done.
Stratton arrived at the access-level door that had a huge ‘5’ painted on it to find it firmly shut. He pulled on the handle but it was like trying to move a mountain. Hamlin had got it wrong. The seals had collapsed, showing an equalising of pressure, but the door was firmly shut. Water was seeping in through a small gap in the seal at the bottom. He remembered the emergency manual overrides fitted to all access-level doors in the event of a pressure failure and found the small slot behind some fungus on the wall high and to the right of the door frame. He felt for the recessed hexagonal nut but without a key he would never be able to turn it.
Sounds came from behind him, penetrating the rhythmic toll of the alarms, and Stratton jerked around to see several figures approaching. It was the group of miners, led by the guard who had saved his life.
The guard went straight for the door and yanked on the handle. Unable to budge it he pulled his radio handset off the clip on his lapel and held it to his mouth. ‘OCR! This is Zack on mine access to level five,’ he shouted. ‘I need the access door opened!’
There was no reply.
‘Come on,’ the guard said agitatedly. ‘OCR. Open mine access level five. Come on, guys. Hear me!’
In the OCR the senior controller was preparing to abandon his post when he heard the call. His self- preservation urge was to get going but his conscience would not allow him to and he stepped back into the communications console, picked up the mike and hit a button on the control monitor. ‘Zack. As far as I can tell all emergency manual overrides have been activated. Do you have your key?’
‘Yes,’ Zack shouted, feeling around the back of his waist belt and finding the heavy handle.
‘When you get through head for the barges. I’ll see you there.’
‘Secure yourselves!’ Zack shouted as he unhooked the handle from the back of his belt. ‘Get away from the door! There could be a lotta water on the other side.’
Stratton noted the way the water was gushing fiercely from under the bottom of the door and pushed one hand behind several pipes up to his elbow, grabbing it tightly with the other. Prisoners scurried to find secure points.
Zack inserted the end of the key, which was like an old crank-starter, into the slot and positioned it over the hexagonal nut. He put all his weight against the handle, which took several jerks to get moving. When it eventually did it turned easily.
There was a grinding sound inside the door as the guard furiously wound the handle that operated a system of low-ratio gears. For every spin the lock moved barely a millimetre inside the door. It was taking an age. Every man strengthened his grip on his strongpoint in anticipation of the deluge to come. Just when it seemed as if the mechanism had failed and the guard’s efforts were in vain the door burst open in front of a massive wall of water.The door slammed into the wall, almost coming off its hinges, and the sea crashed into the narrow corridor as if a dam had burst.
Two of the prisoners and the other guard, who’d been at the rear of the column, immediately lost their hold and were swept away down the corridor, their cries quickly muffled as the water slammed them into the walls before engulfing them.
Zack was struck on his side by the initial impact and although he managed to cling to a pipe for a few seconds he soon lost his handhold. Stratton automatically stretched a hand out to him and caught hold of his harness strap. Stratton’s arm around the pipe felt like it was going to rip out of his shoulder as the guard thrashed around in a desperate effort to grab anything that was fixed to the wall. The most powerful initial thrust of the water was quickly spent and as Zack gripped a bracket Stratton released him.The panting guard looked Stratton in the eye and gave him a nod.
Without wasting another second Zack got to his feet. ‘Get going!’ he shouted to everyone in front of and behind him. ‘Move! Move!’
The prisoners needed no encouragement as they scrambled through the door.
Stratton joined the group, hurrying up the inclined corridor where it met a main-line tunnel running across its path, water splashing along it. Cardboard cartons and various wrappings covered the surface as if the intruding ocean had emptied out a storeroom of some kind.
Zack stopped at the junction to guide his men in the direction of the flashing emergency arrows. ‘That way, that way. Go! Go!’
The men scurried around the corner, looking like half-drowned cats, exhausted but with plenty of energy left to save their own lives.
As Stratton reached the junction he saw a sign below one of the emergency lights that indicated the hospital was in the opposite direction to the escape barges. He took a moment to consider his options. They were basically to forget the mission and save himself without further ado. Or risk a couple more minutes to try and find his target. Gann had said that Durrani was in the hospital - where he might still be. Or the Afghan might already be on his way to the escape barges. Gann had implied that the tablet had been found. But no one had expected this level of mayhem. Anything could have happened. Stratton was suddenly feeling lucky. Perhaps Hamlin’s diversion might work in his favour. He might still be able to complete his mission after all.
Stratton moved off in the direction of the hospital.
‘Hey!’ the guard shouted.
Stratton paused to look back, wondering if Zack was coming after him. But the guard had not moved and was simply looking at him curiously. ‘The barges are this way,’ he said.
‘I know.’
Zack looked bemused as Stratton continued on his way. He shook his head and turned to follow his men.
‘Hey, Zack,’ Stratton shouted.
The guard looked back at him.
Stratton was standing in the near-darkness in knee-deep water with trash floating all around him. ‘Thanks,’ he said.
Zack remained confused by Stratton’s choice of direction but acknowledged the prisoner’s gratitude with a wave of his hand.
Stratton disappeared and Zack caught up with his men. They climbed several ladders and stairways, scurried along a corridor through an open pressure door, and met up with several more prisoners and guards coming from another direction. Together they surged through a doorway leading into what a sign above described as the escape room.
It was a large cavern containing two open airlock doors. A couple of guards stood outside each, ushering men through. The airlocks were short passageways into two escape barges.These were rudimentary vessels made of riveted plates of steel, their interiors lined with simple benches and dozens of large gas cylinders fixed into brackets against the walls. The floor was covered in rough wooden decking below which the bilges were visible. There were no portholes.
‘Find a seat and strap yourselves in,’ a guard ordered.
Anxious Afghan and Western prisoners, all dripping wet, some bruised and injured, sat side by side, fastening seat belts around their waists. A guard vomited up part of his fear. Several dripping-wet CIA men ran in and joined their enemies as the klaxons continued to wail, adding to the urgency of the collective desperation.
The operations controller emerged from one of the barges and walked towards Zack who was standing outside the entrance to the other vessel. ‘Are you full?’ he asked.
‘Almost,’ Zack said. ‘How many do you think we’re down?’
‘Rough count I’d say we were down eighteen prisoners, five guards, two service staff. Anyone seen the doc?’
There was no reply.
Hank Palmerston squelched into the hall ahead of a handful of prisoners and a guard, all of whom looked exhausted and bedraggled. ‘I got two people trapped in C cell,’ Hank said angrily. ‘Your fuckin’ door won’t open.’
‘I didn’t build the goddamn place,’ the controller shouted back. He walked over to a wall between the two airlocks where a systems panel displayed various valves and gauges.
‘We gotta get that door open,’ Hank persisted, following him.
