«Summer,» he said softly. He touched her shoulder gently and gazed into her tired face. «I have so much to say and so little time to say it Will you walk with me?»
She nodded and motioned to the guards. They simply bowed their heads in mute understanding. Summer took Pitt's arm and led him out into a well-lit rock-hewn corridor.
«Please forgive me.» Her voice was barely more than a whisper.
«For what? None of this was your doing. You've already saved my life twice. Why did you do it?»
She appeared not to hear. She looked up into Pitt's eyes, and her face radiated a softness and beauty that seemed to make everything else in the passageway dim and fade. «I have a strange feeling when I'm in your presence,» she murmured. «It is not simply happiness or contentment but something else. I can't quite describe it.»
«The feeling is love,» Pitt said tenderly. He bent down, wincing from the pain in his shoulder, and kissed her eyes.
The guards on either side of Giordino halted and were stunned. Giordino's feet trailed on the floor, his head lay far across his right shoulder. He was moaning softly, his eyes seemingly shut. The guards did not notice his forearms slipping slowly up their shoulders until his hands rested loosely beside their necks. Then there was a sudden flexing of the great biceps and the guards were smashed together, bone against bone.
Giordino stood there unsteadily on his shredded feet sporting a satisfied grin. «Was that, or was that not, a work of art?»
«Every move a picture,» Pitt grinned back. He took Summer's chin in one hand. «Will you help us get out of here?»
She raised her head slowly and looked up at him through her spilled red hair, like a frightened child. Then she reached around his waist and clung tightly to him. A wall of tears masked the gray of her eyes.
«I love you,» she said, savoring the words. «I love you.»
Pitt kissed her again, this time on the lips.
«I don't mean to come between you two,» Giordino cut in. «But time is short.»
Summer hurried ahead, peering in both directions at the unconscious guards. «We must go before one of my father's men finds us like this.»
«Waitl» Pitt snapped. «Where's Adrian Hunter? We've got to take her with us.»
«She sleeps in the room next to mine.»
«Take us there.»
She gently touched his shoulder. «But how? You are wounded and your friend cannot walk.»
«I've borne his cross for years.» Pitt kneeled down and Giordino, in silent understanding, grasped him around the neck. Then Pitt hooked an arm under one of Giordino's knees and staggered upright.
«I must look like a papoose,» Giordino grumbled.
«You sure as hell don't feel like one.» Pitt then nodded to Summer. «Okay, lead on.»
Summer hurried ahead, peering in both directions at open corridors to see if all was clear.
They walked on, until someone approached from a side corridor; Summer waved them back Pitt loosened his hold on Giordino and they ducked into a doorway. The footsteps of the intruder could clearly be heard along the corridor across the interchange.
For five seconds, the footsteps pounded along the cross passage. Pitt's heart was pounding from exertion, sweat pouring down his face. One fit man against two down-and-out derelicts. Two good legs against two wobbly ones. The odds, Pitt decided, were definitely not on their side. Then the footsteps passed the interchange and faded into the other direction.
«Come, come,» Summer whispered from another doorway further down the passage. «It's safe now.»
Pitt lifted Giordino again and struggled on.
«How's the time?» Pitt asked.
«We aren't going to make it,» Giordino answered grimly, «providing the missile is on schedule.»
«Itll be on schedule,» Pitt panted. «Delphi was wrong about that When the Navy receives no reply to the surrender offer, they'll take it as an act of defiance and blast the seamount anyway.»
Summer took Pitt's arm and guided him, supporting his aching, overburdened body as best she could. Pitt staggered ahead, one foot in front of the other, telling himself one more, just one more step and they would be there. Finally, as he reached the last ounce of his endurance, Summer stopped at one of the side doors. She put her ear against the panel and listened a moment. Then she quietly pushed the door ajar and stepped inside. Pitt stumbled in behind her and sank to his knees, letting Giordino slide rump first onto a lush red carpet
Summer ran up to a large bed carved into the far wall and shook the sleeping Adrian. «Wake up, Miss Hunter. Please wake upl»
Adrian's response was a soft moan; Summer took her by the wrist and dragged her naked body from the bed.
The sleep quickly receded from Adrian's eyes as she became aware of Pitt and Giordino on the floor. Making no attempt to cover her nakedness, she rushed across the room and knelt at Pitt's side.
«Oh my God, Dirk! What happened to you? How did you get here?»
«We've come for you,» he said between labored breaths.
She shook her head slowly, disbelieving.
«No, no, it's impossible. There's no way out of this place.»
«In the next room, Summer's bedroom, there's a passage to the sea…»
Pitt was interrupted by a heavy rumbling explosion. The room trembled from distant shock waves. The Monitor's missile had struck the surface of the water above the seamount. The velvet curtains swept to and fro, and several coral ornaments on a stone table clattered from the unseen force,
«No time for a recital,» Pitt snapped. «Everybody out»
Summer looked lost and confused, unable to move. «I can't… my father.»
«Stay with us or die,» Pitt said. «This whole mountain is going to collapse any second.»
For a few seconds she didn't move, but then another tremor shook the room, shaking her back to her senses. She ran toward her room, Adrian right behind her, as Pitt and Giordino struggled painfully to bring up the rear.
They had barely entered Summer's exotic blue bedroom when a deafening roar and mountainous shock wave knocked them to the floor. The compression waves, rammed by a giant surge of seawater bursting through massive cracks and fissures on the top levels of the seamount, came rumbling through the passageways like an express train, crushing everything in its path.
Pitt scrambled to his feet, all pain forgotten. He slammed the corridor door closed, grabbed Adrian's arm, and pushed her through the curtain into the exit tunnel. Then he lunged at the fallen Summer, scooped her up, and threw her sprawling in a heap on top of Adrian. At that moment, the great mirror on the ceiling fell with a shattering crash to the room below, missing Pitt by inches. A cascade of water followed the splintering glass, accompanied by a tearing, grinding rumble as the rock room tore apart
«All» Pitt shouted through the deluge of rock and water.
«Over here!» Giordino yelled back. He waved an arm from under a stone dressing table.
Pitt waded through the rising milky froth of the slate-colored water and grabbed Giordino's upraised arm.
«Stay back!» Giordino cried. «If you cany me, you'll never make it.»
«And ruin my big chance for a life-saving merit badge?» Pitt said curtly. «No way.»
He threw Giordino's arm over his shoulder and then half carried, half dragged his friend to the escape tunnel. By the tune they made the entrance, the water was up to their knees and swirling into the darkness beyond.
«You women run on ahead,» Pitt commanded.
Without being told a second tune, Adrian and Summer began splashing awkwardly through the narrow tube.
The process with Giordino was slow, and Pitt soon lost sight of the girls in the darkness. The rushing current of water hurtled down the ramp, causing him to stumble and fall. As he went down, his head was covered momentarily by the flow and he inhaled the saltwater. Choking, he pushed himself to his knees and managed to make it the rest of the way with the help of a strong, muscled arm that came out of nowhere.
Miraculously, it was Giordino, gnashing his teeth from the agony of his bruised feet.
«This is one good deed you're going to regret,» Giordino muttered.
