by Cap Daniels
We each carried a high-pressure, steel, seventy-five cubic foot bail-out bottle with thirty-two percent nitrox. I helped Clark connect his tank to his mask and switch from the closed-circuit rebreather to breathing from the bottle.
“Let’s plan to meet at twenty-five feet just north of the east piling,” I said. “We’ll let the computers work a deco plan from there.”
Clark had no choice but to surface, grab a couple of nitrox tanks, and head back into the water to decompress and off-gas the nitrogen in his body. The minute or two he’d be out of the water wasn’t good for him, but there were no other options.
“Are you sure you’re going to be okay with this thing?” he asked.
“I have no idea, but what choice do we have? I’ll pull the rest of the detonators from the charges on this cable, and then I’ll spend a little time making sure this thing, whatever this is, doesn’t make anything go boom. I’ll meet you at twenty-five feet in twenty minutes or so, and we’ll plan the decompression.”
He flashed the okay signal and began his long, slow ascent through the soup and toward the surface.
I counted my fin kicks as I swam westward to ensure I could find my way back to the device after I’d pulled the detonators from the C4. I wished I had carried my GPS for that part, but the cumbersome buoy that had to be floated every time I needed a precise location fix was more trouble than it was worth for that kind of work
I found two more blocks of C4, disarmed them, and turned back for the center of the canal. I heard ships and smaller boats moving overhead, but I couldn’t see them. It was an eerie sound in the lonely and dark depths of the canal.
Counting my kick cycles worked nicely and delivered me back to the precise spot I’d left. Wires left the box in directions that didn’t make any sense. If our assumption about blowing the cables was correct, all of the wiring should’ve been headed toward the charges on the cables, but at least a dozen wires led south toward the Pacific Ocean.
I swam and traced the wires, having no idea what I’d find at the other end. I counted two hundred seventy-nine kick cycles, almost three hundred yards, and saw the massive trunk line running east and west across the floor of the canal. I assumed it contained electricity. C4 charges lined the metallic casing. There must’ve been thirty pounds of plastic explosive—enough to bring down the Empire State Building, and certainly enough to sever the trunk line.
I could try disarming the charges, or I could swim back to the hub and try disabling the circuit from there. Like Clark’s, my scrubber had to have been only minutes from failure, so time was not on my side. I turned and kicked to the north. I’d take my chances with the circuit.
The second my hand made contact with the controller, my dive computer started screaming.
Damn it. I need more time.
I found the low-pressure hose from my bail-out bottle and connected it to my regular. I’d have about thirty minutes of nitrox before I’d be sucking on an empty steel tank.
The surface of the box in front of me was perfectly smooth with no buttons, knobs, or dials of any kind. I had to get inside. I pulled Anya’s knife from its sheath, thankful I hadn’t sent it to the bottom with Javier’s boat, and I went to work prying on every corner and seam of the box. Finally, a crack the width of my thumb opened up, and I pulled with all my strength until I’d peeled the box open enough to get my hands inside. The torch mounted to the side of my facemask shined into the box, illuminating a maze of wires, tubes, and circuitry that made no sense to me. An electrical circuit underwater was enough to baffle me.
How can any of it work in this environment?
Everything was taking twice the time it should have. I checked my pressure gauge: fifteen hundred pounds. I decided I’d work on the circuits until I had a thousand pounds, and then I’d cut the wires leading to the trunk line and head for Clark. I was running out of ideas, options, and air all at the same time.
I’ve spent a great many hours of my life having no idea what I was doing, but I’d never before found myself eighty feet underwater, three hundred yards from thirty pounds of C4, with a box full of circuitry I didn’t understand in my lap. I checked my pressure gauge again: eleven-fifty. I tried to slow my heart rate and breathing, but it wasn’t happening.
I stuck my face in the box, hoping I’d see something that looked familiar, something I could disengage or deactivate, something to make me believe I was actually making progress.
Pressure check: one thousand fifty pounds.
Think, Chase, think. It’s a circuit. It has a power source, and . . . that’s it!
I frantically searched for anything I believed could be a power source—a battery, a capacitor, a hamster on a wheel. I pried a component from the box and exposed a compartment holding a battery. It had two posts with watertight connections and a wire leading from each—one red, one black.
I double-checked the wires exiting the box and leading to the explosives, and I considered cutting them. However, I feared there might’ve been something built into the circuitry that would send a signal through the remaining wires, detonating the plastic explosive. Surviving an explosion so near to that much C4 was doubtful.
Pressure check: nine-fifty.
My time was up. I had to either cut one of the wires from the battery or cut the wiring to the detonators. I thought it might be a good time to talk to God. If I screwed this up, I’d soon be having my first face-to-face with Him.
“Please don’t let me kill myself.”
I cut the red wire leading from the battery. Nothing. Well, nothing except the little accident that necessitated a clean pair of shorts. But there was no click, no snap, and most importantly, no explosion. Perhaps I’d made the correct decision. In the interest of keeping a stray spike of rogue voltage from finding its way to the detonators, I cut the external wires, too. I gathered the bundle of wires and placed my foot on them against the muddy seafloor. I slid the blade of the onyx-handled knife beneath the wires and pulled. Cutting them wasn’t as easy as I’d expected, and they put up quite a fight, but Anya’s knife and I were winning.
That’s when I heard it.
Sound travels about four times faster underwater than it does through the air. That creates a unique set of problems when trying to determine the origin of sound at depth. I heard a snap, like a twig breaking underfoot. It wasn’t a sound I’d ever heard in all the hours I’d spent underwater. It was impossible to determine where it had originated or how far away it was.
A concussion pummeled through my chest and head, and I watched the world around me dissolve into perfect, empty darkness. No sound. No light. Nothing. Just vast, utter desolation.
18
My Coffin
I found myself in a terrifying freefall, and I clung to everything I could touch—anything I perceived as stable—but the falling continued. The darkness into which I was propelled gave way to a brilliant white field of nothing, as if I were flying through a blizzard of snow. I thought I heard muffled voices from a great distance. Sickness consumed my gut, and I tried to vomit, but nothing would come. Every sensation I was experiencing was foreign to me. In a dizzying plummet, I was spinning and falling into some bottomless pit—maybe into Hell. My vision was lost in the endless chasm of brilliant white, and my perception of the world had lost all foundation. Nothing made sense. Everything hurt, and I was alone, imprisoned in my horror, pain, and confusion.
The endless falling had to stop. Surely there had to be a bottom. The spinning was maddening. The tighter I clung to everything in my grasp, the faster I spun, and the farther I fell. I clamped my eyelids shut so tightly I could feel the muscles in my jaws cramp and spasm in protest. No matter how firmly I closed my eyes, the incessant white light blinded me more and more.
Am I dead? Is this what happens when the soul departs the flesh? Is there no judgment? No pearly gate? No streets of gold? No flames? No angels? No demons? Is there nothing but the white, burning light, and the relentless, spiraling, terrifying descent? Are
there no sounds but the hollow echoes from beyond the light? Is there nothing more?
And then there was more, or perhaps, less. Tiny shafts of colored light pierced the white. There was pressure in my ears, but the distant sounds were gone. I lay in perfect silence and watched the shafts of color become beams, and finally, fields of green and blue. I reached out to grasp at the colors, but my hands met a wall—a solid, endless, invisible wall. I was encased in a coffin that I couldn’t see, but that I could feel. The sensation of falling stopped but was replaced by a ringing tone in my head that wouldn’t go away. It was deafening and maddening, but I was eternally thankful I was no longer falling.
My vision continued to improve, but the more I could see, the more terrifying and confusing my condition became. Encased in a glass coffin, the ringing still screamed in my ears, and every muscle of my body ached as if I’d been run over by a truck. I slowly returned from my horrific journey to wherever I’d been, but I was still lost, still confused, and still imprisoned.
Distorted objects formed into blocky silhouettes. Shapes that may have been people moved around, busy at some invisible task. I tried calling out to them, but the sound of my voice only echoed inside my coffin, and no one looked my way. Perhaps the shapes were only spirits without the capacity to hear, see, or help me.
Unable to make sense of the world beyond my confinement, I closed my eyes and tried to piece together what had happened.
Through the incessant ringing in my ears, I heard a voice, tinny and hollow.
“How are you feeling?”
“What?” I mumbled.
“I said, how are you feeling?”
“It hurts,” I managed to say.
“I’m sure it does, but it’s good to see you awake. Can you tell me your name?”
I blinked my eyes and tried to focus. There appeared to be a man, or perhaps a spirit, standing just beyond the walls of my coffin.
Could he be the voice I’m hearing?
“Can you tell me your name?” the voice said again.
“Can you tell me yours?” I said.
He laughed. “I’m Dr. Shadrack.”
“Is this the fiery furnace, Shadrack?”
He laughed again. “Are you Jewish?”
“No, no, I’m not Jewish. I’m Protestant. Does that matter here?”
I still had no idea where I was, but I vividly remembered the story from the Book of Daniel about Shadrack, Meshach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace.
“I’m sure you have a lot of questions, my young Protestant friend, but for now, just relax and try to rest.”
“Wait,” I demanded. “Where am I? What is this place?”
“You’re in a recompression chamber aboard the research vessel Lori Danielle. You have a nasty case of the bends, but we’re going to take care of that. You have a few more hours before we can start bringing you up, but I’ll be back to check on you from time to time. Get some rest.”
The bends? How did I get bent? I’ve not been in the water.
So many incomprehensible things had happened in the last four years of my life. Me lying on my back in a recompression chamber on a research vessel I’d never heard of, with every cell of my body trying to explode, was just one more episode I’d have to file away in the “How’d this happen?” drawer.
I tried not to think about being trapped in a glass tube, but that’s easier said than done. Fred—the psychiatrist at The Ranch where I was transformed from a former baseball player into an assassin—had taught me some meditation techniques, and I put them to good use. I was able to remain calm and relaxed, and I soon drifted off to sleep.
“I made to you promise, Chasechka.”
“Anya?” I tried to force my eyes open.
“For you, it is to rest while I keep promise.”
“What promise? What are you talking about, Anya?”
Her tone and Russian-accented English were unmistakable. I could pick out her voice from a thousand others. It was her. I couldn’t see her, but I could feel her next to me, and I could almost smell her long, blonde hair. I was certain of almost nothing else, but it was her. I’d longed to hear that voice again—to listen to her say my name and to feel her in my arms. I’d loved her once, but she’d been nothing more than an actress. She played a role, pretending to love me, inch by inch working her way into my life so she could report my every move back to the Kremlin, back to her SVR masters, back to Russian intelligence. I’d watched her take a bullet to the back and fall to her death, but since that horrible day, I’d seen hopeful glimpses of her still being very much alive and lethal. She’d been the deadliest assassin I could have ever imagined—far more dangerous than me, and far more cunning and competent.
“I made to you promise on beach in Key West island to tell you everything I know about your family.”
Chills ran the length of my spine, and every hair on my body stood erect. She had made that promise. She’d vowed to tell me everything she knew as soon as our mission to rescue Skipper was complete. Anya had played an invaluable role in that mission, saving both my and Skipper’s lives before losing her own. I believed I’d never hear her voice again, and that I’d never learn what she knew about my family.
“Tell me,” I demanded. “Tell me what you know!”
“You must relax, my Chase. I will tell you everything I know, but you will not ask questions. For you, it is only to listen to my voice. Yes?”
I nodded and bit at my bottom lip in anxious anticipation of what I was about to hear.
“There’s a plastic squeeze bottle beneath your left hand if you get thirsty.”
That isn’t Anya’s voice.
“What?”
I blinked and tried to focus, but my vision was still too dull to discern more than blurry, irregular shapes.
“If you get thirsty,” said Dr. Shadrack, “there’s a bottle of water beneath your left hand. You’ve been in the chamber for just over two hours, and you still have a long time to go. Drink all you’d like. You have a catheter in place, so you don’t have to worry about going to the restroom. How are you feeling?”
I leaned toward the clear glass of the chamber. “Did you see a beautiful, blonde Russian woman out there?”
He laughed, “No, I’m afraid I didn’t. But I’ll certainly keep my eyes open for one, and if she shows up, I call dibs.”
I lay back, found the water bottle he’d described, and took a long drink. The water was warm and bitter, but I was thirsty.
I tried Fred’s meditation exercises again. I wanted—I needed—Anya to come back. Through grogginess and confusion, scenes of being underwater flashed into my mind, and I was uncertain of everything in those dark, brief flashes of memory.
I’d been given drugs to help me rest, and it was difficult to hold my eyes open. The brief flashbacks continued.
Clark! Clark was in the water with me.
I beat on the glass of the recompression chamber. “Clark! Where’s my partner, Clark Johnson? He was with me in the water.”
I vaguely saw a figure growing nearer, and Dr. Shadrack’s voice filled the chamber once again. “Mr. Johnson is in our other recompression chamber, just over there.”
I imagined him pointing, but of course, I couldn’t see what he was doing.
“Is he all right?” I breathed.
“He’s going to be fine. He wasn’t as close to the explosion as you. He’s suffering from decompression sickness, but he isn’t wounded.”
“What explosion?” I asked.
“Just get some rest and drink your water. I’ll be back to check on you in a bit.”
“I want to talk to Clark,” I said, trying to sound authoritative.
The figure outside the chamber stopped moving away and appeared motionless.
“Okay,” he finally said. “I think we can do that, but the connection is going to be shaky. I’ll have to hold the handsets together.”
I could see him shuffling around, and then Clark’s electronic, hollow voice filled
my chamber.
“How you doin’, college boy?”
“I feel like I’ve been stepped on by an elephant a few dozen times, and somebody’s inside my head banging on a gong, but other than that, I’m doing okay. How about you?”
“I guess you were right about the bends,” he said. “I should’ve been more careful, but somebody had to get you some help, and I was the only volunteer in the neighborhood.”
I tried to piece the shards of my memory back together. “What happened, Clark?”
“What do you mean what happened?” he said.
“I don’t remember anything. I have no idea what’s going on. Can you put it together for me?”
He cleared his throat. “That Dr. Shadrack looks like quite the jackass. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“I can’t see him,” I said. “My vision is pretty screwed up.”
“That’s okay,” said Clark. “I was just testing to see if he could hear me before I briefed you on how we got here.”
“Did he react?” I asked.
“Nope. He just stood there looking bored. So, here’s what happened. The Chinese sank a freighter in the Miraflores Locks and blew the gates, so you and I were defusing a quarter ton of C4 attached to the underwater cables beneath the Bridge of the Americas. That’s when you set off an underwater fireworks show. You breached out of the water like a dolphin at SeaWorld. I scooped you up, threw you in the RHIB, and ran for the ship we saw in the anchorage carrying the American flag. Why did you leave the key in the boat, by the way? You never do that?”
“What?” I mumbled again.
“Never mind about the key. Anyway, I figured they’d have a doctor aboard the research vessel, or at least know how to get you to one. By the time we got on board, I was getting pretty sick, and you still weren’t conscious. They patched you up and threw us both in a chamber. Now you’re pretty well caught up.”
Flashes of the scenes Clark had described danced in my head but wouldn’t come together to form complete memories.
“Did you say the Bridge of the Americas . . . in Panama?”
