One Mile Under (28 page)

“You’ll find out,” Robertson said. “Out.”

She didn’t move, her wrists clasped, and held on to a strap on the seat in front of her.

“Get her out.” Robertson signaled to the driver. The man in front came and yanked her by the cord binding her wrists and Dani tumbled out of the car onto the ground.

“Ms. Whalen, I’m truly sorry it’s come to this,” the man in the plaid shirt said as he stepped up to her. “It’s not the kind of methods we usually use, but you’ve proven to be quite a nuisance, against all our warnings. Both here and back at home.”

What warnings …?
she thought. Then it hit her.
Wade?

“So, like most potential stumbling blocks, maybe it’s better just to get them out of the way up front. You know how these sorts of things only come up and bite you later on.”

“Who are you?” Dani asked.

“Not to worry about that. You’ve got far more crucial and immediate things to be concerned with about.”

“You won’t get away with it.” Dani glared. “He’ll get you. I don’t know what you thought you did to him, but he’s alive. He’ll bring you down.”

“Well, that’s something you needn’t be worrying your head about right now,” the man said. “Leave that as our problem. Take her up.” He nodded to Robertson. “I’m told you’ve wanted to learn about the water supply for our work here. I think it’s time you got to see it for yourself.”

“He’s going to kill you!” Dani yelled as Robertson dragged her toward a closed security door. The Alpha man headed back to the Audi. “You’ll rot in hell. He’ll kill you all!”

“By all means cling to whatever fantasy makes you feel good right now,” the man said back.

She fought, as Robertson kicked her legs out and dragged her to the door. She saw the rounded, concrete tunnel that seemed to run down to the river. She also saw a dam, one she’d never noticed from the road, the water table high on the Greeley side, water cascading through openings at the top and no more than a trickle on the Templeton side.
The Falls.
Robertson keyed in a code on the door lock and it opened, a buzzer going off. He wrestled Dani inside.

It was a huge metal tank, at least forty feet high. The sealed door clanged shut, echoing throughout the chamber. There was a metal staircase leading up the sides and catwalks on every level, and an escape door that led outside halfway up. Robertson pulling her by her binds, they began to climb.

“So since you wanted to know so badly, this is how we divert water from the river to the wells. It’s consolidated by the dam, then pumped in here through that underground conduit you saw outside, where it’s transferred to the trucks, which take it around to our active wells. You already know it takes quite a supply to keep the fragmentation process running …” He pulled Dani up, one step at a time, their footsteps clanging on the metal stairs, echoing through the empty chamber. There was about eight to ten feet of sitting water at the base below ground level.

“What are you going to do with me?”

A buzzer went off, the noise slicing through her. It kept repeating, five times.
What was going on?

Then it stopped. Suddenly she heard a sound and saw the water level below her begin to swirl.

And slowly rise.

Water began to rush in.

“That’s coming in from the river.” Robertson kept pulling her up. “Through that conduit outside. Now come on along …” he said, the way you might to a child, “or I’ll punch your lights out here and just throw you in. Up to you. I promise, it’ll only make it worse.”

“Please, don’t.
Don’t,
” she said, fear rippling through her. “You don’t have to do this.”

They were on the second level now, above the water level, which, to Dani’s mounting alarm, was rising. It suddenly became clear what was going to happen. The current of the river water sloshing around was pouring in through multiple conduits. She looked up to the top.

“Ten minutes.” Robertson saw what she was thinking. “Until the water goes all the way up. Fifteen max.”

“People will find me,” she said, fighting against him as Robertson kept dragging her up. “They’ll know I’m here.”

“No one’s going to find you. When you get carried up to the wells, you’ll end up in an underground drainage pipeline we use to divert the tainted fracking water. All mud and slough. It’ll take as much as an earthquake for you to turn up one day. No one will ever even know.”

“
Please,
” she begged, pulling back from his grasp and looking into his eyes. “Please …” Knowing as she said it that this was the man who had killed Trey, and who had likely shot down that balloon. It was all falling on deaf ears. A professional.

“We gave you enough warnings. We told you to stay away.”

She kept pulling against him. “
Please
.”

Robertson forced her up another flight of stairs. There was a door there, the door she had seen outside leading to an emergency outside staircase. The only way out. That was how he was going to leave. She suddenly knew she was going to die in here. She’d drown. Deposited like waste in some deep, underground chasm. No one would ever know what happened to her.

They stopped at the landing in front of the door. “End of the line.”

They stood above the swirling water. The level had risen to about twenty feet now, increasing rapidly. No more than ten feet below them now. Thrashing and bouncing against the walls like whirlpools as it poured in from the multiple pumps. Close to half the tank was filled. Dani searched around frantically for any other way out.

“There is none.” Robertson yanked her over to the railing. “No other way out. Now, c’mon, don’t make the job tougher than it has to be.”

She knew now that Ty wasn’t going to come in time. She’d tried to alert him, but who knew if he’d even heard. Maybe he was dealing with his own situations. Maybe he wasn’t even alive any longer. She willed herself not to cry so that Robertson wouldn’t see her crumble.

“He’ll kill you.” She looked in Robertson’s face. “You know that, don’t you? He’ll kill you for doing this.”

“You keep saying that.” The Alpha man smirked through his light beard. “And maybe, someone will one day. But in his case, I don’t think so. He’s just one man.”

“Be sure of it.” The fire in her eyes softened into a resolute smile. “He will.”

“Well, here’s what I am sure of …” With a grunt, he threw her forward and forced her chest over the railing.

She looked down at the black, swirling water.
This was it.

“You know this kind of reminds me of a joke I heard once … Bad timing, I know, but let’s call it payback for that gash back at the restaurant. Two black guys are fishing off a bridge. They both have to take a pee. One opens his fly and his thing drops all the way into the water. ‘My, this water’s cold …’ he says, and beams at his friend with pride. So his friend opens up
his
fly and his drops all the way to the water, too. ‘Yeah’—he smiles back to his buddy, ‘and it sure is deep.’ It sure is deep.” He laughed. “Get what I’m saying.”

Dani spun and tried to strike him in the face, her fists locked together. But Robertson avoided it easily and hoisted her up by the waist. “You’re right. Maybe it wasn’t so funny after all. Enjoy the swim.”

He pushed her over. Dani let out a scream. She fell, hitting the surface in a ball, the water cold and oily and metallic. She kicked up to the surface, her arms in front of her. Robertson was still standing over her, leaning over the railing, a satisfied smirk on his face. He gave her a wave.

She knew she had to conserve her strength. Thrashing around in the ice-cold water could easily sap it. She brought up her knees and pulled off her unlaced Converses, tossing them back in the water, and flutter-kicked to the side of the tank and held on to a railing there.

The water kept rising, the river pouring in. The first thing she had to do if she had any chance was to get her hands free. Her wrists were bound with a synthetic boating rope. She dug at the knots frantically with her teeth, trying to loosen them. Robertson just kept watching her from above, amused; the whole thing was almost like an entertainment to him. What did it even matter if she got free? In minutes the tank would fill completely. In a short time, she was going to drown in here anyway.

Heart pounding, she glanced up. The water continued to rise. She gauged she was about twenty feet from the top.

Twenty feet. Maybe all of eight minutes.

Finally the water rose to within a foot or two of Robertson on the catwalk. “Don’t stay in too long …” He waved. “And watch out for that current. I hear it’s a doozie.” He laughed and opened the outside door, which Dani saw had pressurized sealed mechanisms, and locked it behind him, completely sealing her in.

She was trapped now.

Frantically, she dug even harder at her binds. Water splashing over her, going into her mouth; she managed to loosen one just enough that she created a small space and wiggled her wrist free. She looked up at the ceiling one more time, and saw it getting closer. She had to climb to a higher rung. Finally she got it free enough to squeeze one wrist through, then she feverishly pulled at the other knot, the water making the cord a bit soggy, which made it harder to loosen, until she pried her other wrist through.

She was free.

But free for what?
To rise up with the water to the top of the tank and drown.

The catwalk where Robertson had just been standing was now underwater, so Dani swam across, took a breath, and dived down to the spot where the door was. It had a sealed window on it. Dani tugged at the bar, trying to open it, but it wouldn’t budge.

It was locked from outside.

She was in a massive tank with no way out, and the ceiling was coming closer to her with every second.

Panic began to set in. There was nothing she could do but ride it all the way to the top. Maybe there’d be a bit of air space up there, enough to breathe for a while. But ultimately, she’d give out. They would drain the tank to recover her body. Even if she miraculously lasted until they checked, they would kill her then.

She looked up and saw she was within ten feet of the top now. There had to be another way out. There had to be.

Then something flashed into her head. Maybe something she had learned in college. In Geology 101. Or was it physics? About water in a vacuum: the displacement and different levels of unequal pressure balancing.

How certain oceanic canyons were made.

She thought that maybe there was a chance that could be at work here. If it wasn’t, she would surely drown. But if she stayed where she was, she knew she’d be dead in a few minutes anyway.

Please, let this work.

Dani sucked a huge gulp of air into her lungs and dove, scissor-kicking against the current, until she made it all the way down to the open, conduit valves where the river water was pouring in. Maybe forty feet below.

If she could somehow fit herself through the opening, there might just be air pockets in there.

It seemingly took a full minute to swim her way down. Only someone strong and trained, who knew how to swim against fast currents, would have even made it. The wide, open pipes were about six feet from the bottom, the resistance even stronger there, water pouring in. It was like a huge Jacuzzi jet battling against her. Treading water, her lungs starting to strain, she tried to gauge the width of the open pipe.

Three feet across at most. Enough to squeeze herself through, she prayed.

Her lungs were aching now. She moved toward the opening and the current flung her back.

Don’t panic
. It had been over a minute now and the water was blowing forcefully all around her, dozens of gallons pouring in every second, hurling her back into the tank. It was like trying to climb up against a waterfall.

Pain started to rip her insides apart. She flutter-kicked and came at it from the side. She didn’t have much time. Maybe only one last try. She clenched her teeth, air bubbles escaping.

This had to be it.

Dani locked on to the rim of the large pipe and joyfully saw what she was praying to see.

Water was streaming in, but it hadn’t filled the inside of the conduit completely. The water in the tank hadn’t displaced against the greater pressure coming in and filled the space.

That meant there were air pockets in there.

Possibly even a way out.

It had to be close to a minute and thirty seconds now. Her lungs now felt like they were about to explode. She threw herself into the conduit, grasping for anything she could hold on to to keep her there, and turned herself upward. It was agonizing. She couldn’t take it for another second. She prayed she was right, because otherwise she’d give out. She pushed through the cascading current just as her lungs gave out. With a last gasp, she opened her mouth and sucked whatever was there.

It was air.

Thank God …
She breathed, gasping, heaving, inhaling the desperately needed oxygen deep into her aching lungs. Hanging on, she squeezed herself in, wedging her feet against the interior pipe rim. Water beat at her furiously; but there was about eight inches at the top of the pipe that hadn’t completely filled. And that wasn’t all. The valve was open. The thing had to lead somewhere. To the river, she assumed. Maybe she could make it through. She visualized when she saw it outside; it couldn’t be much longer than a hundred feet or so. But each of those feet would be a battle, she knew, fighting the current; fighting for oxygen. She had no idea how much air could possibly be trapped in here. Only that it wouldn’t last for long. She gulped in three huge breaths, saturating her lungs, and then a last one, ducking back in the pipe, and tried to swim against the formidable current. The force of it hurled her back. She tried again, scratching on the sides for something to grasp on to. She fell back again. It was too strong.

She couldn’t make it,
she realized.

Then she heard something that sent a spasm of terror flashing through her.

The buzzer. Sounding again. The same buzzer she’d heard when the water first began.

Four, five times. Which meant maybe Robertson was at the controls. Or there was some kind of auto control now that the tank was close to being filled.