Free Atlantis Found by Clive Cussler

glowworm approaching from under the water.
    “Thank God!” gasped Marquez as the beam from the halogen dive light refracted and danced off the ceiling and walls of the chamber just before Pitt’s head broke water. “You came back!”
    “Was there ever a doubt?” Pitt asked lightly.
    “Where is Pat?” demanded Ambrose, as Pitt’s eyes met his through the plate of the dive mask.
    “Safe,” Pitt said briefly. “There’s a dry shaft about eighty feet down the tunnel.”
    “I know the one,” acknowledged Marquez, his words barely intelligible. “It leads to the next level of the Paradise.”
    Identifying the obvious signs of hypothermia in the miner, the drowsiness, the confusion, Pitt elected to take him instead of Ambrose, who was in the better shape of the two. He had to be quick, because the numbing cold had tightened its grip and was draining the life out of them. “You’re next, Mr. Marquez.”
    “I may panic and pass out when I’m submerged,” Marquez moaned.
    Pitt gripped him on the shoulder. “Pretend you’re floating in the water off Waikiki Beach.”
    “Good luck,” said Ambrose.
    Pitt grinned and gave the anthropologist a friendly tap on the shoulder. “Don’t go away.”
    “I’ll wait right here.”
    Pitt nodded at Marquez. “All right, pal, let’s do it.”
    The trip went smoothly. Pitt put all his strength into reaching the shaft as quickly as possible. He could see that unless the miner got dry soon, he would lose consciousness. For a man afraid of water, Marquez was game. He’d take a deep breath from the regulator and dutifully pass it back to Pitt without missing a beat.
    When they came to the ladder, Pitt helped push Marquez up the first few rungs until he was completely out of the cold water. “Do you think you can make it up to the next tunnel on your own?”
    “I’ll have to,” Marquez stammered, fighting the cold that had seeped into his veins. “I’m not about to give up now.”
    Pitt left him and returned for Ambrose, who was beginning to look cadaverous from the effects of the icy water. Hypothermia from the cold water had lowered his body temperature to ninety-two degrees. Another two-degree drop and he would be unconscious. Five more minutes and it would have been too late. The water was only inches away from the chamber’s ceiling. Pitt didn’t waste time in talk, but shoved the mouthpiece into the anthropologist’s mouth and pulled him down into the cleft and out into the tunnel.
    Fifteen minutes later, they were all grouped around a fire that Pat had managed to ignite from scraps of wood she’d found in a nearby crosscut passage. Scrounging about, Pitt soon discovered several old, fallen timbers that had remained dry over the years the mine had been abandoned. It wasn’t long before the tunnel was turned into a blazing furnace and the survivors from the inundated chamber began to thaw out. Marquez began to look human again. Pat rebounded and was her old happy self as she vigorously massaged Ambrose’s frozen feet.
    While they treasured the warmth of the fire, Pitt busied himself with the computer, planning a circuitous route through the mine to the ground above. The Telluride valley was a virtual honeycomb of old mines. The shafts, crosscuts, drifts, and tunnels totaled more than 360 miles. Pitt marveled that the valley hadn’t collapsed like a wet sponge. He allowed everyone to rest and dry out for close to an hour before he reminded them that they weren’t out of the woods yet.
    “If we want to see blue skies again, we’ll have to follow an escape plan.”
    “What’s the urgency?” shrugged Marquez. “All we have to do is follow this tunnel to the entrance shaft and then sit it out until rescuers dig through the avalanche.”
    “I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings,” Pitt said, his voice grim, “but not only were rescuers finding it impossible to get their heavy equipment through twenty feet of snow up to the mine on a narrow road, they were