The water kept rising, closer and closer to the ceiling. The boys had only a few inches left to breathe the rest of the air in their almost flooded dungeon. Little Nicholas still hadn't regained consciousness, and the water level had now exceeded the boys' head height, so they all had to swim. Benjamin kicked the water with legs that were growing increasingly weaker while he held the lifeless boy's head above water with a lifeguard's handle. The other boys had found similar ways to keep each of them on the surface, but the surface was shrinking a little more with every second.
"That's it, we're screwed!" Justin shouted.
The boys' gasps, coughs, screams, and sobs gradually weakened as the air supply between the water level and the ceiling dwindled. There was less and less space for the sound of their cries for help to spread, and the desperate boys' strength was rapidly fading.
"Hold on, just a few more minutes!" Benjamin didn't know why he shouted that since he no longer believed anyone could get them out.
He couldn't have said whether little Nicholas in his arms was still alive, but that didn't matter anymore. He wouldn't let go of him either way. Nobody would let go of anyone here!
"Should I dive to the door and see if the water pressure will open it?" Felix looked over at Justin, who was keeping a small boy above water.
"Try, but it's built to withstand the pressure."
Again and again, one of the boys coughed after water had run into his mouth or nose. While Benjamin realized it could only take a maximum of five minutes before the last inches of air would be displaced from the water level, an image suddenly appeared before his mind's eye. He stood up in the garden of his parents' house, was five years old again, and held a sand shovel. Benjamin didn't yet understand why the rapidly approaching death recalled this scene from his childhood to his mind's eye, but he understood it immediately. When he felt his mother, Maggie grabbed him from behind, lifted him up, turned him around to face her, and pressed a kiss on his forehead. He saw the smile on her face and realized that it was filled with joy. Only now did little Ben notice his mother, Elizabeth, coming out from behind the garage with a broad smile. She was accompanied by a small dog she had just picked up from the animal shelter. The Skye Terrier was named Romulus.
He hugged Nicholas a little tighter, closed his eyes, and imagined that little Romulus, now in the face of death, showed himself to him one last time and placed him in his arms so they could fall asleep together calm and content. Just like in his bed when Benjamin was a child. The screams faded into the background, and the water's cold began to feel pleasant. His body, still trying to stay on the surface, sank into the embrace of warmth, deep into painless insignificance. Benjamin did feel the jerking, and he no longer attached any importance to this pull either. At least not before he thought he saw Romulus jump up and bark loudly. As if he wanted to wake him up, warn him, and protect him from something.
Benjamin's mind snapped back to reality, and he realized that the ceiling was rapidly moving away from him while he was powerfully drawn towards the door by the suction. The others were also drifting with the current towards the spot where the water flowed through the door at high pressure and speed. The boys collided with each other at the discharge point, plunged in one after the other, and were finally sucked out of their dungeon through the door by the enormous forces of the outflowing water. There was still chaos for a moment, being pushed against walls, swallowing water, and being unable to distinguish between up and down.
But finally, however long it may have taken, there was silence.
Benjamin felt he was still holding Nicholas in his arms; he hadn't let go of him. Gravity, which was now pressing him back onto the wet, cold floor, felt like a heroic savior, and the calm that had finally come had nothing threatening about it. On the contrary, it was undoubtedly a messenger of the realization that it was over.
"Dude, you weren't lying!"
Benjamin recognized Justin's voice. 'What?' It took him a moment to orient himself.
"Is that your mother?"
Benjamin opened his eyes. No, this couldn't be a figment of his imagination. Because in that case, the woman in the jeans and T-shirt wouldn't have been wet to the bone. Benjamin smiled blissfully, turned to Justin, and said, "I promised you that the door would open, and my mother would be standing behind it!"
xxx
More and more rescue vehicles came through the gate into the stunt arena, bathing the race track in a sea of blue lights. While paramedics and cops coordinated the care of the rescued boys and the other injured and secured evidence, Emma rolled without haste to the ambulance on whose footboard Nikki waited for the medication to finally numb the pain caused by the freshly splinted fracture.
"How's your brother?" Nikki could just as easily have read the answer from Emma's face.
"They've given him a sedative. He's being taken to a psychiatric hospital for now." Emma sounded exhausted, but there was still strength in her posture. "I should have known. He had reached the point where he could no longer suppress what he was planning. But Carl is a genius at acting. He can manipulate people in ways you wouldn't even think of."
"I guess I know what you're talking about..." Nikki looked down.
"It's not like Carl only started to fall apart in that bunker back then. By that time, he had already been broken for a long time. Because he was the boy, he took a lot more of our parents' beatings than I did. And that was almost always the case when our father was drunk, or our mother was in a bad mood because she had run out of drugs. They always made us feel like we were just a source of income. Annoying but bearable. I had no doubt at the time that we were in that bunker because our parents had some evil plan in mind for us. I didn't know what it would be, but it was clear that things would only get terrible once they came to get us. Carl started to protect himself from the abuse quite early on by simply denying reality. He got his image of the family mainly from commercials and TV series. He imagined the childhood we should have had for so long that he even managed to fool himself."
Nikki turned her gaze away from Emma and let it glide over the racetrack. She saw two strong men loading the coffin with Esther Wallace. She felt a surge of grief before she looked over to the boys, who were standing together by one of the ambulances without moving away from each other. The sight made Nikki feel better again; all seven seemed to be doing well.
"How do you think Carl managed to kidnap all the boys at once?" Emma sounded at a loss.
Nikki saw that Elizabeth had detached herself from the group of boys with Benjamin and was moving directly toward her and Emma. She wouldn't leave it to either of them to present the solution to this mystery. The detective looked at Emma and said, "It was evident from the start. And yet invisible. I should have realized it immediately after I found out that Carl had found the seven boys through a pedophile network." She could feel the onset of the painkiller's effect on her thinking. Where confusion and awkward zeal had previously reigned, calm and clarity had now taken hold.
"What do you mean?" Emma leaned forward.
"I knew that after their sons were kidnapped, the parents must have deleted everything from their computer that could have incriminated them once the BPD started investigating. But the same method actually explains how Carl was able to kidnap all the boys at the same time." Nikki looked at her mother and brother, who would have reached them in a few seconds. "Carl first picked up the children for the alleged abuse. All of them, one after the other, in one extensive tour. To do that, he just had to rent a van and be careful not to get pulled over by the police. Once he had the boys in his power, he informed the parents that he would report them for their crimes if they didn't do exactly as he said. He then instructed them to go to the police station, report the kidnapping of their sons, and say exactly what he wanted them to say. They had to name the day and time, and he also gave them the description of the perpetrators. He probably even let them plant the evidence."
"Carl would be capable of that, unfortunately." Emma narrowed her eyes slightly. "After the parents had all said what he wanted them to, they had to die."
Nikki nodded slowly, and a touch of melancholy was in her eyes. Elizabeth and Benjamin had reached them, and Emma seized on this impulse.
"I'll leave you to it. I must care for Carl; he needs a lawyer and medical attention."
Nikki took hold of Emma's hand and squeezed it. "I wish you both a lot of strength!"
The young woman turned away and went to one of the patrol cars, where she would probably find out where they had taken her brother.
Elizabeth, whose clothes were still dripping like Benjamin's, came to Nikki and stroked her cheek motherly. "Are you okay?" she asked, sounding worried.
Nikki rolled her eyes and waved her away. "I'll be fine, don't worry, Ma. But I guess you both have some explaining to do."
Elizabeth smiled like a rascal who had been caught red-handed. "Well, after our last phone call, I knew, of course, that the kidnapper of the boys could only have been your new buddy. Why else would Sokolov have been in your house?"
"So you knew this morning that Marvin was behind everything? Ma, I don't want to be a pain, but a tiny clue would have been helpful."
Elizabeth pointed theatrically to the hustle and bustle in the stunt arena. "Apparently, you did quite well without help, Nikki. Unlike me! I was the one who needed your help. Without you, this would have ended really badly today."
Nikki looked at her mother in disbelief. "You can't be serious?"
Elizabeth shrugged. "I didn't know where Marvin was or how to find him. But I knew that he would lead me to the hiding place of Ben and the other boys. So I just latched on to you and followed you."
"What?" Nikki jumped up, realizing that this was not an overly helpful reaction with her broken foot, and immediately let herself sink back down next to her mother with Elizabeth's help. "You followed me around all day? And I didn't realize it?"
Elizabeth dismissed the idea. "I'm not that stupid. There are very inconspicuous car-sharing cars that you can change repeatedly throughout the day. Ultimately, you led me to that arena where I found the injured Paul Moore behind his car. How is he, by the way?"
"The bullet hit him from quite a distance, but he lost a lot of blood. The paramedic said that if he hadn't been in such great physical shape for his age, he probably wouldn't have survived."
"We probably owe him a bouquet of flowers! He gave me the keys to the bunker before he passed out. Unfortunately, my shoes won't survive the extremely wet rescue of the boys, but otherwise, everyone is fine."
"So you had the keys long before I rappelled down from the roof. Great, I could have searched Moore for hours." Nikki looked over at the seven boys again. They all seemed to be okay, including the little one Benjamin had carried to the medic in his arms as soon as the door opened.
"Okay, Ma, so you didn't leave Ben to his own devices. I should have realized that. But would you like to tell me why you didn't need to help me?"
Elizabeth looked at her daughter as if the answer to this question was obvious. "I could have told you quite a few things, but what good would it have done you? If you want a child to learn to swim, you must let go at some point. I wanted you to do all of this yourself, Nikki." She paused and bumped her shoulder into Nikki's with a smile. 'And I'm incredibly proud of you for saving those children and your brother against all odds.'
Benjamin looked at his older sister a little too ruefully and shrugged.
Nikki couldn't help but laugh. It was so absurd that it was actually kind of funny. "So you slept with my buddy Marvin?"
"In my defense, I called him Lennox!"
"I'll let that slide under the circumstances. And you've probably already gotten the punishment. But there is one thing I'm curious about: What did he smell like?"
Benjamin smiled mischievously. "Like green horses flying backward over a painting by Picasso, based on an idea by Albrecht Dürer, showing a rental car company."
Nikki rolled her eyes and laughed with her brother as the paramedic approached the group. "Detective O'Laighin, we'd like to take you to the hospital now."
Nikki nodded slowly and raised her hand to indicate that she would need a moment or two before she was ready to be transported, but the paramedic was already helping her onto the stretcher.
Elizabeth took a deep breath and frowned. "If you want, I can tell you how the guy managed to kidnap all seven boys at the same time."
Nikki buckled up and waved it off. "Don't bother, Ma. We already knew that!" She saw an unmarked car shoot into the area, and all the doors flew open as soon as it came to a halt.
Nikki didn't have to look twice to know that her grandparents, Nick and Maggie, had jumped out of the vehicle.
"Ben!" the redhead said in a loud and shrill voice with huge eyes when she saw her soaking wet son standing at the ambulance. It took less than ten seconds for her to reach her son and hold him tightly in her arms.
Benjamin gasped audibly and returned to his mother's embrace, who took his face in her hands and scrutinized him. "Mom, I'm fine, really."
Maggie nodded slowly and breathed a sigh of relief. Then she turned to Elizabeth, examined her closely, and slapped the former captain in the face after taking a look at her injured daughter. But then something happened that none of those present had expected.
Maggie paused again and held Elizabeth so tightly in her arms that it looked as if the redhead didn't want to let go.
Elizabeth remained still for a moment, but then she closed her eyes and returned the embrace.
