He stopped, listened.

From the floor above, he could hear shuffling and whispered voices: "Snagged . . . Go down there . . ."

Fisher climbed the ladder to the open floor hatch and peeked up. Thirty feet away he could see Hansen's hunched form. Standing behind him were two figures--Kimberly and Ames, judging from their outlines.

"Go down there. . . ."

Kimberly trotted off toward the stairs. Ames stayed behind.

Fisher climbed the last few feet and crab-walked away from the hatch, then stopped behind a stack of bricks. An impulse popped into his head; he debated it briefly, then flipped a mental coin. More chaos it is, then.

The ankle-deep loam on the floor made the crossing almost too easy. Twenty seconds after leaving his hiding place, he was standing behind the pair. Hansen, stuck up to his crotch in the floor trap, couldn't turn around; Ames could do nothing but stand watch over his team leader.

Fisher waited until Hansen said via SVT, "What? What kind of cord?" then reached forward, circled his right arm around Ames's throat, and clamped down with Ames's larynx in the crook of his elbow, his left fist pressed against Ames's carotid artery. He leaned back, lifting Ames free of the floor. Fisher began reverse walking, taking wide, balanced strides on flat feet to compensate for the extra weight. The levered grip on Ames's throat took immediate effect, shutting off the oxygen spigot to his brain and rendering him limp within four seconds.

Occasionally glancing over his shoulder, Fisher retreated to the hatch, where he stopped and stepped sideways behind the brick pile. He laid Ames flat, stripped the OPSAT (operational satellite uplink) off his wrist, then unhooked his SC-20 from its shoulder sling. He smelled the barrel; it had been fired recently. He ejected the magazine and found only two rounds missing. He hadn't been the only one shooting at the reservoir.

Fisher laid the SC 20 aside and took Ames's SC pistol from the holster and stuffed it into his waistband. He turned his attention to the OPSAT, tapping buttons and scrolling through menus until he found the first screen he wanted. In sequence, he tapped the buttons marked POSITIONING > ONBOARD GPS > OFF, then scrolled back to the diagnostics screen and tapped SELF-REPORT > SVT > MALFUNCTION > TRANSMIT INOPERABLE, then hit SEND. Next he switched screens to TACTICAL COMMS > INTRAUNIT, then called up the on screen keyboard and typed, MOVEMENT ON LOWER FLOORS, NORTH SIDE; INVESTIGATING, then hit SEND again.

Across the floor Hansen was moving, rolling to the left and withdrawing his leg from the hole. Kimberly had freed him. Fisher strapped the OPSAT to his wrist, returned to the hatch, and started downward. Footsteps clanged up the ladder across the room and, as his head dropped below floor level, he saw Kimberly's figure sprinting across to Hansen, who was climbing back to his feet. Hansen's taut posture told Fisher the team leader had failed to see the humor in his paracord trick.

Fisher repeated his trapeze act until he was back on the lintel shelf. Crouched over and taking careful, quiet steps, he headed south, stopping every ten feet to listen. Whether his ruse was working, he couldn't tell. As he drew even with the hole in which he'd entered the foundry, a pair of figures--Vin and Blondie--appeared on the floor below, silently sprinting north, trailing a cloud of dust. Fisher stopped, crouched down, and checked the OPSAT. It appeared Hansen had bought, at least for the time being, Ames's malfunction message, having used his command function to switch the team's comms from VOICE to VOICE + TEXT TRANSCRIPTION. As the transcription was coded by OPSAT number rather than name, Fisher couldn't tell who was who, but with Ames having gone solo, Hansen would have teamed up with Kimberly. In near-real time, Fisher watched the dialogue pop on the screen:In subbasement, north side . . . nothing yet . . .

Third-floor north clear, heading south . . .

Ames, report. Say position. Ames, respond . . .

Starting to get worried now, Fisher thought. He stood up and continued on.

Hansen was sharp; at most, he'd give Ames another minute to respond and then order a regroup. If he and Kimberly had, in fact, seen the footprints heading toward the ladder hatch, Hansen would realize his mistake, his assumption. By then it wouldn't matter. With the now-four-person team converging on the second-floor north wall, he would be moving south, toward--

Even before Fisher shifted his weight to his forward foot, he knew something was wrong, could feel the sole of his boot sliding sideways on the spot of grease or rainwater or whatever it was on the concrete. Before he could react, he was falling through space. The floor loomed before him. At the last moment he reached out and smacked his palm against a section of pipe. He twisted sideways, slowed ever so slightly; then his body was horizontal and falling again. He curled himself in a ball, arms wrapped around his head, legs tucked to his chest.

The loam softened the impact, but he still felt as if he'd taken a body blow from a heavyweight boxer. Swirling sparks burst behind his eyes.

He heard a crack, then a pop, then silence.

The floor splintered beneath him; then he was falling again.

7

HAVINGpunched a ragged, man-sized hole through the floor, Fisher found himself falling amid a cloud of dust and ash that obscured his vision save for a few jumbled glimpses of concrete, steel pipes, and moonlight glinting off water. Water. The canal.With no way of knowing how deep it was, he scrambled to right himself, twisting his torso and flailing his arms until his internal gyroscope told him he was right side up. He spread his limbs like a parachutist, sucked in a breath, and set his jaw.

The impact felt like someone had slapped him in the sternum with a twelve-inch plank. His world went dark and quiet. Despite being shielded from the sun, the water was surprisingly warm. His head broke the surface. He checked his waistband: The SC pistol was still there. He checked his wrist: The OPSAT was gone.

The stench of algae, mold, and animal decomposition filled his nostrils. The surface was covered in patches of greenish gray slime. Here and there he saw clumps of what looked like fur and feathers. This answered one of his earlier questions: This canal, wherever it began and ended, saw little freshwater circulation. Flanked on both sides by narrow concrete walkways and high walls interspersed with arched doorways, the canal was about thirty feet wide; whether it extended the length of the foundry proper, he couldn't tell.

Through the hole in the floor/ceiling he saw the glimmer of approaching flashlights accompanied by the muffled plodding of multiple sets of feet. Fisher looked around. The canal walls were smooth, vertical concrete rising at least four feet off the water's surface. Thirty yards away, on the right side of the canal, he could make out a set of steps rising from the water and, opposite them, an archway through which pale moonlight streamed. He'd never reach the steps in time, and with the team's adrenaline and anger levels spiked, he had to assume at least one of the gun barrels about to be jammed through the ceiling hole would be spitting bullets. Above, powdery loam gushed through the hole as feet skidded to a stop at its edge.

Fisher blew out all the air in his lungs, refilled them, and ducked beneath the slime. Immediately, he realized his belly-flop entry had been the right move: The canal's muddy bottom was only four feet down. His submersion had improved his situation only slightly. They would see the ripples he'd left behind. He was just rolling over, sweeping his arms and legs into a powerful, scissoring sidestroke, when he heard the first pfftstrike the water behind him. Whether it was a bullet or an LTL projectile, he didn't know, but the first shot was immediately followed by several more, then a dozen in rapid succession, punching into the water to his right, to the rear, and in front as the shooters tried to bracket him.