Devil's Gate

“I have news,” he said. “Some good, some bad.”

“Begin, and be quick.”

“You were right. At least twenty scientific groups have shown up, with others on their way. This magnetic phenomenon seems to be drawing great interest.”

“Of course it is,” Djemma said. “Why else do you think I sent you there?”

“It’s not only scientific interest. There are some military personnel here as well.”

Djemma did not sound concerned. “That is to be expected. You will have no issues with them if you do as planned.”

“Maybe,” Andras said. “But here’s the real problem. The Americans who almost caught us on the Kinjara Maru are here. I’ve seen their ship in the harbor. Now it anchors over the magnetic tower. According to the Portuguese, they’ve been put in charge of the entire study. I’m sure there’s a military angle to it.”

Djemma laughed. “You continue to make your enemies bigger than they really are, perhaps to add glory to your name when you knock them down, but it smacks of paranoia.”

“What are you talking about?” Andras asked.

“You were not attacked by U.S. Navy SEALs or Special Forces, my friend. These men from NUMA are oceanographers and divers. They find wrecks and salvage ships and take pictures of sea life. Honestly, I’d have thought you could handle them. I wouldn’t let it get out that they bested you so easily, it may reduce your ability to charge such outrageous fees.”

Djemma laughed as he spoke, and Andras felt his blood beginning to boil.

“Are you worried about facing them again?” Djemma asked, needling him.

“Listen to me,” Andras said, growing furious. And then he paused as a sight he could hardly believe came walking right up the dock toward him. The same silver-haired American who’d interfered with him on the Kinjara Maru, walking with a dark-haired woman he recognized as the Russian scientist he’d been told about. As they drew closer, Andras recognized the man in a more concrete way.

“Well I’ll be,” he whispered to himself.

“What?” Djemma said. “What are you talking about?”

Shrinking back into the kiosk that held the pay phone and turning away, Andras ignored them as they passed on the far side of the street.

“Andras,” Djemma said. “What the hell is going on?”

Andras returned to his phone call, calculating a new play. “This NUMA is not as toothless as you might think,” he said. “My concern is that they will interfere again. One of their members in particular. It would be best if I take them out.”

“Don’t antagonize them,” Djemma warned. “You’ll only draw attention to us at the wrong time. We are very close to making our move.”

“Don’t worry,” Andras said. “It’ll go off without a hitch, I promise you.”

“I’m not paying you for revenge,” Djemma said.

Andras laughed. “Don’t worry,” he said. “This one’s on the house.”

Before Djemma could reply, Andras slammed the heavy plastic receiver back onto its metal cradle. The sound it made and the sensation left him grinning maniacally, so much more satisfying than pressing a red button on a cell phone.

20

GAMAY TROUT TRIED HER BEST TO REMAIN CALM, to control her breathing and her emotions. Beside her, Paul continued a useless attempt to raise the Matador on the underwater transceiver.

“Matador, this is Grouper. Do you copy?” No response.

“Matador, this is Grouper…”

He’d been at it for thirty minutes. What else could he do? Their only hope was for the Matador to send down the ROVs and try to dig them out. That is, if they could be found and if they weren’t under a hundred feet of sediment.

So Paul continued to try. Matador, this is Grouper. Matador, please respond. And each time he spoke the words, the sound grated on her nerves like some form of Chinese water torture.

There had been no response for thirty minutes. There would be no response in the next thirty, or the next thirty thousand, if he tried. Either the antenna had been torn off in the landslide or they were buried too deep for any signal to get out.

Taking another calming breath, she rubbed his shoulders.

“They might be able to hear us,” Paul told her. “Even if we can’t hear them.” She nodded, twisted herself around in the other direction, and checked on their air status. They had nineteen hours of air left. Nineteen hours of waiting to die. In a manner she’d never felt before, Gamay was suddenly aware of how tight the confines of the Grouper were. It was a coffin. A tomb.

A wave of claustrophobia swept over her so powerfully that she began to shake, began to wish they’d been killed in the landslide or that she could just open the hatch and let the water pour in and crush them. It was irrational, it was panic, but it was astoundingly real to her.

“Matador, this is Grouper … Do you read?”

She held herself together, fighting back tears that were threatening to break through.

Uncomfortable sitting with her head bowed in the cramped vehicle, she lay down and closed her eyes, resting her face against the cold metal of the floor like one might rest on the tiles of the bathroom after a heavy night of drinking.

It calmed her nerves a bit, at least until she opened her eyes and noticed something she hadn’t seen before: a drop of water trickling down the side of the metal plating. Any hope of it being condensation was erased as another drop quickly followed, and then another.

Drip… Drip… Drip…

Perhaps they wouldn’t have nineteen hours after all.

“Matador, this is Grouper …”

There was no point in telling Paul. He would know soon enough, and there was nothing they could do about it anyway. At 16,000 feet, the pressure outside was almost 6,800 pounds per square inch. The slow little drips would quickly become faster drips as the water forced the plates apart, and at some point it would start spraying, blasting them with a jet of ice-cold water powerful enough to cut a person in half. And then it would all be over.

Gamay glanced around the cabin for other leaks. She saw none, but something new caught her eye: light emanating from the tiny screens in her virtual reality visor.

She grabbed it. The screens were still functioning. She saw a metallic wall and sediment floating around. The particles swirled and caught the light.

“Rapunzel survived,” she said quietly.

“What was that?” Paul asked.

“This is a live shot,” she said. “Rapunzel ’s still functioning.” Gamay pulled the visor on and then her gloves. It took a moment to orient herself, but she quickly realized that Rapunzel was floating freely. She had the little robot do a 360-degree turn. Open water beckoned through the same gaping hole that Rapunzel had used to enter the ship.

“I’m bringing her out.” “How are we still in contact with her?” Paul asked.

“Her umbilical cables are eight feet long where they hit the Grouper. They must be sticking out of the sediment.” “That means we’re not buried too deep,” Paul said. “Maybe she can dig us out.”