Devil's Gate

60

THE TENSION in the Pentagon’s Situation Room had grown as tight as a drum. The proverbial pin dropping would have sounded like a cannon shot.

One of the staffers, with a hand to the earphone of the headset he wore, relayed a message.

“We’re confirming a discharge from the Quadrangle site,” he said. “Continuous discharge… Duration at least sixty seconds.” No one moved. They all stared at the screen and waited for the inevitable. Unlike ballistic missiles with their seventeen-minute approach time, it should have taken only a blink.

Ten seconds later the lights were still on, the computers still running.

Everyone began to look around.

“Well?” Vice President Sandecker asked.

A female staffer spoke up. “The networks are still broadcasting live,” she said. “No sign of impact or damage.” Brinks’s face began to fill with color again. He turned to Dirk Pitt. “Your man did it,” he said hopefully.

“His name’s Austin,” Pitt said.

“Well, you give him my thanks along with the country’s,” Brinks said. “Along with my apology for being a bigmouthed idiot.” Pitt nodded, guessing that Kurt Austin would enjoy all three. He turned to the Navy brass in the room. “He’s going to need a way off that ship.” “Already on it,” one of them replied, smiling.

That pleased Pitt. But they weren’t out of the woods yet.

Up on the monitor the icons that represented the USS Memphis and the USS Providence were flashing. A new ship’s status was being reported. They were going into battle.

THE USS MEMPHIS had come up from the depths, just beyond the edge of the continental shelf. Holding station there, it had begun pinging away madly with the powerful sonar in its bow.

This was not normal operating procedure, as it gave away the ship’s position, but the plan was to draw Garand’s fleet of small subs out from its bay and allow the Trouts and Rapunzel to sneak in behind them.

A further effect of the violent sonar emissions would likely be confusion and even terror on the part of the enemy.

Inside the sub’s control room the sonar operator could see the plan working almost too well.

“Five targets approaching,” he called out. “Labeled bravo one through bravo five.” “Do we have firing solutions?” the sub’s skipper asked.

The fire control officer hesitated. His computer kept flashing green for yes and then red for no.

“The subs are so small, and continually changing direction, the computer can’t create a solution.” “Then fire on acoustic mode,” the captain ordered. “On my mark.” “Ready, sir.”

“Fire from all tubes.”

Over a period of five seconds compressed air launched six Mark 48 torpedoes from the Memphis’s midships tubes.

Seconds later the sonar man heard a different sound. “Incoming torpedoes,” he called out. “Bearing zero-four-three and three-five-five. At least four fish.” There were torpedoes approaching from the right front quadrant and the left. It took away their ability to maneuver.

“Hard to starboard,” the captain shouted. “Full revolutions, bow planes full up. Deploy countermeasures.” The ship turned, accelerated, and rose toward the surface. The countermeasures designed to draw off the approaching torpedoes were dumped in the water behind them.

Submarine battles were slow-motion versions of aerial dogfights. And the wait as a torpedo tracked inbound could be interminable.

Ten seconds passed and then twenty.

“Come on, go,” the skipper grunted.

The sub rose fast.

“One miss,” the sonar man reported. Then seconds later, “We’re clear.” They’d managed to avoid the incoming weapons. But the Memphis wasn’t as nimble as the small craft it was fighting. Like a bear tangling with a pack of wolves, she wouldn’t last long. As if to prove it, the sonar man called out again.

“New targets, bearing zero-nine-zero.” “Full down angle,” the captain ordered.

In the distance a series of explosions rocked the depths as two of the torpedoes from the Memphis found their marks in quick succession. But there was no celebration; their own troubles were too close.

“Bottom coming up fast, skipper,” the helmsman reported.

“Level off,” the captain said. “More countermeasures.” The bow angle eased. Another explosion rocked them from far off, but the sonar man looked stricken.

He turned to the captain, shaking his head. “No good.” An instant later the Memphis was hit. Anyone not seated and belted in was thrown to the floor. The main lights went down. The sound of alarms wailed throughout the ship.

The captain got to his feet, managed a quick look at the damage board. “Emergency surface,” he ordered.

The Memphis blew all tanks and began to rise.

MILES AWAY, Paul and Gamay Trout couldn’t see any screen or hear any radio calls describing the action. But the ocean carried sound much more effectively than the air, and echoes from the booming explosions reached them one after another like the sound of distant thunder.

Neither of them spoke, except as necessary for navigation.

Finally, Paul slowed the craft. They’d dropped from the Navy helicopter, descended into the far end of the canyon, and wound their way back toward the platforms.

“We’re at two hundred feet and holding,” Paul said. “If the inertial system is right, the platforms are less than a mile away.” Gamay was already activating Rapunzel ’s program. She wanted to get this over with as quickly as possible.

“Detaching umbilical,” she said.

She felt herself sweating once again despite the cold. And then she felt Paul’s hand on her shoulder, massaging it softly.

Another series of explosions rumbled through the depths, these far bigger, closer, and more menacing than any that had come before.

“Do you think that was one of ours?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Don’t think about it. Just do what you have to do.” She tried to block it out, even as another, smaller boom reached them, but there was nothing to see through her visor except darkness.

Seconds passed.

“How far?” she asked.

“You should be almost there,” Paul said.

Something was wrong. “She’s not moving,” Gamay said.

“What?”

Gamay studied the data feed from the little robot. “Her motor is operating, but she’s not moving. She’s stuck.” “How is that possible?” Paul asked.

Gamay, with a flip of her right hand, switched on Rapunzel’s exterior light. The answer to Paul’s question came through instantly.

“She’s stuck in a net.”

Gamay put Rapunzel in reverse and pulled her back a few yards. The net was no fluke; it was draped from above.

“Antitorpedo nets,” Paul said. “We must be right beside the platform.” Gamay switched on Rapunzel’s cutting tool. “I’m cutting through it.”

THE MEMPHIS had broken the surface but was taking on water fast. The order to abandon ship was given, and men were scrambling from the hatches and into boats or just into the sea itself.

But the survivors were well inside the Event Horizon line. If their enemy wanted to, he could fry them all with a single burst from his weapon.

ON THE ONYX, Kurt noticed the lighting returning to normal. He was thankful that the bow thrusters hadn’t come back to life. He hoped that meant the high voltage was still out and the Fulcrum array was still off-line.

He moved back to where Katarina sat in the hall. “Ready for one more run?” he asked.

“I don’t think I can,” she said.

He studied her hand. The blood flow had slowed, the wound was finally clotting.

“Come on,” he said. “You’re a champion. Prove it to me.” She looked into his eyes and clenched her jaw. He helped her up, and they began to move.

“Do you still want to get to the coolant room?” she asked.

He nodded. “They’ll get this power back on soon enough. We have to permanently disable this thing.” “I know another way to get there,” she said. “They’ll never expect us to use it.” She led him forward until they came to another hatch. This one was sealed tight.

Kurt dropped beside it and grabbed the wheel.

After two full rotations it spun easily. He opened it to see a ladder dropping down through a shaft. Dim red lights lit the rungs, and glacial air wafted up toward him. Kurt suddenly thought of Dante’s Inferno, which depicted some of Hell’s outer layers as frigid, Arctic-like zones.

“What’s down there?” he asked.

“The accelerator tunnels,” she said.

That didn’t sound like a safe place to be, but the sound of feet pounding on the metal deck above changed his mind.

He helped her onto the ladder, climbed down behind her, and shut the hatch. At the bottom they dropped into a tunnel.

It reminded Kurt of standing on a subway platform, like the Washington Metro, only narrower. The familiar high-voltage lines and liquid nitrogen conduits raced down each wall and also along the ceiling and floor. Rows of the shiny gray rectangles that Kurt knew to be the superconducting magnets traveled off into the distance, curving slightly at the limit of his vision.

Kurt exhaled a cloud of ice crystals. He was already chilled to the bone. It reminded him of the Fulcrum’s compartment only colder.

“If we go this way,” she said, “we can pop up through the rear access hatch. One level down from the coolant room.” Kurt began walking, with Katarina leaning heavily on his shoulder. It was a great plan. The crew would never search for them down there, he was sure of it.

“What if they turn this thing on?” he asked.

“Then we’ll be dead before we even know what’s happened.” “All the more reason to hurry,” he said.