Hot Zone (33 page)

Above the whir of the engines the pilot said: "We'll circle for awhile and see if they show, keep your eyes pealed."

* * *

Beginning their ascent all three men thought they saw the earth below them shudder violently. Roo shook it off, he knew he still had time before the blast from the charges the French had left but even so, they wouldn't cause a movement like that. Perhaps they had ascended too fast after all.

Mind tricks. Nitrogen bubbles in the brain?

They didn't see the wall of white water rushing at them from behind at great speed. Moments later their world turned upside down.

To Roo, it felt like he had been shoved into a giant washing machine.

The aquanaut tumbled and spun for what seemed an eternity but was really only a few seconds. Roo held onto Ghost's body as he was thrown from the seat of the aquanaut. He was close enough to the surface now that he could float up once the white wash stopped.

Breaking through the surface, clutching Ghost, Roo ripped off his mask, yelling out for Skip and Storm. His two Aussie mates were nowhere to be seen. He placed his mask back on, ducking his head underwater, spinning around getting a three-sixty degree view of the water underneath him.

Nothing.

Lifting his head out of the water he saw them, about fifty yards away and close together.

They were fine.

Behind him he heard the buzz of helicopter blades and turned to see a black hawk heading straight for them. He heard Skip and Storm hollering and whooping in the background.

They were saved.

"I'm going to get you home, mate." He said to Ghost. "I'm going to get you home.

55

In the tunnel Jordan felt it first. The ground around them rumbled. Ice, looking at his watch said: "Now would be a good time to hit that red button on your GPS tracker, just in case."

"In case of what?" Jordan said, knowing the answer.

"In case we get stuck in here."

The cart was rolling along slowly up the hill, their pushing and pulling had slowed to a snails pace, but they were still moving forward. Like an answer from above they saw light, about a hundred yards away, clear sky.

It was so close, Jordan could taste the clean air in her lungs and the sun was a sight to behold. Her eyes had become accustomed to the darkness in the last hours and suddenly the daylight, a thing she'd seen every day of her life in the New Mexico desert seemed more powerful than ever now.

Behind them the unmistakable sound of gushing water rumbled, the sound was faint at first but built like the sound of a freight train in the distance, heading straight for them. Ice turned around, waiting to see it. He could hear it but still couldn't see it.

"Come on, one last push, Jordan. We have to move it."

They picked up their pace, the exit to the tunnel growing closer and closer, but not as close as the million pounds of sea water being forced through the tunnel.

They were twenty yards from the exit when the water hit, sending them and the cart flying out of the tunnel like cannonballs. They were sent flying high in the air, over the access road that lead to the tunnel and into the adjacent lagoon in the center of Mururoa Atoll. They splashed down, both of them hitting the bottom of the lagoon before bouncing back up and resurfacing.

"Whoa, what a rush." Jordan said as she watched the water recede back into the tunnel.

"We made it." Ice said, then looking around added: "Made it right into the enemy zone.

"I'll deal with them over the monsters anytime."

They paddled to the beach and crawled their way into the greenery that surrounded the lagoon. They didn't see anyone around. A beat up Jeep Cherokee was parked just up from the entrance to the tunnel, most likely from the men whom they had come across setting up the bomb.

"Any ideas, Ice? We're going to stand out driving around here dressed like this." She said

"We need to find the marina, hide out on a boat until night fall, then we'll bust out of here."

"You think they'll notice a boat speeding away from them, right in the exclusion zone?"

"Not as much as they'll notice a black hawk flying over to pull us out." Ice added: "If we get into trouble, you flash your pearly whites and I'll give them my best French.”

After surveying the surrounding area, they made their move over to the Jeep and Ice was happy to see the keys were placed on the seat.

"Buckle up. This may get a little bumpy."

"The theme of the day." Jordan said.

56

Colonel Hansie Farry himself went up in the Chopper to recover Grosjean once the distress signal had been activated. He had just arrived on Mururoa and was getting ready to brief his people when he had been interrupted by a radar tech who had said he'd picked up a legion distress beacon twelve miles out.

Farry knew instantly it was Grosjean and was relieved but also curious to find out what had happened so he jumped into the chopper with the pilot and two rescue crew man and headed towards the signal.

They were close to the general area of the signal when the water underneath them boiled and went white, jets of water sprayed into the air for a mile; right where the distress signal was coming from.

They flew around the area for half an hour, hovering above where the signal was supposed to be. Grosjean was nowhere to be found.

"You want my opinion, Colonel, I think he was right in the middle of the blast, he could not have survived." One of the rescue men said.

"Will the signal work if he's at the bottom?" Farry asked.

"It will for awhile, but if he's at the bottom Colonel, he's dead. It's deep water here, and if he was underwater when that blast hit he's all done."

Farry paused for a moment, surveying the outlying waters of the south pacific, now calm as they had been before the blast. There was no sight of his man, his best soldier. Suddenly, guilt began to boil in his blood. The secondary blast had been Farry’s idea. Cut off the tunnel, use their backup warhead to destroy the compound and the rid the area of any evidence that anything had ever existed there. It was not necessarily meant to kill his own men, though he had taken it into account that it may indeed happen when he’d made the decision and called in the order anyway

He turned to the pilot: "Turn it around, let's go home."

* * *

Grosjean resurfaced, the suction from the blast had pulled him down deep, but not deep enough that he couldn't pull himself out of it, he had managed to get is regulator back on just in time. He saw the chopper flying away in the distance and knew it was his.

"No-ooo. Come back." He screamed a helpless scream.

"No."

His head pounding, he was disoriented, the bends were now firmly taking hold of him and there was no hope of him swimming to Mururoa from here...not in his condition. Marc Grosjean removed all his dive equipment, waiting until the chopper was completely out of sight and sank below the surface.

On the deck of the USS Kitty hawk, Roo, Skip and Storm watched as the sun vanished below the horizon. The sky was orange and red and purple and the stars were just starting to get their start in the sky. Roo noticed that the moon was oddly large on this evening, low in the sky and a yolk-colored yellow.

Each one of them had the same thought:
What happened to Jordan and Ice?

"A couple of days ago we were headed to the states, fellas." Roo said.

"A couple of weeks ago we weren't a team." Skip said

"Well, I think we are now, my man." Storm added "Now we just need to find our leader."

"If they were anywhere near that blast when it went off, they never had a chance." Roo said shaking his head.

"The girl should never have been here." Skip said.

Roo turned to him: "That "girl" had more guts than most soldiers I've served with. She was holding her own down there."

"You ever going to fill us in on what we missed?" Storm asked.

"One day." Roo said. "One day."

Stevenson appeared on the deck, running up to the men.

"We have a lock on Jordan's GPS. She's on the move. She's heading right at us, thirty two miles out.

Roo looked at his mates, looked at Stevenson and said: "Get the chopper started, mate."

"Already warming up." Stevenson responded.

The four men ran across the deck of the Kitty Hawk and jumped into the black hawk.

"Take it away." Stevenson said to the pilot.

* * *

Ice and Jordan had taken refuge in the galley of a large cruiser that had been docked in the marina. Ice had noticed that Mururoa had been a ghost town. He didn't see a sole around the marina and believed the impending nuclear test had forced all residence to one central location on the Atoll. Once they were sure they could make a run for it they took the fastest boat they could find that was also fully fueled. It came in the form of a twenty-two foot ski boat.

He slammed the engines full throttle and powered away from Mururoa hoping that they were undetected.

Too easy.

The travel time gave Jordan time to reflect on what she had witnessed in the last twenty-four hours. She had come from the desert to the south pacific, presumably for some big archaeology discovery that turned out to be something very different. She had however witnessed some marvels in the compound and had the samples to prove it. Along with the Journal from the scientist that had helped them through the maze.

It had opened her eyes to the world, a world she never thought she would experience or see.

It gave her the bug.

From New Mexico to the South Pacific, where next?

The world was her oyster and she was eager to begin a new experience after this one. Then she caught herself and remembered Dr Art Montoya, who had lost his life out here. Had lost his life trying to stop nuclear testing, testing that had obviously caused major mutations in marine life and permanent damage to the area.

She didn't want his death to be for nothing.

It wouldn't be.

Ice cut the engines on the speedboat, seeing the black hawk up ahead. "It's our boys." He yelled

"Woohoo." Jordan let out a relieved shout for joy.

Ice pulled out a flare gun and fired a solitary shot. The sky lit up as the red ball started high and slowly descended.

* * *

Roo saw the flare first. He knew it was them, they had made it after all.

"Straight ahead." He said to the pilot. " We got 'em."

"Copy that. I see it" He responded.