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  Encircling the crater-shaped area are a series of dark spots set in a precise, equidistant circular pattern along the mile-diameter perimeter.

  Mick counts the holes. He feels his gut tightening, a cold sweat breaking out across his body. He grabs his father's journal, leafing through the parched pages until he locates the June 14, 1997, entry.

  He stares at the photograph of the nine-foot circular icon, located at the center point of the Nazca plateau. Within its circular boundaries Mick had found the original Piri Re'is map, sealed within an iridium container. He counts twenty-three lines extending outward from the Nazca figure like a sunburst, the last one, seemingly endless.

  Twenty-three dark spots surround the monstrous hole in the seafloor.

  Mick, what is it? Are you okay? Dominique sets the minisub on autopilot to glance at the monitor. What are they?

  I don't know, but an identical pattern was drawn on the Nazca plateau thousands of years ago.

  Dominique glances at the entry. It's not really identical. You're comparing lines carved in the desert with a bunch of dark holes in the seafloor-

  Twenty-three holes. Twenty-three lines. You think that's just a coincidence?

  She pats his check. Take it easy, gifted one. I'll head for the nearest hole, and we'll take a closer look.

  The Barnacle slows to hover above a dark burrow, twenty feet across, the orifice spewing a steady profusion of bubbles. Dominique directs one of the sub's external lights down into its steep gullet. The beacon reveals a vast tunnel, descending through the seafloor at a forty-five-degree angle.

  What do you think?

  Mick stares at the burrow, the familiar feeling of dread growing in his gut. I don't know.

  I say we investigate.

  You want to enter that hellhole?

  That's why we're here, isn't it? I thought you wanted to resolve the Mayan doomsday prophecy?

  Not like this. It's more important that we get to Chichen Itza.

  Why? He's frightened.

  Salvation lies in the Kukulcan pyramid. The only thing waiting down this hole is death.

  Yeah, well I didn't toss seven years of college in the toilet and risk being thrown in prison just so you could chase some bullshit Mayan prophecy. We're here because my family and I need a sense of closure, we need to find out what really happened to Iz and his friends. I'm not blaming you for my father's death, but since you're the one who started us on this little adventure, you're the one who's going to see it through.

  Dominique pushes down on the wheel, driving the capsule-shaped minisub straight into the heart of the tunnel.

  Mick grabs for a ladder rung, holding on as the Barnacle accelerates through the pitch-dark shaft.

  A squishing sound echoes within the sub.

  Dominique stares out her viewport. The sound's coming from the walls of this passage. The internal lining seems to be acting like some kind of giant sponge. Mick, to your left, there's a sensor marked spectrophotometer-

  I see it. He activates the system. If I'm reading this thing right, the gas being filtered out of this hole is pure oxygen.

  A baritone thrumming reverberates throughout the cabin, growing louder as they descend deeper. Mick is about to say something when the Barnacle suddenly lurches forward, accelerating down the shaft.

  Hey, slow down-

  It's not me. We're caught in some kind of current. He can hear the panic in her voice. External temperatures rising. Mick, I think we're being sucked into a lava tube!

  He grips the ladder tighter as the deep pulsating sounds cause the glass instrument panels in front of him to resonate.

  The minisub plunges, spinning blindly down the hole like a beetle being flushed down a drainage pipe.

  Mick! Dominique screams as she loses control of the Barnacle. She squeezes her eyes shut and grips the seat's shoulder harness as the power fails and they are blanketed in darkness.

  She feels herself hyperventilating, waiting for the jolt that will cause the sub to lose integrity to the suffocating sea. Oh, Jesus, God, I'm going to die, help me, please-

  Mick has locked his arms and legs around the ladder, his palms clenching the steel bars in a viselike grip. Don't fight it, let it come. Let the madness end. . .

  Intense vertigo as the minisub spins round and around as if caught in a giant washing machine.

  A sonic boom-a bone-jarring jolt: Mick is sent flying blindly through the pitch, the Barnacle driven bow-first into an immovable, unseen force, the air exploding from his lungs as his face and chest slam blindly into a stack of computer consoles.

  Chapter 17

  GULF OF MEXICO

  7,168 FEET BELOW THE SURFACE

  The incessant pounding in his head forces Mick to open his eyes.

  Silence.

  He is lying on his back, his legs propped in the air, his upper body entangled in a sizzling array of broken equipment. The cabin is humid and pitch-dark, save for the dull glow of an orange console flickering somewhere in the distance. Up is down, left is right, and a warm liquid is dripping down his throat, gagging him.

  He rolls over painfully, spitting out a mouthful of blood, his head still spinning. Tracing the blood to his dripping nostrils, he pinches off the flow.

  For a long moment he just sits there, balancing unsteadily on sharp fragments of shattered computer monitors and navigational equipment as he tries to remember his name and where he is.

  The minisub. The burrow . . . Dominique!

  Dom? He spits out more blood as he climbs over a pile of equipment blocking his path to the pilot's chair. Dom, can you hear me?

  He finds her unconscious, still strapped within the pilot's chair, her chin on her chest. His heart pounds with fear as he carefully reclines the chair all the way back, supporting her bleeding head in his hand before allowing it to rest on the back of the seat. He checks her airway, detecting shallow breaths. He loosens the harness, then tends to the deep, bleeding gash on her forehead.

  Mick removes his tee shirt, tearing the sweaty fabric into long strips. He ties a makeshift bandage across the wound, then searches the battered cabin for the first-aid kit.

  Dominique moans. She sits up painfully, turns her head, and retches.

  Mick locates the first-aid kit and a bottle of water. Returning to her side, he dresses the wound, then removes a cold pack.

  Mick?

  Right here. He squeezes the cold pack, puncturing its internal contents, then presses it to her head, securing it with the remains of his tee shirt. You've got a nasty head wound. Most of the bleeding's stopped, but you probably suffered a concussion.

  I think I cracked a rib, I'm having a hard time breathing. She opens her eyes and looks up at Mick in pain. You're bleeding.

  I broke my nose. He hands her the container of bottled water.

  She closes her eyes and takes a sip. Where are we? What happened?

  We descended through the burrow and hit something. The minisub's dead. Life-support systems are barely functioning.

  Are we still in the hole?

  I don't know. Mick moves to the forward viewport and peers out.

  The Barnacles emergency exterior lighting reveals a dark, tight chamber, devoid of seawater. The minisub's bow appears to be wedged in between two dark, vertical barriers. The spacing between the two walls narrows sharply before dead-ending at a curved, metallic sheath.

  Jesus, where in the hell are we?

  What is it?

  I don't know-some kind of subterranean chamber. The sub's wedged in between two walls, but there's no water outside.

  Can we get of here?

  I don't know. I'm not even sure where here is. Have you noticed those deep vibrations have stopped?

  You're right. She hears him rummaging through the debris. What are you doing?

  I'm looking for the scuba gear. He locates the wet suit, mask, and air tank.

  Dominique groans as she sits up, then lays her head back again, the pain and vertigo overwhelming. What are yo
u going to do?

  Wherever we are, we're stuck. I'm going to see if I can find a way to free us.

  Mick, wait. We must be a mile down. The pressure will crush us the moment you open the hatch.

  There's no water in the chamber, which means it must be depressurized. I think we have to take the chance. If we just sit here, we'll die anyway. He pulls off his sneakers and climbs into the tight, neoprene wet suit.

  You were right. We never should have entered the burrow. It was stupid. I should have listened to you.

  He stops dressing to lean over her. If it wasn't for you, I'd still be Foletta's vegetable. Just sit here and try not to move while I get us out of here.

  She blinks back tears. Mick, don't leave me. Please, I don't want to die alone-

  You're not going to die-

  The air, how much air's left?

  He searches the control console, checking the gauge. Almost three hours. Try to stay calm-

  Wait, don't go yet. She grips his hand. Just hold me a minute. Please.

  He kneels down, placing his right cheek gently against hers, feeling her muscles quivering as he hugs her and inhales her scent. He whispers in her ear, I'll get us out of here, I promise.

  She squeezes him tighter. If you can't-if there's no way out-promise me you'll come back.

  He swallows the lump in his throat. I promise.

  They hold on to each other for several more minutes until the constriction of Mick's wet suit becomes unbearable.

  Mick, wait. Reach under my seat. There should be a small kit filled with emergency supplies.

  He pulls out the tin suitcase and opens it, removing a knife, a handful of flares, and a butane lighter.

  There's a small air tank beneath the seat as well. Pure oxygen. Take it.

  He removes the tank, which is attached to a plastic mask. It's a lot of equipment to carry. I should leave this for you.

  No, you take it. If you run out of air, then we're both dead.

  He slips his sneakers back on, secures the knife to his ankle with adhesive tape, then opens the valve of the larger air tank to verify that the regulator is working. He hoists the BCD vest and tank onto his back, then secures the smaller tank of oxygen around his waist by its Velcro strap. He shoves the flares and lighter into the vest, then, feeling like a pack mule, pulls himself up the ladder of the minisub, which is now listing at a thirty-degree angle.

  Mick unbolts the hatch, takes a deep breath, then tries to push it open.

  Nothing.

  If I'm wrong about the pressure, we'll both die right here. He pauses; weighing his options, then tries again, this time wedging his shoulder beneath the titanium lid. With a hiss, the hatch frees itself from its rubber housing and opens.

  Mick pushes his way out of the minisub, climbing out on top of the hull, allowing the hatch to slam shut as he stands-

  Whack! He bites into the regulator as the top of his head smacks painfully against a rock-hard ceiling.

  Hunched over, balancing atop the minisub, he rubs the knot on his head as he looks around. From his vantage atop the Barnacle, he sees they are in a giant torus, a donut-shaped chamber, illuminated by the sub's emergency lights, the ship's bow wedged tightly between two curved, seven-foot-high vane-like blades. The beam of his flashlight reveals the upper portion of at least a dozen more of the partition-like objects, all splaying out from a curved centerpiece like multiple fans on a horizontal windmill.

  Mick stares at the structure, analyzing his surroundings, the regulator wheezing in his ears as he breathes. I know what this is-it's a turbine, a giant turbine. We must have been sucked down an inlet shaft. The thrumming sound's gone. The minisub's blacking the rotation of the blades, jamming the turbine, clogging the inlet.

  Mick climbs down from the Barnacle and steps onto a slick, antiquated metallic surface. What happened to the seawater?

  And then he is falling backward, his bare feet slipping out from under him, his right elbow and hip slamming against the hard, slimy surface with a hollow thud. Mick groans in pain, then looks up.

  The flashlight's beam reveals a porous, black, spongelike substance coating the entire central section of the ceiling. Droplets of seawater drip on his head.

  Mick crawls to his feet and reaches up, surprised to find the porous material extremely brittle, like Styrofoam, only harder. He removes the knife and hacks at the substance, carving out several chunks of crumbling, chalky rock, drenched in seawater.

  Mick pauses. The sound of air racing down a shaft echoes somewhere to his right. He reaches up and grabs on to the top of the metallic partition on his right, shining the flashlight's beacon along the metallic ceiling.

  The sound is coming from a four-foot-wide hollow shaft, situated in the ceiling above the next rotor blade over. Rising at a near-vertical angle, the dark passage appears to lead up through the roof like a bizarre laundry chute.

  Mick climbs over the steel wall, then stands beneath the aperture, feeling hot gusts strike his face.

  An outlet shaft?

  Moving to the next turbine blade, he pulls himself up the barrier and straddles the two-inch-wide ledge, feeling for the edge of the shaft, his hands probing a steep but manageable incline.

  Carefully, Mick gropes the ceiling and stands, balancing precariously along the top of the blade as he pulls himself upward into the dark cavity, crawling into the shaft on his belly. Rolling onto his side, he extends his legs out to the opposite side of the four-foot-wide cylinder, his air tank and elbows pressed against the wall to his back. He looks up, the hot wind in his face, his light revealing a vast conduit, rising into the darkness above at a steep, seventy-degree angle.

  This is going to be tough...

  Keeping his back and feet pressed firmly against the interior, he crab-walks his way up the wall of the shaft, inch by painful inch, like a mountain climber ascending a sheer, vertical crawl space. For every five feet he rises, he slips back a foot, falling and groaning until the sweat is wiped clear from his palms and his scorched flesh can reestablish a grip on the slippery, metallic surface.

  It takes him twenty minutes to ascend eighty-five feet to the top. Awaiting him at the pitch-dark summit-a dead end.

  Mick slams his head back against the wall and groans through his regulator in desperation. His leg muscles, weary from the climb, begin shaking, threatening to send him plunging from his perch. Feeling himself slip, he lunges outward with both hands, dropping the flashlight in the process.

  Shit...

  Surrounded by darkness, he listens to it clatter down the shaft, cracking open as it strikes the surface below.

  You're next if you're not careful.

  With excruciatingly slow movements, he removes the butane lighter and one of the flares tucked inside his wet suit. Dripping with sweat, he wastes the next five minutes futilely attempting to light the flare.

  Mick stares at the butane lighter, which is full of fuel but refuses to ignite. Dummy, you can't start a fire without oxygen.

  Taking a deep breath, he removes the regulator from his mouth and presses the purge button, releasing a gust of air toward the lighter. An orange flame ignites, allowing him to light the flare.

  The sizzling pink light reveals what appears to be two small hoses connected to a hydraulic hinge. Using his knife, he severs both hoses, which leak a hot, dark blue fluid onto his wetsuit. He returns the regulator to his mouth, then presses the crown of his head against the lid.

  The hatch yields a half inch.

  Maneuvering as close to the lid as he dares, Mick pushes open the alien manhole a crack and shoves his fingers in the gap. In one motion he rolls, dangling in the darkness before managing to pull himself out of the shaft onto what appears to be a metallic grid. He collapses on all fours, his body shaking from exhaustion, as the searing heat from his new surroundings causes his face mask to fog up and blind him.

  Mick removes the mask, but finds his mouth too dry to spit. He wipes the tears from his red-hot face and looks up.
>
  Oh, sweet Jesus...

  He sits up, bedazzled, his quivering limbs no longer his to control. His eyes widen, his mind racing so fast that he cannot form a single cohesive thought. Sweat pours off his face and body from the furnacelike heat, causing pools to form in his wet suit. His heart is pounding so hard that it feels like it is weighing him down, pressing him to the scorching metal grating beneath his wet suit.

  I'm in hell...

  He has entered a mammoth, darkened, ovoid chamber, its dimensions rivaling the New Orleans Superdome if the arena were gutted. Licking the surface of the surrounding walls is an inundating layer of searing-hot, crimson red flames which rise in ripples like an inverted waterfall along the sizzling perimeter, disappearing into an oblivion of darkness above.

  But not darkness! Swirling hundreds of feet above his head, illuminating the very center of the gargantuan abyss is a brilliant, emerald green vortex of swirling energy-a miniature spiral galaxy rotating in a slow, omnipotent, counterclockwise sweeping motion like a cosmic ceiling fan, pulsating with power.

  Mick stares at the galaxy's unearthly radiance, transfixed by its beauty, humbled by its magnificence, and absolutely terrified by its implications. He forces his eyelids to close over his burning pupils, trying desperately to clear his head.

  Dominique...

  Struggling to his feet, he reopens his eyes and takes in the rest of his ethereal surroundings.

  He is standing on a perch, a metallic grating supporting the hatch that had sealed the cylindrical shaft. Four feet below, filling the entire chamber like a lake in a mountainous crater, is a billowing, silvery, mercury-like liquid, its glistening, mirror surface reflecting the dancing vermilion flames. Ebony whiffs of smoke drift above the undulating sea of molten metal like steam escaping from a boiling cauldron.

  Mick turns to face the glowing wall of red-hot embers. Situated just below the flames is a grillelike facade that rings the entire interior of the chamber. Distortion reveals invisible gases gushing out from tiny pores along the facing like heat rising along a desert tarmac road.

  The intake burrow... a ventilation shaft?

  Mick stares at the surreal wall of flame, which neither burns nor consumes, but flows straight up the vertical enclosure like a raging river of blood. Feverish thoughts swirl through his mind. Am I dead? Maybe I died in the minisub? Maybe I'm in hell?