Zero Hour (NUMA Files 11)

Bradshaw coughed like a man choking on dust, and Kurt put the mask back against his face. Bradshaw pushed it away. “Must have been a setup,” he said. “You were right. There has to be a leak.”

“Did you see who it was?” Kurt asked. “Where they came from?”

“No,” Bradshaw managed. He seemed about to fade out.

“We have to get you out of here,” Kurt said, trying to lift the big man. “Joe, help me.”

Joe ducked under one of Bradshaw’s arms while Kurt ducked under the other.

“Hayley…” Bradshaw mumbled.

Kurt looked around. He didn’t see her among the dead. “Was she with you?”

Bradshaw nodded. “She went down.” He pointed toward the lake. “She went down with the other diver.”

“What’s down there?”

“A structure of some kind. We thought it might be the device. But it’s huge. More like… some kind of lab. She went down to look because only she would know. But they hit us, and then…”

“And then what?”

The chief wavered but recovered, his face displaying great pain.

“And then they went down after her,” he said. “They’re down there now. All of them.”

NINE

Kurt and Joe dragged Bradshaw to a spot by one of the SUVs. He had three bullet wounds. He’d lost a lot of blood. Kurt doubted he would survive for long.

He grabbed a first-aid kit and tossed it to Joe.

“Do what you can for him,” he said. “And find a way to call for help. If you can’t reach anyone, get him out of here.”

“What are you going to do?”

Kurt was climbing onto the back of the flatbed, yanking the tarp off the one-man submersib

les. “I’m going in.”

“But you don’t know what’s down there.”

“A laboratory and a device,” Kurt said, repeating Bradshaw’s cryptic explanation as he dropped from the side of the flatbed and landed back down on the beach. “And a young woman who’s in way over her head.”

“So what are you going to do?” Joe asked. “Just swim around looking for this device?”

Kurt jumped back into the cab of the boxy truck and turned the key. “No,” he said. “I’m going to drive.”

The big diesel rumbled to life. Kurt jammed the truck into gear and began to roll forward. He turned slightly to the left, toward the deadly lake, and pressed down harder on the throttle.

Had anyone but Joe Zavala been watching him, Kurt might have explained in greater detail what was about to happen, but Joe knew vehicles like no one else. He’d eyed the truck strangely at the airport and most likely put two and two together shortly thereafter. If he hadn’t figured it out already, he’d understand any moment now.

The rig accelerated across the slope, its heavy tires carving deep tracks in the soft red sand as Kurt drove it straight into the water. It quickly came up off the wheels and began coasting forward.

As soon as he was afloat, Kurt grabbed a stainless steel lever on the dashboard and forced it upward and over into a notch, where it locked. The truck’s big wheels rose up, pulling free of the water, while a propeller attached to the drive shaft extended from the rear.

Kurt glanced at a monitoring board. All the lights were green. That was good news. It meant the prop was connected to the power train and there were no detectable leaks.

Kurt stepped on the gas. The prop churned the red water behind him, and the amphibious craft began to plow forward, completing its conversion from slow-moving truck to an even slower-moving boat. It drove like a nose-heavy barge, but fortunately Kurt didn’t have far to go.