A Heartbeat Away - Michael Palmer [114]
Griff’s joints ached from his having stayed so long in such an awkward position. He crossed to the wall-mounted control panel for the Kitchen’s Environment Status System—its ESS. His goal was to make the place seem even more potentially lethal than it already was.
Of the three buttons on the panel’s front face, the green one was lit, and the yellow and red ones were not. Griff keyed the input code required to change environment status, and with a push of a button the Kitchen went from a green safety level to yellow. The yellow status alerted topside communication of a potential exposure risk in the labs. Nothing too alarming, like the total evacuation and shutdown mandated by red, but nothing they would risk Rappaport being exposed to, either. It would certainly buy some time. How much, Griff had no way of knowing.
He went back to the ventilation shaft and used his Maglite flashlight to penetrate the darkness of the metal tunnel, scanning for sharp edges between duct joints that could slice open his suit before he cleared the hot zone. Fortunately, the engineers had injected sealant between the joints. The passage would be relatively smooth.
With thoughts of Angie and of what might lie ahead in Wichita, he set the flashlight down. He would need both hands free to work his way up the steep rise at the far end of the system. Detaching the air hose from his suit, he positioned himself facedown on the metal and snaked his way into the blackness.
Space in the duct was unpleasantly tight. Griff worked forward in a military crawl. The shaft was roughly the diameter of the opening in an MRI machine. His back scraped against the top of it every time he arched his hips. The darkness was now total, and the accompanying claustrophobia was becoming oppressive. His helmet and face mask made the situation even more difficult and unsettling.
Breathing through his nose, eyes closed, he wriggled ahead, feeling for any incline.
Breathe in … breathe out … breathe in … breathe out …
The tube seemed interminable, the air stale. Then, just as he was wondering if Melvin had given him misinformation about the course of the system, he sensed an incline beginning. At first the rise was subtle. Griff opened his eyes, but he was still engulfed in absolute darkness.
Breathe in … breathe out …
Suddenly, the incline became more severe. The shaft bent upward at an angle that was at least forty-five degrees. Instantly, the rhythm Griff had established disappeared. Movement ahead and upward became awkward, and required every bit of his strength. Without the air hose to help cool him, his suit trapped much of his body heat. He kept himself wedged in the shaft, moving through the blackness only a few inches at a time. Fatigue became a serious problem. The climb was far more difficult than he had anticipated. He fought off the increasingly desperate urge to try crawling backward to the opening.
Visions of giving up—of just stopping and dying there—began to dominate his thoughts. He drove himself ahead by remembering the guards at Florence, beating on the soles of his feet and calling him a traitor and a terrorist. He allowed his mind to relive the electric total-body pain and the blood of his Ebola infection.
The rise in the shaft increased. Griff slid backward. Frantically, he pressed his palms against the metal, finally managing to regain his leverage. Again he shimmied ahead, his arms shaking from supporting what amounted to his full body weight. Still, he managed to inch higher. He guessed the angle of the shaft to be at least seventy degrees, now.
Angie … the guards … Louisa … Rappaport … the cell … Allaire … Africa …
He was nearly upright now, wedged in place, but able to use his knees for support and thrust. As Melvin had warned, this part of the ascent was like rock