The Jungle (Oregon Files 8)

“Remember what I said,” she reminded. Then her voice changed to that of the HAL 9000 computer from the film 2001: A Space Odyssey. “Will I dream, Dave?”

It was the question the film’s computer asked as the astronaut Dave Bowman was deactivating it. And it completely freaked Cabrillo.

Juan pulled out the two crystals, before the machine started singing, “Daisy, Daisy,” and stuffed them into an empty ammo pouch.

“What do we do about him?” MacD asked, waving the barrel of his rifle in Bahar’s direction.

“If he can keep up, he comes with us. If not, we leave him.”

Juan wrenched the would-be Mahdi to his feet and threw one of his arms over his shoulder. “No Allah today, dirtbag. Just a date with an interrogator at Gitmo.”

As soon as they opened the first vestibule door they could see nearly three feet of water lapping against the outside glass and a little seepage already on the floor. There would be too much pressure to push through, so MacD triggered off a couple of rounds to shatter the glass. Icy water rushed in and swirled around their thighs.

“This is going to be close,” Juan said tightly.

He and Bahar were stepping across the outer door’s threshold when a rifle crack cut the air. Bahar’s head exploded, covering Cabrillo in gore.

Smith and the rest of his men were wading through the rapidly rising water carrying their assault weapons at port arms. One had taken a snap shot at what he thought were the two intruders.

Juan dropped the body unceremoniously and returned fire one-handed. MacD emerged from the vestibule and added his own burst. The attackers had no choice but to dive below the surface, as the air and water around them came alive.

“Forget them,” Juan shouted. The water was up to his waist and swirling like a whirlpool. Rather than fight it, he dove in and started swimming, his empty assault rifle left to settle to the bottom.

They made little progress against the current and were forced back to their feet to try to slog their way to the elevator. Behind them, Smith and his team had gained ground. Juan and MacD pulled their pistols and tried to keep them back, but now they were outgunned. They were left with walking underwater and popping up to gulp air while Smith came on like a locomotive, leaving his men in his wake.

They rounded the final corner out of the room. Ahead was a broad corridor that led to the elevator platform. Water was coming down the shaft in a white frothing torrent. This wasn’t a race to beat Smith. It was a race to reach the elevator and pray it could lift them out before the entire level was flooded to the ceiling. Their pursuers must have known it too because no one was firing any longer.

The water was at chest height, and they could no longer walk against the current. Both men moved close to the wall and scrabbled along its surface for handholds to propel them against the titanic flow. If they lost contact with the stone, they’d be swept deeper into the mine.

Smith was doing the same, and was less than twenty feet back.

With just fifteen feet to go, Juan could tell by their pace that Smith would be on him before Lawless led them to safety. They were fighting to keep their heads in the ever-diminishing air pocket along the ceiling. Already he’d smashed his head a couple of times, but with his body numb from the chilly river the pain helped goad him on.

Cabrillo had only one option to ensure that at least one of them survived. He shouted over the roar, “Good luck!”

Taking both hands off the rock face, his body falling into the current, he shot back down the corridor. He slammed into John Smith, and the unanticipated sacrifice caught him completely off guard, though somehow he managed to keep a few fingers in a handhold.

The two men were chest to chest, held fast by Smith’s tenacious grip on the stone. Juan reached under the surface, found one of Smith’s fingers, and gave it a savage twist. Smith grimaced but still wouldn’t let go. Both men had their faces pressed to the ceiling, and the last of the lights still working on battery backup were about to be snuffed.

“You were good,” Smith said. “But not good enough. We’re both dead.”

Juan felt something brush his neck and knew instinctively what it was.

“Not yet.” He broke another of Smith’s fingers, and this time the killer let go of the wall. Cabrillo grabbed the end of the rope that MacD had let flow with the current as Smith vanished into the darkness. Juan took a last gasp of air and pulled himself hand over hand to the elevator. He had to clutch the cage sides to keep from being expelled like a cork from a champagne bottle. The force of water coming down the shaft was crushing, and yet he and Lawless had both made it. He groped for the controls, prayed they hadn’t shorted, and pushed the button to lift them out of the mine.

It was impossible to tell if they were moving. Both men held their faces to the ceiling, trying to ignore their depleting oxygen supplies and the punishing assault of water roaring at them.

Cabrillo went to that place where he could ignore his surroundings, the same mental haven he’d sought when he’d been waterboarded. It worked for only a few seconds because, unlike then, drowning now was a real likelihood. The cage rattled and shook, but it could have just been from the water pummeling it and not the motion of it rising from the depths. Juan then got the panic-inducing idea that the shaft would fill with water faster than the lift took them to the surface.

He could feel MacD struggling next to him as he ran out of air. He tried to calm him by wrapping an arm around his shoulder, but that only made him redouble his efforts, and he pushed Cabrillo away. Juan was moments from going into full-flight panic himself as his body used up the last of his life-giving oxygen.

The sound of the water pouring down on them suddenly changed, becoming sharper and louder. At first Juan didn’t understand what this meant, but then it dawned on him. They’d pulled free from it and were ascending the waterfall. He bent so that he was facing downward, using his head and neck as a shield, and took a breath. He took in water too, but he managed to fill his lungs. He anchored himself by grabbing the

ceiling and forced MacD into the same position. He pounded on his back, once, twice, a third time, and suddenly Lawless was choking and gasping for air.

The elevator rose at a snail’s pace, fighting the water the entire time, but rise it did.

“Good job with the rope back there,” Juan muttered when he was able to talk.