She felt the vibration pulse through the water and suspected what was about to happen. The other two knew it as well and tried to disengage. Rather than take the opening presented as the gunner turned to fin away, Lauren thrust-kicked after him, realizing for the first time how close they’d drifted to the locks.
All the Chinese were swimming toward the largest of the old machines dumped near the lock and the clarity of her adrenaline high allowed her to see that it wasn’t old at all, only painted oxide red. It was a modern diving bell, a pressurized chamber that permitted the frogmen to remain underwater for hours. The piece of junk next to it wasn’t an antique either. What she’d thought was a large-spoked wheel on one side of the truck-sized artifact was actually an enormous impeller on a specialized submersible. Mercer had been right!
The surge hit so strongly that it nearly stripped her mask over her head. In an instant she lost her forward momentum and was being drawn backward. The two Chinese were only a couple of feet ahead of her and they too were caught in the pull. The mechanical gates that controlled flow had cracked open. The current was already stronger than any Lauren had faced.
She couldn’t help looking back at the intake tunnel that was sucking her in like some horrible mouth. For a couple of seconds Lauren futilely resisted the force with her arms and legs. She swam faster than the Chinese divers and in a moment all three came abreast of each other. Yet it was a race to remain stationary. The gates opened farther and the current doubled, then doubled again. There was no way to resist it. They were caught, like flotsam in a whirlpool, and no amount of struggling could fight the pull. One of the frogmen dumped his weight belt in hopes he could float free. The second it took to slap at the buckle cost him several feet.
Lauren knew what she had to do.
They were twenty feet from the opening, accelerating toward it each second. There was no way she could prevent herself from going in. She could only hope to survive the ride. She committed herself by breaking her swim rhythm and grabbed for the diver next to her. Her grip slowed the beat of his leg. An instant of panic caused him to stop swimming altogether. Lauren torqued her body, bringing them broadside to the surge with him closer to the lock. Like a pair of kites caught in a sudden updraft they lost all control, flailing, pulled backward even faster than before. They smashed into the slower diver and all three tumbled in the jet of water. Lauren maintained her position behind them by holding on as tight as she could.
The rush of water sounded like a liquid hurricane. Lauren pressed her mask against the shoulder of the man in front of her and clamped her jaw on her mouthpiece.
Their target was eighteen feet in diameter but luck would have it that they were just to the right of the opening so they were drawn in at an angle. Lauren ducked her head as they were swept inside and felt the jolt as the first diver in line had his skull split open by the impact with the pipe’s concrete lip. The fountain of blood caught in the dive lights swirled in countless back-eddies.
Just one scrape against the lining of the tunnel would be enough to peel flesh down to the bone so Lauren fought the men, not the current, always keeping her body protected as they scuffed along the conduit. It was like holding on to a mattress while falling down a cliff. Disoriented by the endless tumble, she lost all sense of direction. The bubbles from her regulator danced like dervishes.
A light swept ahead and Lauren saw that amid the wild flurry of motion the draw of water being sucked down into the cross-culverts was pulling them across the tunnel. They’d already passed at least half of the fourteen inlets. It was only a matter of time before one of them pulled them in.
Like an animal working at a piece of meat, the torrent tossed them wildly and still Lauren managed to keep the two Chinese in front of her. Either the one in the middle, who she could feel was still breathing, didn’t understand her intentions or was too paralyzed by fear to resist. A roar like a subway rushing through the darkness filled her head. As they flipped again, the wrist light showed they careened scant inches from the left side of the pipe. Lauren had two seconds to brace herself. One of the ten-foot cross-culverts was just ahead and she knew this one was going to grab them.
When they hit the rim of the ninety-degree angle, the staggering collision blew her mouthpiece from her lips, her lungs emptying in a gust of pain. The corpse of the partially decapitated diver took most of the impact, the pressure of two people behind forcing the last of his blood to erupt from the ruin of his skull. The middle diver absorbed the rest of the blow, his rib cage shattering like glass.
Pressure held them to the concrete wall for an instant before the current yanked them in again. They dropped a short distance in a wrenching swoop as Lauren’s lungs ached to breathe. She couldn’t feel her mouthpiece but knew it was waving around her like a tentacle. The tunnel leveled out and an instant later they flashed beneath the first of the stem valves that fed water into the bottom of the lock chamber.
One of the bodies was pulled from her grip and forced up through the opening.
The water had lost part of its force, giving Lauren the courage to let go of the second corpse with one hand to snag her regulator. Her lungs were on fire. She could see the mouthpiece curling in front of her, but couldn’t coordinate her movements to grab it.
The end of her flipper hit the top of a lifter valve sunk partially into the floor of the tunnel and was torn off her foot. The hit sent a bolt of agony from her ankle. The last reserve of air she’d managed to hoard escaped in a silent scream. They streamed by another valve. Lauren could feel the counterforce of water entering the culvert from the second feeder tunnel located in the seawall dividing the two locks. Her forward progress slowed further. She lunged for the regulator again, forgetting all about her scuba training and the proper technique for retrieving a lost mouthpiece.
She needed air. The darkness spreading across her vision was in her head, not the surrounding water. Her lungs convulsed, a sharp draw that felt like her diaphragm had torn. She was about to drown.
One last desperate reach and she found the regulator. Gripping it tight, she shoved it past her greedy lips. The first taste of air almost made her cough. The second was like heaven.
Then the body, which had drifted below her, smashed into the third valve and the regulator was jerked from her mouth. She hadn’t realized she’d been drawing breath from the frogman’s tank. His body, and its life-giving regulator, vanished behind her and again she found her lungs nearly empty. The current pushed her closer to the tunnel’s ceiling.
She reached the center valve, banged hard against the edge of the opening with her air tank, and was suddenly floating in water that seemed as tranquil as a pond. She’d made it! She was inside one of the great lock chambers, eight hundred feet down its length from where she’d entered. Above she could see the silvery reflection of high-intensity lamps mounted above the facility. She just wanted to lay there and watch the dance of light on the underside of the water. Her back ached, her ankle screamed and she was so dizzy she could no longer think. Just lay here for a minute.
Like a warning from a friend who knew she’d forgotten something, her lungs convulsed again, a mild jolt that reminded her she hadn’t taken a breath in almost a minute. Without conscious thought, she stuck her arm straight behind her back, swept it forward and felt the air hose tickle along the inside of her arm. In a second she had the regulator in place and oxygen in her lungs.