As he moved, I attacked his grip. But it was like struggling with a tree trunk.
“Miller and Martin, you know, I killed them because it felt right. Hell, it felt good,” he said, sweeping papers off the tabletop with his free arm. “I knew they were trying to stab me in the back and keep me from something. I wasn’t sure what that something was right away. But then I knew.”
He whipped me around, shoving me backwards onto the table. Its edge jammed into the base of my spine, and I dropped the light. Vazquez’s features dimmed, but the whites of his eyes still gleamed in the air above me.
“It was you. They were trying to keep me from you, just like everyone else. So they all had to die. Because you’re MINE and not theirs! MINE!”
His voice had leaped from an even, reasonable tone into sudden hysteria. Eyes wide, he screamed down at me.
“MINE! MINE, MINE, MINE!” He was fumbling with the front of my jeans.
I tumbled out of my mental paralysis.
“You’re going to die, Vazquez.”
He froze in mid-shout and closed his mouth. His head vibrated with tension.
“Nobody can kill me.”
“I already have.”
The hand on my shoulder pushed down harder, flattening me against the glass surface.
“You’re not going to do anything but lie there and watch me FUCK you! I don’t think I’ll kill you, not yet, but…”
“You don’t understand. There’s a block of C-4 in the engine room, and its timer is running.”
I wasn’t going to outsmart Vazquez. I had to offer him a scenario in which he didn’t see any possibility of defeat. If Larsen had been telling the truth — if there were no way to stop or reset the timer on the explosives — he would rape me, and afterward we’d both die.
But I could see a million potential futures flashing behind his eyes. Here was the one I wanted him to settle on: Go see whether there is C-4 back there. If there is, defuse it, then finish with me. Because I couldn’t get away, right? He had the only functioning firearm. He could force his way into anyplace I tried to hide, he could overwhelm me in a hand-to-hand fight and he had control of the entire sub.
Go on, I willed him. Let the bitch go, then come back and punish her. She’ll get what’s coming to her, no matter what. There’s nothing left to stop you.
When his grip loosened, I think he mistook my sob of relief for pain.
“Oh, there’s more of that in your future. I hope you weren’t counting on a bang, a flash and a quick end. I’m enjoying this too much not to savor it. You and I… we’re just getting started.”
And he was pulling away, flashing through the aft hatch so fast it made me wonder whether he had been standing over me at all.
But I knew he had. A lance of white-hot pain was imbedded in my finger, and my shoulder made me gasp as I sat up. How much time had passed since I pushed the red button? Thinking about it wouldn’t slow the countdown.
I picked up the rifle and ran through the control room, stepping on and around the two corpses by the door. Ridder was just an obstacle. But I found myself gripped by chest-constricting sadness as I moved past Campbell’s crumpled form, and I tried not to look at what remained of his face. No time to grieve.
The hallway in the next compartment seemed unending, and I expected to feel Vazquez’s fingers sink into my flesh again, pulling me away from a chance at life. But the circle of illumination thrown by my light led me onward, focusing my attention on the deck in front of me, the hatch beyond it and what must come next.
How long would it take him to defuse the C-4? I thought as I scrambled down the stepladder. He believed he could do it-otherwise he wouldn’t have let me go. So far, it had been a losing proposition to bet against him, and the prospect of him appearing in the door to the torpedo room tore at my hopes.
I tripped over the chain piled on the floor and screamed. But it wasn’t fright that moved me. It was elation.
Slamming both hatches, I spun the dogging wheels until they wouldn’t turn any more, ignoring the rubber band as it snagged, broke and spurted away. I slipped the chain through the mechanism on the lower door, then stood and threaded the other end through the wheel on the hatch to the hallway. The chain had been wrapped multiple times around the lower door’s latch when I first encountered it; now, uncoiled, it was long enough to loop through both wheels.
The lock. Where the fuck was the lock? I cast the light about, imagining heavy, purposeful footsteps in the next compartment. After a few seconds, I saw it: a scuffed hunk of metal, partway under a torpedo rack, perhaps kicked there when I stumbled over the chain.
I gathered the loose ends, pulled them taut and slipped the lock through a link on each side. Click. It was done. I imagined the chain jerking out of my hands, its links groaning as Vazquez arrived at the door. I imagined the dogging wheels distorting as the chain vibrated between them, humming with tension. I imagined a link popping, sending two steel whips ricocheting off the bulkhead in a splash of sparks.
But it didn’t happen. And whether it was going to or not, I was never going near those hatches again.
The torpedo room’s machinery seemed ancient and abandoned in the focused glare of the flashlight, offerings left for some god in a metallic tomb. The smells had become closer, more concentrated. The pervasive odor of oil dripped over my body, tangible enough that I wiped my uninjured hand on my shirt without thinking.
Lee’s body hadn’t yet added its own pungent aroma to the atmosphere. The pressure suit was already two-thirds removed, making it easier to strip the rest of the way off. My finger screamed at me, pleading for mercy as I pulled at the rubbery material. I relished the agony. The pain let me know that my rational side was back in charge.
Still no sign of Vazquez. Maybe he hadn’t been able to disable the timer. It almost would have been comforting to hear him pounding on the hatch, screaming epithets through its steel. It would be less frightening than letting my imagination paint its own dark pictures.
I did know what real threats I faced, though, and focusing on anything else would be a waste of energy. If the timer still were functioning, I had to get off the boat before it reached 0:00, and that could be seconds from now. If Vazquez had foiled it, I had to get off the boat before he found a way to get past my makeshift barricade. Of course, I might use up all the oxygen in the torpedo room before then.
My hands never stopped working. I had that much presence of mind, at least. I got Lee’s legs out of the suit, thanking a god I didn’t have much faith in that the executive officer had removed his shoes. I wouldn’t need to do that myself, I discovered as I thrust my own legs into the yellow folds.
No time to check for punctures, and what good would that do, anyway? Would I stay here in Vazquez’s domain if I found a tear in the fabric?
There was a seal up the front. It didn’t look durable, but I guess it didn’t have to be. Just had to last long enough for the wearer to reach the surface.
A hood with a transparent face was supposed to pull over my head. But I hesitated. How the hell did this thing work, anyway? Was there an air supply? Was I going to suffocate after I sealed the hood?
OK, then, I’d do that last. I didn’t have much choice.
The hatch was going to be difficult to get to, I thought, then realized there was a rudimentary ladder built onto the torpedo rack nearest to it.
I climbed up, using three fingers of my mangled hand to brace the light against my body, and shined the beam on the Korean instructions. Did they say “Open door, hold breath?” Wait. Larsen had explained this.