Devil's Gate

36

ON BOARD THE MOTOR YACHT, Katarina fell forward as the Barracuda went under. She stared at the swirling waters where the small sub had been moments before.

“No,” she cried in a cracking whisper. “No.”

She lowered her eyes and lay facedown on the deck, shoulders shaking as she sobbed.

Andras stared at her. “Now, that’s a pitiful sight.”

He walked toward her and crouched down. He put his fingers under her chin and lifted her face until she was looking in his eyes.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I have far more pleasant plans for you.”

She spat toward his face, but he stepped easily out of the way. “Why do you all try the same tricks?” he asked. He stood back, and kicked her for good measure.

Stepping away, he turned to the pilothouse. “Start the engines.”

As the diesels rumbled to life beneath the deck, Mathias, the key master, came toward him. Mathias was not one of Andras’s men; Djemma had put him aboard, perhaps to watch Andras.

“You gave them the key,” Mathias said. “What if they escape?”

Andras laughed. “I almost hope that they do. It would make things more interesting,” he said. “But they won’t,” he added. “At least, not both of them.”

“Why?”

“Because people have to pay for their crimes, and death is not much of a punishment.” Andras glared at the key master with fury in his eyes. He felt a particular mix of hatred and respect for Kurt Austin. He had suffered his own pain at Austin’s hands once upon a time.

Satisfied that Mathias had been put in his place, Andras turned toward the bow.

Mathias grabbed his arm, turning him. “I will inform Djemma. He will not find this so amusing.”

Andras’s eyes narrowed to slits. “It wasn’t done for amusement.”

“Then for what? I see no purpose to it.”

“There is purpose in everything I do,” Andras assured him. “This, for example.”

In the blink of an eye, Andras raised a tiny pistol and fired it. The report was no louder than a cap gun. There was no shouting, no wailing in pain, or even much reaction on the part of Mathias. Only a suddenly limp appearance to his face as a tiny hole appeared in the center of his forehead. He stumbled back, cross-eyed and shaking, but not dead, not yet.

As the key master backed into the railing, Andras pulled the trigger again. Mathias tumbled backward, falling overboard and splashing noisily in the water.

He disappeared for a second and then bobbed to the surface, supported by the gray life jacket he wore. A trickle of crimson blood flowed from two small holes in his head, but he didn’t move or even tremble.

Andras put the pistol away, raised the shotgun for all to see, and bellowed at the top of his lungs, “Anyone else have a problem with authority?” He looked around from face to face.

No one spoke, and Andras glanced at the boat’s pilot.

“Let’s go,” he said.

The engines roared, and the motor yacht moved off. The two powerboats quickly joined it, and the three vessels raced off to the north, trailing long wakes out behind them.

THIRTY FEET BELOW THE SURFACE and dropping, Kurt held his breath as he and Joe rode the Barracuda down. As the pressure grew in his ears and the light from above started to fade, Kurt tried to calm himself. A plan was forming in his head, but first he had to fight off the natural reaction of fear and panic, knowing those things would kill him as quickly as anything else.

Without goggles, everything around them was a hazy blur, but it was a yellow-green blur, which meant that the Barracuda’s lights were still on. And that meant the shotgun blasts hadn’t taken out her electrical system. And even though she was full of water, Joe had given her instruments and controls that were waterproof up to great depths.

If he was right about their location, the seafloor would catch them near a depth of a hundred twenty feet, and then Kurt would take his shot at turning that floor into something other than a receptive grave.

It wouldn’t be easy, but they had a fighting chance. In fact, the way Kurt figured things, their odds were almost even. It really all depended on just how the Barracuda landed.

He pinned his eyes open even though the salt water stung and burned them. With the sub’s nose pointed down, the forward lights began to illuminate the seafloor ten seconds before they hit. Kurt saw light-colored silt with a few dark outcroppings that he assumed were volcanic rock.

It rose up at them faster than Kurt expected. He braced himself and was slammed forward as the nose of the little sub thumped the floor like a giant lawn dart.

The impact jarred him, but he kept his wits and immediately went into action.

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 Barracuda over 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 Barracuda had 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 Barracuda rested 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.

“I’m still locked up,” Joe said.

“I know,” Kurt said, studying the key. “Hold on.”

He took a deep breath, went back into the water, and tried again. This time, he tried both cuffs but to no avail. The key could be forced in, but it didn’t slide in smoothly and it wouldn’t turn a millimeter once it was in.

Suddenly, he remembered Andras telling Kurt his answers were “good enough for half.”

It hadn’t made sense at the time, but now it did. He’d given them one key. It matched Kurt’s handcuffs but not Joe’s. That was exactly the man Kurt remembered, never content just to defeat his foes but almost needing to torture those he’d vanquished, to cause pain before landing the killing blow.

Whatever other reasons Andras might have had for giving Kurt a chance to escape, this twisted little game had to be part of it. He could imagine Andras watching the scene play out in his mind and snickering.

Like some malevolent deity in Greek mythology, he’d granted Kurt a chance at life, but Kurt could only accept that gift at the expense of leaving his best friend to die.

No way on earth Kurt was going to let that happen. He went back inside, popping up once again.

“I think you’re misunderstanding the concept here,” Joe said. “When you come back in, I’m supposed to be free.”

“We have a problem,” Kurt said. “The key doesn’t fit.”

Joe stared at the key and then at Kurt. “The guy used a different key on mine. I saw it. The cuffs are different.”

Kurt stuffed the key in his pocket and began looking around in the cockpit for a tool to break Joe loose. He found a pair of screwdrivers, a set of Allen wrenches, and some other instruments — all of them miniaturized out of necessity to fit in the tiny cockpit of the sub.

“Anything in here that we could use for leverage?” he asked. Joe had built the sub. He’d know it far better than Kurt.

“Not really,” Joe said.

“What about the lift bar?” Kurt asked, referencing what Joe was cuffed to. “Can we remove it or release it somehow?”

Joe shook his head. “Not without taking half the sheet metal off first.”

“Can we break it?” Kurt asked, though he already knew the answer.

“It’s the hardest point on the sub,” Joe said, beginning to shiver from the cold water. “It’s welded right to the frame. It’s designed to support the sub’s entire weight when lifted out of the water.”

The two men stared at each other.

“You can’t get me free,” Joe said, voicing a dreaded realization.

“There’s got to be a way,” Kurt mumbled, thinking, and trying to fight what was becoming a mind-numbing cold.

“Not with anything we have on board,” Joe said. “You should go. Don’t stay down here and drown with me.”

“Why? So you could come back and haunt me?” Kurt said, trying to keep Joe’s spirits up. “No thanks.”

“Maybe there’s a boat on the surface or a helicopter,” Joe said. “Maybe someone got our message.”

Kurt thought about that. It seemed unlikely. And if Joe was right about how long the air supply would last on full blast, Kurt doubted they had more than fifteen minutes or so to wait. Not enough time for someone to get to them even if he could call for help.

He needed a different answer, a third way between leaving Joe to drown and dying down there alongside him. What he needed was a hacksaw or a blowtorch to cut through the lift bar or, better yet, through the chains on Joe’s cuffs.

And then it dawned on him. He didn’t need a full-on blowtorch, just something that burned hot and sharp. He remembered the green tank he’d seen in the Constellation’s cockpit when he’d rescued Katarina. Green tank meant pure oxygen. Pure oxygen burned hot and sharp. Modulated just right, that could be his cutting torch.

He flipped open a small compartment door. Inside were the Barracuda’s emergency supplies. Two diver’s masks, sets of fins, and two small air tanks; ones he now wished contained one hundred percent oxygen but were filled with standard air.

Twenty-one percent oxygen and seventy-eight percent nitrogen didn’t burn, but at least it could be breathed.

He pulled them out.

Behind the tanks he found a packet of flares and an emergency locator transmitter, an ELT. An uninflated two-man raft completed the kit. Enough to save them if they could get free.

Kurt took one air tank and strapped it to Joe’s arm like a blood pressure cuff. He turned the valve and put the regulator up by Joe’s mouth.

“Breathe through your nose until the air in the Barracuda runs out, then start drawing on this,” he said.

Joe nodded. “Where are you going?” he asked. “Are you going to the surface?”

Kurt was pulling on a pair of small swim fins.

“Hell no,” he said. “I’m going to the hardware store to get us a cutting torch.”

Joe’s gaze narrowed. “Have you lost your mind?”

“Years ago,” Kurt said, pulling the mask down. He strapped the emergency air bottle to his own arm and turned the valve. “But that doesn’t mean I’m crazy.”

He took a test breath off of the yellow tank’s regulator.

Joe’s eyebrows went up. “You’re serious?”

Kurt nodded.

“I hope it’s not too far away, then,” Joe added.

Kurt hoped not as well. He knew roughly where they were when they’d been captured. He thought he could make it.

He put the regulator in his mouth and ducked his face into the water to look for one more thing that he’d need to pull it off. He found it and then submerged.

“Hurry back,” Joe said, but Kurt was already moving.