Pacific Vortex! Part 37

Pitt lifted Giordino again and struggled on.

"How's the time?" Pitt asked.

"We aren't going to make it," Giordino answered grimly, "providing the missile is on schedule."

"Itll be on schedule," Pitt panted. "Delphi was wrong about that When the Navy receives no reply to the surrender offer, they'll take it as an act of defiance and blast the seamount anyway."

Summer took Pitt's arm and guided him, supporting his aching, overburdened body as best she could. Pitt staggered ahead, one foot in front of the other, telling himself one more, just one more step and they would be there. Finally, as he reached the last ounce of his endurance, Summer stopped at one of the side doors. She put her ear against the panel and listened a moment. Then she quietly pushed the door ajar and stepped inside. Pitt stumbled in behind her and sank to his knees, letting Giordino slide rump first onto a lush red carpet

Summer ran up to a large bed carved into the far wall and shook the sleeping Adrian. "Wake up, Miss Hunter. Please wake upl"

Adrian's response was a soft moan; Summer took her by the wrist and dragged her naked body from the bed.

The sleep quickly receded from Adrian's eyes as she became aware of Pitt and Giordino on the floor. Making no attempt to cover her nakedness, she rushed across the room and knelt at Pitt's side.

"Oh my G.o.d, Dirk! What happened to you? How did you get here?"

"We've come for you," he said between labored breaths.

She shook her head slowly, disbelieving.

"No, no, it's impossible. There's no way out of this place."

"In the next room, Summer's bedroom, there's a pa.s.sage to the sea..."

Pitt was interrupted by a heavy rumbling explosion. The room trembled from distant shock waves. The Monitor's missile had struck the surface of the water above the seamount. The velvet curtains swept to and fro, and several coral ornaments on a stone table clattered from the unseen force,

"No time for a recital," Pitt snapped. "Everybody out"

Summer looked lost and confused, unable to move. "I can't... my father."

"Stay with us or die," Pitt said. "This whole mountain is going to collapse any second."

For a few seconds she didn't move, but then another tremor shook the room, shaking her back to her senses. She ran toward her room, Adrian right behind her, as Pitt and Giordino struggled painfully to bring up the rear.

They had barely entered Summer's exotic blue bedroom when a deafening roar and mountainous shock wave knocked them to the floor. The compression waves, rammed by a giant surge of seawater bursting through ma.s.sive cracks and fissures on the top levels of the seamount, came rumbling through the pa.s.sageways like an express train, crus.h.i.+ng everything in its path.

Pitt scrambled to his feet, all pain forgotten. He slammed the corridor door closed, grabbed Adrian's arm, and pushed her through the curtain into the exit tunnel. Then he lunged at the fallen Summer, scooped her up, and threw her sprawling in a heap on top of Adrian. At that moment, the great mirror on the ceiling fell with a shattering crash to the room below, missing Pitt by inches. A cascade of water followed the splintering gla.s.s, accompanied by a tearing, grinding rumble as the rock room tore apart

"All" Pitt shouted through the deluge of rock and water.

"Over here!" Giordino yelled back. He waved an arm from under a stone dressing table.

Pitt waded through the rising milky froth of the slate-colored water and grabbed Giordino's upraised arm.

"Stay back!" Giordino cried. "If you cany me, you'll never make it."

"And ruin my big chance for a life-saving merit badge?" Pitt said curtly. "No way."

He threw Giordino's arm over his shoulder and then half carried, half dragged his friend to the escape tunnel. By the tune they made the entrance, the water was up to their knees and swirling into the darkness beyond.

"You women run on ahead," Pitt commanded.

Without being told a second tune, Adrian and Summer began splas.h.i.+ng awkwardly through the narrow tube.

The process with Giordino was slow, and Pitt soon lost sight of the girls in the darkness. The rus.h.i.+ng current of water hurtled down the ramp, causing him to stumble and fall. As he went down, his head was covered momentarily by the flow and he inhaled the salt.w.a.ter. Choking, he pushed himself to his knees and managed to make it the rest of the way with the help of a strong, muscled arm that came out of nowhere.

Miraculously, it was Giordino, gnas.h.i.+ng his teeth from the agony of his bruised feet.

"This is one good deed you're going to regret," Giordino muttered.

"Complain, complain," Pitt sputtered, coughing out the seawater. "That's all you ever do. Come on, we've got a boat to catch."

The slippery stone ramp gradually broadened out into the stairway, and Pitt found the going a little easier. The yellow phosph.o.r.escent rocks were falling like hail, splas.h.i.+ng around them in a flowing stream. The strange, glowing color of the rocks as they streaked from the cavern's vaulted dome created the eerie appearance of a ghostly meteor shower. Then, at last, the gus.h.i.+ng river of water finally diniinished as it fell over the side of the stairs to the pond below, enabling Pitt to see where he was stepping.

"Hold on, old buddy," Pitt said encouragingly. "We're almost there. The two statues should be around the next bend."

"See the women?" Giordino asked.

"Not yet."

They would be there; Pitt was sure of that. A wave of confidence coursed through his veins. They were too close to die now. They had survived the explosion. Once in the water, it was only a short swim through the outer caves to the surface. True, they might all find death waiting outside from sharks, from drowning, or from exhaustion. But as long as they were still alive, Pitt would keep pus.h.i.+ng them until the final door was slammed in their faces. He hurried his pace and began dragging Giordino two steps at a time, trying to end this part of the claustrophobic journey as quickly as possible. If they were to die, it was better to die under the familiar touch of the sun and sky.

They were rounding the final bend now. Pitt could see Summer. She was standing at the edge of the pool like one of the sculptures under the yellow phosph.o.r.escent light.

Adrian also came into view, leaning wearily against ihe base of one of the statues. She looked up as they irrived, her eyes filled with terror.

"Dirk... it's too late," she mumbled. "He..."

Pitt cut her in mid-sentence. "No time for talk. The roof is starting to give way ..."

The last word froze in his throat. His mixed feelings of fatigue, pain, joy, and hope melted into a twisted knot of defeat From behind one of the sea G.o.d statues stepped Delphi. His right hand held the big Colt and the gun was aimed straight at Pitt's forehead.

"Leaving before the party's over?" he said, the hate spread across his face.

"I bore easily," Pitt said, shrugging helplessly. "You might as well kill me now. You don't have much time if you wish to save the others."

"How very n.o.ble of you, Major," Delphi said, his face a mask of cruel evil. "But you needn't concern yourself with details. My daughter and I are the only ones who will leave this cavern alive."

For a moment no one spoke. The only sounds came from the splas.h.i.+ng of the falling rocks as they smacked the water. Deep within the seamount, a rumbling shudder shook the ancient-hewn chambers. Soon, very soon, Kanoli would be totally destroyed, never to be rediscovered again.

A sudden explosive cracking sound rolled through the cavern and vibrated into a thunderous crescendo as the tremors shook the hard rock walls.

For a fleeting instant, Pitt thought Delphi had fired the gun. Then he realized the cracking sound had originated from overhead. One wall had broken loose and was crumbling down the stairway in a sweeping avalanche. Pitt gave Summer a violent shove which sent her flying from the steps into the yellow pool. In the same swift motion he threw himself on top of Adrian, blanketing her body with his.

The avalanche hit Tons of gold-tinted rock bounded down the sloping wall burying the stairway. One of the carved, sphinxlike statues stood firm on its pedestal against the onslaught, but the second figure succ.u.mbed to the cras.h.i.+ng force and toppled over, to Pitt's dazed mind looking like a cowboy who fell off his horse in the middle of a cattle stampede.

Pitt gritted his teeth and tensed his muscles as the rocks mercilessly rained down on his back. One tumbling boulder smashed into his side, and he heard, rather than felt, a rib snap. His face itched as blood trickled down his cheeks from a gash in his scalp. An odd piercing cry reached his ears over the rumbling din. It seemed far away, but then it dawned on him that it was coming from Adrian's lips only a few inches away as she screamed in uncontrollable hysteria. The rocks kept coming, covering Pitt's legs to his waist He was pinned and unable to move. He clutched Adrian more tightly, as if his arm could squeeze the fear out of her.