She tapped her earpiece, hoping that her message got through.
‘Hector… if you read me… I’m float—’
She never got the chance to finish her thought.
One moment she was fine, the next she was being pulled under by the surging water, which was dragging her back to the opening of the tunnel. The explosions had pushed the air from the underground system, and the sea rushed in to take its place. As huge bubbles forced their way to the surface, the tunnel continued to gurgle, toying with Sarah as she bobbed in the choppy surf above.
She choked on mouthfuls of seawater as she gasped for air, trying to stay afloat as if the hand of Neptune pulled her from below. In her struggles, she somehow spotted an approaching boat, but the undertow wouldn’t allow her to call out for help. The most she could do was flail her arms wildly in the hope of drawing attention.
As the final pocket of air was expelled from the tunnel, the current pulled her deeper into the void. Exhausted from the swim and without a full breath of air, she knew she wouldn’t last much longer. Her vision blurred, either from lack of oxygen or the increasing depth — she didn’t know which. Not that it really mattered, because neither was a positive development in the middle of the sea.
The last thing she saw was a silhouette.
Then her whole world went black.
32
Cobb slowly opened his eyes. The concussive force of the explosion had thrown him against the wall of the bunker. That much he remembered. The painful dizziness and the trickle of warmth he felt rolling down his face told him that his head had taken the brunt of the impact — and that the stone had proven harder than his skull. The dull pain in his side let him know he had bruised at least a couple of ribs in the fall.
His head throbbed and his breathing was labored.
But he was still alive.
‘Josh,’ he called out, ‘are you okay?’
If there was a reply, Cobb couldn’t hear it. The buzzing in his ears blocked out nearly all the ambient noise. The only things he could detect were the crackles and pops from his earpiece. They might have been voices. They might have been static. They might have been a figment of his imagination.
In his current state, he couldn’t tell the difference.
Cobb groped for his flashlight in the darkness. It had been knocked from his hand in the blast, and he was blind without it. He would worry about escaping later. Right now, he needed to know if McNutt was still alive.
Thankfully, he saw a sign of life.
Because of the dust and smoke, it didn’t look like a beam of light. Instead, it looked like a radioactive cloud had swallowed the room because the entire chamber started to glow. As Cobb stumbled toward the source of the light, the ringing in his ears began to fade. For the first time, he could hear his friend calling out to him.
‘Answer me, chief! Say something!’ McNutt hollered.
‘I’m fine! Just banged my head a bit,’ he shouted back.
Neither realized that they were actually yelling.
McNutt stepped closer and shined his light on Cobb. He could see the laceration on his head, but there was no point in mentioning it. He didn’t have stitches to close the wound or even a pad of gauze to stop the bleeding. Cobb was walking and talking, so McNutt hoped the only real damage was a splitting headache.
‘Good,’ McNutt said. ‘Let’s get the hell out of here.’
McNutt’s optimism was a bit premature. For all they knew, they were now trapped below a hundred tons of dirt and debris. If the damage were even half of that amount, it would take a fleet of excavators to find them, and they would have used up their oxygen long before the arrival of a rescue party.
‘Hector, can you hear me?’ Cobb waited a few seconds before he tried again. He knew the odds were slim, but he had to try. ‘Hector? Sarah? Jasmine?’
‘Anything?’ McNutt asked.
‘Nope. I think the blast fried the circuitry.’
‘Same with mine. I couldn’t even hear your transmission.’
‘That means we’re on our own.’
McNutt shrugged. ‘I’ve been on my own since high school.’
Cobb forced a smile. ‘You went to high school?’
McNutt laughed. ‘More than one.’
Ignoring their odds, they inspected the entrance to the bunker and saw that the concrete had shattered. What was once a hole was now a stack of rubble blocking their path. Fortunately, it wasn’t solid. They could see through to the other side.
McNutt pushed his way into the cistern and got the first glimpse of the destruction. The thunderous vibrations of the bombs had shaken many of the pillars out of position. The ancient supports were precarious before the explosion. Now they stood like a house of cards — one wrong move and the whole structure would come tumbling down.
McNutt was thankful that the water main had dried up. The chamber was still soaked, but they wouldn’t have to fight a waterfall on their climb. It was the first good thing that had happened to them in quite some time.
Blood dripped from McNutt’s arm and Cobb’s head as they slowly made their way up the wreckage toward the surface. As they climbed higher, their reserves got lower.
But still, they pressed on.
They were battered and bruised, but they weren’t broken.
The same could not be said for the city above.
Their hearing had improved greatly by the time they saw daylight, but it was a mixed blessing. For the first time, they could hear the cacophony of horrors radiating down from the street. Sirens. Screams. The sounds of panic and fear.
Human instinct told them to run away.
Their training told them to charge forward.
Seawater poured from Sarah’s lungs as she vomited uncontrollably. She rolled onto her side, trying to purge the fluid that had nearly killed her. Nothing around her mattered: not the boat, not the two men hovering near her. Not Alexander’s tomb or the loss of her colleagues. For the moment, her singular goal was to just keep breathing.
When her coughing finally subsided, she rolled back over to face her saviors. Only then did she recognize that it was Papineau standing over her. He was still wearing his customary shirt and tie, but now the tailored ensemble was dripping wet.
Sarah couldn’t believe her eyes. ‘Papi?’
Papineau smiled warmly. ‘How are you feeling?’
It was a look she had never seen before. ‘I’m fine. Thanks to you.’
‘I merely recovered your body,’ Papineau explained. ‘Hector is the real hero. You weren’t breathing when we first pulled you aboard. He was the one who brought you back to life.’
Sarah turned to see Garcia crouched on the other side of the boat. He was nearly panting as he dealt with the residual adrenalin coursing through his system. In spite of their previous adventure, he was still adjusting to real-world emergencies. He was much more comfortable dealing with things from behind his desk.
There, he could always reboot the system and start again.
In the field, things weren’t always as simple.
Sarah stared at him with decidedly mixed feelings. She was thankful that he had saved her life but knew he would never let her forget it.
Garcia smiled at her. ‘Don’t worry. Your breath was fine.’
Sarah nodded her thanks and tried to stand, but found that her legs were still too shaky to support her weight, especially in a rocking boat.
Papineau caught her as she collapsed. ‘Easy, Sarah. Take a moment to rest.’
Sarah had been a part of recovery missions in the past. They were often physically demanding, that much she knew, but they were nothing like this. Her perspective had changed. Rescuing someone was tiring. But being rescued was exhausting.