The going was atrociously rough at this stage; the car lurched over what had become to all intents and purposes a mete cross-country track, though the foundations of the old road were there still. Virginia had already checked with Wicks’s map that this track split farther on, one fork leading direct to the dam, the other into the valley, down-river from the dam itself.
Shaw said suddenly, “I dare say it leads somewhere handy for the spillways.”
“Spillways?” Virginia looked blank.
“Yes. They’ve built spillways… to take away the water during periods of exceptional flood, you see — rather like now, I’d say.” He screwed up his eyes, frowning ahead through the water-doused glass. “They’re cut through the rock walls of the canyon itself — and they’re big. Big enough to drive a car along,” he added with meaning. “Forty to forty-five feet in diameter, if I remember rightly… I got some details of the dam, back in Moscow.”
“So? What’s on your mind, Steve?”
“Well, just that we could make our approach that way! Via one of the spillways. They’re specifically built to take traffic as well as flood-water — maintainance vehicles and so on.” He shrugged. “Put simply, they’re just outsize tunnels, cut through the rock, with roads running along. There’s access to the interior of the dam itself from them, by way of sealed passages leading off at intervals.”
“So we go in the back way?”
“That’s about it, yes. We’ll have much more chance that way, than by walking in through the front door with all the official hoo-ha going on. And if no one else is waiting for us there, Treece will be!” He added, “Granted he could take the back way too, but if that is the case, well… I’d prefer to meet him there anyhow.”
“Think he’ll be worrying about us after that little ambush?” she asked sardonically.
“Well, he’ll be dead surprised to see us, certainly, and that gives us our best chance. But we can’t bank on it. He won’t be taking any risks, Virginia, nor will the rest of his mob. And there,” he added, breaking off, “is Kosyenko — see? Late on his ETA, but getting there nevertheless.” He pointed half-right towards the dim outline of the main highway from Kyakhta; a string of headlights was moving along, one car after another — Kosyenko and his entourage, and the Press. Treece would be there before the motorcade; Shaw’s foot went down and the car rocketed dangerously ahead into the filthy, teeming downpour and the slithery, clinging mud of the track, into the murk of an exceptionally early dusk.
The track got worse and more tricky as Shaw descended into the valley by way of terrifying hairpin bends leading towards the area where he hoped to find the spillways. He was fighting the car along every inch of ground now. Deep drops yawned pit-like at their sides; the headlights beamed out eerily over the black, empty space below — Shaw had been forced to switch them on rather than bring his mission to a total end at the bottom of some ravine. At times, as the rain beat more heavily at them, thundering on the car’s roof, the visibility was down to a mere few yards, and on a track such as this just one yard — an inch, even — could mean the difference between life and a very messy death.
The lower they descended into the old valley of the Chalok, below the hills whose companions marched out of mysterious Mongolia, the more nerve-racking an experience it became; to be driving between those high rock-faces induced a claustrophobic feeling. The parapet floods were high above them now, like lanterns in the sky as they stretched along the walkway. They were driving s]pp through the old channel, the channel through which the spillways would discharge, the channel along which the imprisoned main waters would roll and thunder if Treece should blow the dam wall. The spillways were in fact already draining away a trickle, no more at the moment than a seepage, of excess water from beyond that great, towering concrete wall ahead. A few minutes later, driving carefully but without lights now, picking his way along the sludgy river-bed and bumping in bone-shaking fashion now and then over potholes and large stones and rubble, Shaw noticed the loom of a tunnel, showing as a blacker circle in the gloom.
“That’ll be the entrance to the northern spillway,” he said, pointing it out.
Virginia nodded. “There’s more water around now, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
“I’ve noticed, don’t worry!” He peered ahead, his face anxious. There was quite a flow of water issuing from the tunnel now. Over a certain level discharge was automatic, keeping the upstream-level constant. It wouldn’t, Shaw hoped fervently, have reached that stage yet… maybe somebody up in the main control-room had pressed a switch, was letting the dam discharge for safety’s sake, not wanting to take risks with Comrade General Kosyenko on the way…”
“Think they’ve spotted our unorthodox approach?” Virginia suddenly asked. “Could be why they’re discharging?”
Shaw’s flesh crept, but he said, “I’d doubt that. Unorthodox approach or not, if Treece’s lot are in control, they’re still bound to assume in the first instance that Wicks and Fawcett are in this car.”
“Unless they’re expendable,” she said tautly. “But I’m just hoping you’re right, Steve.”
He said, “If they wanted to drown us they wouldn’t play about with it. These spillways are capable of sending out a gush that’d fill the whole tunnel, a solid spout of water that’d smash everything in its way.” He knew the combined discharge rate of the spillways was around three million gallons a second.
Shaw edged the car into the mouth of the spillway.
He drove along a raised way beside the channel proper, his headlights glinting on the dark, eerie flow. He reckoned the water in the channel was already some six inches deep and moving fast, as though big pressure was piling up behind it as someone widened the outflow valve. On the current came small pieces of debris… mangled pieces of timber, twigs, small dead animals whose sightless, staring eyes were caught by the headlights as they flashed past on the moving river of floodwater.
Virginia was shivering. She asked, “How far to one of those passages you spoke of? I’d like to get right inside the dam, and fast, whatever we come up against. I don’t like this much, I guess…”
“Neither do I. And I don’t know just where the sealed doors are. Keep your eyes skinned, Virginia. It’s going to be difficult to turn if we miss them.”
“I’ll watch out, all right!” After a minute, she asked, “You thought out what we do when we get inside, Steve?”
Tautly he said, “Only one thing we can do. Take charge of the control-room with Kosyenko safe inside it — then get Treece before he gets us.” He grinned. “Easier said than done?”
“I’ll say…”
“It needn’t be. We’ve got the weapons to make it a fair chance, especially when you add the element of surprise — not to say shock!”
The car surged ahead against the flow, which was spilling over from the channel now. Shaw made what speed he could as the water began to lap over faster, deepening all the time.
After a while, when altogether they had covered something like a mile inside the spillway, he said, “I doubt if we’re going to get much farther…” As he spoke, there was a cough and a splutter from the engine, and the car jerked and stopped. Shaw cursed, tried to restart, and failed. “Couldn’t have been more right, could I?” he said savagely. “All right, Virginia — out! We’ll walk from here — or swim!”