The iron valve bar was four feet of solid hexagonal steel, pitted with grease and red primer.
Luis rammed the lower tip of the bar into the drainage channel’s expansion joint, six inches from the threshold plate, and jammed the upper collar beneath the descending lip of the sluice gate.
The steel met steel with a sound like a sledge striking an anvil.
The gate shuddered. The groaning hydraulic ram above the ceiling hissed violently, a jet of superheated steam spitting through a cracked pack-nut into the dark. The gate stopped moving, suspended twenty-two inches above the muck.
“Keisha!” Luis shouted, his face corded and gray in the flashlight glare. His boots were skidding on the slime, his heels digging into the silt. “Under! Now!”
Keisha did not ask if the bar would hold. She threw herself onto her stomach into the foul water, clawing forward with her elbows. Her bandaged ankle dragged behind her like a dead branch, catching once on an anchor stud before Mara grabbed her collar and hauled her through onto the ditch bank outside.
“Ben!” Gideon bellowed. “Stay back!”
Ben was already on the outside, huddled in the nettles beside Inez, his hands clamped over his ears against the screech of metal.
