Brainrush 03 - Beyond Judgment (40 page)

Visibility was limited to seven or eight feet. When Jonesy reached the bottom, it was apparent that the current was no longer tugging at him. The flashlight stopped panning. He’d spotted something. He moved toward it, and a metallic column came into view. It resembled a ship’s smokestack, projecting seven or eight feet from the bottom of the pool. The funnel appeared wide enough to pass a car through. Jonesy hugged the bottom as he approached. He slid slowly up the stack. Handholds along the upper perimeter allowed him to keep from
being sucked in. He peered over the top. The opening was covered with a mesh grate. Water rushed through it.

Jake ground his teeth. It figures, he thought. A tunnel. Filled with water. Pitch black. And his kids were somewhere at the other end. A claustrophobic’s nightmare come true. He suppressed a shiver.

“Rig it,” Becker ordered.

Jake watched as the operator opened his cargo pocket and pulled out the first C-4 demo-charge. He’d been under for fifty-seven seconds—Jake had kept track. He watched with admiration as Jonesy calmly placed a charge at each of four connecting points around the grate. Red warning lights illuminated on each as he armed them. When the last charge was set, he turned and made for the surface. Tony kept tension on the line. By the time Jonesy’s head broke clear, the total elapsed time was two minutes and twenty-four seconds.

“The guy’s a fish,” Tony said.

No kidding, Jake thought. He remembered back to his days of holding his breath underwater longer than the other kids in the pool. He doubted that he’d ever gone longer than ninety seconds.

Jonesy removed his mask and fins and stepped out of the water. “All set, sir,” he reported, pulling the remote detonator from his pack.

“Let her rip.”

“Fire in the hole!” the operator said. He pressed the switch.

Jake heard a soft rumble. A moment later, a surge of bubbles disturbed the surface of the water.

“Back door’s open,” Tony said.

Cal’s voice broke over the comm net. “Raider One, this is Rogue Two-Four. How do you read?”

“That was fast,” Tony said.

Way to go, pal, Jake thought, grinning at Cal’s choice for his call sign. It was a reflection of both his personality and his love for surfing the biggest rogue waves he could find.

“Loud and clear, Rogue,” Becker said. “Welcome to the party.”

“It ain’t a party until the gifts arrive. And I’ve got a pile of ’em. I’m feet dry. Two clicks out.”

Jake wondered at the clarity of Cal’s transmission—and the fact that he couldn’t hear the distinctive thrum of the helicopter’s rotors. He said, “You’re riding pretty quiet up there, Rogue.”

“Our mutual pal calls it silk mode.”

Jake knew he was speaking about Kenny. They never used names on the air. The stealth chopper was another one of Kenny’s toys.

“Rogue Two-Four,” Becker said, bringing the conversation to the business at hand. He pressed a designator on his wristband. “Sync to network Charlie Alpha Four.”

“Roger, Charlie Alpha Four.”

A flashing icon appeared on the perimeter of Jake’s wrist screen. It was designated R24. Cal was now linked into their digital command network. His HUD—heads-up display—would provide him with the same images as those available on their wrist screens.

“Tallyho, Raider One,” Cal said. “I’m ninety seconds out.”

“There’s not enough clearance to land, Rogue Two-Four,” Becker said. “You’ll have to winch it down.”

“Copy, Raid—” Cal cut off and said, “Stand by, One. I’ve got activity.” His voice was urgent.

“Movement on our flank!” one of the scouts reported over the comm net. “Ground force. Multiple targets. Danger close.”

“Shit,” Tony said, pulling his M4 to the ready position. He sprinted toward the trees. Jake and Becker were right behind him. Jonesy scooped up his SR-25 sniper rifle and made for higher ground.

“
Mother
,” Becker ordered. “Scout rear. Two hundred meters.”

“Where the hell did they all come from?” Tony said, looking at his wrist screen.

Two dozen hostile-designated icons fanned out behind their position.

“Gotta be a trap door in the jungle floor,” Becker said. “We must have triggered a sensor.”

“Standing off, Raider One,” Becker said. “This bird’s got no teeth.”

“Get small,” Becker ordered on the comm net. To Jake and Tony he added, “Problem is that the chopper is strictly recon. It isn’t a gunship. Ground fire would eat him alive. And it’s loaded with Aqua-Lungs, not reinforce—”

Gunfire erupted in the distance. All three men dove for cover.

“Weapons free!” Becker ordered, scrambling behind the base of a coconut tree. “Set claymores. Fall back to the secondary perimeter.” Then he pressed the drone command switch and said, “Record message.”

“
Recording.
”

“Emergency transmission. Under attack. Ground assault. Execute tactical plan Delta. End recording.” He issued the launch commands.

More gunfire.

“Activate defensive systems,” Becker added.

Mother Ship
’
s
voice remained sultry. “
Defensive systems activated. Twenty-one ground targets acquired.
”

The sharp crack of the first exploding claymore popped Jake’s eardrums. A plume of white smoke broke the canopy less than one hundred meters ahead.

Gunfire resounded from within the trees. The buzz of a ricocheted bullet spun past the trio, and Jake ducked lower.

“
Thirty-eight ground targets acquired.
”

“Jesus,” Tony said, kneeling behind the next tree. “They’re popping out of the ground faster than rats from a flooding sewer.”

Mother Ship
switched to tactical support mode. It rose in altitude and superimposed an electronic grid on Jake’s wrist display. Friend and foe were identified with glowing green and red
icons. Jake’s stomach tightened as he watched the scene unfold. The six outlying team members blitzed inward to form a defensive perimeter near the edge of the small clearing. Enemy icons closed in on them from three sides. Tactical plan Delta called for an orderly retreat that was dependent on backup support from teams three and four. But by the time they arrived, Jake and the rest of them would be overwhelmed. He’d never find his children. Victor would win.

No way.

Movement to his right caught his attention. The surface whirlpool was visible again.

A second claymore went off. More rounds buzzed overhead.

Jake ignored it all—including Tony’s shout of dismay when Jake took off in a sprint toward the water.

He scooped up Jonesy’s backpack, looped it over his shoulder, and dove into the pool.

Grid Countdown: 1h:45m:30s

The Island
5:46 a.m.

T
HE LAST TWO
times Sarafina had been taken hostage had been six years ago—first in the mountains of Afghanistan and then in the Venezuelan jungle. In both cases, she and her mom had been drugged and thrown into dirty cells without food, water, or dignity.

This time couldn’t have been more different.

She and Alex—along with a hundred or so other kids and many of their parents—sat at long tables in a cafeteria. It was as big as the dining hall at Hogwarts. Unlike the fictional school for magic, however—where students wore drab uniforms—children on the island were encouraged to flaunt their personality and cultural diversity with their outfits. Every style and color imaginable was represented. She saw bright saris from India, lederhosen from Germany, and a group of daredevil Japanese teens dressed in a bizarre fusion of East-meets-West that belonged on the cover of a fashion magazine. Three African children wore neck, wrist, and arm adornments over richly colored wraps.

Sarafina couldn’t have felt more underdressed. She and Alex still wore the jeans, T-shirts, and tennis shoes they’d purchased
in Venice. They’d left their sweatshirts and backpacks in their room.

They focused on their food, avoiding the inquisitive looks of the families around them. Most of them were new arrivals as well. Quite a few had filtered into the room in the past few minutes. But they seemed different from the people she’d met when they had first arrived with Victor Brun. This group seemed out of place to Sarafina. It was as if they weren’t part of the “in crowd.” On the surface they seemed polite enough, but underneath she sensed a brooding well of apprehension. They may not have been dragged into this situation in the same way she and Alex had been, but they knew there was a lot more going on than met the eye.

It left a pall of tension over the room.

The food was good, but she still had to force herself to eat. The daylong flight and boat ride had taken them halfway around the world—a world that was on the brink of collapse. How could her mother and father possibly find them? And even if they could, what difference could they make? She’d never felt more alone. She pushed her plate away.

As if sensing her despair, Alex leaned his shoulder into her. His cheeks pulsated with the pasta he’d just stuffed into his mouth. He pulled her plate back in front of her.

He was right, of course. She needed her strength for whatever lay ahead. And she was anything but alone. Her little brother depended on her. Or was it the other way around? She drew strength from his calm demeanor. He’d grown so much in the last few days—in ways she couldn’t fathom. Ever since that moment in San Michelle when he’d met Jake. It was as if some secret of the universe had passed between them, something that had convinced Alex that everything was going to be all right. It reminded her that miracles
do
happen. After all, her father had returned, hadn’t he?—when they’d thought him dead for over six years? And with him back,
anything
was
possible. One thing she knew for certain: he would stop at nothing to find them.

Suddenly, Alex took her hand and squeezed it. He stared up at her. His eyes were wide as saucers, and a strand of spaghetti dangled from his lip. A crooked grin brightened his face.

And suddenly she felt it, too.

In her mind.

Daddy’s here!

Grid Countdown: 1h:45m:30s

The Island
5:46 a.m.

W
HAT ONE MAN
can do, another can do.

Jake repeated the mantra in his mind, recalling Anthony Hopkins’s words from the movie
The Edge
as he had prepared to kill a 1,500-pound bear using nothing more than a sharpened stick—as Indians had done in the past.

Jake swam toward the widening vortex, drawing in a succession of ever-deepening breaths.

Houdini could hold his breath for three and a half minutes.

As he slipped over the lip of the deepening swirl, he purged his lungs of every bit of air. He allowed the current to sweep him in circles as he pulled on the mask from Jonesy’s pack and grabbed the flashlight.

In 2008 Tom Sietas set the world record at over ten minutes.

Jake took one final breath, forcing air into every pocket of his lungs. Then he sealed his lips—and his fate—and jackknifed into the depths.

The force of the plunging funnel of water gripped him tighter than a straitjacket. He corkscrewed down at an alarming speed. It was all he could do to hold the flashlight in front of him in a
double-handed grip. The intake stack was dead ahead. The rebar grate was gone. But the jagged edges of the four sheer points jutted inward like rusty daggers. He stiffened his body and cocked his extended forearms to one side, using them like a forward rudder to adjust his angle of entry. He torpedoed into the tube.

He was an underwater bullet train. The smooth walls of the man-made tube rushed past him. His speed accelerated, time ticked by, and his lungs burned.

What one man can do…

He spun and twisted through the water. After a long stretch, he had the vague sense that the tube had turned horizontal. But he wasn’t sure. Up and down had no meaning. His world was reduced to the halo of light that stretched a few feet ahead of the flashlight. Jake didn’t need to check his watch to note the elapsed time. His brain was way ahead of him.