He tried to twist the circular spin lock but it was too tight.
He looked down at her. ‘Damn thing’s rusted shut,’ he said sourly. ‘Probably hasn’t been opened in the last fifty years.’
Despite the seeming pointlessness of it, he turned back and twisted again, until he was red in the face and the skin on his hands started to blister. But still it wouldn’t move, the inoperable hatch teasing them cruelly with the possibility of escape just beyond.
Caines checked the monitors. Although the corridors of Level 36 were conspicuously absent of security cameras, being almost completely off the grid, the team headed up by Captain Aldo Barnes was feeding images back to him from their own helmet-mounted imagers.
He was happy to see that Barnes had had the foresight to bring some L-84 ‘Ramcarts’ down from the upper guardroom. The vehicle was basically a modified golf buggy, and although not anywhere near as fast as the device that had whisked the escapees away at such high speed, it was considerably faster than making the pursuit down the tunnels on foot.
Caines watched as half of the men managed to squeeze into the two small vehicles and then took off up the tunnel at a rapid thirty miles an hour, while the rest of the men started to jog along behind them. Then he turned away to check on the progress of his other units, who were headed for the tunnel’s surface exit.
Barnes took point in the lead buggy, the noise of the diesel engines deafening in the confines of the narrow tunnel, a savage grin on his face as he checked the magazine on his Steyr AUG assault rifle. The couple just a few miles up ahead had left two of his men unconscious on the floor back in the interrogation rooms, a professional insult to Barnes, and one that would soon be avenged.
Adams heard the noise of the engines first, even with his ears pulsing with blood from the pressure inside his head as he continued to struggle against the spinlock.
The damn guards must have brought some sort of vehicles into the tunnel and would be upon them a lot sooner than Adams had hoped. A team of armed men on foot would probably have taken close to an hour to reach them. But in motorized transport? It depended on the exact speed, of course, but it would certainly be a lot less than an hour, that was for sure. It could even be as little as a few minutes.
Adams looked down at Lynn, saw that she, too, had heard the roar of engines; could see the look of worry in her eyes, not only for themselves but also for the unborn child she now knew was growing in her belly.
Adams turned back to the cursed, rusted hatch and attacked it with renewed ferocity. The damn thing was going to open one way or another; he could not let it be otherwise.
Moments later, he felt Lynn move up beside him, feet entwined with his, her back braced against the tunnel wall opposite.
She smiled reassuringly at him, reaching up to take hold of the opposite side of the lock. She looked at him, more than simple love transmitted by her gaze; it was understanding, belief, mutual recognition of their deepest feelings for one another.
‘Let’s do it together, OK?’ she said to him, and Adams knew that she wasn’t just talking about opening the hatch.
He returned her look with one of his own, one that he hoped transmitted just as much to her, and nodded his head.
‘On the count of three, we both twist together,’ he said, as the noise of the diesel engines grew louder and louder.
‘One,’ he said, as they both tightened their hands around the stainless steel hatch seal. ‘Two,’ he continued, taking a deep breath. ‘Three!’ he shouted, and they both hauled on the ring as hard as they could, muscles contracting with such force that the veins started to pulse blue in their foreheads, threatening to burst from their skin.
At first there was nothing, not even a hint of movement, but as both of them continued to exert an almost inhuman level of force, there came the very first slip of metal on metal, a grinding sound and slight judder that they both felt through their hands.
Adams looked at Lynn, unable to talk with the effort; but his eyes said it all. We’re almost there! Harder!
24
The Ramcart buggies built up to their maximum speed of fifty miles per hour just one mile into the long tunnel, and Barnes calculated that they would reach the end within seven minutes of setting off from the disguised elevator entrance.
He checked his watch as six minutes came around, gesturing for his men to get ready. They would make the assault as soon as they arrived, hit the two escapees hard and fast.
And then he saw the end of the tunnel coming up, the cart abandoned. The man and woman were not readily apparent, which meant that they were probably stuck up the access tunnel, struggling to open the metal hatch.
Barnes smiled to himself; the hatch was as good as welded shut from years of neglect. It was on the ‘to do’ list but always seemed to be one of the things that never got done.
The buggies cruised to a stop and Barnes and his men spilled out into the tunnel, guns raised, sprinting towards the vertical shaft. It was going to be like shooting fish in a barrel.
Two of his men got there before him, assault rifles pointing vertically up the short exit tunnel. Barnes was momentarily confused when no shots were fired, but then he was there, looking up towards the hatch himself, and understood in an instant.
For there was nothing there to shoot at; the shaft was empty, the steel hatch open to the night sky above.
Adams and Lynn had finally managed to turn the steel rim enough to break the rusty seal, the sound of tortured metal giving way to a freer, easier movement, until the hatch had opened fully.
Dirt and soil had collapsed on their heads as Adams pushed the hatch gingerly open, and he held it open a few inches as he and Lynn moved to the side and waited for the soil to work its way down to the tunnel floor.
Adams pushed again, and although he met with resistance, he continued the effort until it was halfway open. For reasons of safety, he hadn’t wanted to open it all the way anyway, as he didn’t want to attract too much attention if there were any guards in the vicinity. He presumed that the guards from Level 36 would have issued a general alert, and that they may therefore have already reached the tunnel exit, if they could find it.
Holding it open just enough for someone to crawl through, he gestured for Lynn to come across to him. She transferred to the ladder side, bracing herself as she took the weight of the hatch. Adams pulled out his handgun, kissed Lynn quickly on the lips, and edged his way slowly out into the moonlit night.
He kept his profile low to the ground, slipping out of the semi-open hatch slowly and silently. Once his upper torso was out, he stopped and monitored the immediate area, keeping his head still while his eyes roved.
There was no movement, of that he could be pretty sure. He was an expert in tracking animals at night and was used to searching for movement even on the darkest nights; but here there were no telltale signs whatsoever. But that wasn’t to say that there wasn’t anybody further out, monitoring them electronically, or behind the hatch cover where he couldn’t see.
And so he slowly extricated himself from the hatch completely, allowing his body to turn in order to check the rear area as well. He swept the entire horizon for three hundred and sixty degrees, until he was happy that nobody was there.