Just as his fingers were about to close around her arm, he jerked to a stop. He’d reached the end of his own umbilical. Below him Kate disappeared into the blackness as though carried by an invisible elevator.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

“LOWER ME,” GIDEON SHOUTED. “Lower me now!”

“What depth?” Big Al asked.

“Until I tell you to stop,” Gideon shouted. “Kate’s umbilical broke and she’s dropping like a rock.”

Timken’s voice broke in: “Chun?”

“Just like he said, sir,” Chun said. “Better drop him or you’ll lose her.”

Gideon felt the resistance of the umbilical give way as Big Al began paying out the umbilical with the winch.

It seemed that he was already in the dark. But as he slid deeper, the dark became an impenetrable black force. He swam as hard as he could.

“Gideon, you’re already at fifty meters,” Big Al said. “I’m going to have to start changing your air to heliox soon. You need to slow down so I can adjust—”

Gideon interrupted. “Just keep paying out the umbilical.”

“Sixty meters. Seventy.”

The pressure in Gideon’s ears was agonizing. He tried to clear them, but he couldn’t blow hard enough or fast enough. He was already deeper than he’d ever been.

“Eighty meters. Gideon! Are you sure—”

“Keep going, dammit!”

The world had gone completely black. He couldn’t even see a slight haze of gray above him now. And the water was cold, terribly cold. He kept looking around him, the dim white cone of light from his helmet piercing weakly into the darkness. Kate was nowhere to be seen.

But for some reason, it didn’t bother him. He heard a song being hummed, some half-remembered melody he couldn’t identify. Was he humming it, or was it just a voice in his head? It didn’t matter. Nothing really mattered. He laughed. Suddenly he wasn’t worried about anything.

“Ninety meters. Jesus Christ, Gideon!”

He realized dimly what was causing this feeling of pleasant disconnectedness. He was getting narced. Applying Martini’s Law, he was seven martinis to the wind.

Focus. Gideon willed himself to concentrate.

“Gideon, there’821 T‡s only a hundred meters of line.”

And then he saw her—a smudge of yellow below him. It was her helmet. All he needed was another few feet.

Closer. He could see the valves on her helmet, torn straps on her harness where the umbilical had ripped free. She still had the bailout bottle, though. They’d be able to make it.

Her helmet had a large handle on top. He wasn’t sure what its function was—whether for hauling divers out of the water, or for allowing an assistant to take your helmet for you. But whatever it was for, it would be perfect for him to grab hold of her.

He swam hard toward her, reaching for her with each stroke. His muscles were screaming now, and he could feel the CO2 building up in his blood from all the exertion.

Closer. He was almost there . . .

Just as his fingers were about to close around the handle, he felt a gentle tug on his back and his body swung around. He’d gone as deep as his umbilical would allow.

Kate continued to fall. She was more buoyant at this level because of the air that remained in her helmet, so she was falling very slowly now. But still she was sinking.

Gideon rotated his body around the pivot where the umbilical attached to his harness. He continued stroking with his hands, trying desperately to swing his feet toward her.

And then, he felt a thud against his foot. He was touching her.

He looked down, thrust his foot into the strap of her bailout bottle harness. And with that, she came to a stop.

“I got her!” he shouted. He was so narced up now that he couldn’t contain himself.

“Is she all right?” Big Al said.

But Gideon didn’t answer. He took a shallow breath, not wanting to move. He had a single toe looped under the strap. Just a breath of current might dislodge her. She felt light as a feather.

Big Al’s questions went unanswered as Gideon pulled her slowly upward until he was able to grasp the handle on top of the helmet. Then he pulled her around so he could see her face. She wasn’t moving, and her face was gray. He quickly turned the valve on the bailout bottle. He could hear the hiss as the air shot into Kate’s helmet.

“Come on!” he shouted. “Breathe!”

“Gideon, talk to me!” Big Al said. “What’s going on down there? Is she okay?”

“Her bailout’s working. But it’s straight atmospheric air. We’re too deep for atmospheric. We’re gonna have to deco her up to the damper as fast as we can.”

“I’ve already started switching you to heliox,” Big Al said. “Don’t want you getting messed up down there, too.”

“Speak English,” Timken said. “I don’t understand a word you’re saying.”

“You know what the bends are, Timken?” Big Al barked.

“Of course I know,” Timke822ဆn said. “The oxygen in your blood starts bubbling because you decompress too fast.”

“Nitrogen, actually. But, if you don’t shut up and let me do my job—”

A desperate gasp on the radio stopped him mid-sentence.

“She’s breathing!” Big Al exhaled his relief when he heard Gideon’s voice.

Deep below the surface, Kate’s eyes blinked open. She stared at Gideon, disoriented. Her lips moved. “Where am I?”

“You’re okay,” Gideon said. Then, to Big Al, he said, “Look, I don’t have deco tables in my head—not for dives this deep. How much decompression time will she need?”

“I don’t know. We’ve never gone atmospheric this deep.”

“Well, she’s only got forty cubic feet of air in the bailout.”

“What about yours?”

“My bailout got torn off when I dove through the wave line.”

“Shit,” Big Al said. “Lemme check the decompression tables.”

Kate was still staring at him, a moonstruck expression on her face.

“We don’t have time. Just pull us to seventy and pause for five,” Gideon said. “And then pull us to . . .”

And then, suddenly it came to him, how they could pull off their mission and defuse the bombs.

“Then pull us to fifty, pause for another five, then bring her to forty and pause for fifteen. I’ll stay with her to make sure she’s okay. Meantime, you can drop another umbilical and we’ll get her hooked up to heliox before her bailout dies. Okay?”

Gideon's War and Hard Target

“Got it,” Big Al said. “You okay, Kate?”

“Huh?” Kate said. It was obvious that she was in trouble. But they couldn’t rush her up without serious danger of the bends.

“All right, Chun,” Timken said. “I want you dropping to wherever they are so you can keep an eye on them.”

Big Al’s voice broke in. “I can’t do that. I’ve got to switch Gideon to heliox so he doesn’t get totally narced down there. You have to adjust the mix every time they move. I can’t keep on top of Chun’s air mix, too. Somebody will end up dead.”

“He’s right,” Chun said. “A lot of things can go wrong at seventy meters. With only one dive tender, we’re already pushing it.”

“Listen to me carefully, Gideon,” Timken said. “I get even a whiff that you’re doing something funky down there, we’ll cut the cables and let you fall to the bottom of the fucking sea. Are we clear?”

“Crystal.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

BY THE TIME GIDEON and Kate had decompressed their way back to forty meters, Kate was still looking bleary and listless. He kept having to remind her where she was.

He swam for a while against the current until finally the piers came into view. Swimming while holding on to Kate was extremely hard work . As he had hoped, the bottoms of the cradle braces were visible just above him. He pulled himself up the umbilical until he was even with the brace, a large steel strut attached to a steel collar around the pier.

He scanned it for wires or bombs or blocks of explosive. Nothing.

He began swimming again. It took nearly five minutes before he finally reached the second pier. The cluster of white cables was the first thing he saw. It split into twelve sets of two wires.