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They let go of the No a snorkelingone of their backup octopus regulators

Eddie checked his watch It had been more than a minute since Juan started the countdown on the camera feed interrupter He held a whiteboard up to theand knocked

You canyou out of there

Overholt looked at it and nodded

Linc pointed at the bomb stuck to the capsule

Eddie nodded “Let’s move”

They sank to the botto bell and swam to the hatch

Eddie yanked on the wheel to open it The wheel spun, and Eddie felt the mechanise

“Tate wasn’t going tothe edge of the hatch

Eddie looked more closely and understood what he meant Scalloped beads of hardened metal were evident around the entire circumference

The hatch elded shut

27

Zachariah Tate watched the diving bell’s video feed froon’s Gator, it could operate underwater for lengthy periods of time on its batteries alone, but it could also surface quickly and engage its twin diesels to shoot across the water at high speed They were keeping station only a hundred yards away fro bell

Tate could see the h-powered telescopic camera mounted on the Portland It was clear that Juan Cabrillo hadn’t lost his planning skills The parachute juood if he couldn’t get Overholt out Of course, Tate’s ex–CIA partner would have been expecting the hatch to be welded shut, so the case he descended with ht have held a mini-blowtorch or some other device to break the seal

On the well-hidden exterior ca to the capsule Cabrillo clipped so to the surface, which Tate assunal interrupter for the cah, a fewbell’s , the interior and exterior feeds went to loop mode Soon after that, Tate could see Cabrillo on the ain Overholt just sat there inside