Ripple (Breakthrough Book 4)

by Michael C. Grumley

  “What’s happening?”

  “Distress call,” Clay yelled, running back toward the pilot house. “Hold on to something!” he called, just before jamming the throttle forward again.

  Lee and Alison both caught themselves in mid-slide, keeping firm handholds on each railing.

  With a grave expression, Clay checked their bearing and pushed hard against the throttle. He did the math in his head and frowned.

  They were likely too far away. And listening to the details over the radio…probably too late.

  44

  It was known as the Terra Firma Fleet. Composed of seven Spanish galleons, the flotilla was the most successful of the extraction efforts of Spain during the early 1600’s. They were charged with the extraction of valuables from the new world, including gold from Peru and Colombia, which were wildly more productive than Europe’s older mines.

  Yet what historians did not know of the Terra Firma Fleet was that as the ferocity of the Spanish government’s war with the Dutch continued, the more desperate their need became to replenish its dwindling coffers. And ultimately the more fearful the Spanish became of losing their critical, ill-gotten treasure galleons.

  They even went so far as to create falsified sailing logs showing those very galleons to be sailing Caribbean waters much farther to the north than was actually true. And it was an essential detail that would be missed by nearly every historian since, until it was realized centuries later and hundreds of miles away by a Greek treasure hunter.

  Forty-seven-year-old Dimitris Demos was that man. And his years of painstaking research and personal loss to locate the Spanish galleons now paled in comparison to the sacrifice he was about to endure.

  All of the dreams, of fame and riches, of being the first to find what no one else in history could—it all meant nothing as Demos stared into the eyes of his seventeen-year-old son and felt utterly horrified at what he had done.

  Demos knew the look. He had seen it before. His son was now moving beyond fear, and into the early stages that would soon become uncontrollable panic.

  And yet Demos was still struggling to understand where things had gone wrong. He’d taken the precautions: the equipment, the unexpected changes in pressure, and the guideline back to the exit. He had been careful.

  But somehow they’d still gotten lost. And Demos was about to pay the ultimate price: to watch his son die before his very eyes, only minutes before he himself succumbed to the infernal darkness.

  The guilt and shame were simply indescribable and were already being overtaken by the worry for his son. They’d managed to find a small pocket of air at one end of a tunnel but what little oxygen existed was quickly being replaced by carbon dioxide, spewed forth by their hyperventilating lungs.

  In fact, Demos could already feel the remaining oxygen growing thinner, due to the rapid depletion of their last breathable air.

  Not knowing what else to do, Demos checked his regulator again, depressing the large valve. Nothing. His dive light desperately searched the cave, shining upon the dark ceiling less than a meter from their heads, with scattered minerals sparkling in the bright white beam.

  “Dad.”

  Demos turned to face his son, who stared back at him with a listless terror in his eyes. There was no way out without drowning. No way to make it back to the boat. My God, Demos’s thoughts turned back to the boat. His wife and daughter. They were going to lose them both!

  The guilt returned in a flood of emotion. And the realization was like a stab directly into his heart. He had killed himself and his son and left his wife and daughter alone. And for what? A shallow, superficial quest of adventure. And for something that might not even really exist!

  Demos now felt the panic overtaking him, just as it was his son. And it was the terror alone that kept him from crying, knowing what was about to happen and that his last memories alive would be of shame.

  Helplessly, Demos reached out and grabbed his son, pulling him in close. A fleeting thought came to him as he searched the tunnel in vain. At least their lights had not failed them. At least his son’s last memory would be the face of his father, who loved him more than anything.

  At least they would go together.

  45

  It was the same bright dive lights in their hands that prevented them from seeing anything else, above or below the water. All they could see were themselves. Not even the reflection of a slightly dimmer light, or for that matter, the faint shadow approaching.

  And when it finally arrived, the first thought for both Demos and his son was that they were hallucinating.

  After all, what would a dolphin be doing in a place like that?

  Their second reaction was bewilderment…when the dolphin poked its gray head out of the water, less than a few feet away.

  In fact, both Demos and his son were so surprised at the appearance of the dolphin that they failed to notice the eruption of bubbles all around them as John Clay, still ascending from below, held out a regulator and began flooding the small cavity with fresh air.

  ***

  It took several seconds longer before his head slowly emerged, covered with dark dripping hair. He raised the regulator above the water and kept the button depressed. Talking over the loud hissing sound made by the escaping air, he smiled with a calm expression. “Good morning.”

  Demos was stunned. There were simply no other words. His son, floating nearby, looked utterly frozen in shock.

  Another light appeared beneath Clay and slowly rose from the darkness. Two more figures, human and dolphin, breached the surface together. The second diver peered at them through a fully enclosed face mask with large attractive eyes.

  “How—” Demos fumbled his words. “How…did you find us?”

  “We didn’t. They did,” Clay replied, with his eyes fixed on the teenage boy. He let go of the button, plunging the small cavern into near silence. He then approached Demos’s son. Sounds of splashing echoed off the overhead rock.

  “What’s your name?” he asked.

  The teenager didn’t respond. Instead, he remained fixated on Clay with large dilated pupils.

  “His name is Angelo.”

  “Angelo,” Clay said, peering into the young man’s face. “Angelo? Can you hear me?” He held a hand up out of the water and snapped his fingers.

  Nothing.

  Clay reached beneath the warm water and found the boy’s arm. He followed it quickly to the wrist where he lightly pressed the tips of his fingers, feeling for a pulse. After several seconds he let go. The kid was in shock and barely breathing.

  “Dirk. Here!” He said the words over his shoulder, and Dirk quickly moved closer. Clay grabbed the teenager’s hands and pulled them out of the water, placing both on Dirk’s gray head. Dirk squealed and clicked loudly.

  The noise, along with the tactile connection from Dirk’s rubbery skin, caused Angelo to blink several times. He studied the dolphin with a look of confusion.

  “Angelo!” Clay repeated, louder this time.

  When the boy abruptly turned, Clay smiled and looked through the teenager’s goggles. “Can you hear me?”

  To his relief, Angelo nodded.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Angelo,” he murmured. “Angelo Demos.”

  “How old are you?”

  The teenager blinked again. “Seventeen.”

  “Are you a senior?”

  Angelo stared at him, puzzled, but eventually answered. “Yes.”

  “What school do you go to?”

  “Leonidas.”

  “Nice. You play any sports?”

  “Yes.”

  With his eyes focused on Clay, Angelo failed to notice Alison behind him, helping another regulator into his father’s mouth. After several long breaths, the older Demos began to relax.

  “Yes, I play rugby.”

  “Is that right? You any good?”

  Angelo smiled unexpectedly. “Yes.”

  Without missing a beat, Cl
ay raised the second regulator in his own hand and placed it into Angelo’s mouth, before inhaling more from his own.

  “You know, I have a friend who played for Texas Tech. You follow college ball?”

  The boy nodded.

  “He was pretty good and had a chance to play pro. But he gave it up to join the Navy. Now he’s stuck working with me. Crazy, huh?”

  Angelo grinned and nodded again.

  “Ah well, to each his own.” Clay glanced back over his shoulder before continuing. “Angelo, I want you to listen to me. You’re going to be fine. Looks like you two just got a little lost. Luckily our friends here managed to find you.”

  Angelo looked back at Dirk, and then to Sally.

  “What I need you to do,” Clay said, “is to listen to me very carefully. We’ve got some extra air for you, and these dolphins here are going to lead us back out. A piece of cake. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good,” Clay smiled. “Now tell me what I just said.”

  Clay helped the boy wrap one of his hands over the regulator. Angelo then pulled it out briefly to repeat what Clay had said.

  “Excellent. It’s just going to take me a minute to secure this second tank, okay? It’s going to feel a little light for a minute while I remove your old one.”

  “Okay.”

  Behind them, the father studied the dolphins and looked at Alison. “How did they find us?”

  Alison had to lift her mask to answer. “Believe me, it’s a long story.” She kept her mask open, waiting for Clay, who had just finished securing the boy’s tank. He quickly moved to the boy’s father and did the same. The truth was that although he’d managed to calm them down, they were far from being out of danger. At this depth, they could still go through the air in those extra tanks too quickly. And if that happened, they were all going to be in a world of hurt.

  When he finished, Clay looked at Dirk. “Dirk, lead us out, as fast as you can.”

  Alison heard the translation in her waterproof earbuds, including one of the words that didn’t convert properly. But the message got through, and Dirk responded with a series of clicks and whistles.

  “He’s ready,” Alison nodded.

  Clay reached below the surface, pulled up a thick white rope, and held it out. In one fluid motion, Dirk seized the rope and gripped it between his powerful teeth.

  Clay grabbed for the other end, which had multiple knots tied into it. After wrapping Angelo’s hands tightly around the first loop, he clamped his own around a second one further up. “Remember, slow down where it gets tight.”

  After only a brief delay, Dirk clicked again.

  The older Demos watched the exchange in fascination. “Are you...talking with them?”

  “Yes,” Alison winked. “But don’t let that one think you have any food.”

  The man didn’t understand the joke, but it didn’t matter. She was busy handing the end of her own rope to Sally. “Here,” she told Demos, “hold onto this and don’t let go. They can get us out a lot faster. If you have a problem, tap me hard on the shoulder.”

  Clay looked back and forth between all of them. “Ready?”

  “Ready,” Demos replied. His son stared back nervously but nodded in agreement.

  Alison pulled her mask into place.

  With that, Clay gripped the rope tight with one hand and the teenager’s vest with the other.

  “Go, Dirk!”

  46

  They traveled less than a hundred feet before Dirk stopped. He remained still for several seconds, moving his head back and forth and emitting a long series of pulses resembling loud clicks.

  Clay, just behind Dirk, felt a curious feeling in his arms and hands and turned back to Alison in surprise. She smiled inside her mask. What Clay was experiencing was the “buzz” that most humans felt in the presence of a dolphin using its echolocation, causing powerful sound waves to bounce off everything around them. Dirk’s melon, a mass in his forehead, picked up the waves he emitted upon their return. Genetically speaking, a much more advanced form of naval sonar.

  But Alison’s smile at Clay was brief. At that moment, something else occurred to her. Echolocation, as it was understood by humans, was an evolutionary ability allowing dolphins to gauge objects and distance in little to no visibility. Yet when Alison twisted around with her bright flashlight, she found they were surrounded by rock and coral. With only three passages visible.

  When Dirk continued emitting his loud clicks, Alison finally turned to Sally.

  “Sally, what is Dirk doing?”

  Sally’s peered back at Alison through the dark water. He look Alison.

  “For what?”

  Sally paused as if confused by her question.

  He look for out Alison. More fast.

  “A faster way out.”

  Yes.

  It was exactly what she had hoped Sally would say. Finding a faster way out was critical given their dwindling air supply. But at that moment, it wasn’t what Dirk was doing that perplexed her. It was how he was doing it.

  If echolocation were really just a more sophisticated form of human radar or sonar, then it wouldn’t travel very far in their current surroundings. Some distance down the tunnels perhaps, but given the winding of their paths, it wouldn’t be far at all before the bouncing of Dirk’s pulses would stop returning to him.

  Or would they?

  In those few seconds, a sudden realization hit Alison like a brick over the head. Dirk and Sally’s melon or “sound lens” must be far more sensitive than they thought.

  Which returned her to a question she’d pondered several days before. With the larger size and folding of a dolphin brain over a human’s, just what else were Dirk and Sally truly capable of that they didn’t yet know about?

  It was an exhilarating thought––one that was promptly interrupted when Dirk began moving again, pulling Clay and Angelo along with him.

  ***

  Unfortunately, several sections of Dirk’s new path were too tight to pass through smoothly. Twice, Clay had to fade back and briefly unsecure their tanks, allowing them to float behind each person to reduce their girth. Only then were they able to squeeze through and continue forward.

  To make matters worse, there was no way for Clay or Alison to communicate with Demos or his son, except by hand signals. Of which they didn’t seem too familiar. And each minute of delay meant more air their frightened lungs were consuming.

  Once they were out, the ascent would help reduce the pressure and expand the air in their lungs. But until then, it was a race that left Clay hoping desperately that Dirk knew what he was doing.

  The last thing he wanted to do was to end up returning two lifeless bodies to the surface.

  So when they finally burst out of the caves and into the rays of shimmering light from above, an excited Clay turned and smiled at Alison.

  She grinned and pulled hard on her rope to bring Dimitris into view and ensure he was still lucid. He was. And grateful beyond words.

  Angelo, his son, was grinning widely despite the bulky regulator between his lips. And as he ascended slowly, he reached out his hand and swept it through a small school of silver fish, all of which darted quickly away.

  ***

  When they all finally breached the surface, both Dimitris and Angelo Demos wasted no time removing their mouthpieces and breathing in a lungful of fresh, cool air.

  Dimitris kicked forward and immediately wrapped his arms around his son, weeping as small, ocean swells gently washed over them.

  “I thought I would lose you!” he sobbed. “Please forgive your father and know that I am so very sorry!”

  Angelo embraced his father just as hard and cried into his neck.

  Clay raised his head, squinting at the bright sun as he scanned the horizon. Less than seventy yards away, their gleaming aluminum boat was clearly visible and lashed to the side of a chartered catamaran. And peering desperately over one of its hulls was a mother and a you
ng girl.

  Dimitris’s wife, clearly at her wit’s end, clung tightly to her daughter and, upon seeing both her son and husband, she began to weep.

  “Alina!” her husband called out in a trembling voice. “We are all right!”

  At that, his wife simply collapsed, falling backwards onto one of the boat’s fiberglass benches, dazed and covering her face with her hands. Standing next to them, Lee Kenwood smiled and watched the young daughter wrap her tiny arms around her mother.

  Both Clay and Alison followed as the father and son swam breathlessly to their boat. Dirk and Sally remained nearby with heads still bobbing out of the water.

  Them happy.

  Alison turned to Dirk. “Yes, they are happy. Thanks to you.”

  Them want metal Alison.

  She smiled. “You could say that.”

  Metal close.

  Alison nodded and turned back to the boat. “Yes, it is. Thank goodness.”

  Old metal. No far.

  Dirk stared at her for a long moment. Soon dozens of dolphins appeared above the waves.

  Clay smiled warmly at Alison. “Well, I guess you were wrong.”

  “About what?”

  He nodded toward the boats, where Lee was reaching down and awaiting the teenager. “About everything you’ve done. All your work, all the achievements. And IMIS. You were beginning to feel that none of it made a difference.”

  “And?”

  Clay was still smiling. “It sure made a difference to them.”

  47

  Less than an hour later, the chartered sailboat was visible only as a tiny shape over their wake, perched atop the brilliant blue water of the Caribbean.

  The hum of the Teknicraft’s engines was unable to drown out the sound of the splashing swells against their own aluminum hulls as the boat motored forward at full speed.

  Trinidad Island and the Pathfinder were now less than a day away.