Minus sign.
She would have to push herself up a maximum of forty feet in a tight, slippery tube. That was a hell of a lot more doable than climbing all the way out. “Is the fire close to the shaft?”
Plus sign.
Not good. The heat would be a problem.
“I’m going up the shaft now,” she said, looking at the camera. “I won’t be able to communicate with you any longer.”
Plus sign.
Wu was green-lighting the plan. She bent and wedged herself into the tube, which traveled horizontally for several feet before turning at a ninety-degree angle and heading straight up. She had been through her share of obstacle courses, but getting her body through the sharp bend was one of the more difficult challenges she had faced. She was grateful to be wearing spandex. Nothing to catch on the welded edges as she slid herself into position.
Standing on her feet, she tipped her head back and realized she could not even see a tiny pinprick of light above her. Either she was too far down to see up to the surface, or something was blocking the shaft. Or it was full of smoke.
She braced her back against one side of the tube and lifted her boot to plant it against the opposite side. She had done this kind of maneuver before in training, but the shaft had been square. And wider.
The tightness in the space made it difficult to raise her leg and plant her foot. Twice she slid back down to the bottom after shimmying up about twenty feet.
And then she felt the heat. Failure was no longer an option. Exhausted, thirsty, and hungry, she marshaled her last vestiges of strength and pushed herself higher.
Inching up in the darkness made her claustrophobic. Her lungs seemed to compress, and she had trouble breathing. Was this what a panic attack felt like? No. Not panic. Not claustrophobia.
Smoke.
The vent was doing its job, channeling fumes and heat up from the silo toward the surface. Only she was in the way.
She began to feel light-headed. If she fell from this height, she would injure herself at best. At worst, she would tumble into a fog of toxic fumes and suffocate.
Her muscles slackened, and she knew she was slipping into unconsciousness.
CHAPTER 69
Wu stood at the top of the ventilation shaft and peered down into the fathomless darkness. He could make out no sign of Vega.
He turned and waved at the fire captain. “You got a crowbar somewhere on that hook-and-ladder truck?” he shouted.
Once Vega crawled inside the shaft, he had closed the door to the control room and activated the pressure seal, then left Patel’s computer linked to the system. With the door pressure sealed and tons of earth between the silo and the control room, he felt confident Patel could continue to remotely operate the panel. With nothing left to do below ground, he and Flint had headed to the surface, where they had gotten into an argument almost as heated as the silo.
The fire captain trotted up to Wu and slapped the heavy metal bar into his outstretched hand. “I can tie the knot if you need me to,” he offered.
Wu had received plenty of training tying knots when he’d been in the Atlanta HRT.
“I’ve got it.” He gestured toward the fire truck parked in the distance. “You can wait back over there with the others.”
The captain’s expression told him he didn’t appreciate Wu’s orders any more than Flint or Benton had. When Vega had asked about a rope, Benton had responded on the com system that they had a one-hundred-foot rope in their gear. The problem was that the silo was 146 feet deep. If they had been back home in New York, they would have had one double that length, but they had traveled light.
That was when Wu had sealed off the control room and come to the surface. He’d checked out the vent for himself after the firefighters pried the cap off. The argument with Flint and Benton had started when he’d ordered everyone else to get back out of harm’s way.
“The whole purpose of the shaft is to allow an escape for toxic gases, fumes, and possibly a fireball in the event of an explosion in the silo,” he had told them. “Anyone standing here lowering a rope into the shaft or pulling it up will be instantly killed if that diesel tank blows.”
Benton and his team had offered to do the job anyway, and he had pulled rank. “This is my op. It’s my call. I’m the one who will get her out.”
He pretended not to hear when Benton muttered, “Or die trying.”
It was the best he could do to minimize the casualties. If everything went to shit, he and Vega would be the only ones to die. “Look,” the captain said. “Our fire hose is thirty-six meters long. That’s 118 feet. We can park the truck right here and reel her in like a marlin to a troller.”
Wu didn’t like repeating himself. “I’ve already given you my answer. I’m taking care of this.” The hook-and-ladder truck, as well as the firefighters needed to operate it, would be well inside the blast radius if the silo exploded. They could all be burned, or the entire truck could sink into a massive crater if the silo’s sealed cover imploded. Parking the truck a safe distance away would render the firehose too short for Vega to reach. He had analyzed every possibility. This was the best option.
The captain turned and started back toward his engine while Wu finished tying the knot. He tested it, then fed the heavy rope down into the shaft, trying not to think about the waves of heat that emanated up to him. If he could feel them up here, what was Vega going through down where she was?
Hoping he would get a response this time, he shouted into the shaft, “Vega!”
An obscenity came up to him from the darkness below.
She was alive.
“You okay?” he called down to her.
“A crowbar just smacked me.”
He smiled. She had managed to push herself up more than forty feet. “You’re supposed to grab it, Vega.”
“As soon as my head stops spinning, I will.”
He had sent the rope down fast. Maybe too fast. Was she concussed? Keep her talking. Keep her conscious.
“Tug on the rope when you’re ready for me to pull you up.”
He waited. Nothing happened. He lifted the rope experimentally. It came up easily. She wasn’t holding it. The heat could be getting to her. Fear welled within him. He dropped the rope again, deliberately letting it fall free.
“Ouch.”
She sounded bleary, like she was barely holding on. He reflected on everything he had learned about her over the past few days. What would her military leaders have done in this situation?
He cupped a hand around his mouth and bellowed down the hole in his best impression of a drill sergeant. “Get your ass in gear, soldier!” He paused. “Grab that fucking crowbar, Vega.”
The rope grew taut, and he began lifting her up, straining with the effort. He kept in shape with regular workouts, but she was solid muscle.
“I feel dizzy.”
Her words drifted up to him, quieter than before. She sounded weak.
“Are you a Ranger or not?” he called down through the shaft.
She didn’t answer. She had used up all her reserves and had no energy left to respond. Was she about to pass out?
He wouldn’t allow it. Not after all she had been through.
“You hold on to that bar and don’t let go,” he shouted. “That’s an order.”
She was running out of time, and he was going as fast as he could. If he lost her now, he would never forgive himself.
A pair of burly arms reached in from his right, and another pair reached in from his left. A third set grabbed him around his waist and heaved him back. Benton and his team had disobeyed a direct order. One by one, they all latched onto a section of rope and pulled. Suddenly they were jogging backward, Vega seeming weightless when ten men were tugging her to the surface.
He let go of the rope and twisted away from Flint, who apparently also couldn’t follow orders and was grasping his midsection. Wordlessly he rushed to the shaft and bent down, putting his entire upper body into the tube.
Vega came rushing up, her knuckles white as she clutched the crowbar. One of her sweat-slick hands slipped off. The crowbar tipped sideways, and Vega’s remaining hand began to slide toward the hooked end. If he didn’t do something fast, she would plummet to her death.
“Hold my legs,” he yelled over his shoulder.
An instant later, he felt strong arms wrap around his knees as he heaved himself deeper into the shaft.
The crowbar came within his reach, and he grasped the hooked end with two fingers. “Hang on,” he yelled at her, desperately trying to get a better grip.
He pulled up, but her hand slid farther down. She couldn’t hold on much longer.
He flung his body downward and felt the grip around his knees break. He began to fall headfirst down the shaft amid a cacophony of shouted obscenities from the men above until someone caught his ankles.
It had been enough for him to latch onto Vega’s wrist. “I’ve got you,” he said to her. “It’s okay, I’ve got you now.”