The Prisoner - Carlos J. Cortes [45]
She surveyed the shocked expressions of the three men, heard a splash, and saw several spots moving across the water, like the snorkels of miniature submarines.
“Through there?” Raul’s voice had lost color.
“Middle one,” Laurel said.
“How far?” Lukas asked.
Laurel checked her computer. The red line ran straight to the top of the screen and ended in a flashing dot. They were approaching the point of the final coordinate lodged in the Metapad. After that, they would have to wait for further input. She tapped the screen, but with her nails trimmed back, the computer couldn’t identify the instruction. Swearing under her breath, she fished out the stylus and pecked at the red line, aghast at the result. “Two hundred feet.”
“Through there?” Raul sounded like a faulty recording.
“And with company.” Floyd nodded at the wakes crisscrossing the water.
The men’s faces were ghostly in the light bouncing off the milky water. A lump bobbed lazily across, and the dots in the water veered to explore. Laurel looked at Raul. “There goes one of your hairy balls.”
Nobody laughed.
“Zip Russo all the way up. We don’t want his face scraping the roof. Lukas, douse your flashlight and carry that bag above the water. Let’s go,” Laurel said.
With a resolve she didn’t feel, she locked her gaze on the opening at the other side of the chamber and stepped forward, placing each foot with care. The water level rose until it licked the fringe of her neck wrap. On the edge of her consciousness, she fought an image of hungry rodents swimming toward her, sharp teeth laced with rabies and scores of other plagues. Another step; a splash. Something soft brushed past her thigh, the sensation sharp through the cold fabric of her suit. Another step; more splashes. Behind her, huffs, curses, and the sound of moving water. Her vision blurred. She saw a majestic oak in bright sunshine and underneath it a swing with a little girl in a white dress, giggling at each push of her father’s brawny arms. Laurel had reached the opening when she heard Lukas’s quivering voice launch into the first verses of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Thicker voices joined in, and she knew they would make it to the other side of the corridor.
Senator Palmer waited for the second set of beeps before answering, as DAPHNIS flashed on the screen of his secure set.
“Palmer.”
“I sent them off to the moles.” A carillon of code beeps, a snap, and then silence.
Palmer removed his reading glasses, a tribute to a bygone era; he’d refused intraocular surgery, preferring the old-fashioned lenses.
When he’d entered codes in his secure scrambler, Palmer had hesitated to assign Daphnis to Shepherd. Yes, Daphnis, the son of Hermes and a Sicilian nymph, was a shepherd, but his name originated from the Greek daphne. He’d looked up the word’s etymology, to discover daphne meant laurel or bay tree. And now Laurel would place her life and that of her companions in the hands of strangers. Laurel, my brave dear girl. There had to be a hidden meaning in the coincidence.
Palmer closed his eyes. His only hope now lay in people who had lost hope in society. The mole people.
Progress through the flooded tunnel was painstakingly slow. Twice Laurel stopped when her boot caught on an immersed obstacle, soft and squishy. Keeping the flashlight above water to light the way for her companions, she sidestepped, calling out, “Lump!” The air wafted hot over the water. Halfway through, she had to wave the flashlight ahead to clear her way through a tangle of brown spaghettilike excrescences issuing through cracks in the brickwork.
“Someone had a busy weekend.” Floyd moved two paces behind her, followed by Raul. He had rested the poles on his shoulders and draped one of the belts across his forehead. At his back, Raul held the opposite end of the poles against the roof, keeping the end of the