David Gilman - The Devil's breath

He fell headlong into the blades.

His yell was munched by the slashing metal and water, but the space he tumbled into was enough for his body to get through. Plunging deep into the murky water, he flailed desperately for anything that would help him clamber out onto dry land.

His fingers touched steel. Coarse and broken, it crumbled in his fingers. Rust. Thrashed around by the turbulence, he held on tightly, his legs floundering behind him as the full power of the water fought for release through those blades. He’d found iron inspection rungs that went down into this overspill tank.

With the sinews in his arms stretched like bowstrings, he pulled himself upwards, hand over hand, until his face broke the surface. He sucked in air and looked back over his shoulder. The frothy, turbulent water in the holding tank was only the aftermath of a surge from the Devil’s Breath like the one that had carried Max down the tunnel only a couple of hours previously. Now the blurring blades whispered a fanlike hiss. There was a bloody froth on the surface-crocodiles forced through the blades into this tank, churned and blended like a fruit smoothie.

Once he’d reached the concrete platform that surrounded the tank he saw the huge pipes that cut away upwards through the rock face. They must go to the generating room, he reasoned. Above him was an iron grid with what looked like a walkway of metal plates across it. The grid mesh was wide enough for a man to crawl through, and anyone inspecting the area from above would be able to check the tank and blades quite easily. Spotlights were strategically placed at each corner so the area would be illuminated at night. Up there was the way out, but the grid was three meters above his head.

Max huddled in the corner; the air vibrated from the whirring blades and he was desperate for rest. Since falling into the chasm he had had no time to think about!Koga, but now he wondered what the Bushman boy had done. Whatever happened to Max, everything might depend on!Koga’s finding Kallie, delivering that hydrology map, and bringing help. Would anyone come? Would any of those marks on the map convince anyone that poisoned water was killing people and that their bodies were being hidden?

He was shivering violently. The time spent in the tunnel and the encounter with the crocodiles-as well as almost being scalped by those blades-had taken their toll. But to stay in this chamber would only lead to being discovered. He hunched up, pulling his knees to his chest, making himself as small as possible, trying to stop any more heat escaping from his body. He let his gaze roam over the walls, the grid, the floor, the water, but there were no clues as to how he might escape. The noise from the blades grew distant and less intrusive, and the constant churning of the water settled into a kind of white noise in the background.

Concentrate. What can you see? Stay awake! Look! Come on!

He uncurled himself. Sitting down wasn’t going to solve the problem. The lights, the power-there had to be a feed somewhere. He skirted the chamber, his hands feeling the wall, searching for something his instinct told him must be there. A bulge in the corner of the wall, a narrow pipe, plastered and painted over so it couldn’t easily be seen, but his fingers found it, and he could tell that it ran from top to bottom of the concrete platform where he stood.

He needed something to cut away the covering, but his knife and all the weapons the Bushmen had given to him at their camp had been swept away by the Devil’s Breath. He searched around for anything that might help him, and found a square piece of metal, about the size of a cigarette packet, with a hole in the middle. It was probably a retaining washer for one of the big bolts holding the support plates on the hydraulic pipes. As Max scraped its edge down the corner of the bulge, the plaster and paint fell away, and a few minutes of diligent gouging created enough space to bare the metal behind the conduit. Moments later there was enough room to curl his fingers between the narrow pipe and the wall. He yanked, and a meter-long length of pipe came away. He pulled again, using his foot against the wall for leverage, and the plastic conduit cracked. He fell back, losing his grip and balance, but now he had a means of escape. The split piping held electric cable. With both hands wrapped around the rubber-coated cable, as thick as a broom handle, he heaved again, and the cable ripped free of the brittle plastic pipe.

This was all he needed. He pushed his feet against the wall and climbed upwards, hand over hand. The heavy-gauge iron grid above his head, each bar as thick as his arm, was old and rusted, but had stood the test of time. It was probably built into the original construction. That made sense. If this area had been the dungeons and the crazy German aristocrat knew there were crocodiles down here, then having a huge caged floor built into the rocks would serve as a threat to anyone dragged down here. Not that the history of the place mattered now, as Max hooked an arm through the grid and pulled himself up.

The area he stood in was quite bare. There was a stainless-steel door to one side, and another in the opposite wall. He could hear the steady hum of machinery, muted by the thick walls, so he guessed that all the fort’s power and utilities were located down here. He had visited a German castle in Bavaria on a school trip and wished he could remember more of the layout. That would have helped him get a clearer picture in his mind of where he was within the fort’s structure. Wherever it was, he was at the bottom, so the only way out was up. But how? Air ducts were fastened to the walls and the roof, more piping, but no way out. What was it he had seen and heard when he whirled through that darkness? Max ran his hands over the door’s dull sheen. Next to it, on a slender column of the same brushed steel, was a square of glass, the outline of a spread hand etched into it. Max hesitated, his hand hovering over the lines. Obviously it was a coded access, a palm-print recognition terminal, but would it set off every alarm bell in the castle if he tried it, or would it simply deny access?

He looked above the door. Between the wall and ceiling was a glass panel, running the whole length of the room. Below it a smallish pipe ran, suspended from sturdy-looking brackets. He could reach that. One good jump and he’d get a grip, then he could see what lay on the other side of the wall. He flexed his knees, feeling the strain on his thigh muscles. Forcing his legs upwards from a squat position, he threw his arms as high as he could. He grasped the pipe, but his hands were sweating and he didn’t have a strong enough purchase-the pipe was just that bit too wide. Focusing all his attention on the strength in his wrists, he curved his hands as tightly as he could. Shaking with effort, he pulled the weight of his body up, feeling his biceps bite, but he was losing his grip.

No sooner had he tried to lift his knees to swing a leg onto the pipe than the door hissed open. “Johnson Mkebe has entered the hydroelectric area,” a woman’s voice murmured gently.

A slightly built African, wearing a baseball cap and blue overalls with MAINTENANCE printed across the back, stepped through the doorway. Three things happened in quick succession: the door closed, Max fell, and Johnson Mkebe was knocked unconscious as Max crunched on top of him. Max rolled free, immediately alert for the sound of running feet. He held his breath, heart thumping, muscles tense. There was nowhere to escape except back into the overspill tank. And that was not an option. He would barge into anyone who came through that door and take his chances with whatever lay on the other side of the wall. But nothing happened. Max waited another few seconds, and still no one came to investigate. Max heaved the man over, unzipped his overalls and yanked them down over his legs, then climbed into the one-piece boiler suit. With a couple of turns on the sleeves and ankles, it fit. Jamming the cap on his head, he turned for the door but realized that there was only one way to get out of the room. Dragging the unconscious man’s dead weight as close to the security palm-reader as he could, he stretched one of his arms out until it rested on the glass plate. “Johnson Mkebe has left the hydroelectric area,” the voice told him.