The grenade arced across the dock and clattered against the deck panels as it vanished into the adjoining corridor. A terrific blast of noise and light flared outside and Lopez hauled herself up and out of the submersible. Ethan followed her with his pistol drawn as they tumbled down the Intrepid's hull and leapt onto the dock.

Ethan ducked down behind one of the steel mooring bollards and aimed down the corridor through the faint wisps of smoke writhing from the flash-bang. He saw no movement, no soldiers, no gunfire. Nothing.

'That was too easy,' Lopez said from where she squatted behind a similar bollard.

'Much too easy,' Ethan agreed, and called back to Katherine. 'Clear.'

Katherine Abell popped her head out of the Intrepid's hatch before climbing out and watching as Ethan grabbed a mooring line and secured the submersible.

'Tie her loosely,' he said to Lopez. 'We don't know if we'll have to leave in a hurry.'

'I won't be hanging around,' she replied, and looked up at the dome above her, clearly imagining the near half-mile of water pressing down upon it. 'Trust me.'

The adjoining corridor was lit by overhead panels, and narrow portholes on either side looked out into the darkness; but nothing cluttered their path as they walked into the complex.

'The other submersible must be docked off one of the other arms,' Lopez said.

'The Event Horizon is normally anchored to the northeast of the coral-research station,' Katherine confirmed, 'because of the strong currents in the Florida Straits. It means that although Joaquin's submersibles have to use more battery power to get here against the current, you can float out easily enough on minimum power and get back up to the yacht in the event of an emergency. My guess is that the other submersible will be docked on the southwest side.'

Ethan made a mental note.

'What's the time?' Lopez asked, as they neared the end of the corridor where an open hatch awaited, mindful of the deadline that Charles Purcell had set them.

Ethan glanced at his watch. 'Twenty eighteen hours,' he replied, 'only thirty minutes until Charles Purcell said everything would end. So there's not long left to-' He broke off and stopped in mid-pace to stare at the face of his watch.

'What?' Lopez asked.

Ethan watched in disbelief as the second hand on his watch ticked its way around the dial. He counted several ticks, unable to comprehend what he was seeing.

'My watch is ticking too slowly,' he uttered.

'Battery's running out,' Lopez suggested.

Katherine looked at her own watch, a digital one, and her jaw dropped.

'No, he's right, look.'

Ethan looked at the digital seconds counting up on the display. Even the digital watch was being distorted by something.

'It's like time has slowed down,' he said.

'It wasn't like it on the way down here,' Katherine said.

Ethan struggled to comprehend how it could happen.

'The guys at Cape Canaveral told us that black holes wrap time and space around them,' he said. 'But if that's the case, surely if Joaquin Abell really has one here, and it's exposed, then it should be consuming the entire facility around it?'

'I don't know,' Lopez said. 'Maybe he's got it contained, but somehow some of its effects are still getting out, like a leak?'

'Hell of a thing to spring a leak from,' Ethan pointed out.

'You say we've only got until 8:48 to finish this,' Katherine said to him.

'Yeah, barely half an hour until the time Charles Purcell said everything would end. He wrote a message on the wall of an apartment in Miami, then confirmed to us later that this would all end at 8:48 this evening.'

'Well then you've actually got longer, isn't that right? If time runs slower here because of Joaquin's black hole, maybe you've got forty minutes instead.'

'No,' Lopez replied. 'Purcell wrote that time on the apartment wall from his point of reference outside of the black hole's influence. This will be over in normal time on the surface or in Miami, no matter what happens to our watches down here.'

Ethan looked ahead to where another open hatch vanished into the unknown. The two other hatches to either side of it were closed and locked.

'Whatever he's got down here, it's powerful enough to slow down time for us the closer we get to it. Come on.'

Ethan led the way up to the open hatch and he and Lopez took position either side of it.

'Ready?'

Lopez nodded, and then with one swift motion they plunged through the hatch, weapons trained on the broad open hangar before them. And then they stopped, jaws agape. Ethan lowered his pistol, words piling up in his mind but unable to break through the seal of disbelief that tied his lips.

'That's impossible,' Lopez stammered. 'How could they be down here?'

Ethan shook his head, his mind devoid of an adequate explanation for what they were looking at.

Parked in what clearly was being used as a storage space, their hulls and wings sagging with age, were the remains of countless boats and aircraft.

60.

June 28, 19:59 'They're inside the hangar. Shall I intercept them?'

Dennis Aubrey watched as a bank of remote cameras followed Warner, Lopez and Katherine Abell as they advanced through the complex. Olaf stood by Joaquin's side, one hand already moving toward the pistol in his shoulder holster.

'No, let them come,' Joaquin replied. 'We are ready.' Joaquin stood with his hands behind his back and his chin held high, comfortable in his conviction that he was now entirely unassailable. Surrounding him were ten highly trained, highly disciplined soldiers. Aubrey knew that all of them were mercenaries and former members of the United States' finest regiments, who had been plucked from desolate warzones around the world to serve IRIS. Money more even than they had been paid by various foreign governments secured their absolute allegiance.

'We will engage them just before they reach us, in the hangar,' he decided. 'No sense in risking a wild shot breaching the black-hole chamber and dragging us all to oblivion.'

He pointed ahead and the troops jogged away in a neat phalanx toward an exit hatch that led through a bulkhead into the next sphere. As soon as the rumble of their combat boots had faded, Joaquin turned to Aubrey.

'Contact the Event Horizon,' he ordered the physicist, as he donned a slim microphone and earpiece. 'Have them prepare to sail. I'll need to be ashore by this evening or there'll be no spokesperson to coordinate the media response to IRIS's intervention in the earthquake crisis.'

Aubrey keyed a communication channel, opened it and selected the yacht's frequency. Almost immediately a burst of high-pitched static howled through amplifiers on the control panel.

Aubrey scrambled to turn the volume down as Joaquin whirled, his face twisted with outrage as he tore off his microphone.

'What the fuck are you doing, Dennis?!'

Aubrey shut the channel off and stared at the panel before him.

'Nothing. We're being jammed,' he said. 'Static interference from the surface.'

Joaquin looked at Aubrey for a moment, then at Olaf.

'The three of them came down here alone, correct?' he asked the big man.

'We tracked them here in one vehicle, the Intrepid,' Olaf confirmed. 'They are only three.'

Joaquin looked at Aubrey, the first mild tremor of apprehension in his expression.

'They must have had help, on the surface,' Joaquin surmised, realizing the extent of his sudden and unexpected isolation. 'The yacht must have been compromised.'

Olaf understood immediately and unclipped his pistol from his shoulder holster.

'We will bring Warner and his friend here,' he promised Joaquin. 'Then we will go to the surface and retake the yacht.'

Joaquin nodded, but his features had paled slightly.

'Do it, and feel free to use whatever force you deem necessary.'

Olaf's broad jaw creased with a cold grin of satisfaction as he turned and strode purposefully toward the bulkhead where the soldiers had dispersed, ducking through the hatch and shutting it behind him.

Dennis Aubrey stood still behind the control panel and looked down at Joaquin as the tycoon stared vacantly into space for a moment, no doubt considering his next move. There would be no other chance to do this, Aubrey realized. For the first time since he had been transported down into this godforsaken prison beneath the waves, he was both alone with Joaquin and had the element of surprise on his side.

He reached into the back of his jeans and felt the pistol nestled there. If he waited until Olaf and his goons returned, he wouldn't stand a chance. They would gun him down within seconds. He reminded himself that he would probably be gunned down soon enough anyway, so there was little to lose by procrastinating over- 'Dennis!' Joaquin's voice smashed through the scientist's thoughts. 'I said play that fucking camera right now, or I swear I'll have Olaf send you to the surface the slow and horrible way!'

Aubrey looked at the arrogant, self-serving, manipulative little prick of a man who, in so little time, had caused Aubrey so much grief and despair, and the possibility of vengeance sparked flames of rage within him. Aubrey felt a hot rush of anger tingle up his spine and shudder through his synapses as he stepped down off the control deck, elation and fear coursing through his veins.

Joaquin glared at him.

'What the hell are you doing, you insolent little-'

Aubrey reached around beneath his shirt, yanked the pistol from his jeans and aimed it at Joaquin the way he had seen it done in the movies a thousand times. He saw the flare of alarm in Joaquin's eyes, anger quashed by fear as the younger man threw his hands up in surrender.

'Now, Dennis, take it easy. I just need to see the-'

'Shut up!' Dennis snapped.

Joaquin's jaw clamped shut as he backed away from the gun. A flood of elation rushed through Aubrey, a heady elixir of power and control borne of the complete command of another human being. He aimed at Joaquin's chest, not making the mistake of trying to shoot the tycoon somewhere difficult like the head, where the pistol might miss and give Joaquin the chance to counterattack. And he kept well out of arm's reach, preventing Joaquin from grabbing the pistol. Aubrey knew his cop shows all right.

'This is what you really are, Joaquin,' Aubrey growled, as Joaquin backed up another pace and hit the side of the control panel. 'A coward, a bully who gets others to do his dirty work for him.'

Joaquin's jaw worked to free itself from his fear as he coughed his response.

'Dennis, there's no need for this, we can work this out together.'

'Shut it, you creep,' Aubrey snarled. 'All these years you've had it all, but you didn't earn a damned bit of it: you inherited your father's money, inherited his looks, inherited his decency, but then turned it into greed because you've never had to work for anything in your pathetic little life.' Aubrey took another pace toward Joaquin, towering over him for the first time in his life, and a confidence he had rarely felt soared through him as he shouted, 'And you took Katherine away from me! She thought you were worthy, thought you were a good man. I was the good man! And then you tried to murder her, like you murdered everybody else!'

Joaquin's eyes quivered with tears as he crouched down, his raised hands instinctively moving to cover his head.

'Please, Dennis, there is another way. You don't have to do this. We've almost won, it's almost over. You can go back to your family, your friends.'

'Like Charles Purcell did?' Aubrey challenged. 'Like the people that built this place did? Like the scientists who helped capture your black holes did?' Aubrey tilted his head mockingly at the man now cowering before him. 'Oh, no, I forgot, you had them all killed, didn't you, little Joaquin?'

Joaquin's trembling voice collapsed into choking noises as tears fell from his eyes.

'Please, Dennis, they were all fools. They weren't like you, Dennis. You don't have to kill me.'

Aubrey smiled, no longer afraid of this man. He aimed the pistol squarely at Joaquin's chest.

'Yes, Joaquin,' Aubrey smiled without pity. 'I do.'

Joaquin let out a howl of fear as Aubrey smiled and squeezed the trigger. The pistol clacked loudly, but nothing happened. Aubrey pulled the trigger again and the weapon clicked ineffectually. At his feet Joaquin was still howling, but Aubrey realized with a cold dread that the tycoon was not crying his body was shaking with uncontrollable laughter. Aubrey stared uncomprehendingly at the pistol in his hand and then pulled the trigger again.

'You're more of a fool than even I gave you credit for, Dennis.'

Joaquin's delight faded away as his joy mutated grotesquely into undiluted fury. Aubrey felt a pulse of terror as Joaquin leapt up from the floor, all pretence of fear gone, and reached out to snatch the pistol from Aubrey with one hand whilst the knuckles of his other fist cracked across Aubrey's cheek.

The scientist cried out in pain at the impact as he lost his balance and slammed down onto the floor, his elbow cracking against the metal plates. He saw Joaquin follow him and a moment later the younger man's boot crashed into Aubrey's face and splattered blood onto the metal deck plates.

'You gutless fucking traitor!' Joaquin shrieked as he smashed the butt of the pistol down onto Aubrey's head, metal scraping across his scalp as the blow reverberated painfully through his brain, and thick, metallic blood spilled into his mouth.

Aubrey desperately tried to deflect the blows, his face numbed and his arms pulsing with agony at each strike of the weapon.

Joaquin suddenly stopped, his breath heaving in his lungs as he towered over Aubrey's coiled body. The scientist peered up at him through his pain and saw Joaquin chuckle.

'You didn't seriously believe that I'd let you get away with it, did you?' he asked. 'Sending those signals to the surface? Breaking into the armory? Olaf always leaves the clips there filled with inert bullets, because he always told me that one day somebody would try something stupid. They always do.' He shook his head slowly as he tossed the useless pistol to clatter alongside Aubrey, before drawing a pistol of his own from beneath his jacket. 'This one works, Dennis. Get up.'

Aubrey hauled himself off the deck as Joaquin aimed the pistol at him and then gestured for him to turn around. From his jacket pocket he produced a set of steel handcuffs.

'Put these on,' Joaquin ordered.

Dennis clipped the cuffs around his left wrist, trying to ignore the grinding fear that plagued his stomach. Joaquin stepped in and grabbed him, span him around and secured the cuffs behind his back. Then he turned Aubrey back around and looked at him appraisingly.

'Now then, Dennis, you're in luck. I'm going to let you continue your work on black holes,' he said brightly, and then leaned in close to Aubrey's face with a cruel smile. 'Up close and personal.'

Strangely, now that his doom was certain, Aubrey no longer felt any fear for himself, as though the inevitability of it had scoured the dread from his mind. His only concern now was for Katherine Abell's safety.

'What goes around,' Aubrey said, 'comes around.'

Even as Joaquin's smile withered slightly at Aubrey's unexpected defiance, the crackle of distant machine-gun fire shattered the silence.

'It would appear that my men have found your friends, Dennis,' Joaquin sneered.

Aubrey felt the last pitiful remnants of resistance trickle feebly from his body as he realized that, finally, his life was about to come to an end.