Submerged (33 page)

“Trust me,” he had said, “it’s not
pleasant.”

They pulled up short at the entry point,
standing before the blue door. The sole sound was the heavy
breathing of bone-weary people as they drew one ragged breath after
another.

“I hope the door didn’t relock after we
left,” Gleason said.

“Let’s find out.” Perry pulled the door open.
He and the others entered.

“There’s no light,” Gleason said.

“I was afraid of that,” Perry said. His
flashlight was still attached to his vest. He turned it on.

Gleason and Jack did the same.

“Onward and upward,” Perry declared. “Care to
lead the way, Jack?”

“You . . . skinny guys . . . go first,” he
replied, sucking in a bucketful of air with each inhalation.. “I’m
the slow one.”

“I got it,” Gleason said. “And feel free to
call me skinny anytime you want.”

The sand had made running miserable. Jogging
up the ramped corridor was a new torture. At times Perry stumbled
to all fours, only to rise and keep pushing on. It was his turn to
look back at Jack, who was two yards behind.

Gleason set a rapid pace, one that kept
everyone moving but not so fast as to risk exhaustion or to leave
someone behind. Terror dictated an unmeasured flight, filled with a
burst of energy that would soon leave someone, maybe everyone, too
drained to go farther. One step followed the other. It was all they
could do. The rest was in God’s hands.

They reached the top of the ramp. Perry and
Jack stumbled in. Gleason was hanging on the ladder, his head down,
hair and shirt soaked with sweat. Janet had collapsed to the floor.
Carl was bent over, leaning against the wall, his body heaving as
he sucked in air.

“I can’t go on,” Janet said. “I’m spent. I’ve
never been so tired.”

“We have to keep going,” Perry said.

“Aren’t we safe yet?” Carl asked. “If the
lake drains into the cavern, then we’re above where the new
waterline would be.”

“We don’t know that, Carl. But even if that’s
true, we still have to worry about what happens when the water hits
the millions of tons of sand. The gas we experienced in the house
was nothing compared to what may come ripping up through the
tunnel.”

“If the roof caves in, that door won’t be
able to hold back the flood,” Jack said.

At first Carl didn’t respond. Then he said,
“Okay, that’s a picture I don’t want to see.”

“I’m telling you . . . I can’t climb that
ladder. I don’t have any strength left.” Janet was on the verge of
tears. She rolled on her side. “Go . . . go without me.”

“Then I’m staying,” Carl said.

“No one is staying,” Perry said. “You ready
to climb, Gleason?”

He nodded. “Climbing. My favorite part. I’ve
been looking forward to it.”

“I think he’s lying,” Jack said.

Gleason smiled. “I am.” He placed both hands
on one of the rungs.

“Wait a sec.” Perry shone his light around
and found the rope he had wound up earlier, the rope they had used
to lower the backpacks. He took one end and approached Gleason.
“Turn around, buddy. I’m gonna give you a tail.” Perry slipped one
end of the rope around his friend’s waist and tied it off. “All
right. Jack and Carl will be right behind you. Don’t dawdle.”

“I don’t know how to dawdle,” Gleason
replied. He started up the ladder, towing the rope behind him.

“Carl, take the rope and make certain it
doesn’t tangle.”

“What are you planning?”

“We’re going to give Janet a lift. You want
to pull or push?”

“I don’t get it,” Carl said.

“Jack, I need your bulk topside. You had
better get going.”

“Will do.” Jack was on the ladder and several
rungs up when Perry returned to the rope and took the opposite
end.

“What are you doing?” Carl asked.

“Tying a harness for Janet.” When he was
done, Perry had two loops in the end of the rope. “Sit up,
girl.”

“I don’t think I can.”

“You can. You will. Help her up, Carl.”

Carl did. Perry knelt beside her. “Here’s
what’s going to happen. This is called a fireman’s chair knot. One
loop goes around each leg.” Perry lifted her left leg and slipped
one loop over her foot, then did the same with the other leg. “You
need to stand up.”

This time Janet didn’t complain. She
struggled to her feet with Carl’s help. Perry moved the loops up
her legs and over her thighs. He then circled her chest with a
length of rope and tied a hitch in it. “This will keep you from
tipping backward.”

“I’m sorry to be the weak link,” she
said.

“The last thing you are is a weak link.”
Perry smiled in the dim glow of the flashlight. “I sent the others
up because I was too tired to go myself.”

“You’re just trying to be chivalrous.”

“How am I doing?”

“Pretty good,” she said.

Perry asked Carl, “Push or pull?”

“I can’t leave her.”

“Push it is, then. Janet, when you see the
rope begin to tighten, center yourself in the shaft. Any help you
can lend by climbing would be appreciated. Otherwise, let us do the
work. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Carl, as soon as she starts up, you start
climbing. There isn’t much room for her to swing, but she could
still knock you off, so stay alert. Questions?”

“Where did you learn to tie a knot like
this?” Carl asked.

“I was a Boy Scout,” Perry said.

“Eagle Scout no doubt.”

“Of course.”

Perry started up the ladder, moving as fast
as he could. Every step hurt, every muscle complained. He climbed
anyway. Pain meant he was still alive.

He reached the top breathless, with his arms
on fire. He followed the duct that led to the oblong room where he
found Jack and Gleason resting. He was glad to see it. They were
going to need whatever strength they had left. They rose as soon as
his head appeared from the ceiling opening.

“Man the rope, guys.” Perry sat, dangled his
legs through the opening, and lowered himself to the floor.

“Is there anything that will fray the rope as
we pull?” Jack asked. “I meant to look, but I was sucking air like
a vacuum.”

“We should be fine,” Perry said. “I didn’t
see anything that might snag the line. The rope shows no sign of
fraying from when we lowered the packs.” He inhaled deeply, then
placed hand to rope. He started pulling. Gleason was behind him,
and Jack anchored the team.

The rope moved easily at first as the slack
was taken up. Suddenly, it resisted their efforts. The slack was
gone, and they were now lifting Janet from the deep recesses of the
shaft. Perry counted a cadence as the three men pulled with
strength they didn’t know they had. They were working on reserves,
and Perry prayed they had enough to finish the job. If they lost
their grip even for a moment, Janet might drop into Carl, knocking
him from the ladder. It was a frightening image.

After what seemed like an hour of pulling, a
voice echoed from the ceiling hatch, “Okay, I’m in. Stop
pulling.”

“What about Carl?”

“He’s here. He says now he wants a ride.”

Perry laughed. He laughed as much from
exhaustion as from the humor of the comment.

“I’m starting to like the little guy,” Jack
said.

The sound of two people crawling through the
duct echoed out the opening. Janet was the first to appear. She
still had the makeshift rescue harness around her. Perry and Jack
helped her down, then helped Carl while Janet freed herself.

“Thanks, guys,” she said. “I never would have
made the climb.”

“Let’s get going. As long as we’re in a
confined space, we’re in danger.” Perry pushed to the front and led
them through the concrete room and back the way they had come.
Minutes later, five weary people trotted into the open air of the
dam’s catch basin. Carl half carried Janet.

The sky had never looked better to Perry; the
air had never tasted sweeter. He kept up the pace until they
reached the place where they had first dropped down into the
overflow basin. The lake was just a few feet below them.

“We made it!” Carl said. “I had my doubts. I
admit it. I had serious doubts.” He threw his arms around Janet and
lifted her from the ground, spinning in joy.

There was a noise from the lake.

“That can’t be good,” Jack said.

Chapter32

The sound was unlike
anything Perry
had ever heard. Jack was pointing to the
center of the lake, but Perry had already seen it. White brown foam
was percolating to the surface and spreading out in ever-expanding
rings. The roaring was like a small waterfall, but that changed in
an instant. From the center of the rings a geyser of air and water
shot thirty feet into the air.

“The ceiling is caving in,” Perry said.

“And dumping water on all that sand,” Gleason
said.

“At least we’re out of trouble,” Janet
remarked. “We
are
out of trouble,
right?”

“I don’t think so.” Perry started to speak
again when he noticed the concentric rings of churning foam begin
to move in a way familiar to anyone who has seen water slip down a
drain or flushed a toilet. The water was turning in a cyclonic
motion.

“We need to get out of here,” Perry said.
“
Now
. We need to go now.”

“I don’t understand,” Janet said.

“We run now, lady,” Jack said. “We explain
later.”

Perry crawled from the shallow end of the
overflow basin and onto the sloping lakeshore. He reached for Janet
to take his hand and pulled her up. Jack was up a second later.
Gleason and Carl followed. They ran up the hill to the old access
path that had brought them here.

“To the cars?” Carl asked.

“No,” Perry replied. He was breathing hard.
“Not yet. The cars are downhill and downwind. We need altitude.
Keep climbing.”

“Great, another incline,” Janet complained,
but started up the slope helped by Carl. Five winded, weary people
fought through undergrowth as they wove their way through trees and
by bushes.

Fifty yards up, Perry stopped and turned. A
new noise had grabbed his attention.
I should
continue to run for higher ground,
he told himself, but his
curiosity was too powerful. He knew he was about to witness what no
one had ever seen. He stood in silence, surrounded by friends, as
he fixed his eyes on the spinning funnel of water. Every few
seconds, a new geyser would erupt through the funnel, disrupting
the flow, but the funnel always returned.

“Why is it doing that?” Janet asked between
gulps of air.

“The chamber is releasing air,” Perry said.
“As the water rises, it compresses the air against the ceiling
until enough pressure is present to overpower the force of the
draining lake. Once it vents, the lake continues to drain.”

“Judging by the color of the jet,” Jack
added, “it’s venting more than air. I thought when we were stuck in
the room with the gas that it couldn’t get worse. I was wrong.
Imagine what it must be like down there.”

“I prefer not to,” Carl said. “I wonder if
Finn and his pal made it out.”

Perry recalled Zeisler’s words about the
other entrance. “It’s doubtful.”

Gleason winced. “It would be a horrible way
to die.”

“So the lake is going to drain until it fills
the chamber below?” Janet asked. “We weren’t in any danger. We
could have walked up the hill.”

“Maybe,” Perry said. “Have you ever seen the
damage that water from a failed dam can do? I’ve seen pictures of
chunks of concrete weighing as much as a car carried miles
downstream.”

“But it’s not the dam that’s in danger,”
Janet objected.

“It’s the same kind of force acting on the
lake bottom—the chamber ceiling. Moving water is one of the most
powerful forces on the planet—”

“Something is happening,” Carl shouted.

The whirling, churning water changed. It was
no longer a turning funnel. The center had widened, and water
rushed down the edges like a river over a waterfall.

“It’s happening,” Perry said.

“What’s happening?” Janet asked.

Perry didn’t have time to answer. The lake
sank two hundred feet in a second as the bottom collapsed into the
chamber. The noise was stunning, a roar that was felt as much as
heard. The vacuum caused by the sudden drop of the reservoir drew
air after it. It was as if the wind had changed directions. Perry
felt his ears pop, but he kept his eyes fixed on the scene before
him.

Perry understood what was happening. Since
water could not be compressed, the weight of the water above forced
the water that had been at the bottom out to the sides in a
gigantic wave that washed up the shores and into the overflow basin
he and the others had been standing in minutes before. The fluid in
the basin churned in a frenetic boil and poured down the culvert
and out the relief ports at the bottom of the dam. Perry couldn’t
see the last part, but he didn’t need to. His training and
imagination made the picture clear.

Janet took Perry’s arm. “If we had stayed . .
. I mean . . . I thought we were safe . . . but you . . .”

Perry put an arm around her and gave a gentle
squeeze. “We didn’t stay, and we are safe.” He lowered his arm and
continued to watch the cataclysmic event before him. The surface of
the water, now lower than its previous base, rolled and churned,
trying to find its own level.

“Carl, are there any structures downstream?
Towns, homes, ranches, anything?”

“No,” Carl said. “The valley intersects other
valleys until they meet the desert floor. Why?”

“I’m worried about the dam giving way.”

“It doesn’t have any water behind it,” he
said. “How can it fail now?”

“Think lower,” Jack said.