“Only one mount and a frame brace to go,” Giordino informed them. “Be prepared to tear loose.”
“I read you,” replied Pitt. “Standing by to close down all power and electrical systems.”
Sandecker found it insufferable that he could plainly see the faces of the men across the thin gap separating the two vehicles and know there was every likelihood they might die. “How’s your current air supply?” he asked anxiously.
Pitt checked the monitor. “Enough to get us home if we don’t stop for pizza.”
There came a screech that set teeth on edge as the control compartment shuddered and tilted upward, nose first. Something gave then, and suddenly the structure acted as if it wanted to break free. Pitt quickly shut off the main generator power and switched over to the emergency batteries to keep the computer and speaker phone operating. But all movement abruptly stopped, and they hung frozen above the tractor’s huge frame.
“Hold on,” came Giordino’s reassuring voice. “I missed some hydraulic lines.” Then he added, “I’ll try to stay close if I can, but should we spread too far apart, the phone cable will snap and we’ll lose voice contact.”
“Make it quick. Water is gushing in through some of the severed lines and connections.”
“Acknowledged.”
“See to it you open your exit door and get the hell out fast when you hit the waves,” Sandecker ordered.
“Like geese with diarrhea,” Pitt assured him.
Pitt and Plunkett relaxed for a few seconds, listening to the sound of the cutting discs chewing through the tubing. Then came a heavy lurch followed by a ripping noise, and they began slowly rising from the top of the seamount, leaving the tractor chassis with Big John’s torn cables and melted debris dangling behind them like mechanical entrails.
“On our way!” Plunkett roared.
Pitt’s mouth tightened. “Too slow. The incoming water has lowered our positive buoyancy.”
“You’re in for a long haul,” said Giordino. “I judge your rate of ascent at only ten meters a minute.”
“We’re lugging the engine, reactor, and a ton of water with us. Our volume barely overcomes the excess weight.”
“You should rise a little faster as you near the surface.”
“No good. The water intake will offset the decrease in pressure.”
“No worry over losing the communication cable,” Giordino said happily. “I can easily match your ascent rate.”
“Small consolation,” Pitt muttered under his breath.
“Twenty meters up,” said Plunkett.
“Twenty meters,” Pitt echoed.
Both pairs of eyes locked on the depth reading that flashed on the display screen. Neither man spoke as the minutes crawled past. The twilight world was left behind and the indigo-blue of deep water paled slightly from the approaching filtered light from above. The color green made its first appearance, and then yellow. A small school of tuna greeted them before flashing away. At 150 meters Pitt could begin to make out the dial on his wristwatch.
“You’re slowing,” Giordino warned them. “Your rate of ascent has dropped to seven meters a minute.”
Pitt punched in the water leakage numbers. He didn’t like what he read. “Our flood level is redlined.”
“Can you increase your air volume?” asked Sandecker, concern obvious in his voice.
“Not without a fatal dose of the bends.”
“You’ll make it,” Giordino said hopefully. “You’re past the eighty-meter mark.”
“When our ascent drops to four meters, grab on with your hand assembly and tow us.”
“Will do.”
Giordino moved ahead and angled his vessel until the stern was pointing toward the surface and he was looking down on Pitt and Plunkett. Then he set his autopilot to maintain a reverse speed to maintain the same ascent speed as Big John’s housing. But before he could extend the robotic arm, he saw that the DSMV was falling back and the gap was increasing. He quickly compensated and closed the distance.
“Two meters a minute,” Pitt said with icy calm. “You’d better link up.”
“In the process,” Giordino anticipated him.
By the time the sub’s articulated hand system had managed a viselike grip on a protruding edge of wreckage, the compartment had come to a complete halt.
“We’ve achieved neutral buoyancy,” Pitt reported.
Giordino jettisoned the sub’s remaining iron ballast weights and programmed full reverse speed. The thrusters bit into the water and the sub, with the DSMV housing in tow, began moving again with tormented slowness toward the beckoning surface.
Eighty meters, seventy, the fight to reach daylight seemed as if it would never end. Then at twenty-seven meters, or about ninety feet, their progress stopped for the final time. The rising water in the engine room was coming in through new openings from newly ruptured pipes and cracks with the force of a fire hose.
“I’m losing you,” Giordino said, shaken.
“Get out, evacuate!” cried Sandecker.
Pitt and Plunkett didn’t need to be told. They had no wish for Big John to become their tomb. The manned housing began to descend, pulling the submersible with it. Their only salvation was the inside air pressure, it was nearly equalized with the outside water. But what fate gave them, fate snatched back. The flood couldn’t have picked a worse time to short out the emergency battery system, cutting off the hydraulic power for the exit hatch.
Plunkett frantically undogged the hatch and fought to push it out, but the slightly higher water pressure was unyielding. Then Pitt was beside him, and they put their combined strength into it.
In the submersible, Giordino and Sandecker watched the struggle with mounting fear. Negative buoyancy was rapidly increasing and the compartment was beginning to drop into the depths at an alarming rate.
The hatch gave as though it was pushed through a sea of glue. As the water surged around the frame and into the compartment, Pitt shouted, “Hyperventilate, and don’t forget to exhale on the way up.”
Plunkett gave a brief nod, took a quick series of deep breaths to eliminate the carbon dioxide in his lungs, and held the last one. Then he ducked his head into the water gushing through the hatch and was gone.
Pitt followed, overventilating his lungs to hold his breath longer. He flexed his knees on the threshold of the hatch and launched himself upward as Giordino released the robotic hand’s grip, and the final remains of the DSMV fell away into the void.
Pitt couldn’t have known, but he made his exit at forty-two meters, or 138 feet, from the surface. The sparkling surface seemed to be ten kilometers away. He’d have given a year’s pay for a pair of swim fins. He also wished he was about fifteen years younger. More than once, when he was in his late teens and twenties, he’d free-dived to eighty feet while snorkeling the waters off Newport Beach in California. His body was still in good physical shape, but time and hard living had taken their toll.
He swam upward, using strong, even strokes with hands and feet, exhaling in tiny spurts so the expanding gases in his lungs would not rupture the capillaries and force bubbles directly into his bloodstream, causing an air embolism.
The glare from the sun was dancing on the surface, sending shafts of light into the shallows. He discovered he was in the shadows of two vessels. Without a face mask, his blurred vision through the water could only discern vague outlines of their bottoms. One seemed like a large boat, while the other looked absolutely mammoth. He shifted his course so he’d surface between them and save a crack on the head. Below him, Giordino and Sandecker followed in the submersible, like a crew cheering on a channel swimmer.
He stroked alongside Plunkett, who was clearly in trouble. The older man looked as though all strength had drained from his muscles. It was obvious to Pitt that Plunkett was on the verge of blacking out. He grabbed him by the collar and pulled the Britisher behind him.
Pitt expelled the last of the air from his lungs. He thought the surface could never be breached. Blood was throbbing in his ears. Then suddenly, just as he was gathering all his physical resources for the final effort, Plunkett went limp. The Britisher had made a brave try before falling unconscious, but he was not a strong swimmer.
Darkness was circling Pitt’s vision, and fireworks began to burst behind his eyes. Lack of oxygen was starving his brain, but the desire to reach the surface was overwhelming. The seawater was stinging his eyes and invading his nostrils. He was within seconds of drowning and he damn well wasn’t going to give in to it.
