He preferred to swim straight to the top of the tunnel, clamber out of the pool, return to the top of the ice, find a blasting shaft, lie down upon it, and let the midnight explosion tear him to pieces, because that would be a cleaner death than any at the hands of these people. But he couldn’t move. His left hand was curled around the communications wire so tightly that the two might have been soldered together. With his right hand, he gripped the halogen lamp so hard that his fingers ached.
He waited to die as his sister had died. As his mother had died. As his grandfather and grandmother had died. The past had surged forward to overwhelm the present.
He’d been a fool to have believed that he’d escaped the horror of his childhood. In the end, no lamb could escape the slaughter.
The air hose trailed along the side of Harry’s head, and the diving mask was attached to the end of it, floating above him. He pulled the mask down and clamped it to his face. It was full of water, and he dared not breathe immediately, even though his lungs felt as though they were on fire. When he peeled up one corner of the rubber rim, the influx of oxygen-helium mixture forced the water out from behind the Plexiglas faceplate, and when all the water had been purged, he pressed that corner down tight again and sucked in a deep breath, another, another, spluttering and choking and gasping with relief. The slightly odd smell and taste of the gas was more delicious than anything that he had ever eaten or drunk before in his entire life.
His chest was sore, his eyes burned, and his headache was so fierce that his skull seemed to be splitting apart. He wanted only to hang where he was, suspended in the tenebrous sea, recuperating from the assault. But he thought of Rita, and he swam up toward the two remaining lights and a turmoil of shadows.
Brian gripped Breskin’s left wrist with both and hands and tried to wrench the big man’s steely hand from his face, but he wasn’t able to resist. The diving mask was torn loose.
The sea was colder than the freezing point of ordinary water, but it still had not turned to ice because of its salt content. When it gushed across his face, the shock was nearly as painful as having a blazing torch shoved against his skin.
Nevertheless, Brian reacted so calmly that he surprised himself. He squeezed his eyelids shut before the water could flash-freeze the surface tissues of his eyeballs, clenched his teeth, and managed not to breathe either through his mouth or nose.
He couldn’t hold out long. A minute. A minute and a half. Then he would breathe involuntarily, spasmodically—
Breskin clamped his legs tighter around Brian’s midsection, pushed his rubber-sheathed finger between Brian’s compressed lips, and tried to force his mouth open.
Rita swam in behind and above Roger Breskin, into the sour light from George’s hand-held lamp. She glided onto Breskin’s back and wrapped her long legs around his waist as he had wrapped hi legs around Brian.
With reflexes sharpened rather than dulled by maniacal frenzy, Breskin let go of Brian and seized Rita by the ankles.
She felt as though she was riding a wild horse. He twisted and bucked, a powerful beast, but she gripped him with her thighs and grabbed for his mask.
Sensing her intent, insane but not stupid, Breskin released her ankles and seized her wrists just as her hands touched the rim of his faceplate. He bent forward, kicked his flippers, did a somersault. Rolling through the water, he tore her hands from his face, and using the dynamics of the sea to achieve a leverage that she couldn’t hope to match, he pitched her away from him. She kicked furiously as she went, hoping to connect with the crazy bastard, but none of her kicks landed.
When she oriented herself again, she sawt hat Pete and Franz had descended on Breskin. Franz struggled to maintain a wristlock while Pete tried to pin at least on of the madman’s arms.