Zero Hour - Cussler Clive - Страница 17

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Joe had to work hard to keep the Jeep upright as it scrambled through ravines, across uneven ground, and around patches of scrub too thick to drive through. The hovercraft simply flew over them and continued in a straight line.

He was losing ground fast until he came to a smooth section that reminded him of the Utah Salt Flats. Out on the level terrain, Joe began to catch up. As he closed the gap, the light on the handheld radio finally turned green.

Joe snatched it off the charger and pressed the talk switch.

“ASIO, do you read?” he said, assuming that’s who was listening. “Anyone out there?”

A scratchy reply came back. “Bradshaw, is that you?”

“Negative,” Joe said. “Bradshaw has been injured. You have several agents down.”

“Who is this?” the voice on the other end of the line asked.

Joe explained the best he could, and also explained that he was chasing the suspected shooters westbound through the desert.

“What road are you on?”

“I’m not on any road,” Joe said. “We’re heading cross-country, due west from the flooded mine. Right into the sun.”

A garbled reply came back, and then the radio cut out once again. Joe slammed it back onto the charger. Ahead of him, the hovercraft was turning, skidding sideways. It ended up rotated 180 degrees and pointing right at him.

Joe began to swerve, but it was a little too late. Something flashed, as much in his mind as in his eyes, and Joe’s world went instantly dark.

“We have to get out of here,” Kurt shouted, ushering everyone to the ladder.

Hayley went first, Wiggins in the middle, and Kurt bringing up the rear.

Another impact jarred the structure, and Kurt almost lost his grip. He grabbed the hatch above and pulled it down, but it wouldn’t seal. Like a door that couldn’t be closed because the frame had swollen, the hatch would not pull flush.

“The impact must have warped the deck plates,” Wiggins suggested.

Kurt gave it one more try, putting all his weight on it, but the tiny gap remained. Water began to run down the inside of the ladder well, water that Kurt had no interest in touching.

“Go,” he said to Wiggins.

The two of them slid to the bottom level and soon made it to the airlock. Hayley was already there, pulling on her helmet. They were wearing dry suits. With gloves and full helmets, they theoretically wouldn’t be exposed to the toxins of the lake.

Water was now pouring down, accompanied by the creaking and groaning of metal stressed to the limits. The station would implode in moments.

“We can’t go straight up,” Kurt said. “You’ve both been down here for too long. You’ll end up with the bends like the courier did.”

“We have to get away,” she said.

“Grab on to the handholds,” Kurt said. “I’ll tow you as far away as we can go.”

She nodded and sealed her helmet.

Kurt climbed onto the speeder and then closed and locked the canopy. The lights went out as Hayley and Wiggins were pulling on their tanks. Kurt switched on the headlight of the speeder so they could see.

With their air supplies attached, Wiggins gave Hayley the thumbs-up. She returned the gesture.

“Here we go,” Kurt said to himself.

They pushed the speeder back into the immersion pool and dropped in after it. As soon as they’d grabbed on, Kurt expelled all the air from the flotation tank, and they began to sink.

They cleared the bottom of the portal in three seconds.

“Hold on!” Kurt yelled, hoping they could somehow hear him.

He twisted the throttle slowly, and the water jet that powered the speeder began to thrust. He accelerated slowly, but to only about half speed. Any faster and his passengers would be pulled off.

With the headlights blazing, Kurt stared through the rose-tinted water. He dove a few feet to avoid one of the guide wires and continued forward. Compressional explosions came from behind as compartments of the station gave way.

A group of flashes traveled up and down the vertical collection of pipes that hung from the center of the damaged dome. More explosives being triggered.

Each flash backlit the structure the way lightning might silhouette an abandoned building. What was left of the dome had already collided with the station and slid off to the side. It scraped downward and lodged against a seam, an act which proved to be the last nail in the coffin for the lab.

The hull plating buckled, and the water crushed it inward, mashing it like a giant foot stepping on a tin can. A surge of light and air blasted outward, sending a shock wave across the flooded pit. Hayley and Wiggins were actually sucked backward toward the station for a second before being thrown violently forward as clouds of sediment exploded out of the dark.

As the concussion wave hit, the speeder was tossed around like a child’s toy. Kurt banged his head against the canopy as it tumbled. He spun around and caught sight of Hayley and Wiggins just as the churning waves of silt swallowed them whole.

The noise reached Joe through the fog of sleep. At first, it sounded like a sprinkler irrigating a field, repetitive and sharp, only slower: chih-chih-chih-chih-chih…

Joe’s mind wandered to the stretches of farmland he’d grown up around in New Mexico and the high-pressure irrigation that was used to bring the desert to life. Somehow, even half asleep, he knew he wasn’t in New Mexico.

When he opened his eyes, the world was a blur. He tasted something salty and put a hand to his mouth, it came away red with blood. Blood that was trickling from a gash in his forehead, running down his nose and onto his lips.

His vision began to clear, and he realized he was in the driver’s seat of a motor vehicle. The windshield in front of him was smashed in a starburst pattern that lined up with his head. The nose of the vehicle was pointed down at a sharp angle, like he’d driven into a ditch.

Even as his other symptoms cleared, the strange noise continued. It even became more distinct, sounding for all the world like a giant fan turning at moderate speed.

Shouts from outside the Jeep reached his ears.

“Over here,” someone said.

“Get a crowbar.”

The door beside him moved. Fingers appeared around the edge and wrenched it several inches. A face appeared in the gap.

“Are you okay, mate?” a man in army fatigues asked.

Joe put a hand to the gash on his forehead. “I’ve been better.”

“Sit tight. We’re gonna get you out.”

The soldier went to work on the bent and twisted door, helped by another soldier who’d brought a crowbar. Together, they forced the door wider an inch at a time.

As they worked, Joe’s memory returned. He was in Australia. He’d been chasing after another vehicle. He tried to peer around the starburst in the windshield for any sign of the hovercraft, thinking for a moment that they might have hit head-on. He saw only the dirt wall of the gully he’d gone into.

The door beside him finally broke loose, and the soldiers reached in to help him. With care, they pulled him free of the mangled wreck. As one of them searched the Jeep, the other led Joe out of the ditch and toward a tan-colored NH90 helicopter with Australian military markings.

Now Joe realized where the odd sound had been coming from. The rotors above the big transport were still turning.

A stern-looking man in a black suit met him a few feet from the helicopter’s door.

“Are you the one who called us in?” the man asked. “On Bradshaw’s radio?”

Joe nodded. “What happened?”

“What do you mean?”

“The guys I was chasing,” Joe explained, “did you catch them? They were in a hovercraft.”

The man raised an eyebrow. “Hovercraft?”

“I know it sounds crazy,” Joe said, “but that’s what they were driving. Afraid I can’t give you a make and model.”

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