Chapter 80 - The Breached Shelf
Above our heads, a sound like a freight train crashing through stone tore through the ceiling of the cavern.
The massive hydraulic intake gates at the far end of the basin suddenly exploded backward under sixty atmospheres of lake pressure. A wall of black, freezing water twelve feet high burst into the dry dock, instantly tossing the twenty-ton submersible like a toy against the concrete bulkhead.
"Kill them!" Arthur screamed, drawing a sidearm from his coat.
Before the mercenaries could fire, Captain Halloway’s shotgun roared from the catwalk above, the blast knocking the closest gunman off the railing into the churning torrent below. Miller and Lin drew their hidden backup weapons, engaging the remaining guards in a ferocious crossfire through the spray of the surging lake.
"Amanda! The stairs!" Thomas roared through the deafening roar of water, sprinting down the metal walkway toward me.
The water was already rushing across the concrete floor, freezing cold, hitting my knees with the force of an avalanche. I spun around, clutching Ruby with both arms, battling against the swirling current to reach the stairs.
Arthur lunged at me through the foam, his burned fingers digging like iron claws into the strap of my harness. "You’re staying here with me!" he shrieked, his voice half-drowned by the roaring cataract. "If the Vance name drowns, we drown together!"
"Never!" I screamed, swinging Donald’s heavy brass cylinder straight into his ruined, burned eye.
Arthur howled in agony, his grip slipping from my coat as he staggered backward into the rising pool.
Thomas reached me an instant later, his powerful arms wrapping around my waist, hauling Ruby and me up the first flight of iron stairs just as a massive iron support beam groaned and collapsed into the basin below.
Behind us, the colossal nickel-steel door of Vault Zero shuddered. The pressure from the flooded shaft was forcing the massive eight-foot-thick portal inward on its hinges.
Through the widening gap of the vault door, I caught a fleeting, terrifying glimpse into the interior of Vault Zero.
There were no gold bars. There were no bearer bonds.
Sitting inside the illuminated center of the vault was a massive, cylindrical containment vessel stamped with the seal of the 1968 United States Naval Research Laboratory—and resting beside it, connected by heavy copper conduits, was an active digital timer glowing red in the darkness, counting down from zero:
**00:02:14... 00:02:13... 00:02:12...**
And standing inside the threshold of the vault itself, clinging to the interior doorframe with one hand, coughing up lake water, was a man who should have been dead under the Devil's Island ice.
Julian.
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His eyes locked onto mine across the rising flood, his lips curling into a desperate, feral snarl as his hand hovered directly over the emergency flood override lever.
"Amanda!" he screamed over the thunder of the lake. "Arthur lied to both of us! If you don't give me Donald’s override code right now, this whole trench goes to the bottom of the world!"
