Dark Watch

Unbeknownst to Cabrillo and his crew, the Avalon had large holds both fore and aft that stretched from her bilge to her main deck and almost the entire breadth of the ship. So far, they had remained dry, thanks to tightly dogged hatches and servo-controlled louvers on the ventilation system that sealed it nearly airtight. It was their buoyancy that aided in keeping the survey ship from free-falling into the depths. While Juan was scrutinizing the door, one of the tightly closed vents began to buckle under the increasing pressure of water that was bottled within the ventilation ducts behind it. A flat jet of water sprayed from a gap between two of the louvers. It fell in a fine mist almost all the way across the hold. The slit between the louver’s metal fins was tiny, and only a few gallons per minute entered the hold — but every second saw the gap widening, and it was only a matter of time before the louver failed entirely, and a three-foot-square column of water roared into the hold.

The door, Juan noted, was a solid slab hinged from the outside. He could turn the handle freely once he’d removed a steel clamp that had been locked to prevent anyone from escaping during the initial raid. Only the pressure of the surrounding water kept him from drawing it open. To do that he needed to equalize the pressure on both sides. And to do that, he had to flood the antechamber on the other side with Tory trapped inside. It was a straightforward concept, and while Tory was in for the fright of her life as the room filled with water, Juan would have her out and breathing off a spare scuba tank before she was in any real danger.

He motioned over one of his divers and wrote what he needed on his slab. This man wore a full helmet with an integrated communications system that allowed him to talk with the dive master aboard the Oregon. Juan tapped the beat of “Shave and a Haircut” on the door while he waited for both Tory and his delivery from the ship. Waiting for either was interminable, but when the basket of tools and dive equipment was lowered from above and Tory still hadn’t arrived, Juan began to fear the worst.

Being trapped anywhere with the bodies of her friends littering the hallways was bad enough. Adding to the psychological stress was the fact that her prison was a hundred feet underwater and continuing to sink. It was amazing Tory hadn’t gone catatonic days ago. She was frightened, near hypothermic, and now soaking wet. Did she have it in her to reach the antechamber and remember to seal the room from the rest of the ship?

Cabrillo had his doubts. But there was no other way. Her cabin door would have burst and flooded the ship had they cut their way into the room. She would have drowned long before they could have made a hole big enough to even pass her a regulator. No, he thought, this was the only plan that could work.

He tapped his rhythm against the steel with his light again and again. Then he thought he heard something from within the ship. He tapped again, “Shave and a Haircut,” pulled off his hood, and pressed his ear against the door.

There. The unmistakable reply. Tap tap. Two bits. She’d made it.

He reached into the basket of tools he’d requested from the Oregon. First, he checked that the spare scuba tanks were ready. Next came the drill, which fed off two compressed air cylinders slung under the wire-mesh cage and attached by a long hose. The tip was specially hardened and at the RPMs generated by the air tanks would cut through the door in seconds. Cabrillo looked around. The divers at the stern must have finished securing the cable sling to the Avalon. A pair of them went to help those working at the bow while another two came over to help him.

Cabrillo braced his back against the heavy basket, pressed the drill bit near the bottom of the door, and pulled the trigger. The piercing whine was like actually standing on a tooth while a dentist went after a particularly nasty cavity. It drove spikes through his ears that met in the middle in a blinding point of pain. He ignored it and watched silver slivers of metal curl away from the drill point. In just a few seconds the tip bored through, and Juan carefully removed the drill from the hole. Water and bits of the shavings were sucked into the ship. He didn’t know the size of the antechamber and couldn’t guess how long it would take to fill, so all he could do was wait until the pressure had equalized enough for him to open the door.

He used a metal pry bar to tap at Tory and tell her he was with her. Her reply came instantly and angrily. She hadn’t expected that this was how she’d be rescued.

After four minutes, Juan pulled at the door with the pry bar, but it remained sealed tight, so he drilled two more holes and tried again every minute afterward with the same result. He was about to drill a few more to hurry the operation when something happened.