The Man In The Diner Photograph And The Ghost Of August

CHAPTER 4: THE DECOMPRESSION BREACH

“Owen!” Cole shouted, slamming his gloved palm against the thick quartz porthole.

Inside the glass cylinder, the thrashing man froze. Through the condensation and swirling mist of nitrogen vapor, Owen turned his head. His gaunt, exhausted face, identical to Cole’s in every line and scar, registered the impossible image outside the glass. His lips moved behind the quartz, forming a single, soundless word: Cole?

On the control console, the digital readout flashed violently: CRITICAL WARNING: OXYGEN CONCENTRATION 6.2% / AMBIENT NITROGEN SATURATION 93.8%.

“The digital control console is encrypted with a rolling biometric lockout!” Dutch yelled, his fingers flying across the industrial keypad. “Saye initiated an irreversible emergency purge cycle! If we pull the electronic breaker, the fail-safe clamps lock permanently and the chamber seals forever!”

“Then we don’t use the computer,” Cole barked, unstrapping the portable oxy-acetylene cutting torch from his back harness. “Preacher! Hook the secondary bypass hose to the manual equalization bleeder! Dutch, get the wrench on the primary intake manifold! We’re doing a manual atmospheric bleed!”

“Cutter, if you cut the wrong manifold pipe, the explosive decompression will blow his lungs apart!” Dutch warned, his voice straining under the howling alarm siren.

“I ran heavy-salvage dive chambers for twelve years, Dutch!” Cole yelled back, striking the flint spark-lighter. A brilliant blue-and-white flame erupted from the torch tip with a roaring hiss. “I know this manifold like the back of my hand! Hold that valve steady!”

Cole dropped to his knees beneath the titanium cylinder, directing the searing cone of the cutting torch against the hardened steel retaining collar of the high-pressure nitrogen injection line. Sparks rained down onto the wet steel catwalk, hissing as they struck the standing lake water below.

High above on the catwalk gantry, the heavy steel access doors banged open.

“Halt! Step away from the chamber or we open fire!” a harsh voice barked through the echoing industrial cavern.

Four Vanguard private security contractors in black tactical uniforms, armed with suppressed submachine guns, fanned out across the upper gantry railing, leveling their weapons at Cole and his team.

“Cover!” Preacher roared.

The veteran Marine raised his twelve-gauge shotgun and fired two rapid kinetic beanbag rounds into the upper gantry. The heavy lead-shot canvas bags struck the lead contractor square in the tactical chest plate with the force of a sledgehammer, knocking him backward over the railing and plunging twenty feet down into the dark water of the flooded test basin with a colossal splash.

The remaining contractors scrambled behind steel I-beams, opening fire with suppressed bursts that chewed into the titanium skin of the hyperbaric cylinder and ricocheted off the steel deck with high-pitched whining zings. Dutch returned fire with heavy non-lethal slugs, keeping the guards pinned down behind the gantry stanchions.

Beneath the chamber, Cole ignored the gunfire chewing the metal around his head. With steady, surgical hands, he sliced through the retaining collar, severed the nitrogen feed, and kicked the smoking steel pipe away with his heavy boot.

“Bypass open!” Cole shouted, grabbing the manual brass pressure equalization wheel. “Bleeding to sea-level atmosphere in three… two… one!”

With a deafening, ear-shattering roar like a jet engine spooling up, high-pressure gas vented through the roof exhaust stacks. The chamber pressure needle dropped from eight atmospheres down to zero. The heavy hydraulic locking dog-latches clicked open with a chorus of mechanical releases.

Cole threw his full weight against the heavy three-hundred-pound titanium door, hauling it outward on its lubricated hinges.

A cloud of cold vapor billowed into the cavern. Cole lunged inside, sliced the canvas restraints with his pocketknife, and caught his identical twin brother as Owen collapsed into his arms.

Owen was burning with fever, his skin pale and clammy, his breath rattling in his throat. But his brown eyes were wide open, staring up into the face of the brother he had mourned for thirty years.

“Cole…” Owen gasped, his rough fingers clutching the lapel of Cole’s buffalo-hide vest with desperate strength. “You’re… you’re dead. Saye showed me the casualty reports… he told me you drowned on the cutter off Hatteras…”

“I’m right here, brother,” Cole choked out, tears burning his eyes as he wrapped his thick arms around Owen, lifting his twin’s gaunt frame off the gurney onto his shoulder. “I’m right here, and we’re going home.”

“Move! We’ve got more security coming down the freight elevator!” Preacher shouted, ejecting an empty shell casing that clattered onto the grating.

Cole carried Owen down the catwalk toward the reinforced van, Dutch and Preacher laying down a suppressive wall of covering fire that kept the security contractors trapped behind the concrete pillars. They piled into the van, slammed the armored sliding doors, and Dutch hammered the throttle, tearing out of the test basin into the raging sleet storm.

In the back of the swaying van, Cole laid Owen gently onto an emergency bench, wrapping him in thermal wool blankets.

Owen coughed violently, spitting up a mouthful of clear fluid, his trembling hand reaching up to touch the faint scar on Cole’s left eyebrow.

“Cole… listen to me,” Owen whispered, his voice shaking with sudden, horrified clarity as thirty years of suppressed memories flooded through the chemical haze in his brain. “The encrypted drive… Rachel has it?”

“She has it,” Cole assured him. “It’s safe.”

“You don’t understand,” Owen gasped, clutching Cole’s wrist so hard his fingernails dug through the leather glove. “Saye didn’t just build the acoustic array for defense contracts. He’s armed a low-frequency underwater sonar pulse beacon on the Presque Isle shipping channel… it’s timed to trigger tonight. It will blind the collision-avoidance radar of the Canadian ore freighter Algoma Spirit as it enters the harbor… Saye bought short options on Great Lakes Maritime shipping… it will cause a catastrophic collision against the breakwater!”

Cole felt the hair on his arms stand up. “When is the freighter scheduled to enter the channel?”

“Dawn,” Owen rasped in horror. “Six o’clock. And Saye has an armed team moving on your shop right now.”