One Mile Under (29 page)

Which turned Dani’s fright into outright panic.

As the water neared the top, the valve might close.

She’d be trapped in there.

The current against her suddenly eased slightly; maybe it was part of the flow control as the water level reached the top of the tank. She forced herself back in. It was slow going, foot by foot, exhausting on her legs and thighs, and she grunted and screamed out in frustration, hurled back close to the opening into the tank.

She hit her head against something.

She felt above her. It was a metal rung. On the top of the pipe.

This time instead of swimming she rolled onto her back and lunged forward, using the rung to propel her.

She found another one.

And another.

Every five feet or so, maybe used for maintenance work in case of a leak somewhere. It was hard to even make the distance between them with the current beating against her and her strength tiring out.

But she had to go on. There was no other choice. The valve could be closing soon.

And if they were stopping the water flow, that buzzer also meant that the valve to the outside could close at any time, too. Which petrified her. It was black and creepy in there, like a zero gravity chamber—no sense of space or direction—but Dani willed herself forward. Rung by rung. The current against her weakened. Which to her meant the valve to the outside might be shut and whatever air was in here was coming to an end. She increased her pace, kicking and lunging and gasping for air at every rung, her fingers locking around them, pulling herself through, not even knowing if there’d be a way out at the end or if she’d die in here.

She had no idea how far she had to go, only that her strength was giving out. It was dark and gritty and smelled of river sediment and metal. Something slithered against her back and she screamed. Some kind of scaly fish going by.

Oh, God, God …
she moaned, shutting her eyes.
One more rung. Keep going.

What if she was wrong? What if this went on for a mile and she wouldn’t have the strength to get to the end? What if when she got there the valve was closed? She would die in here—this dark, wet grave. She decided she’d just let herself go and be carried by the current back to the tank and drown. She thought of her mom. The strength she had shown. Until the end.
She
didn’t give up. Dani’s arms grew weary. But she couldn’t rest. She gulped in air, and water poured into her mouth. She coughed it out. The conduit might be endless. She could just lie back and go to sleep in this narrow, black grave.

One more. She reached out and pulled herself forward. Her fingers slipped off and she fell back into the water. She caught herself and reached back up high.

Just one more.

Then she saw it.

She arched her head back, unable to fully tell if it was real or not.

A ribbon of yellowy light, shimmering up ahead.

Maybe it was just an illusion. Maybe it was the end for her. What they say happens when you die, when the light comes toward you.

One more.
She pulled herself forward, her arms like deadweights.

The light seemed to grow brighter. It gave her new strength. Renewed will. She pulled. Faster. If there was light, then there had to be an opening of some kind. It grew brighter. Closer.

It had to be.

The water levels were growing higher here. They were filling the pipeline. Dani had to summon the last of her strength and battle toward the light. She gulped in a last lungful of air and kicked, propelling herself forward by grasping on to the rungs. She didn’t even look ahead. How far was it? She felt the water getting colder. That was a good sign, right?

One more rung.

Then something happened. The cold water seemed to envelop her and she burst free. She flailed her arms and suddenly there were no more rungs. Bright light swept all around her. Water was everywhere, and cold.

She was in the river.

She wanted to scream for joy.

She was in the river.
Probably directly underneath the dam. Her legs bounced off the silty bottom. She propelled herself up. It wasn’t far. She broke through the surface, even brighter light all around her now, knifing at her eyes. She gasped—beautiful, sweet air entered her lungs. She was too exhausted to be ecstatic. She coughed and gasped and dragged herself over to the shore. She crawled along the pebbly bank, rolling onto her back and letting the sun wash over her. Beautiful and warming.
She was free.
She looked up and saw the dam about fifty yards behind her. And then she felt fear again.
What if they realized she had escaped? What if they were looking for her?
But then, exhausted, unable to summon the will to do anything about it, she shut her eyes. She was still breathing heavily and her arms were too tired to move. She should probably find some cover. Just in case they came after her. But she couldn’t move. She just lay there, she didn’t know for how long—exhausted and spent, pinned to the soggy soil. Inside she was joyously laughing.

She’d made it.

But then she felt the sun blocked out on her face. She opened her eyes, feeling someone there, panic rising up in her all over again, and she saw a figure shadowed in the glare standing over her. Instinctively she pushed herself back in the sand.

No. Don’t let it be them. Please don’t let it be them. Please …

“Are you all right, lady?”

Dani looked through the glare.

It was a boy. Two boys. Standing over her. Fuzzy through the haze. Maybe thirteen or fourteen. With fishing rods.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes,” she said, barely able to spit out the words. “I’m all right. I’m all right. Do you have a phone?”

“
I
do,” one of them said. He went in his pocket.

“Dial this number.” She racked her brain to recall it from the screen. “Nine-one-seven. Three-two-four. Six-nine, six-zero. Please.”

Her head fell back. As the consciousness rolled out of her.

Ty’s number.

The motion of the car jostled her awake. Dani blinked open her eyes and looked out the window, trying to get her bearings. She moved with a sudden start, not sure for a moment where she was, and then spun, staring.

Ty was behind the wheel.

“It’s okay.” He reached over and gave her arm a reassuring squeeze. “You’re with me.”

She blinked alarm still in her eyes. “Where are we?” she asked, trying to clear her head. She tried to put together the last thing she recalled.

Two boys.

“On our way home. We’re just heading up into the mountains. How are you doing?”

“I’m fine.” She nodded fuzzily. “Fine.”

It all tumbled back to her. The tank. Robertson. The conduit leading to the river. It scared her all over again. She shook her head in defiance. “Ty, we can’t go home,” she said, pushing herself up. Every muscle in her body ached. “Robertson. He tried to kill me. He had someone with him. His boss, I think. From Alpha. Or RMM.” She described the man with the high forehead and balding top.

“McKay.” Hauck nodded. “He was the head of his unit back in Iraq.”

“They basically admitted to killing Trey. They also said they tried to kill you, too. They threw me in this tank and let the water in. It filled all the way up. It was terrifying, Uncle Ty. You don’t know what I had to do to get out.”

“You’re safe now,” he reassured her again. “You’re with me.”

She could see they were on I-80 west of Denver, heading into the mountains. The last thing she remembered was clawing her way out of the river to the bank. The sun in her face. Then the fear back again. Someone standing over her. The boys. She looked at Hauck. She nodded, for the first time really trusting that she was safe. “I knew you would come.”

“You did it. I followed you from what you said on the phone. I only wish I had gotten there sooner.”

“I told them you would. Ty, please, we can’t just go back.” She faced him. “You don’t know what they did to me. They almost killed me. I can’t believe I’m even alive.”

“It’s not even up for conversation, Dani. You’re out of it now. It’s my fault. I never meant to put you in any danger. I should never have let you stay.”

“I’m all right. I am. It’s just—” She tried to sit up, but her head ached and she still felt in a daze. She sat back and tried to clear her brain; remember all had happened, every terrifying second: the water rising, having to will her way out of that conduit, not sure if the valve would close. But it all just flickered through her consciousness like a movie on fast-forward, flashes of fear as if out of some horrible nightmare. “I was so scared. I was sure I was going to die. I thought you were—” Tears rushed into her eyes again.

“You don’t have to go through it,” he said. “Just rest. Get some sleep. We’ll talk about it when we get home.”

“No, I want to,” she said. “I have to.”

“Idaho Springs is up ahead. Do you want to pull off and eat something?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

“There’s some water in the console next to you. You ought to drink some.”

She looked at the plastic bottle there and couldn’t help but smile. “Water’s about the last thing I need right now.”

He smiled back. “Sorry. We’ll stop.” There was a turnout on the highway up ahead. Scenic view. “You can tell me, but only as much as you want, okay. You don’t have to go through it all now. You should just rest. We can talk about it later.”

“If I don’t go through it now, then it’s like some dream that wasn’t real.”

Hauck pulled off the road and parked as far from the other cars as he could.

Dani looked at him and shook her head. “But it was real.”

Horrifyingly real. And it all rushed back. Every terrifying detail. Things she had stored and didn’t know what for. Why it was important. Robertson sitting next to her in the café. The South by Southwest T-shirt he was wearing. The friendliness in his eyes that suddenly changed.

“I didn’t recognize him. He just started to talk. Something seemed familiar, but I couldn’t put it together. I’d only seen that grainy, black-and-white photo on your phone. He had this growth on his face now. He tried to get me to get into one of those black SUVs. I hit him …”

“You hit him?”

Dani nodded. With kind of a disbelieving grin. “With one of those pointy metal napkin holders, as we went out the door. Right here …” She pointed above her eye. “It left quite a welt.”

Hauck chuckled, admiringly. “The guy’s a trained military operative.”

“I can handle myself. Besides, I didn’t have any choice. I knew I couldn’t get in that car.”

The rest she went through, feeling her heart quickening again. The chase through town. How she hid on the garbage truck—“when you called me I was pinned on top of it; they were all around.” How she leaped off and almost made it to the police station.

“They tossed me in the back of one of those black SUVs. I realized I still had my phone on from when you called, so I just hoped, prayed, you’d hear.” Her heart was beating rapidly. “It was the only hope I had.”

“That was smart.” Hauck smiled. “It led me right to you. Then when the kid called …”

“Robertson told me you were dead at first. I thought I would ever see you again.” Anxiousness rose up in her again.

“But I’m not. I’m here. It’s okay, Dani. What exactly was that place they took you? Some kind of water treatment facility?”

“Where they pump the water out of the river and send it up to the wells. You saw the dam?”

Hauck nodded.

“They’re sucking the river dry, Uncle Ty. The one side had water they were capturing. The other … the Templeton side …” She shook her head. “The building there is basically a huge water tank. They locked me inside. Robertson dragged me up a couple of levels and pushed me in. I did my best to fight him off. Then they opened the valves and it started to fill.”

Her eyes filled with fear again as she recalled it, and grew wide. “It was like the whole Pacific Ocean was coming in on me. I somehow managed to get my binds off. And I rode it to the top. He said they were going to toss me down some drainage pipe in the hills where they dispose of the fracking waste.” Her eyes now filled with rancor. “
Fuck him …!
”

“So how did you get out?”

She shrugged. “He left. He just left me there to drown.” Then she told him how she remembered this one thing, from college, about how water levels balance. And how she went down, her lungs bursting, and swam into the conduits, hearing the buzzers go off again, sure that the valves would close behind her and she’d be trapped.

Hauck put his hand on her arm. “You don’t have to go through anymore. I’m so sorry I put your life in risk.”

“It’s okay. It’s …” Her eyes grew moist again and she sank like a weight across the seat and into his arms. This time she began to cry. He just held her there, against him, telling her over and over he would never let go of her again, that she was safe, and stroking her. His beautiful, courageous goddaughter who had been entrusted into his hands, and he had let her down. “You’re safe.” He just kept stroking her hair. “You’re with me now.”

She just kept shaking. Then she looked up. “They told me you were fucking dead! I thought you were dead!” Her eyes were raw, her cheeks mashed with tears. “I told them you would get them. I said to Robertson, as he was about to throw me in, ‘You know, he’s going to kill you for this.’ That’s why we can’t go back home. We have to do something or arrest them. We know what they did now.”

He took a napkin from out of the console between them and wiped her tears. “Maybe we should leave this part out when we describe how things went to your dad.”

It made her laugh, sniffling back the tears. Then she grew serious again. “Wade’s involved. They basically said that to me. They just never thought I’d be around to tell anyone. When he called the other night he sounded so weird and helpless. Now I know why. Because he knew what they were going to do. He couldn’t protect me any longer if we stayed. They got to him, Uncle Ty. I don’t know how. Money. Kyle. Something. That’s why he didn’t act on any of the evidence. Why he sat on those tapes … We’ve got to report this. I can finger Robertson. And that other man. And Wade …”