“Better get back here pronto! The water temp readings are shooting up.”

There was no mistaking the urgency in Zavala's voice. “On my way!”

Austin threshed the water with strong kicks of his powerful legs maintaining a rhythm that ate up the yards. Zavala wasn't kidding about the heat buildup. Austin was sweating under his wet suit. He vowed never to boil a lobster again. “Hurry,” Zavala said. “The temp is going off the tracks!”

The Brogan's silvery beacon blinked in the gloom. Austin reached down and switched on a small strobe that hung from his buoyancy compensator. The Brogan moved in to meet him. The heat had become more intense. Austin grabbed onto the back of the moving sub and snapped his harness buckle in place. With Austin aboard, the Brogan quickly wheeled about and was headed for the mouth of the lagoon, motors whining at top speed. Zavala barked, “Something's wrong, Kurt! I am detecting alarms inside the facility.” Moments later, Austin heard a loud, muffled whump. He turned to look over his shoulder just as the facility exploded in a fiery ball. The inferno instantly incinerated every living thing in the enclosed space. Superheated gas shot up pipes into the tortilla factory. Luckily, the factory was empty be cause it was Sunday. The Brogan wasn't as fortunate. It was caught by the shock wave and tumbled end over end with Austin desperately clinging on.

Austin felt as if he had been kicked by a giant invisible mule. The harness straps let go, and he was flung forward, arms and legs flailing, in a tangle of air hoses. He cartwheeled for an eternity and might have kept going halfway across the Pacific if he hadn't slammed into the net strung across the mouth of the lagoon. He hit the mesh with his feet, which was fortunate, because a headfirst impact would have broken his neck. The netting yielded, then snapped back. Austin shot out like a rock in a boy's slingshot.

Right into the path of the oncoming submersible.

The mini's dome had been ripped off, and Zavala was no longer inside. The sub tumbled at Austin on a collision course. Austin brought his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them. He seemed fated to be smashed like a bug on a car windshield when the sub did a little hop that took it over Austin's head. He felt a painful impact as a pontoon grazed his shoulder. Then he was buffeted by secondary shock waves from multiple explosions that slowed his velocity and tossed him back after the mini-sub. The Brogan had battered its way through the net, and this time there was nothing to stop him.

Instinctively, he swooped his arm out to retrieve his regulator hose, clenched the mouthpiece between his teeth, and took a breathy gulp of air. The regulator was still working. His face mask was a cobweb of fracture lines where one of the hoses had hit the lens. Better the mask than his face! He whipped the use less mask off, assumed a vertical position, and did a complete turn.