Breskin was a trained diver, however, and they were not. They were slow, clumsy, confused by the physics of the gravity-free realm in which they battled, while Breskin writhed as if he were an eel, supple and quick and fearfully strong, at home in deep water. He broke their hold on him, rammed an elbow into Pete’s face, ripped Pete’s mask over his head, and shoved him into Franz.
Brian was at the wire, fifteen feet below George Lin. Claude was with him. The Frenchman held Pete’s lamp in one hand and was using his free hand to steady Brian while the kid got the water out of his mask.
Kicking away from Pete and Franz as they tumbled in disarray, Breskin streaked toward Brian again.
Rita glimpsed movement out of the corner of her eye, turned her head, and saw Harry shoot up from the darkness below.
Harry knew that Breskin didn’t see him coming. Certain that he had temporarily disabled all opposition, the big man spun away from Pete and Franz, kicked with all the power of his muscular legs, and went directly for his preferred prey. He was no doubt sure that he could deal swiftly with a man of Claude’s age and then finish Brian before the kid was able to clear his fouled mask and draw a restorative breath.
Rising under Breskin, Harry could have collided with him and hoped to deflect him from Brian. Instead, he kicked to one side, shot past the madman, and grabbed the air hose that connected his face mask to the pressurized tank on his back. Harry flutter-kicked again, soaring up, jerking the hose out of the clamp that held it to the feed valve at the top of the tank. Because he and Breskin were moving in different directions, the hose also uncoupled from the diving mask.
The icy water didn’t pour in through Roger’s mask coupling when the hose was torn loose. There must be a safety feature, a shutoff valve.
He fumbled for the hose, but he realized that it had been ripped away not merely from the mask but from the tank on his back. It was gone and couldn’t be reconnected.
Alarmed, he scissored his legs and went up toward the mouth of the tunnel as fast as he could. His only hope was to reach the surface.
Then he remembered that the pool in the domed ice cavern was more than a hundred fifty feet above him, too far to reach with the weight belt pulling him down, so he fumbled at his waist, trying to free himself of the burdensome lead. The release wasn’t where it ought to be, because the damn belt was made by the Russians, and he had never before used Russian equipment.
Roger stopped kicking so he could concentrate on the search for the belt release. At once he began to sink slowly back into the tunnel. He patted-tugged-wrenched at the belt, but he still could not find the release, Jesus, dear Jesus God Almighty, still couldn’t find it, and finally he dare waste another second, would have to get to the surface even with the hampering belt. Arms straight down at his sides, trying to be as sleek as an arrow, creating as little resistance to the water as possible, kicking smoothly, rhythmically, he struggled up, up. His chest ached, and his heart was hammering as if it would burst, and he couldn’t any longer resist the urge to breathe. He opened his mouth, exhaled explosively, desperately inhaled, but there was nothing to breathe except the meager breath that he had just expelled, which was even thinner the next time he exhaled. His lungs were ablaze, and he knew that the darkness around him was no longer that of the tunnel but a darkness behind his eyes. He would lose consciousness if he didn’t breathe, and if he passed out he would die. So he ripped off his mask and sucked a deep breath of the air in the domed cavern, except he was nowhere near the domed cavern, of course—why had he imagined that he’d reached the surface, how could he have been so stupid?—and he inhaled water so bitterly cold that pain shot through his teeth. He closed his mouth, choking violently, but at once he tried to breath again. There was only more water, water, nothing but water. He clawed at the water with both hands, as if it were a thin curtain that he could tear apart to get to the blessed air just beyond it. Then he realized that he wasn’t kicking any longer, was sinking under the influence of the diving weights. He wasn’t clawing at the water any more either, just drifting down and down, gasping, and it felt as though he had more lead weights inside his chest than around his waist…