Page 98 (1/2)

A second after they had slae blue wave cascaded through the tunnel The catwalk disappeared under the rushing, foa into a ship in a storm The catwalk shook from the impact, and for a moment Austin feared that the whole structure, control booth and all, would be washed away

After the first shock, the torrent ht of the river still reached the bottom of the catwalk Austin went over to the control panel and stared at the diagra the full force of the glacial h the tunnel If that were the case, they would be stuck in the control roolacier melted entirely

The tunnel line was still red, indicating that it was dry He saw this as a ray of hope because it meant that the floater ca and an end

It turned out to be a very large pocket Five minutes that seean to abate Once the water level started to drop, it did so with great rapidity until they were able to go out onto the catithout danger of being washed off

Zavala watched the still-forht you said this would be like a fun house Some fun Some house"

"I think I said so about a water park, too"

It took another ten minutes for the water flow to diminish to a point where it was safe to descend the ladder Austin considered the possibility of other pockets bursting open, but put the thought out of his h the maze of tunnels On one occasion, a tunnel that was supposed to be dry proved to be otherwise They would have becoerously wet instead of uncomfortably damp if they had tried to ford the stream, and chose to detour around it

According to the lacial observatory Eventually, they caates they had seen in other tunnels This one was different from the others they had encountered The thick steel was peeled back like the skin of an orange

Zavala went over and gingerly touched

the twisted steel "This es"

Austin borrowed the o through the door and take a right and the observatory is about a half a mile walk We'd better stay alert and keep the noise down"

"I'll do , but it won't be easy"

Their lighthearted bantering was deceptive Both er they faced, and their concern was evident in the care they used to check their firearave Zavala a whispered description of the lab setup He told hi to the observatory tunnel and the ice chamber where Jules Fauchard was entombed

They were nearing the lab trailers when Zavala started li hio ahead, and he'd catch up in aout the trailers, but the ere dark and he assumed that Emil and his men were in the observatory itself He learned that he rong when a door swung quietly open behind hiet his hands in the air Then he was ordered to turn around, slowly

In the h the tunnel was diun pointed in his direction