Undersea Prison (20 page)

The gauge indicated that the pressure was dropping slowly and Gann looked up at the leaking relief valve in the ceiling to see the flow of the dripping water increase. He could feel the sudden decrease in cabin pressure in his ears and as the leak became a steady stream the other two relief valves began to drip. The prisoners beneath wondered what this sudden shower was all about.

Stratton also felt the drop in pressure and looked up as Gann walked past him towards the emergency escape-room door.The three relief valves popped and sea water burst into the cabin as if from fire hoses, soaking the prisoners who shouted and struggled in their seats.

Palanski was as confused as he was alarmed. ‘Gann!’ he shouted over the sound of gushing water as his colleague stepped through the doorway into the emergency compartment. ‘What the hell’s happening?!’

‘Looks like we got a problem,’ Gann shouted back.

Stratton sensed something odd about Gann’s tone. He looked between the control panel, the rapidly flooding vessel and the empty doorway into the escape room. The relief valves were designed to allow any increase in internal air pressure over a specific setting to bleed out of the vessel and not allow any water into the cabin if the pressures reversed. But all three valves had failed - which suggested they had been tampered with.

The frothy grey sea water had already filled the shallow sump beneath the flooring grille and was lapping around Stratton’s feet. He instinctively pulled on his chains - they were fixed solid - while his mind raced to search for a solution to a situation that was clearly catastrophic.

Palanski hurried to the control panel to check the gauges. ‘The pressure’s still dropping,’ he shouted to no one in particular. He reached for the inlet valve, only to discover that the handle was gone. He searched frantically for it, on the panel and on the floor. Unable to find it he reached for the wrench, only to discover nothing on the end of the chain. In desperation he tried to turn the valve stem with his wet fingers but it was impossible.

Stratton watched Palanski give up on the valves and look around in despair.

‘Break the pipe!’ Stratton shouted.

Palanski focused on him, a confused expression on his face.

‘Break the inlet pipe! The one the valve’s attached to!’ Stratton yelled above the hissing water.The extreme gravity of the situation was horrifyingly stark. Stratton might have little experience with prisons but he knew a hell of a lot about submersibles and the dangers of them flooding under pressure. The situation had ‘extremely serious’ written all over it.

Palanski realised the prisoner was making perfect sense. If he could puncture the inlet pipe between the valve and the exterior air bottles it would have the same effect as opening the valve. But there was something else Palanski realised he could do in the meantime and his eyes went to a large red button near the door. He reached up and punched it in. An alarm sounded.

He grabbed up the screwdriver and began to force it behind the high-pressure air pipe in order to prise it away from the wall.

Gann appeared in the escape-room doorway wearing the yellow one-piece emergency escape suit, the transparent hood hanging down his back. The suit made him appear twice as big as he was. He waded through the cabin, the water already to his knees, and brutally grabbed Palanski’s arm to spin him around. Palanski looked at him wide-eyed, confused by the escape suit.

Gann did not give his colleague a second more to consider the implications and brutally slammed him across the face. But Palanski was no slouch when it came to fighting and, driven by the added desperation of the situation, he surprised Gann by bringing the screwdriver down hard towards the man’s face. Gann would have been skewered had the chain attached to the screwdriver not reached its full length and abruptly halted the tool’s progress in mid-air, an inch from his eye. Gann did not hesitate and punched Palanski in the gut with a mighty uppercut.

Palanski bent over double but recovered enough to lunge at Gann with a mid-body tackle. Both men bulled down the row of prisoners. Gann only barely managed to stay on his feet, his back slamming into the steel wall of the escape room with Palanski still bent down in front of him. Gann took hold of Palanski’s arm, spun the man around and, positioning the limb across the open doorway, slammed the steel door on it, crushing the elbow joint. Palanski howled as he grabbed at his injury and Gann slipped the wrench from his inside pocket and brought it down onto the side of Palanski’s head. Blood streamed across Palanski’s face as he fell into the water.

Satisfied that Palanski was no longer a threat, Gann stepped through the emergency escape-room door, took a moment to look back and glare at the prisoners, and closed it behind him.

Stratton watched the dog hasps, waiting for them to turn to secure the door, but they did not and the door opened slightly though he could see nothing inside.

The water continued to flood in through the roof. Every man knew this was the end if they could not free themselves. They fought with their chains, their wrists bleeding as the shackles cut into the flesh. They shouted, growled, whimpered as they fought in desperation for a way out of the watery coffin that they were trapped inside.

In marked contrast, Stratton sat almost still as the ice-cold water lapped around his waist. He had been through every possible escape scenario in his mind but any one of them depended on first getting out of the seat chains. He looked down at the only possible chance of survival that was left - Palanski, sitting in the water, his chin just above it, teetering on the edge of consciousness.‘Palanski!’ he shouted. But the guard did not respond.

 

The two duty controllers in the prison OCR (Operations Control Room) sprang to life with the triggering of the shrill ferry alarm, both of them flashing looks at a blinking red light on the master control board. Beneath it were four route-indicator maps, each similar to the one on the ferry: a small blue LED light was flashing on the far-right map indicating that the number four ferry was five hundred metres from the prison dock.

The senior controller reached for a button on the console and pushed it as he leaned towards a slender microphone protruding from it. ‘Ferry four, this is Styx control room . . . Ferry four, this is Styx control room. Speak to me. Pick up the handset and speak to me!’

When no reply came the controllers looked at each other, unsure what to make of the lack of response.The operations-control technology was sophisticated when it came to the general running of the prison but there were few sensory or diagnostic transmissions from the ferries, apart from indications of the vessel’s depth and its progress along the cables. Since the opening of the prison there had never been a problem with the ferries apart from some minor incidents and the OCR relied on the communications system and standard procedures to monitor the craft.

‘Ferry four, this is Styx control,’ the senior controller said again, frustrated that it was all he could do at that moment to contact the vessel. ‘Do you copy?’

The only sound from the speakers was the gentle hiss of the carrier wave.

‘Still moving towards us,’ the assistant controller said, an observation that his boss could make for himself. ‘Maybe it’s an electrical glitch.’

‘The alarm sounds and there’s no one on the end of the radio?’ the senior controller said.‘That’s good enough for me something’s gone seriously wrong. Alert the standby divers,’ he ordered as he strode across the room and reached for a phone on the main console. ‘Call the surface dock. Tell ’em to launch the rescue boats and to start looking for escape suits . . . Mr Mandrick,’ he said into the phone. ‘OCR duty officer. I think we have a situation . . . it could be a serious one.’

Gann had intentionally left the emergency escape-room door unbolted because the room needed to flood if his evidence during the inevitable subsequent investigation was going to be believed. It was that post-incident phase of the operation that had caused him his only misgivings about this task. If it was discovered that the ferry had been sabotaged then any investigation would become a murder inquiry. A motive would have to be found, which could lead to a scrutiny of the goings-on in the prison. If the feds learned that Gann was possibly involved his past would come flying out of the closet and he would never see the light of day again. Gann had a lot riding on the prison’s future, hence the personal risk he was willing to take to save it. Everything would be fine as long as the incident looked like an accident.

As he zipped up his suit and positioned the hood on top of his head he pondered the risks to his own survival one more time. He looped the strap attached to the small diving bottle over one shoulder and faced the emergency escape tube. Water was streaming in through the gap in the open door to the main cabin and had reached the opening to the tube.

Gann got down onto his knees, felt for the hatch under the water and pushed it open against its counterweight springs. He took a breath, dipped below the surface, reached up into the tube and pulled himself inside. The tube was dry and he could breathe the air. He climbed up into the narrow space like a grub making its way back inside its cocoon, pulled his feet out of the water and stood on the inside rim of the hatch.

The tube was a tight fit for a man Gann’s size and he had not forgotten how hard it had been to reach down and close the hatch during his training course. It had become easier once he’d developed a few techniques. He reached down with a foot and kicked the hatch away as hard as he could. When it sprang back up he caught the inside wheel with his foot and held the hatch shut while stretching one arm down. With an effort, he managed to get a couple of fingers to the wheel, his face pressing painfully against the tube’s sides, and, aided by his foot, he turned the wheel several times to screw the locking cleats into place. When the wheel would turn no further Gann wiggled himself upright, his head an inch below the wheel of the top hatch and a small built-in light that shone in his face.

He looped the air-bottle harness over his head, making sure that he knew where the mouthpiece and mask were on the other end of the hose and, by the glow from the small light, he found the breathing tube that was plugged into the vessel’s air supply. He placed the mouthpiece between his lips, took a couple of breaths to confirm it was working and turned the flood valve in front of him.Water immediately began to gush into the tube and bubble up over his legs.

 

‘Palanski!’ Stratton shouted. If the threat of drowning didn’t wake the guard no amount of yelling was going to. Stratton felt around with his feet and found one of Palanski’s legs. He dragged it closer with his heel and stamped on it repeatedly.‘Palanski! Get back here! Wake up!’

Palanski began to choke as the water lapped over his mouth. He suddenly made a move towards consciousness as his eyes fluttered open and he fought to raise his head out of the water.

‘Palanski! Concentrate! You have to get us out of here! The chain-release lever. Palanski!’

Palanski battled to get a hold of himself as blood continued to seep from the wound on his head. He looked around, suddenly conscious of the desperation around him. Men were screaming, pulling at their chains. One was praying loudly, begging God to forgive him for his sins.

Palanski made an abortive move towards Stratton. But when he put his weight onto his broken elbow he cried out as the pain shot through him like a bolt of lightning.

‘Fight it, Palanski!’ Stratton shouted.

The sudden pain seemed to help Palanski stay conscious and he appeared more focused as he locked stares with Stratton.

‘The chain release,’ Stratton shouted. ‘Get us out of here.’

The guard pushed himself away from the bulkhead with his good hand.

‘That’s good. Keep coming!’

Palanski reached out and Stratton offered a shoulder for the guard to take hold of. Palanski pulled himself alongside.

‘Under my seat. The lever. You know where it is.’

Palanski nodded, his breathing laboured, and shuffled around to face the end of the row.

‘Come on, Palanski!’ the man beside Stratton shouted past him. ‘All you gotta do is pull that fuckin’ lever.’

Palanski reached down and felt for the box and the small opening on the face of it. His face dipped into the ever-rising water as he reached inside the opening and then he appeared to give up.

‘Palanski. We’re going to die if you don’t get us out,’ Stratton urged.

Palanski looked dazed. ‘Gettin’ . . . a . . . breath,’ he muttered. He winced against the excruciating pain, then gritted his teeth, took a breath and plunged beneath the surface of the water that was now lapping at the prisoners’ chests.

Ramos, shorter than the others, was crying out as he struggled to keep his chin above the froth.

Palanski surfaced, choking and coughing. ‘Can’t . . . can’t reach it,’ he stammered.