Текст книги "Gideon's War / Hard Target"

Автор книги: Howard Gordon

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Gideon's War and Hard Target

Gideon and Big Al watched the screen as one of the struts...

“Well, that ain’t good,” Big Al said.

Gideon shuffled over to the cabin door and started pounding on it. A moment later, the door opened and Timken appeared.

“What the fuck do you want?” Timken said.

“Get Parker down here,” Gideon said.

“Why?”

“Tell him this rig is about to come apart.” The certainty in Gideon’s voice unnerved Timken. But if that wasn’t enough to motivate him, the cabin shook again, as if on cue. CLUNK! Kate tried not to betray her excitement at the lucky timing, even as she allowed herself a glimmer of hope that she might have bought her crew a second chance.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

“SEE FOR YOURSELF,” KATE said, nodding toward Ransom’s computer screen. “It’s all right there.”

Parker slipped on a pair of reading glasses as he stood next to Timken and squinted at the screen, watching the animation of the Obelisk as it swayed back and forth until it collapsed into the ocean.

“Dammit,” Timken said.

“Shut up,” Parker said. He’d been on edge ever since Kate Murphy had told him about the Delta mission. And what little patience he had left was quickly being exhausted by this latest complication.

“There’s a reason you feel nervous when you hear that noise,” Kate said. “The situation is graver than any of us thought. This rig is about to tear itself apart. Ransom would have told you himself if you hadn’t murdered him.”

Timken swore again, this time under his breath.

“How long do we have?” Parker said.

“According to this simulation, there’s a ninety-five percent chance the rig will collapse in the next three hours.” Kate tapped the screen. “See, this function uses the wave height and periodicity to predict structural failure. When the tot="2e waves are below a certain limit, the time-to-failure function is arithmetic, basically a straight line. Over twenty-five feet, time-to-failure gets geometrically shorter—”

“Spare me the engineering lesson, and give me the bottom line.”

“Cole Ransom suggested a temporary fix, but we’ve only got three hours to make it,” Kate said. “If we don’t get it done by then . . .” She looked at the screen, which was running a loop of the Obelisk model falling apart and falling into the ocean.

“Fuck it,” Timken said, turning to Parker. “Let’s just abandon ship and blow the rig.”

Parker gave him a cold look, then ushered him away so they could talk privately. “I didn’t hire you to do the thinking, Timken. Leave that to me.”

“I don’t trust them.”

“It appears we don’t have a choice.”

“And I’m saying we do.”

“I am not blowing this rig in the middle of the storm where no one can see it,” Parker flashed, before calming himself. “If we’ve learned anything from our enemy, it’s that the theater of the war is what counts. A couple of buildings falling down is one thing. But having the whole world watching it again and again, millions upon millions of times . . . that’s the game changer. We need to wait for the storm to pass over and the view from above is clear.”

“And if that clear air gives the opening for a bunch of Navy SEALs to swarm the rig?” Timken said.

“Nothing has changed. We’ve planned for an assault from the very beginning. SEALs, Rangers, Delta—whatever. They’re the cherry on the sundae. The rig blows as they fight bravely against the crazed terrorists. They’ll be martyrs, heroes fallen in the wreckage. And we’ll watch it all from inside the escape pod.”

Timken grunted in grudging assent.

Parker turned back to Kate and said, “Okay, you said there’s a quick fix. Tell me what needs to be done.”

“Ransom’s plan calls for a piece of one-inch plate to be welded over this joint.” She tapped the screen with her finger. “That simple reinforcement should be enough to hold the rig together until the storm passes.”

“How long will it take to weld?”

“No more than an hour. Two at the most. But every minute that passes is a minute we can’t afford to lose.”

Parker studied Kate for a long moment, then nodded. “All right, take whoever you need from the hostage room and get them set up to dive.”

“It’s not that simple,” Kate said. “The hostage your man killed on A Deck a few minutes ago? His name was Garth Dean. He was my diver/ welder.”

“You don’t have anybody else on the rig that can do it?” Parker said. Kate opened her hands, palms up. “Me. I told you before, I paid my tuition by diving.”

Timken and ParkerageÁ€† exchanged glances.

“But it’s a two-person job, so I’ll need help,” she said. “One-inch steel plate is extremely heavy and hard to move.”

Parker furrowed his brow. “If you don’t have any more divers—”

“Mr. Davis just told me he’s a certified master diver.” Kate looked over at Gideon.

“Uncle Earl knows that,” Gideon said, looking at Parker. “He paid for my certification.”

Timken shook his head. “I don’t like this. I don’t like this at all.”

“We also need a dive tender,” Kate said.

“Let me guess,” Timken said. “Your dive tender’s back in Mohan.”

Kate smiled coldly. “That’s right. But Al Prejean can handle it. He’s done just about every job you can do on an oil rig.”

Before Timken could level any more objections, Parker snapped, “Give them what they need and get it done. We need this rig to be standing eight hours from now.”

They were surrounded by a swirling blackness, pierced only feebly by the bright floodlights aimed down at the raging sea. Kate lowered her voice to make sure she was out of earshot of the jihadis who were keeping them under constant surveillance. “Can we really pull this off?” Kate asked Gideon as they pulled on their diving gear in the howling wind of the dive control station on D Deck of the Bridge Linked Platform.

“If we can get to those explosive charges, I’ll find a way.” Gideon gave her a thin smile. “Either that or I’ll blow us all to kingdom come.”

The dive control station on the BLP was open to the air but fortunately was situated on the western side of the rig, which provided the most shelter from the rain and the driving westerly wind. Below Gideon the massive waves rose and fell, barely visible in the darkness. He tried to ignore the waves, comforting himself with the fact that once they got below the surface, it would be no different than any other diving he’d done. Simple. Nothing to it. But still—he’d been down there once already. And once was enough for a lifetime.

So he focused on suiting up. Most of the diving gear was similar to gear he’d used before—a tight neoprene dry suit, weight belt, buoyancy control device, tank harness, slate for writing messages to each other, depth gauge, and octo. Every diver carried an emergency mouthpiece known as an octopus or octo.

But some of the equipment was unfamiliar. The yellow plastic helmet, for instance.

“This is a Kirby Morgan Superlite,” Big Al said, holding up a yellow plastic dive helmet. “It’s the standard helmet used by our divers. It’s a lot easier and safer to have your whole head pressurized, dry and protected from impact. Here’s the flow valve for ventilation and defogging, and here’s the auxiliary valve that controls breathing air straight through the regulator. As you start to work, your body will require more oxygen, so you can tune it to optimize the flow until you feel comfortable.”

Big Al would be acting as dive tender—tholÁ€†heir topside assistant on the rig. His job was to control the winches that raised and lowered them to the correct depth, all the while making sure they had sufficient air and lines of communication. Gideon took the yellow plastic helmet from Big Al and tried it on. He’d only dived with face masks before, never with a full helmet. There was something slightly claustrophobic about it.

“This is your umbilical.” Kate held up a bright red line that was just under an inch in diameter, with a handful of connectors protruding from the end. “The umbilical jacks into your helmet. It consists of a bunch of separate lines—air, twelve-volt DC, comm line, so on. It’s also got a weight-bearing aluminum cable that’ll clip onto your harness. If it gets crimped or tangled or caught, you’re in big trouble. But the advantage of using one is that when you’re blowing air from the surface, you can stay down indefinitely.”

“Is it straight atmospheric?” Gideon was asking if the air they were breathing would have the same mix of nitrogen and oxygen found in normal air.

“For the depth we’re going, yeah. If we were going deeper we’re set up so we can go nitrox, heliox, whatever’s necessary.”

Nitrox and heliox, Gideon knew, were air mixtures intended for use at great depth or during extended dives in order to alleviate the various problems, including the bends, oxygen toxicity, and nitrogen narcosis, that came as the result of gases being compressed—or decompressed—in the human body.

“We’re under some major time pressure,” Kate continued as Gideon adjusted his gear. “That doesn’t mean we throw safety out the window. Doing something stupid and getting in trouble down there will kill us all. So be careful. We’re not going super deep, but we’ll be down for a good while. If you have any questions, don’t guess. Ask me.”

“Sure.”

“We’ll be diving to about twenty-five meters. The rule of thumb is that you’ll be experiencing nitrogen narcosis equivalent to one martini for every ten meters you go below twenty meters. Normally it’s not a big factor at the depths we’ll be working, but everybody reacts differently. Pay attention to how you feel. If you start feeling like something’s wrong, let me know immediately. Understand?”

Gideon knew about the dangers of diving at these depths. He had dived deeper on several occasions. But not with this equipment, and not doing hard physical work. One of the hallmarks of recreational diving is that the diver intentionally conserves energy by moving slowly and deliberately. Hard work puts stresses on his body—burning more oxygen, creating more excess CO2, and drawing more nitrogen into the tissues of the body—all of which had the potential to create problems he had never experienced before.

“Typically we have one person on the surface supporting each diver,” Kate said. “Today we’ve only got one trained guy to superintend all the lines. And his job is going to be twice as tough because of the turbulence on the surface. If the umbilicals tangle or crimp, we’ll be carrying 40s– 40 mcf bailout bottles of emergency air. It’ll make it harder to work—but there’s just too much likelihood of these umblicals getting trashed by the waves.”

Big Al broke in: “Normally weRcalÁ€†17;d lower you in a diving basket—kind of like a little elevator. But not with these damn waves. So I’ll be lowering you with a winch. You okay with all this?”

Gideon nodded. “Let’s just get the show on the road,” he said.

Kate reached over, attached Gideon’s umbilical to his harness. Then she clipped in all the connectors—air, electrical, and communications.

“Blow some air.”

Gideon found the regulator, blew some air into his mask, gave her the thumbs-up.

“Test the comm link.”

“Test. Test.”

Big Al said, “Can you hear me, Gideon?”

“Ready when you are.”

As Big Al connected Kate, Gideon looked over the edge of the platform. The floodlights dissipated in the rainy darkness, barely illuminating the surface of the water. Only a madman would go back into these waters, Gideon thought as he watched the angry waves roll by.

Kate exchanged a brief glance. “I’ll go first,” she said.

Gideon shook his head. “Better for you to go second. If something goes wrong right out of the box, it’s better that you be up here where you can do damage control.”

Kate looked down at the treacherous seas.

“God, this is insane,” she said.

“It’s going to be fine,” Gideon said, although he knew he sounded unconvincing. He looked around the dive control station. Chun stood on the far side of the station with two other jihadis. Gideon nodded his head toward them. “Can they hear us, Big Al?”

“There’s a monitor over there,” Big Al said. “But they aren’t jacked into it. So, no, with the wind and all, they can’t hear you.”

“Good,” Gideon said. “Because, here’s the thing, Big Al. As soon as Kate’s finished welding that plate, there’s a good chance they’re going to cut the cables and leave us down there to die.”

“Not as long as I’m standing here,” Big Al said.

“Just do what you can,” Gideon said. “That’s all I ask.”

“Son,” Big Al said, “Kate’s like family to me. The only way she’s dying down there is over my dead body.”

Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that, Gideon thought.

Kate grabbed Gideon’s arm and pointed surreptitiously toward the far side of the dive station. Timken had just arrived. He was putting on a pair of headphones, plugging their cord into a jack on the rack of dive communications equipment. He winked at Gideon. “Hey there, gang!” Timken’s grating voice boomed into his ear, “I talked to my associate Sergeant Chun here. Turns out he had all kinds of dive training in the army. He’s gonna come down with you two. Just to make sure you don’t get into any trouble.”

Chun said, “You want me to go in Mr. Davis’s place?”

Timken shook his head. “Absolutely not. Keep your distance from them. I don’t want your lines getting tangled up with theirs or some tool accidentally-on-purpose cutting your air hose. You just watch them like hawks.”

Chun nodded.

Gideon's War and Hard Target

Gideon felt a sick wave of frustration. Timken was smart....

Gideon said nothing because there was nothing to say. He just clambered over the railing and swung over the edge. There was just enough slack in the umbilical to allow him to plant his feet on the railing and lean back as if he was about to rappel into the water. Big Al hit the control handle on the winch, and Gideon jerked backward and began sliding toward the waves.

When the first wave hit him, he flipped end over end, smashing so hard into the water that he almost blacked out. Then the water closed over his head and he began sinking.

Suddenly Gideon broke free of the water again. Above him the floodlights from the rig spun crazily in the blackness. He found himself in the trough between two waves. Then the wave caught him and flipped him end over end.

He tried to breathe. But something had gone wrong.

“Air!” he shouted. “Big Al, I’ve got no air!”

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

THE SITUATION ROOM WAS a hive of activity. But in one of those odd lulls that happens in every crowded room, it suddenly went very quiet.

In the middle of the silence, an air force major spoke to the head of SOCOM. “General Ferry, we’ve got an update on the weather. The typhoon seems to be changing course slightly south.”

“What’s that mean for the Delta drop?” President Diggs called from across the room. “Is the eye still going to pass over the rig?”

“Yes, Mr. President. On its present course it will. The problem is, since only the edge of the eye will now pass over the Obelisk, it means the window will only be open for a few minutes. And it’ll come later.”

“What time?”

“Roughly seven-forty-five.”

“I thought you were getting them there with an hour to spare. That only gives Delta a fifteen-minute window before the terrorists blow the rig,” the president said.

“That’s all the time the Deltas need,” General Ferry said.

The president nodded tersely. “It better be.”

As Gideon began sinking into the black water, he realized why he couldn’t breathe. The air hose was shut. He reached for the regulator valve on his bailout bottle but it wasn&#the D‡8217;t there. It took him a moment to figure out that he had flipped over because the umbilical had caught on his bailout bottle. Not only had it turned him upside down, but the umbilical had also stripped the bottle right off of his harness.

He had no backup.

His instincts told him to yank the umbilical free, but he knew that would only make things worse. He needed to be methodical. He had a good minute before he’d black out. If he made good use of his time—

The next wave trough reached him and suddenly there was no water for him to maneuver in. The wind whipped him around in a crazy circle as he hung in midair by his leg, looking up the long ragged slope of the next oncoming wave, which hit him hard before rolling over him.

“Pull him up, Al. Pull him up!” He heard Kate in his ear.

Gideon knew at once that it was a mistake. He needed slack on his line, not tension. But before he could respond to Kate’s order, he felt a sharp jerk as the line reversed, hauling him up. The wind immediately caught him and spun him around. If he didn’t get the line fixed before he cleared the next wave, the wind would slam him into the rig on the way back up and kill him.

As rapidly as he could—while upside down in churning water– Gideon worked at the umbilical. He could feel himself getting lightheaded. His vision began to narrow and darken. Suddenly the umbilical came free. Air gushed into his helmet.

“I’m clear,” he shouted breathlessly. “Drop me!”

Big Al lowered the winch, and the water grabbed Gideon. This time he felt no impact at all. He simply slid into the wave as though he were slipping into a wading pool. And the world above him fell away.

Kate had said they would need to be lowered as quickly as possible for the first thirty or forty feet to get below the turbulence of the waves. If they didn’t, there was a strong chance of getting spun around or dragged away, tangled in the lines and drowned.

Gideon sank uneventfully, except for the water pressure, which hit him like a pair of ice picks in his eardrums. Gideon yawned, trying to clear his ears. He kept looking toward the surface, scanning for Kate. He could make out the dim points of light that marked the floodlights on the rig, glowing then fading, glowing then fading again as the towering waves rolled slowly overhead. Other than that, there was only blackness. After only a few seconds, he saw something dark in the water—visible for a moment, then gone. A few moments later he could see that it was a person—a dark figure, arms and legs slightly splayed, like some kind of oversize doll silhouetted by the floodlights on the rig. Kate had made it. His relief was acute. Oddly, he realized that he’d been more worried about her than about himself.

Once he’d reached a depth of about forty feet, his descent seemed to slow—or Kate’s seemed to speed up. It was hard to tell in the disorienting darkness. Seeing Kate’s headlamp, he remembered that there was a light on his helmet. He thumbed the button, gratified when the arm of blue-white light appeared in front of him, illuminating Kate as she floated down to the same depth.

Together, slowly, they descended. When they reached the damper cradle, they would need to work quickly and to get lucky. They hadn’t anticipated that Timken would send Chuy fÑ€†n down to watch them. As soon as they located the charges, Gideon would disarm them one at a time, getting to as many of them as he could before Chun reached them. As soon as Chun got there, Kate would have to find a way to distract him long enough for Gideon to finish the job. If he couldn’t disarm all the charges, hopefully he’d get to enough of them to limit the damage of the sequenced detonations.

“You okay?” he said.

“Yeah,” she said. “Although for a minute, I thought you were in trouble.”

“Minor blip,” he said.

After that, they didn’t speak as they descended through the darkening water.

Unlike the limpid oceans he’d explored before, diving among sun-dappled reefs swimming with colorful fish, this water was dark, cold, and seething. A merciless hell. Specks of plankton and crud were visible in the shifting darkness, suspended in the green-black water. The only sound was the relentless roar of the waves passing overhead and crashing into the rig. As he and Kate sank deeper, the sound receded but didn’t cease, a constant reminder of the enormous destructive forces above them. Less light reached them now. And the light that did writhed and twisted, as if it had been forced to endure some kind of torture in order to penetrate the deep.

Gideon’s pulse hammered in his temples. It wasn’t just an effect of the increasing pressure. It was fear. Gideon was not fearful by nature, but he felt small and fragile in the inky blackness, at the mercy of forces against which the human body was no match.

“You should be reaching final depth pretty soon.” Big Al’s voice was coming through the headphones. “Forty feet. Forty-five.”

Gideon was able to see only a dozen feet or so in front of him, the light from his headlamp falling away into the surrounding blackness.

CLUNK!

Even though Gideon knew the rig wasn’t in danger of collapsing, the great hollow boom of the 400-ton weight sounded like the crack of doom as it whacked into the edge of the cradle. The vibration rattled his chest. “Man, that sounds bad,” he said.

“Yeah,” she said, her voice tight. “Let’s get to work. We don’t have much time.”

They were suspended in blackness. No piers, beams, or damper housing were visible. Nothing at all.

“You sure we’re at the right depth?” Gideon said.

Kate tapped the depth gauge on her wrist. “The current and the waves are pulling us away from the rig. We have to swim to get back to the cradle. Watch the way the bubbles are moving, and swim in the opposite direction.”

Gideon followed awkwardly as she began swimming slowly through the water. As extensive as his diving experience was, this was different. Not only did he not have swim fins, but he was dragging the weight and resistance of sixty meters of cable and hose. He sure hoped she knew where she was going.

After a minute, something began to rise out of the gloom. “There’s the damper,” Kate said. It looked like a flying saucer from an old science fiction movie, its surface covered with mossdivÑ€†y green algae.

Divers communicate underwater in one of two ways. If they have microphones and hard helmets, they can talk by wire. But if for whatever reason speech isn’t possible, they communicate by writing on slates– small rectangular tablets that function like old-fashioned blackboards. Even surface air divers carried them as backups in case their electronics failed. For Timken’s benefit Kate kept talking about welding the plate as she pulled the writing slate off her belt and scrawled: NEED TO FIND EXPLOSIVES BEFORE CHUN GETS DOWN.

Gideon nodded.

Kate wiped the slate clean, then wrote: I’LL GO LEFT. YOU GO RIGHT. LOOK FOR DET WIRES COMING OUT OF THE CONDUIT.

Gideon gave her a thumbs-up.

They began swimming away from each other. Within seconds she had disappeared in the blackness. Gideon moved forward, looking for the point where the cradle connected to one of the three huge concrete piers holding up the rig. Beneath him was the rim of the massive steel cradle that held the motion damping system. He walked along the edge. It was like walking on a cliff that fell away into some infinite chasm.

“Big Al,” Kate said. “How’s that steel plate coming?”

“Donnie Rawls is working on it with the plasma cutter,” Big Al said. “Should be ready in five minutes.”

“Good. And the welding equipment?”

“We’re rigging it right now. The welder’s almost ready to drop.”

The beam of Gideon’s headlamp swept back and forth across the surface of the cradle. There seemed to be nothing there but algae. No bombs, no wires, no mines, no explosives.

“We’re both on the cradle now.” Kate continued to talk conversationally, maintaining the pretense that they were there strictly to weld the steel plate onto a weak section of the damper cradle. “You can lower the welding equipment now.”

“Negative,” Big Al said. “Timken wants me to send down his man first.”

“The sooner we get the equipment, the sooner we can fix the rig,” Kate said.

“Don’t fuck with me.” Timken’s loud voice cut into their headsets. “I’m not letting you mess around down there without someone keeping an eye on you.”

Gideon saw a big black shape looming in front of him. The first pier. He examined the joint carefully. A massive steel collar surrounded the concrete pier. A set of twelve bolts, each one the size of his wrist, secured the collar to the rim of the cradle. He carefully examined the entire joint but found no wires, no explosives, no bomb.

“I’ve got no apparent damage on this joint,” Gideon said, hoping Kate would understand what he meant.

“This one looks clear, too,” Kate said.

“Comm test,” a fourth voice said. “This is Chun, do you copy?”

“Check,” Big Al said. There was a brief pause, then Big Al’s voice came back on the intercom. “Diver0emÑ€† away.”

Gideon was following the rim of the cradle, doing his best to hurry and find the charges before Chun arrived at depth. But it was slow going. The algae was slippery, and the waves above them were so big that they caused the current to speed up and slow down even at this depth, making the already slick footing even more unpredictable.

Kate and Gideon reached the third pier at almost exactly the same time. Kate pointed at the big row of bolts and brought her fingers together, indicating they should meet in the middle. They slowly worked their way across the joint.

When they reached each other, Gideon shook his head and shrugged.

“Dammit,” Kate said.

“What’s the problem?” Timken said.

“We’re scraping off algae to clean up for the weld,” Gideon said. “I hit her with a tool.”

Gideon searched the area. Something Kate said had triggered a memory. Scraping algae. He had noticed that a bunch of algae had been recently disturbed on the first pier. He motioned to Kate to follow him, and they moved back to the other pier as rapidly as they could.

“Okay,” Big Al said. “Chun, you should be at depth soon.”

“I don’t see anything,” Chun said.

Kate and Gideon knew that Chun had been pushed by the current and would have to swim to reach the cradle. But they weren’t going to say anything. They needed as much time by themselves as possible.

The first pier loomed above them again. This time he noticed that algae on the near side had been scraped off in several places, as though a diver had kicked it off with his feet while working on something around the back side of the pier. Gideon swam around to the rear side of the pier, where he found what he’d been looking for. A bundle of white wires was secured along the pier, continuing down the side until it disappeared into the darkness.

Kate made a face as she wrote on her slate. I WAS WRONG. THEY PLACED CHARGES WHERE BRACE ATTACHES TO PIER, NOT WHERE BRACE HITS CRADLE.

Gideon wrote back. HOW FAR DOWN?

ANOTHER THIRTY METERS.

BUT TIMKEN KNOWS OUR DEPTH, Gideon scribbled. IF WE GO DEEPER . . .

Gideon shook his head. It was incredibly frustrating not being able to talk. But they were obviously thinking the same thing. Because Tim-ken knew exactly where the explosives were rigged—thirty meters farther down—he hadn’t worried about sending them to this depth. Ninety feet deeper—that was too far to fudge by saying they needed a little more slack in the umbilical. There was no way to reach the bomb without alerting Timken. Another thirty meters and the air mix would start to become an issue. At that depth they’d start getting narced—feeling drunk from nitrogen narcosis. Gideon also realized that placing the charges had been far more complicated than he and Kate had assumed. Timken must have subcontracted a separate dive team in a submersible well before the rig was seized—which would also explain why there were no divers among Timken’s men.

“How are we doing with the welding equipment?” wiÑ€†Kate said.

“I’m rigging it right now,” Big Al said. “And the plate’s cut. Soon as the welder reaches the cradle, we’ll send down the steel.”

“Copy that,” Kate said. Her voice sounded confident and in control, in stark contrast to the panic on her face. And the panic became even more acute when Gideon pointed to the dark shape resolving out of the murk. Chun was coming toward them.

Kate wiped her slate clean with her gloved hand and started to swim back around the pier toward the cradle. Gideon followed. By the time Chun reached the cradle, they were busy scraping algae off the area where Kate planned to weld the big steel plate.

“I’m with them, sir,” Chun said.

“What are they doing?” Timken’s said.

“Scraping green shit off the cradle.”

“Feel free to help,” Kate said, looking at Chun.

“I told you to keep your distance, Chun,” Timken said. “Just observe. I don’t want any accidents happening to you.”

Chun moved backward a few feet, crossed his arms, and stood there on the cradle, swaying slightly in the current.

“All right, guys, the welder’s coming down,” Big Al said. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, it’s swinging like a sumbitch in this wind. It’s– Watch out!”

No sooner had Big Al begun to shout when Kate flew upward, yanked by her umbilical. She stopped suddenly after shooting upward a good twenty-five feet—almost to the level of the wave troughs.

“Kate? Are you all right?” Big Al said, the concern in his voice quickly becoming panic when she didn’t answer. “The welder snagged Kate’s line.” Big Al repeated, “Kate!”

Still no answer.

Gideon could barely see her in the dark, turbulent water. He twisted the valve on his buoyancy control and began swimming up toward her. As he rose, she continued drifting laterally. She was motionless, her arms floating. Somehow her rapid ascent had caused her to lose consciousness.

“What’s going on down there, Chun?” Timken shouted.

“Something snagged her,” Chun said.

“I’m cutting the line,” Big Al said.