tower.
In the meantime, he had his own mission.
Before he could turn away, an eerie vibration shuddered through the water. The surface of the lake trembled.
With a low groan, the world began plunging down all around them. Towers sank faster, floor by floor. The last of the treetops vanished under the waves. Trapped air bubbled out everywhere, the last drowning gasp of Utopia.
Across the park, the blasted hole in the facade of the Burj Abaadi had shrunk to a lowering archway as the tower submerged. A single boat came racing through, the occupants ducking under the fangs of broken glass.
The second boat got trapped inside, circling futilely behind the glass, as the hole closed. The patrols on the outside tried to fire another rocket, but by the time they readied a shot, the entire lobby had sunk away.
Gray swung around, taking advantage of the distraction, knowing the crews would be focused on their trapped companions.
The Hummer and jet boat were gone, vanished fully underwater.
Reaching where they had sunk, he took a huge breath, kicked his legs over his head, and dove down through the fiery surface waters. Far below stretched only darkness.
Gray strained for those black depths.
4:33 A.M.
Seichan fought for more height.
Below, a rising flood chased her and the others, swallowing the spiraling stairs beneath them. But that wasn’t all. A few floors down, dark shadows pounded their way up, their panicked flight lit by the shine of a few emergency bulbs. The trapped crew of the patrol boat sought the same escape they did, running for higher ground, staying ahead of the cresting water.
Seichan wanted to put three floors between her team and the water table before abandoning the stairs and trying to reach the far windows on one of these levels.
But she had another problem. She was thoroughly turned around. With the power out, the tower levels had stopped rotating and settled into a haphazard corkscrew. Floors stuck out in all directions. On top of that, the dizzying spiral of the staircase left her disoriented. She no longer had any idea which side of the building she was supposed to meet Gray.
A gunshot echoed up from below.
She scowled at the source.
The fleeing patrol.
First,
And second,
But if they wanted to play that game, she wouldn’t mind eliminating a few worries.
“Kowalski! Do it!”
“Anything you say.” He still lugged Amanda over one shoulder, but he reached to a pocket as he ran. He let the pellets he collected dribble between his fingers, falling away like a trail of bread crumbs onto the steps.
She watched between her toes and waited until the shadows below reached the littered section of stairs.
“Now!” she yelled.
Kowalski pressed his transceiver, igniting the last of his C-4 pellets. The blast took out the point man, and the survivors retreated from the shattered gap in the glass staircase. They were trapped with no other way up.
She continued her maddening flight up the steps. After a few more turns, she heard screams rise from below.
She used their cries to judge the distance to that drowning flood. Either the waters were rising faster, or their pace was slowing. Whichever the case, they were losing this footrace.
“Next level!” she shouted to Tucker. “Take that one. Find the shortest path to the outer windows.”
Reaching that floor, Seichan raced after the handler and his dog, a silent prayer on her lips. Tucker turned into a long hall.
“Over here!” he yelled. “A balcony at the end!”
“Shoot out the lock!” Seichan hollered back.
They needed every second.
She sprinted, trailed by Kowalski. To the man’s credit, he kept up, even burdened by Amanda’s weight. He was a veritable draft horse.
Gunshots blasted ahead.
She reached Tucker and Kane as the man hauled open the sliding glass door. A wide balcony beckoned. They all fled out onto it.
Seichan moved to the rail. The rising water churned one floor down. If they had to jump, she feared two things. If they didn’t leap far enough, the undertow caused by the plunging tower would drag them all down. And even if they cleared that danger, these rough seas had sharks-and not only the ones with fins.
A patrol boat drifted to the right, not far from the park.
They would never be able to swim fast enough to escape it, and their splashes would likely draw the crew’s attention.
Seichan searched the drowning city.
4:35 A.M .
Running out of air, Gray blindly sawed at the nylon strap with his knife. It had taken him too long to find the boat as it hung in the dark depths, still tethered to the trailer. The positive buoyancy of the vessel had locked the tie-downs tight. There was no unclipping them from their bolts.
He’d already cut the straps at the bow. Once free, the boat’s nose rose toward the surface, hanging vertical, still anchored at the stern. Keeping one hand on the transom, he worked at that rear strap of the tie-down. Pressure built in his ears as the island sank deeper, dragging him and the boat farther underwater.
As his air began to give out, he sawed frantically.
A light flared overhead, brightening the waters. A dark shadow idled into view on the surface, limned against the glow of its own lamps and accompanied by the slow putter of its engines.
Gray waited, despite the screaming burn in his lungs.
Once the shadow was directly overhead, Gray cut through the last of the tie-downs. Freed, the jet boat torpedoed upward, becoming a buoyancy-propelled battering ram.
4:36 A.M.
Seichan watched the speedboat drift closer, coming within fifty yards of the tower. One of the crew shouted; another pointed a rifle. Her team had been spotted. A blast echoed over the water. The round ricocheted off the balcony railing.
Seichan ducked.
She and the others were too exposed on the balcony, but where could they go? The waters roaring up the side of the tower promised only a quick death by drowning.
She took potshots back at the boat-then an antediluvian monster blasted out of the sea and rammed into the edge of the speedboat. The force cracked the hull and flipped the boat, tossing the crew out of their seats.
Nearby, the monster settled to its carbon-fiber keel, resting on the water.
It was the yellow jet boat.
Gray popped up beside it. He had his SIG Sauer in hand and fired at the floundering men, hitting three of them.
