Devil's Gate

And then it dawned on him. He didn’t need a full-on blowtorch, just something that burned hot and sharp. He remembered the green tank he’d seen in the Constellation’s cockpit when he’d rescued Katarina. Green tank meant pure oxygen. Pure oxygen burned hot and sharp. Modulated just right, that could be his cutting torch.

He flipped open a small compartment door. Inside were the Barracuda’s emergency supplies. Two diver’s masks, sets of fins, and two small air tanks; ones he now wished contained one hundred percent oxygen but were filled with standard air.

Twenty-one percent oxygen and seventy-eight percent nitrogen didn’t burn, but at least it could be breathed.

He pulled them out.

Behind the tanks he found a packet of flares and an emergency locator transmitter, an ELT. An uninflated two-man raft completed the kit. Enough to save them if they could get free.

Kurt took one air tank and strapped it to Joe’s arm like a blood pressure cuff. He turned the valve and put the regulator up by Joe’s mouth.

“Breathe through your nose until the air in the Barracuda runs out, then start drawing on this,” he said.

Joe nodded. “Where are you going?” he asked. “Are you going to the surface?”

Kurt was pulling on a pair of small swim fins.

“Hell no,” he said. “I’m going to the hardware store to get us a cutting torch.”

Joe’s gaze narrowed. “Have you lost your mind?”

“Years ago,” Kurt said, pulling the mask down. He strapped the emergency air bottle to his own arm and turned the valve. “But that doesn’t mean I’m crazy.”

He took a test breath off of the yellow tank’s regulator.

Joe’s eyebrows went up. “You’re serious?”

Kurt nodded.

“I hope it’s not too far away, then,” Joe added.

Kurt hoped not as well. He knew roughly where they were when they’d been captured. He thought he could make it.

He put the regulator in his mouth and ducked his face into the water to look for one more thing that he’d need to pull it off. He found it and then submerged.

“Hurry back,” Joe said, but Kurt was already moving.

37

IF JOE HAD SAID ANYTHING ELSE, Kurt didn’t hear him. He dropped down out of the Barracuda like a man swimming from the mouth of a cave and began kicking forward with powerful strokes.

The fins weren’t full-sized, but they helped immensely, and with the mask on he could see clearly. But he still had to make a guess as to his whereabouts. He took out a piece of equipment he’d grabbed from the dash of the Barracuda: the magnetic compass.

It was just a dial in a sealed ball half filled with kerosene. As long as it hadn’t cracked or broken, it would still perform its only function. And that was to point toward the most powerful magnetic source around. Normally, that would be the north magnetic pole. But in this case Kurt guessed it would point toward the magnetic tower of rock.

Though he was quite certain the whole thing was a fraud of some kind, the magnetism emanating from the tower was real. Whether it was being generated by some type of device implanted within the rock that sent out an electromagnetic current or was just a result of highly charged minerals being positioned in the right place, he couldn’t say.

He lit one of the flares and held the compass out. It spun and dipped and slowly came onto a heading. The speed with which it centered told him it was reacting to something very strong, and he felt certain that it was pointing toward the tower.

Knowing he and Joe had been traveling basically to the east before they’d been caught, he triangulated in his head a direction to swim and lit out for the Constellation.

Five minutes later he came upon one of the ships in the graveyard. Two minutes after that he spotted the triple tails of the old aircraft. He pumped his legs hard, knowing both that time was ru

He ducked through the gaping hole in the aircraft’s side, swam forward surrounded by the bubbles he was exhaling, and made it to the cockpit.

A skeletal form sat in the copilot’s seat, still strapped in and stripped of everything organic. Only the plastic of the life vest, a pair of rusted dog tags, and the nylon-and-metal seat belt holding him in remained. Another few years and even the bones would be gone.

As he looked at the form for the second time, he realized that this plane’s presence had been part of what threw him. Part of what blinded him to the hoax.

The skeleton in the copilot’s seat, the CIA records of its secret mission, its departure from Santa Maria and its subsequent crash nine minutes later, all these things had lent some official credence to the mystery.

Putting the thought out of his mind, he reached down and released the clasp holding the oxygen tank to the floor. Picking it up, he studied the valve for signs of corrosion or decay. While there was some growth on the ring around the bottle’s neck, there didn’t appear to be much damage. He only hoped the thick steel tank still contained its pure cargo.

JOE ZAVALA REMAINED TRAPPED in the inverted hull of the Barracuda. His head and shoulders protruded into the cockpit and its lifesaving air pocket. His arms remained drawn awkwardly across his body, bent at the elbows and protruding out from under the cockpit’s rim. He could no longer feel his hands or his feet. But he could still think, and he realized that ru

The excess was merely pumping itself out over the side before it could be used.

He managed to stretch his leg once again and use his toes, numb as they were, to jab at the switch.

The jet of air bubbles ceased. The cabin of the cockpit grew deathly quiet, and Joe continued to breathe slowly and count the seconds until Kurt returned with whatever he had in mind.

It was only a question of time, he told himself. Kurt would return no matter what. Joe knew his friend would never give him up until there was literally no other way. He just hoped that whatever Kurt had in mind worked and worked quickly.

As he waited in the silence, Joe found counting to be utterly tedious as a method of passing time. In fact, he’d honestly begun to believe it actually slowed time down somehow.

He decided to sing instead, both as a way to fight the silence to keep himself alert and as a way to take his mind off the fear and freezing sensation that was creeping through his body.

At first he considered singing something related to warmth, but somehow belting out the Supremes’ version of “Heat Wave,” or a similar tune, seemed like it would make things worse in this frigid environment.

Instead he settled on another song, one that seemed more appropriate. It took a second to bring the words together, but then he was ready.

“We all live in a yellow submarine…” he began.

Even Joe would have admitted it was more talking than singing at this point, but it was something to do. And it gave him some ideas.

“Note to self,” he said. “Paint next submarine yellow. And include a heater that works underwater, even if the whole cockpit floods. And missiles, definitely missiles.”

With that note filed away, Joe continued, singing louder with each chorus. He was on the third chorus, really begi

He stretched out his leg and banged it against the control panel. His feet were so numb, he could only feel the impact higher up on his calf, but he knew he was in the right area. He tapped and tapped again, continuing his awkward attempts, until the air jets came back on.