Checkmate by Tom Clancy Page A

followed by a bitter taste on his tongue as the rebreather’s chemical scrubber started working. He felt the flow of cool oxygen entering his mouth.
    Next came the rebreather’s harness, his fins, and weight belt. Finally, he strapped the OPSAT to his wrist, the pistol to his leg, and slid the SC-20 into its back-holster.
    He clicked on his face mask’s task light, and was surrounded by a bubble of soft red light. He clicked it off, then keyed his subdermal. “Comm check.”
    “Read you loud and clear, Sam,” said Grimsdottir.
    “Heading to insertion point.”
     
     
     
    AFTER twenty minutes, Fisher’s first indication he was nearing his target was the sound—a distant roar and a low-frequency rumble in his belly. He checked the OPSAT’s readout: four hundred yards to go.
    Having ruled out an airdrop, Fisher had chosen what he felt was the Burj al Arab’s most vulnerable point: its water supply. Rather than rely on the mainland for fresh water, the Burj al Arab’s architects had equipped the hotel with its own desalinization and pump stations, which were supplied by massive, propeller-driven intake ducts, two of them embedded in the island’s concrete foundation. According the schematics, each duct was as big around as a bus and driven by propellers worthy of a battleship. Working together, the intakes fed enough salt water into the desalinization/pump stations to supply the guests and staff with fresh drinking and bathing water while maintaining the fire-suppression systems at the same time.
    There was a hitch to his plan, however: getting through one of the intake ducts without being chopped into chum. His first hurdle wouldn’t be the propeller blades themselves, but rather the protective mesh screen on their outside. Still, that was little comfort. If he lost control and found himself trapped against the mesh, the force would pull him through like tomato sauce through a sieve.
    “I’m a quarter mile out,” he reported.
    “Watch yourself,” Lambert said. “Keep an eye on your current gauge. By the time you feel those pumps drawing you in, it’ll be too late.”
    “Got it.”
    He swam on.
     
     
     
    HE kept a steady pace and a steady watch on his OPSAT, checking his Distance-To-Target against Speed-Through-Water.
     
    DTT: 310 METERS/STW: 2.8 MPH . . .
DTT: 260 METERS/STW: 2.8 MPH . . .
DTT: 190 METERS/STW: 2.8 MPH . . . STW: 2.9
MPH . . . STW: 3.0 MPH . . .
     
     
     
    “My speed just increased,” Fisher reported. Still six hundred feet away and the intakes were already creating their own riptide. Fisher felt the prickle of fear on his neck. With each foot he drew closer, the more he would pick up speed.
    “Stop kicking,” Grimsdottir ordered.
    “Already have.” In the few seconds they’d been talking, his speed had increased to 4.5 mph—on land, a slow jog; in water, a fast clip.
    He clicked on his light and looked down. A few feet below his belly, the seabed was rushing by, a dizzying blur of white sand and rocks. At this rate, he’d hit the intake screen at twenty mph. He clicked off his light. Don’t think; just do .
    “Grim, anytime you want to shut them down is fine with me.”
    “Relax, I’ve run the simulations backwards and fore-wards.”
    Fisher checked his OPSAT: DTT: 90 METERS/STW: 10.2 MPH . . .
     
    “Hold it . . . hold it . . .” Grimsdottir said. “Remember, Sam, I can loop a system casualty for at most seventy-five seconds before the backups kick in. Twenty seconds after that the intakes will be back up to full power.”
    “Got it.”
     
    DTT: 60 METERS/STW: 16.8 MPH . . .
     
     
     
    “Hold it. . . . Now! Shutting down!”
    Immediately, Fisher heard the roar of the intakes change pitch and begin to wind down. He felt the riptide loosen its grip on his body. The OPSAT readout scrolled down from fifty meters, to thirty, then twenty. His speed dropped past eight mph.
    He reached up and switched on his task light.
    Suddenly, the mesh screen was there, a massive