bubbling. Squeezed between the water and the raft, the pontoons rapidly deflated. As the back of the raft settled into the water, they un hooked the tie lines securing the SeaBus. Then they scrambled through the aft hatch, made sure all was tight, and settled into the cockpit.
The front of the raft tilted upward at an angle. Then, as the lift bags deflated, it leveled out and began to sink. It was a primitive launching system for such a sophisticated craft, but it worked. The SeaBus maintained its buoyancy as the raft sank and was pulled out by the forward motion of the paddle wheeler. The submersible danced in the larger boat's wake and sank into the foam kicked up by the stern paddles. As they gained depth the water changed from blue-green to blue-black.
Austin adjusted the ballast, and the sub attained neutral buoyancy at fifty feet. The battery-driven motors whined as Zavala goosed the throttle and pointed the submersible toward shore. They were lucky to have no current pushing against the round, almost blunt bow of the submersible and could keep it at a steady ten knots. Within half an hour they had covered the five miles to land.
As Zavala steered, Austin consulted the sonar screen. The rocky shore continued its vertical drop into the water for more than a hundred feet before jutting out in a wide ledge. The sonar picked up an extremely large object resting on the ledge directly under the floating pier. Moments later they looked up and saw the long shape of the pier and its floats silhouetted against the shimmer of surface light. Austin hoped his earlier assessment was correct, that the guard was too numb from boredom to notice any disturbance the submersible might cause. Zavala took the SeaBus down in a shallow spiral while Austin alternated between radar and visual checks.
'Level out. Fast,' Austin said.
Zavala responded instantly, and the submersible circled like a hungry shark.
'Were we getting too close to the ledge?'
'Not exactly. Take her out and go down another fifty feet.'
The SeaBus moved away from the shore and spun around so they were facing a ledge.
'Madre de Dios,' Zavala said. 'Last time I knew, the Astrodome was still in Texas.'
'I doubt you'll find any Dallas Cowgirls inside that thing,' Austin said.
'It's similar to the one that went ka-pop in the Baja. Hate to admit it, but you were right as usual.'
'Just lucky.'
'I don't know how lucky you are. We've got to get inside that thing.'
'There's no time like the present. I suggest we take a look at the underside.'
With a nod of his head, Zavala cranked up the throttle and put the SeaBus into a glide that took them directly under the massive structure. The surface was made of a translucent green material that emitted a dull glow. Zavala's hyperbole not with standing, the facility would have been an impressive engineering
feat even on dry land. Like the Baja operation, this structure also rested on four cylindrical legs around the perimeter.
'There are openings in the outside legs,' Austin said. 'Probably like the ones in Mexico, used for intake and exhaust.'
Zavala brought the submersible in close to a fifth support at the very center of the structure. He switched on the sub's twin spotlights. 'No duct openings. Hello. What have we here?' He nudged the SeaBus closer to an oval depression in the otherwise smooth surface of the support. 'Looks like a door. Still no welcome mat, though.'
'Maybe they forgot it,' Austin said. 'What say we park the bus and pay a neighborly social call?'
Zavala dropped the SeaBus lightly onto the ledge next to the support leg. They pulled on their air tanks and the headsets for their Divelink communicators. Austin tucked his big Bowen and some spare ammunition into a waterproof fanny pack. The pack held a 9mm Glock to replace the machine pistol Zavala lost in Alaska.
Austin crawled into the snug airlock first, flooded the chamber, then opened the outer hatch. Minutes later, Zavala joined him outside the SeaBus. They swam to the support leg and rose up the thick cylinder, where they hung on to hand bars on either side of the door. To the right of the tight seam was a panel. En cased in clear plastic were two large buttons, one red and the other green. The green one was glowing.
They hesitated.
'She might be connected to an alarm,' Zavala said, echoing Austin's own thoughts.
'I was wondering the same thing. But why would they bother? The neighborhood around here isn't exactly swarming with burglars.'
'We don't have a lot of choice,' Zavala said. 'Go for it.'
Austin pushed against the glowing button. If an alarm went off, they didn't hear it. A section in the support leg slid silently aside to reveal an opening shaped like a mouth wide open in a yawn. Zavala gave Austin the okay sign and swam in first.
Austin was right on his fins. They were in a chamber shaped like the inside of a hat box. A metal ladder hung down from the ceiling. On the wall was a duplicate of the switch that opened the door. Austin pushed the glowing green button. He accidentally nudged the pack with their weapons, and it fell through the opening in the air lock.
'Forget it,' he said, anticipating Zavala's question. 'We don't have time.'
The outer door closed, and a ring of lights flicked on inside. The chamber was quickly pumped dry, and a circular hatch popped open in the ceiling. Still no sign that their presence had been noted. All was quiet except for the hum of distant machinery.
Austin pulled himself up the ladder and poked his head through the hatch. Then he motioned for Zavala to follow and climbed the rest of the way. They were in another, larger circular room. Several dark green dry suits hung from the wall. Air tanks were stacked on shelves. A large cabinet held various specialized tools.
Austin removed his headset, mask, and tank and picked up a long-handled brush with stiff steel bristles. 'They must use this stuff to clean the intake ports out there. The openings would get clogged up with algae otherwise.'
Zavala went over to a door in the curving wall and pointed to another red-green switch. 'I'm beginning to feel like a monkey in one of those intelligence tests where the chimp presses a button for food.'
'Not me,' Austin said. 'A chimp would be too smart to be in a place like this.'
On Austin's signal, he hit the green button. The door opened, and they stepped into a room with four walls. The room contained shower stalls and shelves. Austin removed a plastic wrapped packet from a shelf and opened it. Inside was a white two-piece suit made of a light synthetic material. Without further conversation they got out of their dry suits and quickly pulled the white uniforms over their thermal underwear. Austin's distinctive silver- platinum hair made him stand out from the crowd, so he was glad to see that each packet held a tight-fitting plastic cap.
'How do I look?' he said, aware that the suit wasn't made to accommodate his wide shoulders.
'Like a large and unsavory white mushroom.'
'Exactly the image I was trying for. Let's go.'
They were in a cavernous chamber with a high, curving roof. Pipes and conduits of varying widths crossed the space. The hum they heard earlier was so loud it almost hurt their ears. The sound seemed to be coming from everywhere.
'Bingo,' Austin murmured softly.
Zavala said, 'Reminds me of a scene from that movie, Alien. '
'I wish these were aliens,' Austin said.
A white-clad figure unexpectedly emerged from behind a fat vertical duct. They tensed and groped for their missing weapons, but the technician, who was carrying a portable gauge, hardly gave them a glance before disappearing into the maze. The huge room had two levels divided from each other by metal scaffolding and catwalks. They decided to climb above the main floor, where they would have a better view of the entire facility and have less chance of running into other technicians. They ascended the nearest stairs and made their way toward the center. The technicians below were intent on their work, and no one looked up. From their elevation the facility was even more impressive. It looked like a futuristic hive filled with drones.
'We could spend all day searching this place,' Austin said. 'Let's see if we can find a guide.'
They descended stairs that took them back onto the main floor and hid behind a large pipe. Standing before a large console were three technicians. The figures had their backs turned, obviously engrossed in their task.
Two technicians moved off, leaving the third alone. With a quick glance to make sure he was unobserved, Austin swiftly closed on the unsuspecting figure and hooked his thick arm around the person's throat.
