Time Storm Shockwave (24 page)

Moreover, assuming they didn’t run out of air in that tank,
die from decompressing too fast, panic, or get eaten by a hungry shark, they could only hope and pray that the yacht was where they left it. It had been anchored to the spot, but thieves could have taken it, or a storm could have capsized it. A million other things crossed Mark’s mind. He decided that he was better off not thinking about it. Fear was by far the most dangerous enemy.

They had no idea
how much farther they had to go. There were no landmarks. On the way there, it had seemed like forever, but they hadn’t been timing it, and they hadn’t been traveling at top speed either. The cracking of the dome was spreading out more and more, and they could still hear people yelling in the distance. There was a loud, rushing sound somewhere behind them. They tried to see what it was, but it was too dark to see much of anything. They wouldn’t be able to see the cracks in the dome if they hadn’t been emitting phosphorescent light.

“
Kathleen”—Ashlyn asked hopefully—“do you think anybody else has clearance to get through the top of the elevator?”

“I don’t know of any, and
after what Mark said about the pressure, I don’t think we should wait around to find out.”

“I just hope the yacht is still there,” Stewart
said, and Mark glared at him.
I wish he would stop mentioning his fears aloud.
There was little doubt that they were all terrified.

“I think we only have about half a mile to go,” Mark said, looking at his watch again.

Just as he said it, they
heard a hissing noise, followed by the unmistakable sound of water exploding inward. There had been a breach, but looking up and around they couldn’t see it.

“Hurry!” Ashlyn yelled
.

“I’m going as fast as this thing will
go”—he said sarcastically—“you can get out and push if you want.”

Kathleen glanced back
, and then grabbed Ashlyn’s arm and pointed. She turned to look. A wall of water was now vaguely discernible in the darkness, and it was headed their direction. The breach must have been on the south end of the dome, but it was traveling fast.

“Here it comes,” she shouted and
clinched her jaw.

Mark looked back, but Stewart didn’t move his eyes from the road ahead
—willing the cart to go faster. They could see the exit now, but water washed forward, under the cart, ahead of the rushing wall so that they were driving through a lake, at least six inches deep.

They were close, extremely close now, but so was t
he rushing mountain behind them. It was becoming more visible every second. The water underneath them was deepening. The cart’s electrical system shorted out making it come to an abrupt halt.

“Run!” Stewart yelled
.

Chapter
21

Nothing can harm a good man, either in life or

after
death. — Socrates

~

They had already divided the scuba gear so that no one was carrying too much of a load. They ran as fast as they were able, impeded by the foot-deep water that was rising rapidly. They reached the
Atlantean elevator. Luckily, Kathleen knew how to operate it. The invisible door shut behind them, but the floor was already covered with more than a foot of water.

On the way down, they hadn’t felt anything, but this time they felt a jolt and knew that the wall of water must have hit the shaft.
They held their breath, praying that the pressure wouldn’t breach the pyramid. The water on the floor began to bubble violently as pressurized air pressed in through invisible cracks.

Kathleen grabbed Stewart’s hand and began to hyperventilate.
He forced her to look at him and commanded her to slow her breathing. The back wall opened with a hiss this time, and their ears began to pop. There didn’t appear to be anyone about. The four of them ran as fast as they could. Sounds of hissing and bubbling water followed them, but they didn’t look back.

When they reached the room where they had entered, Mark quickly turned the control on the floor
, and the door slid closed.

“Hopefully, that will buy us some time”—he shook his head—“but we still have to hurry.”

Stewart helped Kathleen put the rebreather suit and helmet on while Ashlyn donned hers.

“You don’t have to do anything but breathe normally”—he said as he put the helmet over her head—“and you will be able to talk to Ashlyn. She is an experienced diver. Do what she says no matter what!”

He
quickly got into his wetsuit and tanks, leaving Mark the only one with neither a suit nor oxygen tank—his choice.

“Mark—” Ashlyn protested “—I’m not sure I can do this. I don’t know what I would do if I lost you.”

“This is the best way to do it, and you know it. I’m the most experienced diver; I will buddy-breathe with Stewart.
He can wait for me at the bottom of the shaft.”

Mark
turned to Stewart, “Have the oxygen ready for me when I get there, alright?”

He
nodded his head and started down the shaft.

Ashlyn still hadn’t put on her helmet. “Mark I
…” he silenced her by kissing her. He held her close for just a moment then put the helmet over her head.

She took Kathleen by the hand and spoke to her over the
comm. system. “Just follow me—” Kathleen hesitated, so Ashlyn encouraged her “—you can do this, trust me.”

She
climbed into the pool and swam down the shaft, followed by a terrified Kathleen. The two women swam out of the shaft into the cave. Ashlyn looked down and saw the three weight-belts lying where they had left them. She picked them up and put one of them on Kathleen.

“Why do I need this?”
she asked.

“We mustn’t
rise too quickly or—” Ashlyn hesitated “—it would be bad, just trust me. We will need to swim up. All you need to do is follow me, exactly. Stop when I stop. Got it?”

Kathleen nodded her head, still looking uncertain.

“Oh, and keep your legs straight when you are kicking”—Ashlyn added—“bending your knees too much can cause you to rise too quickly.”

The cave was illuminated by their dive lights and was full of different types of fish. One of them brushed up against Kathleen and she jumped, looking at Ashlyn for reassurance.

“They won’t bother you, just ignore them.”

Stewart waited at the bottom for Mark, ready with the mouthpiece.

Before Mark submerged he took several quick, deep breaths to hyperventilate himself a bit, and then he went under. Swimming as fast as possible, he reminded himself to stay calm to conserve oxygen. Stewart had given Mark the flippers and the mask to use for the descent. It would make it easier for him to swim down, and in case he started to blackout, it would make it easier for him to keep the water out of his nose.

The water was colder than he had e
xpected, and he had no wetsuit. At 175 feet under, even in the Bahamas he was in danger of hypothermia. At least it was if he took the time to decompress properly. If he had to make a choice, then hypothermia was the best one.

The corridor seemed
much longer than it had been on the way in, he thought as he swam down in the freezing water all alone. Of course, the last time he had a wetsuit on and air to breathe. He was starting to get dizzy, and feared blacking out. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew that he was no longer swimming and that his natural buoyancy was dragging him back up. He forced himself to fight it, to swim again, but …he was losing the battle.

***

“It’s taking too long
”—Ashlyn said—“I’m going after him.”

She motioned that to Stewart with hand signals, but he shook his head, and gave
her a hand signal that meant no. He motioned more, reminding her that she might block the exit.

Then suddenly a burst of bubbles began pushing out the shaft propelling Mark out with them.
She reached out to grab him, her dive light creating just enough illumination to see that he opened his eyes.

Stewart gave him the oxygen, and Mark blew the last of his expended air into the mouthpiece to clear it, and then started breathing in greedily, before pointing back at the bubbles that continued to pour out of the opening. He gave the oxygen back to Stewart.

“Is that normal?” Kathleen pointed at the bubbles from the shaft.

“
No”—Ashlyn shook her head—“the air pressure must be building up in the room above. We need to get out of this cave.”

Mark gave the flippers to Stewart because
he would be wearing the weight-belt, and would require them to push against the water while Mark would have to fight to stay down and not ascend too rapidly.

Outside the cave,
Stewart showed them the rope he had tied there on his descent and Mark gave him a thumbs up. He had a decompression computer built into his dive watch. He had already programmed in a rough estimate of their situation, and they would all stop together each time.

It wouldn’t be entirely accurate because the variables were so different
. Mark’s temperature would be lower, and the women had a different combination of gases because of the rebreathers. Kathleen had spent more time under the dome. In the end, he had decided that they should base their stops on the ambient pressure rather than linear feet.

On the way up,
the men went first because Ashlyn and Kathleen had plenty of oxygen, and both had wetsuits. In this way, Ashlyn could also keep an eye on Mark to see if he were displaying any signs of hypothermia or hypoxia. These dangers had to be carefully balanced with the need for a slow ascent.

The rope made the
way up the slope much easier. They stopped to decompress for three minutes at the top of the drop off. Stewart and Mark were doing an admirable job at buddy breathing, but Ashlyn was acutely aware of how cold and miserable Mark looked.

Mark retrieved the rope as they continued their ascent. Ashlyn was trying to help Kathleen, who
was having a difficult time fighting against the weight-belt. At the next decompression stop, while they were just hanging there, he swam around her and removed it. He placed it on himself. It made it more difficult for him not to sink.

He took several quick, deep breaths from Stewart's tank, and then let gravity pull him down far enough to remove the flipper
s from her feet and put them on himself. Then he swam up for more air. Ashlyn held onto Kathleen so that she could stay with the group. A shark swam by, and her eyes widened.

“
Don’t worry”—Ashlyn said when she saw Kathleen’s expression—“it won’t bother us.”

However, it began circling around them, and it wasn’t ignoring them the way they would have normally expected it to. Ashlyn could hear Kathleen’s breathing change markedly.
If she panicked, she would put them all in danger.

“It won’t hurt you!” Ashlyn
said forcefully.

She looked up at Mark, fighting the cold misery with limited air, and then at the shark. She couldn’t see the boat where she thought it should be. It could be
stormy topside; it was hard to tell. The water wasn’t as clear as it normally was. Normally, they might have used the anchor cable for a guide, but they dare not waste the time to look for it today.

At about fifty feet, she saw the hull of the
boat; it was right where it should be. She motioned to the others, but noticed the shark was swimming around a little too aggressively. She didn’t dare say anything about it to Kathleen, but when a second shark appeared to be circling Mark, Ashlyn suddenly remembered Mark’s gunshot wound. His shoulder was bleeding, and now looking at it, she could see the swirling blood. This was not good. Even a lemon shark might attack if a diver was bleeding.

They were
only about thirty feet from the surface, and Ashlyn was finding it hard to control her fear for Mark while trying to calm Kathleen. Suddenly, Stewart signaled Mark that the tank was empty. The two men quickly dropped their weight-belts and began to ascend rapidly.

“What’s going on?—”
Kathleen’s voice was filled with fear “—is it the shark? Shouldn’t we follow them?”

“
No”—Ashlyn tried to calm her down—“the tank ran out of air, so they had to surface. They are fine. We must keep decompressing.”

“Why?—” Kathleen asked terrified “—I want to get out of the water now. If they are
fine, why do we have to keep going this slowly?”

Ashlyn forced herself
to remain calm, and then calmed Kathleen. When Ashlyn saw Mark and Stewart break the surface, she felt a wave of relief wash over her. It was actually easier now that Ashlyn knew that Mark and Stewart were safe. She wasn’t a religious person, but she had been praying the entire time anyway.

***

Mark and Stewart hit the surface, gasping for air. The sea was not at all calm. The sky was overcast, and there was lightning. The water was tossing them around like toys in a bathtub; there was an unusual pull in the water. Mark had noticed it underneath but had dismissed it as turbulent seas; now he wasn’t sure. Luckily, they had been moving in the direction of the boat as they ascended so that now they were right next to it.

In spite of the proximity, they had a difficult time getting to the ship and up the ladder. It seemed more than just the tossing of the waves, but the two managed to climb onto the lower landing of the ship. Stewart wanted to kiss the boat and felt like crying with relief, but wasn’t about to behave that way in front of Mark. Besides, Stewart was still worried about Kathleen.

Mark was shaking severely from the cold. They climbed up onto the aft deck and dumped the scuba gear.

“Mark, you need to go get warm, go jump in a hot shower.”

“
No”—he argued—“I’m waiting for Ashlyn.”

“I can wait for them Mark, go, you have hypothermia.”

“I said no.”

Stewart could see th
at Mark was not going to budge, so he ran to the other room and brought back a large beach towel for Mark to wrap himself in. The women had taken their last decompression break at twenty feet and were now ascending the rest of the way when the boat began to twist around from the pull in the water.

Watching
their ascent, Mark noticed the turn because the boat because it most definitely was moving away from them.

“Watch them
—” Mark ran toward the stairs “—make sure they are okay.”

It was an entirely unnecessary directive. Stewart was
glued to the lower landing, watching for them to surface. Mark ran up the stairs, through the pilothouse, and out onto the flybridge so that he could get a better vantage point. Something was going on, and he needed to see what it was.

A little way off, about where he estimated the cave entrance to be, the water was bubbling so hard that it almost looked as if it were boiling in that spot.
There was wind, lightning, and electricity in the air. To the west, the clouds above were circling in an odd fashion, as if waiting for the dying. Below the circling clouds, in the water, he finally saw what was pulling on the ship. There was a whirlpool, spinning like a bathtub drain, not more than one hundred feet from them.

He stared at it in confusion. He was so
cold and so tired, and it seemed that these bizarre and unexplainable events would never end.
For once, can’t something just make sense
?

He
did a rough calculation in his mind of where they were. Suddenly he understood, he thought about the anchor for a second and decided it would hold. He then ran down the steps into the pilothouse and then further down and onto the aft deck. He practically jumped onto the lower landing, relieved to see that they were all aboard.