble their hands were still cuffed outside, and the bubbles were streaming out of an upturned corner of the cockpit.
Kurt took a breath, ducked his head down, and swung it outside. He looked around in the muted green light. There, dangling just beyond his reach, was the key, and the knife that Andras had stabbed into the Barracuda’s hull.
He had no idea why Andras would give them such a chance — maybe just to taunt them, maybe for some other sick reason — but Kurt didn’t care at this point. He swung around, kicked his shoes and socks off just as Joe had, and stretched for the lanyard.
He touched it but couldn’t grasp it on his first attempt.
He ducked his head back inside for another breath and then tried again. This time, he caught the lanyard with his toes and tangled it up around his foot. Then he brought up his other foot and kicked the knife firmly but with control.
It moved but didn’t break loose. A second kick jarred it free, and Kurt reeled it in, gripping the length of thin twine as forcefully as his toes could.
He ducked his head back into the cockpit, reveled in another deep breath, and brought his foot to the surface.
Joe laughed. “I make you an honorary King Kong.”
“I’ll take it,” Kurt replied. “But neither one of us is going to undo these cuffs with our feet.”
Kurt took another breath, ducked his head back outside again, and swung around. With great effort he bent his knee and twisted his hip. It was awkward, but in a moment he’d brought his foot up beside their hands and the lift bar.
He felt the edge of the knife first and then the twine of the lanyard. He grabbed it and held tight.
Shifting his head back inside, he took another breath. He had the key in his hand. They were one step closer.
“Are you free?” Joe asked.
“Not yet,” Kurt said. “I’m not exactly up to speed on playing Houdini. But it’s only a matter of time.”
Unable to see his hands from inside the cockpit, he had to go by feel. He reminded himself to be careful; above all else he could not afford to drop the key like some bungling idiot in a bad movie.
He slowed his breathing a bit and felt for the keyhole on the cuffs. Despite the cold water that was rapidly numbing his fingers, he could feel an indentation. He angled the key, jiggled it a bit, and slid it into place. It turned, and the cuff on his left hand clicked.
His left hand was free. He slid it out and was then able to slide the loose cuffs under the lift bar and bring them back into the cockpit.
“Voilà!” he said, raising his hands like an amateur magician for Joe to see.
“Beautiful,” Joe said.
“And for your next trick?” Joe asked.
“I will release the amateur cochampion of the greater southern Azorean islands boxing league.”
Joe laughed. “Make it quick, my hands are getting numb.”
Kurt nodded. The water temperature around them was probably no more than 60 degrees. Hypothermia would set in fairly soon.
He ducked outside, went to work on Joe’s cuffs, and found there was a problem. He jiggled and forced the key in, but it wouldn’t turn. He tried again, but had no better luck. Pulling the key out, he surfaced back in the air pocket.