Devil's Gate (NUMA Files 9)

“Kurt, I’m just saying—”

“Why don’t you go back to singing,” Kurt said. He held up the bottle, “I’m making a little request: ‘Light My Fire’ by the Doors.”

With that, Kurt put his regulator back into his mouth and submerged.

Joe knew Kurt would do his best, but he also knew Kurt would do as he’d asked if necessary. And to save Joe from thinking about it, he wouldn’t tell him in advance.

To take his mind off it, he did as Kurt had suggested… almost. This time, he’d give it everything he had, really belting it out.

“We all live in a yellow submarine…”

OUTSIDE THE BARRACUDA, Kurt heard Joe’s warbling voice and was secretly glad to be out beyond the confines of the sub. Still, it made him smile.

He got up beside the lift bar. Joe’s hands were curled up into balls from the cold. He pulled Joe’s right hand as far from the left as he could. He then lit the new flare and held up the strip of aluminum.

He pressed the pointed end of the strip into the narrow links of the hardened steel chain that held Joe’s hands together. Then he brought the oxygen bottle awkwardly to bear and turned the valve.

The jet of bubbles burst forth once again. He directed it toward the aluminum strip and Joe’s chains and the burning tip of the flare. Immediately, what looked like a jet of fire burst forth.

It was awkward work. Kurt felt like he needed three hands, but by holding the flare and the aluminum strip in one hand and the oxygen bottle in the other he was able to keep his little torch operation working.

While it seemed like the oxygen was burning, Kurt knew it was actually an oxidizer. It didn’t burn. It caused other things to burn hot and fast — in this case, the aluminum and, once a little cut appeared in Joe’s chain, the steel in the chain links.

The jury-rigged setup smoked and bubbled and snapped unevenly. For a moment it looked as if it would go out, but it stayed lit. After thirty seconds he pulled the torch away. The links were glowing red but not yet melted. He brought the torch to bear once again. After another fifteen seconds, Joe’s hands suddenly snapped apart.

He was free.

Kurt shut off the oxygen, thinking they might need it, and moved back into the sub.

Joe was all smiles. “I’d hug you,” he said, holding up his balled fists, “but I’m too damn cold.”

“How long we been down here?” Kurt asked.

“Thirty minutes,” Joe said.

That sounded right to Kurt. Thirty minutes at one hundred feet. They’d need at least one decompression stop. With Joe’s survival bottle largely untouched and what was left in his own, along with the green oxygen tank, Kurt was certain they could make it without any problem.

He slid Joe’s mask over his face and forced the swim fins on his feet. With the life raft and the ELT beacon under his arm, Kurt led Joe out of the sub.

Outside, he twisted the beacon until it began to flash, released it, and watched it shimmy toward the surface.

He looked to Joe and pointed upward. Joe nodded and began to swim, kicking slowly for the surface.

Kurt took one last look at the Barracuda and noticed something shiny on the ocean floor beneath the lights. The knife. The same knife once again. Another taunt from Andras.

Angrily, he reached out and grabbed it, and then he began to swim after Joe and the distant flashing light from the ELT.

THEY BROKE OUT INTO THE DAYLIGHT ten minutes later. Kurt tried to keep their ascent to one foot per second, as per the old Navy standard rules. But just to be sure, he and Joe stopped at forty feet for two minutes and then at twenty feet for three more.

Finally breaking into the sunlight was a glorious feeling. Kurt pulled the inflation cord on the raft. The CO2 charge filled and expanded the small raft in a matter of seconds. It unfolded and stiffened with full inflation.

“Ready for passengers,” Kurt said.

He helped Joe climb aboard and then pulled himself in.

Once they’d made it into the raft, lying still and flat was highly recommended. Kurt was pretty certain he could do nothing else.

He lay there breathing, aching and exhausted. He was surprised at how cold and numb he felt now compared to their time down below.