Treasure Of Khan Part 10

Giordino desperately scanned the surface for signs of Pitt or the decompression chamber. But as the waters fell to a subtle calm again, only the bow section could be seen floating on the surface. The old fis.h.i.+ng boat had split in two from the force of the wave and only the bow section had survived the initial onslaught. The stern deck, with the compression chamber, had vanished from sight. The black-hulled wreckage of the bow bobbed only momentarily, its masthead swaying across the sky before it, too, disappeared in a gurgle of bubbles to the bottom of the frigid lake.

-4-

"HANG ON!" Theresa called over the sudden roar from the wall of water.

Her words echoed in the chamber as its occupants were violently tossed about. The entire chamber jerked upright as the striking wave lifted the fis.h.i.+ng boat on end. The three men and two women clung frantically to the welded railings of twin bunks, trying to keep their bodies from becoming flying missiles inside the chamber. Time seemed to stand still as the boat stalled in its attempt to climb the face of the wave. Then a loud cracking noise reverberated beneath their feet as the fis.h.i.+ng boat broke in two. Free of the lighter and more buoyant bow, the stern section slowly slid back vertically into the trough of the wave just as the brunt of its force rolled onward.

For Theresa, the impact seemed to occur in slow motion. The initial sensation of sinking on end predictably gave way to the tumbling force of the wave thrusting the chamber over on its back. Arms, legs, and torsos flailed about the chamber as it flipped over amid a chorus of cries and gasps. The minimal light that flared through the view port quickly dimmed, then vanished altogether, thrusting the interior into a frightening blackness.

Unseen by its victims, the wave had flipped over the entire stern section of the fis.h.i.+ng boat, pinning the chamber beneath it. The flooded engine compartment, aided by the weight of the engine and driveshaft, easily drove the inverted chamber toward the lake bed. Though the force of the wave surged past above them, the wreckage and chamber continued to descend under its own weight. Instead of becoming a life preserver, the decompression chamber had turned into a coffin, plunging its victims toward the cold depths of the Siberian lake.

The heavy steel chamber was built to withstand the force of thirty atmospheres, or the pressure found at a depth of one thousand feet. But the lake depths exceeded three thousand feet where the fis.h.i.+ng boat broke up, which would cause the chamber to implode before ever reaching the lake floor. Under its own weight, the encapsulated chamber would float freely on the surface and would be still buoyant even with five people inside. But pinned against the inverted stern section, the chamber was headed to the bottom.

As the light dimmed from the view port, Theresa knew that they were sinking deeper into the lake. She recalled Pitt's words at the last minute, calling the chamber a "bobber." It must float, she deduced. There was no apparent water leakage in the chamber, so another force must be driving them to sink.

"Everybody to this end of the chamber, if you're able," she shouted to the others after groping her way to one end. "We must s.h.i.+ft the weight."

Her dazed and battered companions crawled their way to Theresa, huddling together quietly while trying to aid one another's injuries in the dark. The thousand pounds of s.h.i.+fted weight alone might not have set them free, but Theresa had guessed right and placed everybody adjacent to what had been the stern edge of the boat. Above their heads now was the boat's engine, the heaviest part of the stern section. The combined concentration of weight was focused just off of dead center, and slight enough, to create an angular imbalance in the sinking wreckage.

As the plunging boat drove deeper, the pressure from the depths increased. Creaking sounds wafted through the chamber as the pressure limits were approached in its welded seams. But the s.h.i.+ft in ballast gradually weighed on the angle of descent, tipping the stern section of the boat slightly steeper. Inside the chamber, n.o.body could feel the s.h.i.+ft, but a slight sc.r.a.ping sound was heard as the chamber began sliding across the angled deck. The movement accelerated the imbalance until the chamber perceptively tipped upward. The gradient increased to almost forty degrees before the decompression chamber finally rattled off the stern edge and broke free of the sinking wreckage.

To those inside the chamber, it felt like a roller-coaster ride in reverse, as the buoyant capsule shot to the surface like a bullet. To Giordino, who scanned the lake surface high above in the Kamov, the sight reminded him of a Trident missile being launched from a submerged Ohio-cla.s.s nuclear submarine. After watching the wave pa.s.s and the bow section sink, he'd noticed a large surge of bubbles nearby. At a depth of eighty feet, he perceived, the white decompression chamber accelerating toward the surface. Released from the depths at a tilted angle, the chamber broke the surface nose first and shot completely out of the water before slamming down violently onto the surface. Hovering closer, Giordino could see that the chamber appeared airtight and floated easily in the light choppy waves.

Despite a severe battering, Theresa could hardly contain her relief at seeing blue sky again out the chamber's porthole window. Peering out the view port, she could see that they were floating steadily on the water. A shadow pa.s.sed by overhead, and she caught a rea.s.suring glimpse of the silver helicopter. With newfound light illuminating the interior again, she turned and surveyed the tumbled ma.s.s of bodies crowded around her.

The tumultuous ride had bruised and battered everyone, but amazingly there were no serious injuries. The fis.h.i.+ng boat's captain bled from a nasty gash to the forehead, while Wofford grimaced over a wrenched back. Roy and the two women managed to escape lasting injuries. Theresa wondered how many concussions and broken bones would have occurred had they not insulated themselves with the bed mattresses just before the wave struck. As she regained her senses, her thoughts drifted back to Pitt, wondering whether the man who had rescued them had himself survived the maelstrom.

The veteran head of NUMA had figured he could best beat the wave in open water. An experienced body surfer since his childhood days growing up in Newport Beach, Pitt knew that diving under the approaching wave would let it roll over him with minimal surge. After securing the survey team inside the decompression chamber, he'd quickly strapped on his faceplate attached to a Drager rebreather system and dropped over the side of the fis.h.i.+ng boat. Hitting the water, he kicked and pulled hard, attempting to swim away from the fis.h.i.+ng boat and dive beneath the wave before it struck. But he'd been just a few seconds too late.

The seiche wave broke over him just as he cleared the surface. Rather than escape under the pa.s.sing wave, he was positioned too shallow and found himself being drawn up the face of the wave. The sensation was of riding an ascending elevator at high speed and Pitt felt his stomach drop as his body was sucked upward. Unlike the fis.h.i.+ng boat, which rode the external surface of the wave before breaking up, Pitt was embedded within the ma.s.s of water and became part of the wave itself.

His ears rang from the rush of the mammoth wave while the turbulence of the roiling water dropped the visibility to zero. With the rebreather system on his back, he was able to breathe normally through his faceplate despite the tempest around him. For a moment, he felt like he was flying though air and a part of him actually enjoyed the ride, though the danger of being crushed under the wave gnawed at his senses. Trapped in the uplift, he realized there was no sense in fighting the overpowering force of water and relaxed slightly as he was pushed higher. He had no sensation of any forward motion, despite the fact he had already been carried several hundred yards from the point he entered the water.

As he zoomed upward, he suddenly felt a leg break free of the water, then a flash of light burst through his faceplate as his head broke the surface. His momentum s.h.i.+fted, and now he felt his body getting tugged forward. He instantly realized that he had been pushed to the very top of the wave and was in danger of getting hurled over the wave's leading edge. Just inches away, the peak of the wave dropped over thirty feet in a vertical wall of water to the lake surface. A torrent of white foamy water curled around him as the wave began showing signs of cresting. Pitt knew that if he fell over the precipice and the wave crested on top of him, he could be crushed to death under a ma.s.s of falling water.

Pivoting his body perpendicular to the wave front, he flung his arms through the water and kicked with all his might to swim over the top of the wave. He could feel himself being pulled backward from the momentum of the wave and willed his legs to kick harder against the water. With the frenzy of a sprint swimmer, he lunged over the wave crest, arms and legs flailing at a supersonic rate. The rus.h.i.+ng water continued to pull at his body, trying to suck him into the mora.s.s, but he willed himself on desperately.

Then suddenly the grip released and the wave seemed to let go beneath him. He felt himself falling headfirst, which meant he had made it to the backside of the wave. The elevator ride zipped down this time, but in a controlled free fall. He consciously tensed for an impact, but it never arrived. The rus.h.i.+ng force of water eased, then dissipated to nothing. In a froth of clearing bubbles, Pitt found himself floating freely underwater. As the loud rush of the wave diminished, he glanced at a depth gauge affixed to his harness and found that he was twenty feet under the surface.

Reorienting himself in the water, he eyed the s.h.i.+mmering lake surface above him and lazily kicked with tired legs until his head broke the water. Gazing toward the still-thundering rumble, he watched as the ma.s.sive wave rolled rapidly toward its destructive rendezvous with the south sh.o.r.eline. The roar slowly faded, and Pitt's ears detected the rotor-thumping sound of a helicopter take its place. Turning in the water, he saw the Kamov helicopter low in the sky making a beeline toward him. Scanning the lake, he saw no sign of the fis.h.i.+ng boat on the horizon.

Giordino brought the Kamov right alongside Pitt, hovering so low that waves washed over the helicopter's landing wheels. Pitt swam to the c.o.c.kpit as the pa.s.senger door was flung open above his head. Climbing up the landing skid, he hauled himself through the door and onto the pa.s.senger's seat. Giordino immediately elevated the helicopter as Pitt removed his faceplate.

"Some guys will do anything to hang ten," Giordino grinned, relieved to have found his friend in one piece.

"Turned out to be a lousy pipeline," Pitt gasped in exhaustion. "The fis.h.i.+ng boat?"

Giordino shook his head. "Didn't make it. Snapped in two like a twig. Thought we lost the decompression chamber, too, but she finally shot to the surface a short time later. I could see someone waving through the view port, so hopefully everyone inside that soda can is okay. I radioed the Vereshchagin and she's on her way to fish them out."

"Nice thinking, bringing the chamber over at the last minute. The crew wouldn't have made it otherwise."

"Sorry I didn't have a chance to yank you out before the surf hit."

"And spoil a good ride?" Pitt nodded at his good fortune in surviving the punis.h.i.+ng wave, then thought of the Vereshchagin. "How did the inst.i.tute s.h.i.+p fare?"

"The wave was down to fourteen feet near Listvyanka. The Vereshchagin apparently rode it through without a hitch. Rudi says a few of the deck chairs got rearranged, but otherwise they're fine. They expect that the village incurred a fair amount of damage."

Pitt looked down at the blue water below the c.o.c.kpit and was unable to spot the decompression chamber.

"How far did I travel?" he asked, finally catching his breath. The battering ride was catching up to him and he began to feel a dozen sore spots across his body.

"About three miles," Giordino replied.

"Covered in gold medal time, if I do say so myself," he said, wiping a bead of water off his brow.

Giordino accelerated the helicopter north, skimming low over the now-calm lake. A white object materialized in the water ahead, and Giordino slowed the Kamov as they reached the bobbing chamber.

"Bet the air in that tank is starting to get a little foul," he said.

"They'd need several more hours before any real danger of carbon dioxide poisoning," Pitt replied. "How long before the Vereshchagin arrives?"

"About ninety minutes. But I'm afraid we can't hang around and keep them company until then," Giordino said, tapping a fuel dial that was heading low.

"Well, if you'd kindly return to the deck, I'll let them know they haven't been abandoned."

"You just can't get enough of the cold lake water, can you?" he asked, lowering the helicopter till it hovered just a few feet above the water.

"Sort of like your affinity for pure Rocky Mountain springwater," Pitt countered. "Just make sure Alexander doesn't run us over," he said, pulling the faceplate back over his head.

With a short wave, he leaped out of the door, splas.h.i.+ng into the water just a few feet from the chamber. As Giordino swung the helicopter toward the approaching research s.h.i.+p, Pitt swam over to the chamber and pulled himself up to the view port and peered inside.

Theresa let out a gasp when she saw Pitt's faceplate pressed up against the view port.

"He's still alive," she said with amazement after recognizing the green eyes.

The others crowded around the porthole and waved at Pitt, not knowing he had been washed away nearly three miles before returning via the helicopter.

Pitt pointed a gloved finger at the occupants, then curled it toward his thumb and held it to the view port.

"He's asking if we're okay," Roy deciphered.

Tatiana, sitting closest to the view port, nodded yes and returned the gesture. Pitt then pointed toward his wrist.w.a.tch and held up his index finger.

Tatiana nodded again in understanding. "One hour," she said to the others. "Help is on the way."