The Storm

CHAPTER 58

THE HORRIBLE FEELING OF EVENTS SPIRALING BEYOND HIS control filled Joe Zavala with dread. The dive boat above was being pulled toward the breach where it would go over the falls in a fatal manner. And since he was attached to that boat by a steel cable and an air hose, Joe would soon follow.

Cutting the cable and the hose wouldn’t help. He couldn’t swim to the surface. Even if he dumped the weight belt, he had fifty pounds of gear on his shoulders and feet.

His feet touched down, he tried to set them but was picked up and pulled sideways once again.

“Give me more line!” he shouted. “Quick!”

He saw the boat high above, saw the phosphorescent wake behind the boat as it fought the current, angling this way and that as the pilot tried to keep its nose aimed upstream. Any side turn would be the end of them as they’d be swept away in a matter of seconds.

Finally Joe felt some slack in the line. He dropped onto the slope and began to scramble over it. He found a large boulder, half the size of a VW or even a VV.

Marching around it, he wrapped the steel cable against its bulk.

“Tighten the cable!” he said.

The cable pulled taut, constricted around the boulder and all but sung in the depths as the slack was used up. The boat up above locked into place.

“We’re holding,” the major called down. “What happened?”

“I made you an anchor,” Joe said. “Now, tell me someone up there knows what centripetal force is?”

Joe was holding tight. The cable was looped around the boulder but threatening to break.

“Yes,” the major said, “the supervisor knows.”

“Point the boat toward the rocks, take a forty-five-degree angle if the cable holds, then you should slingshot to safety. Beach the boat, and don’t forget to reel me in.”

“Okay,” the major said, “we’ll try.”

Joe held the cable tight, putting his steel boots up against the boulder.

The boat above changed course and began to move sideways. Like the Earth’s gravity directing the moon, the steel cable caused the boat’s path to curve and accelerate. The boat cut through the current and was flung forward.

A twang sounded through the water. Joe felt himself tumbling backward.

The cable had snapped in two.

At first he was dragged by the current toward the topside breach, but then the lines and hoses connecting him to the dive boat pulled him the other way.

As the boat raced into the shallows and beached on the rocks, Joe was dragged into the boulder field down below. Each blow felt like being in a car crash and Joe was suddenly thankful for the hard stainless steel helmet.

When the ride stopped, Joe was thirty feet under, the suit was filling with water and the air hose was either severed or kinked because no air was coming through. Joe knew he couldn’t swim, but he could climb. Up he went, crawling across the concrete pylons and boulders like a raccoon in a garbage dump.

He shed the weight belt and the task got easier. As he went higher, the light from the bottom of the boat grew brighter. With his air running out, Joe pulled himself to the surface, emerging like the Creature from the Black Lagoon.

He collapsed between two of the boulders, unable to hold up the helmet and shoulder harness without the buoyancy of the water. He struggled to lift it off, but it wouldn’t budge until two sets of helping hands pulled it off for him.

“Did we do it?” Joe asked.

“You did it,” the major said, hugging Joe and lifting him up. “You did it.”