This has to be fast, he told himself. Do a quick reconnoiter of the place and make mental notes. Look for entry-points and escape routes. Then get back in time for the radio chat with Pierre. About three hours, two to be on the safe side.
He braced himself against the stone sides of the conduit and—holding the flashlight with one hand—tried to budge the metal wheel.
Nothing. The contact with seawater had frozen it with rust. He tried again, shoving the flashlight into his belt and, grappling in the dark, twisting the wheel with both hands. Was it moving?
He felt a faint vibration make its way down the stone walls of the conduit, then there was a hum of huge electric motors starting somewhere. Somebody was turning on the systems.
He listened as the vibration continued to grow, and now the water level was beginning to rise, as the pumps down by the shore began priming. Were they about to turn them on full blast? The involuntary rush of his pulse and his breathing made him abruptly aware of how close the confining tunnel felt, the tight hermetic sense of claustrophobia. For the first time since landing on Andikythera he felt real fear. He hated the dark, the enclosed space, and now he was trapped.
Idiot, how did you get yourself into this? You're going to be drowned in about thirty seconds.
Now the roar of water began to overwhelm the hum of the pumps. The conduit was filling rapidly, and flow had begun. He realized that only about a foot of airspace remained at the top. Praying for a miracle, he heaved against the metal wheel one last time, and finally felt it break loose, begin to turn.
2:38 p.m.
"Abdoullah" had finished unpacking the second crate, and now he examined what he had: two fifteen-kiloton nuclear devices, made using enriched uranium-235 from the Kahuta Nuclear Research Center. He smiled again to think they had been smuggled out right from under the noses of the officials at Kahuta, directly up the security elevators leading down to the U235 centrifuge at Level Five.