Deep Fire Rising - v4 (54 page)

No less pressed for time, Mercer figured he no longer had to fear immolation. He continued down the tunnel, his heart a little slower, the sweat bathing his body a little less oily.

When he was well past what he knew to be the eight-hundred-foot mark, he shut down the suit’s motors and allowed himself to settle on the bottom. The temperature outside his ADS hovered just below the two-hundred-degree mark. Inside the suit it hadn’t grown uncomfortable yet, but Mercer was well aware of the heat. He was also noticing that the plastic faceplate was losing a little of its clarity.

It was awkward to unclip the bomb from the shackles on his chest, and when they finally released the weapon dropped to the floor with a dull thunk. He flipped it onto its back. A bolt had been hastily welded to the timer’s access panel so he could open it with the unwieldy pincers. Scott was supposed to have done this.

Gently, Mercer snapped the claw around the bolt and tried to expose the timer. The panel flew open. He looked and saw that the timer was still sealed. It was the bolt that had snapped off. He muttered a curse and tried to grab the bead of weld still attached to the bomb, but the pincer couldn’t get a tight grip. He strung his next curses into a long sentence.

He had no tools.

“Think, damn it, think.”

He needed something strong and flat to wedge into the seal and pry the lid open. The folding knife he always carried in his pocket would be perfect. It had the perfect blade.

Blade, he thought. One of his suit’s propeller blades.

He reached for one of the nacelles on his shoulder and came up far short. The ADS didn’t have that degree of flexibility. There wasn’t enough time to go back and snap a blade off of Scott’s suit.

Mercer settled across the narrow shaft, braced his feet against the wall and shoved back as hard as he could. The impact rattled him in the suit and the power failed for a second as a wire jarred loose. In the momentary flash of darkness he saw a muted glow emanating from deeper inside the volcano. Molten rock was entering the vent. It couldn’t have been much or the water would have boiled away by now, but it was enough. He slammed the back of his suit into the rock again and again. His head caught a sharp edge at the back of his helmet, opening a trickling wound.

The seventh time did it. He felt one of the main motor housings pop loose from the suit. It drifted on the minute current until coming up against the bundle of wires acting as an umbilical. He reached into the nacelle’s throat and ripped the prop off its shaft.

Each of the three blades was about two inches long and made of tungsten steel. It was a miniature work of art in a way, its delicate curve designed for maximum thrust with minimum resistance. He unceremoniously jammed it against the timer panel and heaved open the thick lid.

Inside the small compartment was a single red button. Mercer pressed it, giving no consideration that he had just unleashed four and a half thousand tons of TNT. His suit’s electronic display recorded the temperature as two hundred and ten degrees. At this depth it would need to be much higher to boil the water, but it was slowly dissolving the faceplate. Already Mercer’s view had the same murky blur as trying to open his eyes in a chlorinated swimming pool.

He could also see the glow of lava even with his lights on.

Mercer closed the bomb’s lid and started back the way he’d come. Even if the lava flowed over the weapon, its casing would protect it from the thermal onslaught.

With one main thruster trailing uselessly behind him, steering the NewtSuit became a challenge, especially when he realized the other primary motor had been damaged and ran out of balance. The suit wanted to veer left, then down. He adjusted his trim so the ADS was horizontal, allowing him to use the directional nacelles to push him forward. He felt like he was barely creeping along the tunnel, and with his pincers dragging along the floor he was blinded by sediment.

Behind him magma continued to drip into the tunnel, and no matter how fast he struggled forward he couldn’t escape the envelope of scalding water. The digital thermometer read two hundred eighteen degrees. Mercer’s face mask had become a wavy prism. The cooling system was struggling to keep pace. A hot spot had developed at his elbow that blistered his skin. The inside of the suit smelled of cooked meat.

His helmet clanged against
Conseil
’s ravaged carcass. It had taken fifteen minutes to cover the three hundred yards. The
Petromax Angel
had a top speed of twelve knots. He had to give them at least two hours to get clear of the bomb blast and the inevitable tsunami to follow.

He climbed over the ROV, snagging the detached motor in the tangle of braces. He snipped the wires and pulled himself free. More than anything he wanted to take Scott’s body back to the surface, but there was no way he could do it. Without an operator in control, the suit could easily jam in the narrow vent and trap them both.

Mercer laid a hand on the suit’s chest. “I’m sorry,” he muttered and cut the tow cable out of Scott’s grip. He took a firm hold on the cable and tapped it with his pincer.

Nothing happened. He rapped it again, harder, and suddenly he was being pulled from the tunnel. He skipped and bounced against the shaft as the topside crane operator recovered what he thought was the ROV.

It took a few minutes but he finally saw that he had outpaced the temperature spike. The thermometer was down ten degrees. And not a moment too soon. It was hard to be certain, but it looked like half the thickness of his faceplate had been dissolved.

Three minutes later the cable drew him out of the vent and into cold water. The plastic gave a sickening pop as it cooled, but it did not crack. Mercer was in the clear. He allowed the cramped muscles in his back and shoulders to relax for the first time since entering the volcanic shaft.

“Jim, can you read me, over? Jim, it’s Mercer, can you read me?”

“I read you. What the hell happened down there? We expected to pull out the ROV a half hour ago.”

“I’ll explain everything in a minute. I’m holding on to the end of the towline. That’s me you’re pulling up.”

“What? Where’s Scott?”

“He didn’t make it. Please, Jim, just pull me up. I’ll tell you everything.”

“Ah, okay.”

“And Jim. Find Spirit Williams and keep an eye on her.”

“Why?”

“She wears wooden shoes.” Mercer hoped McKenzie knew the apocryphal story about the origins of the word “sabotage,” which supposedly came from a revolt during the Industrial Revolution in which the French workers threw their wooden shoes, or
sabots,
into factory machinery to shut it down.

He continued upward like a fish on the end of two hundred feet of line. As soon as he surfaced he’d have them recover the lifting cradle or maybe just cut the thing loose. It didn’t matter.

At fifty feet the water was still as black and ominous as it had been near the vent. The blanket of ash cut all the sunlight and particles seemed to fill the sea. When he reached thirty feet he felt the tow cable slow. The workers were preparing for the delicate operation of slinging him onto the service boat. Mercer still couldn’t tell where the surface began, let alone see the
Angel
’s outline.

Finally at fifteen feet he could see the vessel’s deep keel and the shadow of something next to the ship, but he lost his vantage as he was drawn ever closer to safety.

He was pulled through an eight-foot-thick layer of volcanic ash and mud, a cloying mess that slowed his progress for a moment as the crane operator adjusted to the added weight. He double-checked that the hydraulic pressure on the claw gripping the cable was at maximum. He chuckled at the irony if the suit fell free. To get this far he’d destroyed the motors, and if he did plummet back into the water he’d have no way to save himself.

His head broke the surface and mud oozed off the suit, obscuring his view entirely. Even when it cleared, he could barely see through his damaged visor. The crane pulled him higher still and started to swing him over the transom. The suit’s grip on the cable felt secure.

He could just make out Jim McKenzie on the deck and Spirit and what looked like Charlie, or at least someone with their head swathed in bandages. There was no sign of Tisa.

His feet came level with the stern railing when he realized Jim, Spirit and Charlie were arguing. And then he saw that there was another boat tied up to the
Petromax Angel
. He looked down. He didn’t recognize the man operating the winch.

“Mercer!” Tisa’s scream burst over the communications line.

“Tisa?” he shouted back.

She burst from the control van, two men giving chase. Both appeared armed, but Mercer couldn’t tell. His faceplate was too distorted.

Jesus, the
Angel
had been hijacked. They had just been waiting for the chance. Mercer understood too that they’d recovered the ADS so they could return to the vent and remove the bomb.

One of the men reached Tisa and cut off her charge with a flying tackle. Both tumbled across the deck. The second man rushed to her side. Mercer recognized the way he moved, so much like her lithe rhythm. Luc Nguyen.

Trapped in the armored suit dangling from the crane just inside the railing, there was nothing Mercer could do as Luc helped Tisa to her feet and tenderly wiped her hair off her face.

“Come on, Jim,” Mercer shouted, though he couldn’t be heard. “Do something!”

And Jim did. The argument reached a fever pitch. Charlie and Spirit were screaming. From under his untucked shirt, McKenzie pulled a snub-nosed revolver and pumped three shots into Charlie’s stomach. The bullets were hollow points and the spray of blood from his back was a hovering cloud of carmine mist.

Even inside the NewtSuit, Mercer could hear the triple blasts. He had no idea what he’d just witnessed. Spirit dropped to her knees next to her dead husband. Tisa appeared catatonic. Luc Nguyen left his sister’s side and padded over to Jim. The two embraced like long-separated friends.

The moment their backs were to her, Spirit leapt from where she’d fallen and raced at Mercer, her face a twisted mask of anguish and determination. One of the terrorists who’d boarded the
Angel
had reactions as quick as hers. He had his rifle up to his shoulder by the time she’d covered ten of the twenty feet separating her from Mercer.

Her strides were impossibly long, like those of a gazelle. She managed two more before the rifle cracked. The shot tore a chunk out of her shoulder and still she came.

The next bullet hit her square in the back and exploded out her stomach, carrying enough velocity to ricochet off the NewtSuit. Her mouth flew open and still she ran, born by momentum until she slammed into the ADS.

Spirit’s impetus pendulumed the five-hundred-pound suit over the rail with her clinging to its body. As soon as it cleared the ship, she mouthed, “Let go.”

At the apex of the swing, Mercer didn’t hesitate. He released the lock holding his pincer closed and the suit plummeted from the ship. Spirit lost her grip as they plunged into the water. Mercer fell through the layer of ash and dropped like a stone into the inky blackness, leaving Spirit to die in the ooze.

He was too stunned for several seconds to do anything but ride the NewtSuit as it sank ever deeper. When he finally broke free of his daze and activated the motors to arrest his descent, he found they didn’t have the power. The battered ADS was out of trim and negatively buoyant.

The fall seemed to go on forever, an endless slow-motion journey into the depths. The NewtSuit could take the pressure of a thousand feet, but Mercer knew the ruined visor would implode long before that. According to his gauge he’d already sunk five hundred feet. He hadn’t forgotten that La Palma was one of the steepest islands in the world. Its submerged buttresses would likely be even sheerer. For all he knew there was a mile of water under his feet.

He passed through eight hundred feet, a tiny figure outlined in the glow of his own lamps. He had been sure Spirit was the saboteur. Her New Age philosophy fit perfectly with the Order’s beliefs, and she had had the opportunity on the
Surveyor
and here. After being with C.W. for so long, she’d have known how to tinker with an ADS. But what had clinched it for him was how she’d been dressed during the eruption. Moments earlier she’d been arguing with C.W. Mercer had heard them in their cabin. She had run out as soon as she’d heard the blast. Charlie was taking his time getting dressed. He’d already put on his jeans and shoes. Mercer had been certain that was when she’d hit him, to prevent him from making the dive.

But he knew now that wasn’t how it was. She really had just run out. It was Jim who’d gone in when Charlie was dressing and bashed him with something. Her comment about him not being man enough to use C.W.’s suit hadn’t been made in a panic when she’d realized she’d damaged the wrong one. It was a possessive expression of love for C.W. She’d lashed out because she did have feelings for Mercer and hated herself for it.

He checked the gauge. A thousand feet. Around him was nothing but darkness.

Goddamned Jim McKenzie. He’d had more than enough opportunity and an obvious motive if he was a member of the Order. He’d done just enough to gain Mercer’s confidence. He’d stayed close enough to the center of things to make himself indispensable. He’d planned this setup since his admission on the
Surveyor
about a rogue signal activating the tower.

“Damn!” Mercer shouted aloud. The suit had an emergency lift bag. C.W. had referred to it as the antichute, joking that parachutes slow your descent, the antichute reverses it.

Mercer fumbled with the control pad in his right arm, lifting the safety catch off the antichute’s release button. He hit the switch and shouted with relief as the sounds of the bag inflating over his head filled the helmet. His descent came to a gradual halt.

But that was it. He didn’t start rising as he should have.

“Come on.” He hit the button again. The bag had deployed as far as it would. He’d damaged the cylinder of gas when he’d smashed away the engine back in the vent. Like someone trapped in the basket of a runaway hot air balloon, he started drifting with the benthic currents.