Chapter 70 - The Pressure Point
The roar of the oncoming wall of water grew louder with every second, vibrating straight through the soles of my boots and shaking the loose mortar from the ancient stone ceiling above our heads. The narrow drainage tunnel was barely five feet high, forcing us to hunch over as we splashed frantically through the rising, ice-cold muck. Charles was stumbling badly between us, his breathing ragged and shallow, his dead weight dragging us down with every desperate step we took against the current.
"I can't... I can't walk anymore, Ethan," Charles gasped out, his knees buckling beneath him as he collapsed face-first into the freezing water.
"Get up, Dad! Now!" Julianna screamed, grabbing his arms and trying frantically to hoist him back to his feet, but her strength was completely gone, her fingers slipping helplessly against his wet designer jacket.
I didn't hesitate. I slung my carbine over my shoulder, grabbed Charles by the back of his heavy woolen coat with one hand, and hoisted him up over my shoulder in a fireman's carry. "Grab my belt, Julianna! Do not let go, or the current will take you!"
She grabbed the tactical strap of my vest with both hands, burying her face against my back as we surged forward through the dark, winding corridor. The flashlight beam danced wildly across the damp concrete walls, illuminating rusted warning placards and faded yellow stencils marking old military sector boundaries that hadn't seen the light of day in thirty years.
Suddenly, the tunnel dead-ended into a massive, circular concrete bulkhead fitted with a heavy steel wheel valve in the center—an emergency pressure-release hatch leading out toward the natural bedrock fissures overlooking Emerald Bay.
"Is this it? Are we trapped?" Julianna sobbed hysterically, looking up at the massive steel door blocking our path.
"No," I gritted through clenched teeth, dumping Charles’s limp form onto the dry concrete ledge beside the hatch and stepping up to the heavy wheel. "This is where the trap springs the other way."
I reached into my vest pocket, pulled out the military-grade satellite beacon I had used back in the interrogation room, and jammed its magnetic base firmly against the center of the steel bulkhead. With a sharp twist of my thumb, I re-routed its broadcast frequency from the public news network straight into the secure emergency tactical band of the United States Coast Guard cutter currently patrolling the cold waters of Lake Tahoe three miles below.
*Beep. Beep. Beep.*
"What are you doing?!" Julianna cried out, watching the tiny red LED flash with manic speed. "If you broadcast from inside a concrete bulkhead, the signal will—"
"It will bounce off the bedrock and act as a seismic homing beacon," I interrupted coldly, drawing my combat knife with my free hand and jamming it deep into the mechanical locking gear of the wheel valve. "And it'll give every Coast Guard tactical team within fifty miles the exact geographic coordinates to blow this entire mountainside wide open."
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From deep down the tunnel behind us, the terrifying roar of the oncoming wall of water crested the final bend, a churning wall of white foam and debris rushing straight toward us at breakneck speed.
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