Deep Fire Rising

as it cooled, but it did not crack. Mercer was in the clear. He allowed the cramped muscles in his back and shoulders to relax for the first time since entering the volcanic shaft.

“Jim, can you read me, over? Jim, it’s Mercer, can you read me?”

“I read you. What the hell happened down there? We expected to pull out the ROV a half hour ago.”

“I’ll explain everything in a minute. I’m holding on to the end of the towline. That’s me you’re pulling up.”

“What? Where’s Scott?”

“He didn’t make it. Please, Jim, just pull me up. I’ll tell you everything.”

“Ah, okay.”

“And Jim. Find Spirit Williams and keep an eye on her.”

“Why?”

“She wears wooden shoes.” Mercer hoped McKenzie knew the apocryphal story about the origins of the word “sabotage,” which supposedly came from a revolt during the Industrial Revolution in which the French workers threw their wooden shoes, or sabots, into factory machinery to shut it down.

He continued upward like a fish on the end of two hundred feet of line. As soon as he surfaced he’d have them recover the lifting cradle or maybe just cut the thing loose. It didn’t matter.

At fifty feet the water was still as black and ominous as it had been near the vent. The blanket of ash cut all the sunlight and particles seemed to fill the sea. When he reached thirty feet he felt the tow cable slow. The workers were preparing for the delicate operation of slinging him onto the service boat. Mercer still couldn’t tell where the surface began, let alone see the Angel’s outline.

Finally at fifteen feet he could see the vessel’s deep keel and the shadow of something next to the ship, but he lost his vantage as he was drawn ever closer to safety.

He was pulled through an eight-foot-thick layer of volcanic ash and mud, a cloying mess that slowed his progress for a moment as the crane operator adjusted to the added weight. He double-checked that the hydraulic pressure on the claw gripping the cable was at maximum. He chuckled at the irony if the suit fell free. To get this far he’d destroyed the motors, and if he did plummet back into the water he’d have no way to save himself.

His head broke the surface and mud oozed off the suit, obscuring his view entirely. Even when it cleared, he could barely see through his damaged visor. The crane pulled him higher still and started to swing him over the transom. The suit’s grip on the cable felt secure.

He could just make out Jim McKenzie on the deck and Spirit and what looked like Charlie, or at least someone with their head swathed in bandages. There was no sign of Tisa.

His feet came level with the stern railing when he realized Jim, Spirit and Charlie were arguing. And then he saw that there was another boat tied up to the Petromax Angel. He looked down. He didn’t recognize the man operating the winch.

“Mercer!” Tisa’s scream burst over the communications line.

“Tisa?” he shouted back.

She burst from the control van, two men giving chase. Both appeared armed, but Mercer couldn’t tell. His faceplate was too distorted.

Jesus, the Angel had been hijacked. They had just been waiting for the chance. Mercer understood too that they’d recovered the ADS so they could return to the vent and remove the bomb.

One of the men reached Tisa and cut off her charge with a flying tackle. Both tumbled across the deck. The second man rushed to her side. Mercer recognized the way he moved, so much like her lithe rhythm. Luc Nguyen.

Trapped in the armored suit dangling from the crane just inside the railing, there was nothing Mercer could do as Luc helped Tisa to her feet and tenderly wiped her hair off her face.

“Come on, Jim,” Mercer shouted, though he couldn’t be heard. “Do something!”

And Jim did. The argument reached a fever pitch. Charlie and Spirit were screaming. From under his untucked shirt, McKenzie pulled a snub-nosed revolver and pumped three shots into Charlie’s stomach. The bullets were hollow points and the spray of blood from his back was a hovering cloud of carmine mist.

Even inside the NewtSuit, Mercer could hear the triple blasts. He had no idea what he’d just witnessed. Spirit dropped to her knees next to her dead husband. Tisa appeared catatonic. Luc Nguyen left his sister’s side and padded over to Jim. The two embraced like long-separated friends.

The moment their backs were to her, Spirit leapt from where she’d fallen and raced at Mercer, her face a twisted mask of anguish and determination. One of the terrorists who’d boarded the Angel had reactions as quick as hers. He had his rifle up to his shoulder by the time she’d covered ten of the twenty feet separating her from Mercer.

Her strides were impossibly long, like those of a gazelle. She managed two more before the rifle cracked. The shot tore a chunk out of her shoulder and still she came.

The next bullet hit her square in the back and exploded out her stomach, carrying enough velocity to ricochet off the NewtSuit. Her mouth flew open and still she ran, born by momentum until she slammed into the ADS.

Spirit’s impetus pendulumed the five-hundred-pound suit over the rail with her clinging to its body. As soon as it cleared the ship, she mouthed, “Let go.”

At the apex of the swing, Mercer didn’t hesitate. He released the lock holding his pincer closed and the suit plummeted from the ship. Spirit lost her grip as they plunged into the water. Mercer fell through the layer of ash and dropped like a stone into the inky blackness, leaving Spirit to die in the ooze.

He was too stunned for several seconds to do anything but ride the NewtSuit as it sank ever deeper. When he finally broke free of his daze and activated the motors to arrest his descent, he found they didn’t have the power. The battered ADS was out of trim and negatively buoyant.

The fall seemed to go on forever, an endless slow-motion journey into the depths. The NewtSuit could take the pressure of a thousand feet, but Mercer knew the ruined visor would implode long before that. According to his gauge he’d already sunk five hundred feet. He hadn’t forgotten that La Palma was one of the steepest islands in the world. Its submerged buttresses would likely be even sheerer. For all he knew there was a mile of water under his feet.

He passed through eight hundred feet, a tiny figure outlined in the glow of his own lamps. He had been sure Spirit was the saboteur. Her New Age philosophy fit perfectly with the Order’s beliefs, and she had had the opportunity on the Surveyor and here. After being with C.W. for so long, she’d have known how to tinker with an ADS. But what had clinched it for him was how she’d been dressed during the eruption. Moments earlier she’d been arguing with C.W. Mercer had heard them in their cabin. She had run out as soon as she’d heard the blast. Charlie was taking his time getting dressed. He’d already put on his jeans and shoes. Mercer had been certain that was when she’d hit him, to prevent him from making the dive.

But he knew now that wasn’t how it was. She really had just run out. It was Jim who’d gone in when Charlie was dressing and bashed him with something. Her comment about him not being man enough to use C.W.’s suit hadn’t been made in a panic when she’d realized she’d damaged the wrong one. It was a possessive expression of love for C.W. She’d lashed out because she did have feelings for Mercer and hated herself for it.

He checked the gauge. A thousand feet. Around him was nothing but darkness.

Goddamned Jim McKenzie. He’d had more than enough opportunity and an obvious motive if he was a member of the Order. He’d done just enough to gain Mercer’s confidence. He’d stayed close enough to the center of things to make himself indispensable. He’d planned this setup since his admission on the Surveyor about a rogue signal activating the tower.

“Damn!” Mercer shouted aloud. The suit had an emergency lift bag. C.W. had referred to it as the antichute, joking that parachutes slow your descent, the antichute reverses it.

Mercer fumbled with the control pad in his right arm, lifting the safety catch off the antichute’s release button. He hit the switch and shouted with relief as the sounds of the bag inflating over his head filled the helmet. His descent came to a gradual halt.

But that was it. He didn’t start rising as he should have.

“Come on.” He hit the button again. The bag had deployed as far as it would. He’d damaged the cylinder of gas when he’d smashed away the engine back in the vent. Like someone trapped in the basket of a runaway hot air balloon, he started drifting with the benthic currents.

“No. No way.” Mercer put everything out of his mind. He spooled up the few working thrusters and took a