Page 48 of Buck Baxter and the Mysteries of Love

The moment the words left his mouth, an ear-piercing alarm began to ring.

Spinning red lights flashed as Garbutt turned to Hammer. “What’s happening?”

“There’s a containment breach in the hull.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Stella yelped.

The answer came in a distant explosion of glass, followed by a shudder and jolt throughout the entire structure.

With a metallic groan, the submarine began to tilt, the nose veering upward as the rear began to sink.

All eyes glanced down through the open doors of the carriages—through the Presidential Suite, through the dining car, through the passenger car—to see water gushing into the cargo car, flooding it fast.

The bullet hole had given way.

The entire porthole had blown in.

And now the submarine was sinking.

“Seal it off!” Garbutt shouted at Hammer. “Get down there and seal it off now!”

Hammer bolted out of the engine compartment.

Another violent tremor shook the vessel and the nose of the submarine lifted even higher, knocking everyone off balance and onto the floor.

“The torpedoes,” Bockenheimer gasped. “I must launch the torpedoes now!”

He pulled himself up to kneel over one of the open hatches and set the timer on one of the weapons.

The seven-and-a-half-minute countdown began.

But before he had time to scramble over to the second weapon, Harry threw himself at him, tackling him to the ground.

Garbutt turned his pistol on Harry and was about to fire when I lunged at him, the pair of us rolling down the sloping floor of the compartment and hitting the side of the open door.

Down through the carriages I could see Hammer closing the door to the cargo car, heaving with all his might against the gushing water.

Garbutt tried to turn his gun on me, and we wrestled for the weapon.

I heard a sharp buzzing sound and saw Harry trying to hold Bockenheimer’s mechanical hand at bay, the whizzing drill aimed straight at Harry’s forehead.

“Stella! Help Harry!”

But Stella was already on it, running at Bockenheimer and kicking him in the nuts with so much force that one of them must have got caught in his throat and choked his cry of pain.

While Bockenheimer writhed in agony, Harry pulled himself up and slid down the floor toward me.

His foot connected with Garbutt’s fist and knocked the pistol into the next car.

It slid along the tilting floor of the Presidential Suite.

Garbutt gave Harry a furious look, then crawled into the next car for his weapon.

Beyond him, Hammer had just sealed the door to the dining car and was climbing the slanting carriages back toward the engine.

“The door,” I uttered to Harry.

Together we slammed the door between the engine car and the Presidential suite shut, turning the wheel lock and sealing Garbuttand Hammer out.

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