Iris Johansen - Silent Thunder

Hannah hit the ballast control. "I'm on my way."

The pod didn't move.

What in the hell?

Clang .

A heavy metallic sound echoed in the small pod, and LISA listed hard to the right. Hannah looked out the observation window.

The canisters were gone .

Their imprint was all that was left on the ocean floor.

"Hannah?" Kirov shouted.

"Christ!" She struggled with the controls. "I must have activated an electromagnet in those cylinders. It's attached itself to LISA ."

"Shake it off. Now!"

"I'm working on it!" She thrust the pod forward, skipping along the sea bottom. Each impact shook the pod with bone-numbing force.

Come on, LISA , hold together…

The canisters scraped along the hull, but remained affixed to LISA 's underside.

Shit.

She punched the ballast control and rocketed upward. The canisters shook against the intense pressure.

"Hurry," Kirov said. "Pavski doesn't believe in long trigger sequences."

The entire pod shook. Sweat ran down Hannah's face, and her nose suddenly dripped cold and wet.

Blood. From the sudden pressure change, she realized.

"Hannah…!"

"The cylinders aren't budging. I can't shake them!"

"Don't give up. Try ."

She tasted the blood in her mouth. Christ almighty.

A massive rock formation suddenly filled her front window. She pulled the control stick and spun clear.

A near miss. She'd seen it on the sonar on the way down, but thought she was farther away from-

Wait a second.

She eased off the ballast control and slowed her ascent. No time to figure all the angles on this one. She swung back and charged toward the formation.

Was she out of her mind?

No doubt. A six-inch piloting error would slam her against a rock wall.

But any port in a storm…

She gunned the engines, hurtling faster toward the craggy formation.

Study the features, pick the best spot…

At the last instant, she tilted forty-five degrees to the port side and skimmed over the formation, ramming the cylinders against its sheer face. She accelerated and pulled the auxiliary ballast tank release lever. Compressed air blasted from the pod's backside, further repelling the magnetized cylinders while LISA sped away.

She was free!

No time to celebrate, she thought. Keep moving.

Hannah pushed the engine harder. "Come on, baby. Give me some distance."

Her rearview screen suddenly lit up with a white, intense light that cast an eerily beautiful glow over the area. The underwater formation was now part of a majestic mountain range, stretching as far as Hannah could see.

The shock wave hit a moment later.

The pod violently rocked and tilted on its axis, spinning out of control as the power flickered on and off. Hannah gritted her teeth and closed her eyes as a dull roar overtook LISA .

She felt the bomb's explosive force in the hull, the equipment plates, in her bones and teeth.

No way in hell could LISA withstand this kind of force.

Then, finally, it stopped.

Total silence, except for the high-pitched whine of the emergency lamps.

Hannah opened her eyes and was startled when LISA 's power systems suddenly came back online.

She checked the diagnostic readings. All critical systems functioning normally.

She took a deep breath and smiled. "Good girl."

Two hours later Hannah sat in the rental boat's main cabin, holding a mask to her face and slowly breathing the pure oxygen needed to treat the ill effects of her rapid ascension…

Kirov turned from the wheel. "How are you feeling? Still faint?"

"A little. Funny thing about hyperbaric chambers. There's never one around when you need one."

"Do you want me to radio for a helicopter?"

"You'd really do that? It would be pretty hard to hide from Bradworth after drawing that kind of attention."

"I'd find a way."

"No need. It's not that severe. I was careful coming up."

"We should be back at the Aurora by nightfall. I spoke to Captain Tanbury during your ascent, and he says no one is giving him trouble about LISA 's absence yet."

"Good." Hannah pulled a blanket tight around her. "You're right about Pavski-it's not wise to underestimate him. He almost killed me down there."

" I'm the one he wants dead. Remember, if you hadn't been so stubborn, I would have been with you."

"If you'd been with me, we'd both be dead. The only reason I was able to maneuver with that bomb weighing me down was that LISA was a man short."

"Stop being reasonable. I'm not in the mood for logic." Kirov sat down next to her. "I'm mad as hell."

"At me?"

"Yes, you should have gotten out of there." He scowled. "No, I'm mad at myself. I should have seen it coming."

"Why? How could you? I sure as hell didn't."

"I know Pavski. After all these years, I should know how his mind works. He obviously knows how mine works."

Hannah studied him. "When this is over, after Pavski is dead, what will you do then?"

"You think my entire existence has been defined by a thirst for revenge? Once I lay down this last piece of the puzzle, my life will have no meaning?"

"It crossed my mind."

"Not true. Just the opposite, in fact."

"How do you mean?"

"My life will have meaning only after Pavski is gone. Until then, I have to stay in limbo."

"In limbo?"

"Yes. Caught between my old life and the new life to come."

"It's a long time to be in limbo."

"For a while I was dead inside, and then I began to come alive again. There are all kinds of pleasures to be had in this world. There are good people as well as evil, new worlds to be discovered if you have the eyes to see them. Companionship and sex." He shrugged. "Perhaps even love. Though that's the grand prize and not to be taken for granted."

"I don't believe you take anything for granted."

"I did once. I'll never do it again." He reached over and pulled the blanket closer around her. "You've probably never looked uglier in your life. Your nose is swollen, your eyes are bloodshot, and you're white as a sheet."

"Thanks. Do you want to make me feel worse?"

"No, I just wanted you to know that it doesn't make any difference." He gently brushed a scraggly tendril of hair away from her cheek. "Everything you are still shines out of you. You're like Silent Thunder . All the strength and the grace and the spirit. No matter how beat-up you get, no matter how much punishment you take, nothing can take that away." He leaned forward and brushed his lips across her forehead. "And I'm sorry I risked you because I didn't think far enough ahead."

She didn't know what to say. She was feeling… "That's the second time you compared me to Silent Thunder ," she said unevenly. "I'm not a sub, dammit. Conner used to tell me that I identified more with machines, but he never said I was like one."

"Perhaps because he never reached that final empathy that some men have with ships and the sea. Close but not quite there." His hand dropped away from her cheek. "From what you told me he was very much involved in the human race."

Her cheek felt strange, sensitive, now that he was no longer touching it. "Yes, he was that." She felt too close to him, too… intimate. She straightened. Get back to business. "What's next, Kirov?"

"After we return LISA , we need to pay another visit to our favorite antiques dealer. Petrenko was obviously instructed by someone to give us that satchel, so there may be some coercion in order to find out what he knows."

"Just don't ask me to wait in the car again. After what I've been through this morning, I'd like to see him get anything you can dish out."