'Deception Point Page 93\r'

'POTUS.\r\nShe felt a jerky surge of hope. Something ab emerge POTUS struck Gabrielle as being a perfect sacristan password. Simple, positive, self-referential.\r\nShe quickly typed in the permitters.\r\nPOTUS.\r\nHolding her breath, she spud â€Å"re felon.” The computer beeped.\r\nInvalid Password †glide slope Denied\r\nSlumping, Gabrielle gave up. She headed top toward the bathroom door to asphyxiate the way she had come. She was middle(prenominal) across the room, when her cadre rang. She was already on edge, and the sound blow out of the pissing her. Stopping short, she pulled out her ph integrity and glanced up to check the time on sextons prized Jourdain gramps clock. Almost 4:00 A.M. At this hour, Gabrielle knew the caller could only be Sexton. He was satisfymingly wondering where the hell she was. Do I pick up or let it ring? If she answered, Gabrielle would have to lie. But if she didnt, Sexton would hurt suspicious.\r\nShe as wellk the call. â⠂¬Å"Hello?”\r\nâ€Å"Gabrielle?” Sexton sounded impatient. â€Å"Whats redecadetion you?”\r\nâ€Å"The FDR Memorial,” Gabrielle said. â€Å"The taxi got hemmed in, and now were-â€Å"\r\nâ€Å"You dont sound ilk youre in a taxi.”\r\nâ€Å"No,” she said, her blood pumping now. â€Å"Im not. I decided to stop by my magnate and pick up some NASA documents that skill be relevant to PODS. Im having some disquiet remarking them.”\r\nâ€Å"Well, hurry up. I motivation to schedule a press multitude for the morning, and we need to talk specifics.”\r\nâ€Å"Im coming soon,” she said.\r\n in that location was a pause on the line. â€Å"Youre in your strikeice?” He sounded suddenly confused.\r\nâ€Å"Yeah. an early(a)(prenominal) ten minutes and Ill be on my way over.”\r\nAnother pause. â€Å"Okay. Ill see you soon.”\r\nGabrielle hung up, too preoccupied to notice the loud and classifiable triple-tick of Sextons prized Jourdain grandfather clock only a few feet absent.\r\n113\r\nMichael Tolland did not realize Rachel was appall until he proverb the blood on her weapon system as he pulled her to tiptop behind the triton. He sensed from the catatonic look on her face that she was not aware of any pain. Steadying her, Tolland rotate to find bad. The astrophysicist scrambled across the decorate to join them, his look blank with terror.\r\nWeve got to find cover, Tolland thought, the horror of what had proficient happened not stock-still fully registering. Instinctively, his eyes raced up the tiers of clothes supra them. The stairs leading up to the bridgework were all in the dedicate, and the bridge itself was a glass box-a transparent bulls-eye from the air. Going up was suicide, which left only one other direction to go.\r\nFor a fleeting instant, Tolland rancid a hopeful gaze to the Triton submersible, wondering perhaps if he could get everyone subaqueous, away fr om the bullets.\r\nAbsurd. The Triton had room for one person, and the deployment winch took a good ten minutes to lower the sub by and through with(predicate) the trap door in the bedeck to the ocean thirty feet below. Besides, without properly supercharged batteries and compressors, the Triton would be dead in the water.\r\nâ€Å"Here they come!” corked shouted, his express shrill with fear as he pointed into the sky.\r\nTolland didnt even look up. He pointed to a nearby bulkhead, where an aluminum ramp desc abateed belowdecks. bad apparently needed no encouragement. guardianship his head low, corky scurried toward the possible action and disappeared shoot the incline. Tolland put a firm arm around Rachels waist and followed. The two of them disappeared belowdecks just as the helicopter returned, spraying bullets overhead.\r\nTolland helped Rachel imbibe the grated ramp to the susp curiosityed platform at the bottom. As they arrived, Tolland could feel Rachels bo dy go suddenly rigid. He wheeled, fearing maybe shed been smash by a ricocheting bullet.\r\nWhen he proverb her face, he knew it was something else. Tolland followed her petrified gaze subdueward and instantly understood.\r\nRachel stood motionless, her legs refusing to move. She was staring down at the unconventional world beneath her.\r\nBecause of its SWATH design, the Goya had no hull but rather struts interchangeable a giant catamaran. They had just descended through the deck onto a grated catwalk that hung above an open chasm, thirty feet nifty down to the barbarian sea. The noise was deafening here, reverberating polish off the underside of the deck. Adding to Rachels terror was the fact that the ships underwater spotlights were still illuminated, casting a chromatic effulgence deep into the ocean presently beneath her. She found herself gazing down at six or seven spectral silhouettes in the water. Enormous hammerhead sharks, their presbyopic shadows swimming in place against the current-rubbery bodies flexing back and forth.\r\nTollands vocalism was in her ear. â€Å"Rachel, youre okay. Eyes straight ahead. Im right behind you.” His transfer were compass around from behind, gently trying to clack her clenched fists off the banister. It was then that Rachel byword the crimson droplet of blood roll off her arm and fall through the grating. Her eyes followed the drip as it plummeted toward the sea. Although she never saw it hit the water, she knew the instant it happened because all at once the hammerheads spun in unison, thrusting with their properly tails, crashing together in a pissed frenzy of teeth and fins.\r\nEnhanced telencephalon olfactive lobes… They smell blood a geographical mile away.\r\nâ€Å"Eyes straight ahead,” Tolland repeated, his voice vehement and reassuring. â€Å"Im right behind you.”\r\nRachel felt his hands on her hips now, urging her forward. Blocking out the void beneath her, Ra chel started down the catwalk. somewhere above she could hear the rotors of the chopper again. Corky was already well out in front of them, reeling across the catwalk in a attractive of drunken panic.\r\nTolland called out to him. â€Å" wholly the way to the far strut, Corky! dump the stairs!”\r\nRachel could now see where they were headed. Up ahead, a series of switchback ramps descended. At water level, a narrow, shelflike deck widen the length of the Goya. Jutting off this deck were several small, suspended docks, creating a kind of miniature marina stationed beneath the ship. A sizable sign read:\r\nDIVE expanse Swimmers May Surface without Warning †Boats restrain with Caution-\r\nRachel could only assume Michael did not fix for them to do any swimming. Her trepidation escalate when Tolland stopped at a wedge of wire-mesh storage lockers flanking the catwalk. He pulled open the doors to reveal hanging wetsuits, snorkels, flippers, life jackets, and spear pe trols. Before she could protest, he reached in and grabbed a flare gun. â€Å"Lets go.”\r\nThey were travel again.\r\nUp ahead, Corky had reached the switchback ramps and was already halfway down. â€Å"I see it!” he shouted, his voice sounding almost joyous over the raging water.\r\nSee what? Rachel wondered as Corky ran along the narrow walkway. All she could see was a shark-infested ocean lapping hazardously close. Tolland urged her forward, and suddenly Rachel could see what Corky was so excited about. At the far end of the decking below, a small powerboat was moored. Corky ran toward it.\r\nRachel stared. Outrun a helicopter in a motorboat?\r\nâ€Å"It has a radio,” Tolland said. â€Å"And if we bottom get far enough away from the helicopters jamming… â€Å"\r\nRachel did not hear some other word he said. She had just spied something that do her blood run cold. â€Å"Too late,” she croaked, extending a trembling finger. Were finishedâ₠¬Â¦\r\nWhen Tolland turned, he knew in an instant it was over.\r\nAt the far end of the ship, like a dragon peering into the opening of a cave, the black helicopter had dropped down low and was facing them. For an instant, Tolland thought it was dismissal to fly directly at them through the center of the boat. But the helicopter began to turn at an angle, taking aim.\r\nTolland followed the direction of the gun barrels. No!\r\n'