KURT AUSTIN FELL in what seemed like slow motion to him.
He’d seen the pipe coming
his way. And from the corner of his eye he’d caught sight of a burly man swinging it like an amateur ball player, using a big wide arc, a slower swing than it could have been.
He’d been able to react fast enough to flinch and harden his body against the blow, but not enough to dodge it.
As he doubled over, most of his mind focused on the intense pain across his abdomen, with just enough left over to hear Katarina scream and to realize the next blow would likely cave his head in.
Even as his knees hit the ground he flew into action.
He saw legs and lunged for them, pushing hard off the ground and driving his shoulder into the man’s knee.
The joint hyperextended backward and gave out with a sickening snap. The thug let out a shout and fell backward. Kurt climbed onto him and slammed his fist into the man’s face, exploding his nose in a spray of blood.
A second shot shattered a cheekbone or an eye socket, and the man’s head snapped sideways, unmoving.
Whether he was dead or just unconscious, Kurt didn’t know or honestly care. He had bigger things to deal with, mainly a second thug that had jumped on his back and now had him in a sleeper hold.
“Get out of here,” he shouted in a raspy tone to Katarina.
He tried to pull the man’s arm loose, a natural reaction that was impossible to accomplish under the best of circumstances. In this case, with his abs screaming from the impact of the pipe, Kurt had no power or leverage, and the man knew it.
The arms tightened, cutting off the blood supply to Kurt’s brain.
Gasping for air, Kurt rolled and tried to slam the man against a van parked beside them. He pushed back and felt the impact. He did it again, but far weaker this time, and the man didn’t let go.
He groped around for a weapon of any kind, a rock or a stick. Then suddenly he heard a dull thud, and the man’s grip weakened. Kurt sucked in a breath of air as a second thud followed, and the man sloughed off him like a dead vine falling from a tree.
He tried to turn but couldn’t, tried to stand but couldn’t do that either. He could only squat there on the parking lot’s black surface. He felt hands grasping his arm, small hands but with a firm grip. They pulled him up, helping him to his feet.
“Put your arm over me,” Katarina said.
He threw his arm over her shoulder despite the pain it caused him. Leaning on her, they hobbled across the parking lot and made it to the small car. He just about fell into the passenger seat as she ran around to the driver’s side.
She opened the door, tossed the pipe she’d grabbed from the first assailant into the back, and climbed into the driver’s seat
The small engine came to life with a quick turn of the key, and seconds later they were speeding out of the parking lot onto the twisting mountain road.
Unseen by either of them, two Audis snapped on their headlights and turned to follow.
GAMAY HAD WRENCHED the third clamp into place and tightened it down with all the strength in her lithe body. Breathing hard, with the muscles in her arms burning, she glanced at the seam through which the water was forcing itself. The leak had slowed back to a trickle for a while but had now increased again and was becoming a continuous flow.
“Give me the last one,” she shouted to Paul. She hoped it would make a difference. She hoped that four clamps, a couple hundred extra pounds of force holding the seam together, would be enough to offset the thousands of pounds of pressure trying to force its way inside the Grouper.
“Here,” Paul said as he handed her the last of the clamps.
She found the fourth notch and slotted the clamp into place. “What’s our depth?”
“Four thousand feet,” he said.
She began pumping the lever. The arms on the clamp closed on the flange and locked, each additional pump getting harder until she could barely move the lever.
She let out a primal grunt as she gave the last push everything she had.
“That’s all I can do,” she said, falling back exhausted.
The leak had slowed, not quite to a trickle, but it no longer looked like someone had turned on a faucet and let it run.