Savage Bay

by Christopher Forrest

  And possibly the world.

  “The elevator is fully operational,” Touchdown said. “Titan Six is on its way down.”

  “The Chinese sub’s energy signature indicates that it’s ready to sail at any minute,” said Quiz.

  “Dr. Ambergris and ship’s forces are nearing the beach,” DJ announced. “And Titan reinforcements are preparing to parachute to the beach of Es Vedra.”

  “The second sub to our east is now surfacing,” Touchdown said.

  “Tell the engine room to get this ship moving,” Caine said. “All ahead full.”

  “All ahead full,” Touchdown said. “It looks like we have ourselves a high stakes poker game. The players are all in.”

  CHINESE SUBMARINE 412, MEDITERRANEAN SEA

  The nose of Submarine 412 broke the surface of the calm, dark sea.

  “Open all missile and torpedo doors,” Commander Chu ordered. “Is the COM link open to Yang?”

  “Yes, sir,” said the sub-commander.

  Chu looked at his tactical display. “Plot a solution against the Alamiranta for the torpedoes.”

  “And the cruise missiles?”

  “We may need to use them against the ship, Es Vedra, or both. Make sure they’re armed.”

  The sub-commander relayed Chu’s orders to the weapons officer on the sub’s bridge.

  TITAN TEN AND TWELVE, ABOVE THE MEDITERRANEAN SEA

  Team leader for Titan Ten was David Strutt, known as Vista. He was a quiet man who was admired for his cool tactical assessments.

  Leader for Titan Twelve was Michelle Montserrat, a French brunette who looked as formidable and unconquerable in a ball gown as in her military uniform. Her team name was Razor. The two leaders sat in the Globemaster III with their team members. Ten Titans in all were preparing for the jump to Es Vedra. Three other teams were en route from Pakistan.

  One of Titan Twelve’s members asked for a status update on their mission.

  “Let’s see,” said Razor. “We have an occupied research base, two enemy subs, one of which is leaking radiation, and a trapped Titan team.”

  “In other words,” Vista said, “it’s business as usual.”

  Razor winked.

  OPS CENTER, ABOARD THE ALAMIRANTA

  The stress was starting to show in the face of Catherine Caine.

  “Is there anywhere in Savage Bay that Dr. Ambergris can take Titan Six to be treated?”

  Cruz closed her eyes and massaged her temples with her index fingers. “If Savage Bay was built as a Cold War facility by the United States military, there would almost certainly be a bomb- and radiation-proof medical facility hidden somewhere on the base. The theory was that bases all over the world had to be ready to accept the commander-in-chief if he was globetrotting on Air Force One. Taking the president to a foreign civilian hospital just wasn’t an option. Still isn’t. Air Force One now has its own operating theater, but not the old DC-8s of the 60s.”

  “Where would it be located?” asked Caine.

  “As far underground as possible,” said Cruz. “Whether it’s been used in the last two decades is another question altogether.”

  TITAN SIX, SAVAGE BAY

  Titan Six, lying flat on the elevator’s deck, descended to the submarine bay.

  Dragons stood in the well atop the conning tower as well as on the deck of the sub. They sprayed machine gun blasts at the elevator as soon as it came in sight.

  “Roll and fire!” screamed Hawkeye above the elevator’s whirring motor. “And don’t let up!”

  Bullets ricocheted off the surface of the elevator, creating hundreds of whining metal pings.

  Chapter 30

  TITAN SIX, SAVAGE BAY

  Commander Aiko materialized right beside Hawkeye. He had no idea how she had gotten onto the elevator. Had she been there all along?

  Five more Dragons emerged from the sub. Heavy gunfire erupted.

  Aiko drove Hawkeye backwards fifteen yards into the recesses of the submarine base as his team battled the Dragons. She pummeled him with kicks and punches until he was nearly unconscious.

  “Adding some adrenaline to Hawkeye’s system,” Touchdown said.

  Hawkeye bellowed loudly as he regained his feet, simultaneously dodging one of Aiko’s deadly blue plasma arcs.

  “This is where it ends for one of us!” Hawkeye growled.

  “As you wish,” Aiko responded with a malicious smile.

  Hawkeye charged her position, knocking the plasma weapon from her hand. “Kinda evens the odds,” he said. He looked into her eyes. She seemed more machine than human.

  Aiko’s suit was changing colors again, and Hawkeye’s next punch landed . . . in thin air. Where had she gone?

  “Surely the famous Michael Hawke can do better,” Aiko taunted. Her voice was now behind him.

  Hawkeye whirled and instinctively balled his fist and connected a hard jab to Aiko’s jaw. He followed with a several hard, driving punched to her stomach, below one of her, blinking, high tech armor plates.

  She staggered back, but seeing that Hawkeye was advancing again, she dove to the floor to grab her plasma weapon. Hawkeye dove at the same time, landing on top of her.

  He smashed her right cheekbone with his fist as she attempted to get her hands around his throat. He crushed her other cheekbone with a hammer-like blow, so that her lifeless eyes now peered out from a disfigured, bloody face.

  “It ends here and now!” Hawkeye screamed, pulling Aiko’s hands from his throat.

  He then seized his advantage. He was feeling superhuman strength. He picked up Aiko and held her over his head with both hands. He then ran toward a line of one-hundred gallon oil drums and threw her at the black metal containers. She cried out in pain.

  Then she went limp.

  ***

  Hawkeye returned to the elevator to find that all Dragons had been subdued by his team.

  “Take a look, boss,” said Pyro, pointing to the oil drums.

  Aiko was gone.

  “Damn!” Hawkeye cried out.

  The leader of Titan Six clenched his hands and surveyed the area. His breath came in thick, fast pants.

  “We’ve got other fish to fry,” Tank reminded him. “Let her go. She’s probably back on the sub.”

  Hawkeye scowled. “You’re right,” he said in a throaty voice. “Let’s do what we came to do.”

  Hawkeye lobbed two old-style grenades at the conning tower and at the tail of the sub. The long boat rocked in its berth, sending waves washing over the narrow dock all the way onto the perimeter of the elevator.

  Seawater flooded the underground base. When the compartment was flooded, the boat would move into the second lock and then into the Mediterranean. The large steel door that would normally seal the rest of the subterranean base from the submarine berths had failed to close. Hawkeye figured Dominique wanted to push back Titan forces with seawater.

  Gator fired repeatedly at the tail section of the sub, hoping to disable any part of its engineering connected to the propellers.

  Hawkeye hurled two more grenades at the sub, also aiming for the tail section. He, too, hoped to damage one of the sub’s screws.

  The boat lurched sideways as the rear heaved up out of the water.

  The Dragons on the boat’s deck had been killed, but the two in the conning tower were still firing.

  Shooter threaded her wrist through the shoulder strap of an old carbine and took aim. She pulled back the bolt, fired, and reloaded. As the second Dragon spotted her, Shooter fired again. Both Dragons were dead.

  “We’ve got to get out of here!” Tank screamed.

  Water was now washing over the elevator and filling the subterranean base.

  Pyro lobbed a final grenade at the sub’s conning tower. A fragment of the dark green metal blew away, but the submarine appeared unharmed.

  Hawkeye sloshed through ankle-deep water and pulled the elevator’s lever to force the platform up to the cargo bay. The elevator’s motor had already bee
n damaged by the water. The submarine bay continued to flood.

  “There’s a ladder!” Shooter called, pointing to rungs in a vertical concrete recess ascending to the cargo bay.

  “Let’s rock and roll!” Hawkeye yelled.

  “Warning. Lockdown in twenty-minutes.”

  The water was now knee-deep.

  One by one, the team waded toward the ladder and began climbing. Hawkeye was the last to grab hold of the ladder, water up to his chin.

  TITAN TEN AND TWELVE, ABOVE THE MEDITERRANEAN SEA

  The high altitude jump had commenced. Titan teams Ten and Twelve plummeted to earth, the approaching dawn visible as a faint orange glow just below the distant rim of the earth. Below was Es Vedra. They maneuvered their bodies — arms by their side or outstretched at various angles — to control their free-fall, ensuring they would land on or near the beach.

  Vista was the first Titan soldier to hit the island, rolling his body across the rocky sand a few feet from the waterline so as to absorb the impact.

  A few minutes later, ten Titan members stood within twenty-five yards of each other.

  “Can you read us, Mrs. Caine?” Vista asked.

  “We read, Titan Ten,” Caine said.

  “Where do we penetrate?” asked Razor.

  “Walk up the gravel road that leads to the south end of Savage Bay’s main tunnel,” Touchdown instructed. “Fortunately, when Dominique Caine lifted the steel door trapping the Chinese sub, she reversed a previous lockdown. But you have very little time. A second lockdown is minutes away.”

  Razor and Vista motioned their teams to jog toward the mountain. They stepped through the hole in the chain link fence cut by Titan Six several hours earlier.

  Ahead, a giant steel door was slowly coming down. In minutes, maybe less, access to the mountain would be impossible.

  ***

  Ambergris and Alamiranta security forces landed on the beach. The front of the amphibious craft folded outward into the waves to allow the forces and Ambergris to wade through the shallow water onto the island.

  TITAN SIX, SAVAGE BAY

  Hawkeye vaulted over the top of the ladder and slammed down a hatch covering the top rung in the chute. The compartment below was still filling with water as the sub entered the base’s lock system that would allow it egress into the Mediterranean Sea.

  Titan Six was now back in the main tunnel. The submarine base below was sealed off.

  Hawkeye looked at his team. All members except Tank were lying prostrate in the tunnel. Madison lay face-down, his hand blistered.

  Hawkeye knew that BioMEMS could counter small doses of radiation, but not the high, protracted levels to which they’d been exposed.

  “I think we’re cooked, big brother,” said Tank. “We had a hell of a run, but maybe the old saying is true: all good things come to an end.”

  “We have help on the way,” Catherine Caine said over the COM set.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Caine,” Hawkeye said politely, knowing any rescue effort would be futile.

  Michael Hawke removed his helmet and looked at his brother. He spoke not as a fighter or soldier, but as the college-educated man that he was. “I agree. All the meds in the world can’t reverse this much cell damage.”

  Tank broke out in unexpected laughter and removed his helmet as well. “We literally died with our boots on,” he said.

  “That we did,” said Hawkeye. “I think you just wrote our epitaph.”

  “Warning. Ten minutes to lockdown.”

  Chapter 31

  OPS CENTER, ABOARD THE ALAMIRANTA

  “The vital signs of Titan Six show that they’re unconscious except for Hawkeye,” said Touchdown.

  “I know you’ve got more terrific news,” said Caine, “so don’t hold back.”

  “The Chinese sub is clearing the final door and headed into the Mediterranean. The sub to our east has opened its missile and torpedo doors. To top it all off . . . ” He pushed a button on his console. “I’ll let you listen for yourself.”

  “Warning. Five minutes to lockdown.”

  “Do the reinforcements have time to get in?” asked Caine. “Can you reverse the lockdown?”

  “It’s going to be close, Mrs. Caine. And no, I can’t reverse the lockdown. Dominique knows Manticore better than anyone, and I’ve been shut out of the lockdown protocol. Stopping all this is above my pay grade.”

  TITAN TEN AND TWELVE, SAVAGE BAY

  “Move it people!” Razor called. “Shag your sorry asses!”

  “Ambergris!” yelled Vista. “Can you get the lead out?”

  Over his right shoulder, Joshua Ambergris was hauling an olive drab military sack cinched at the top. It bounced against his back as he ran up the gravel road to the mountain on Es Vedra. In his left hand he carried the leather bag filled with CDs and electronic gear. In his haste to leave the Alamiranta, he hadn’t even removed his lab coat. His breath came in short, fast bursts.

  A member of Alamiranta’s security forces, fifteen in all, grabbed the large sack. “I’ll help ya, Doc. You can make it.”

  “Thanks,” Ambergris wheezed as he trudged forward.

  The two teams were nearing the south entrance to Savage Bay. Behind them, on the beach, the three Titan teams from Pakistan were landing and rolling up their chutes.

  Razor was ten yards from the massive steel door, which was only twenty feet above the ground and still descending. From inside the base, she could hear the automated computer voice.

  “Warning. One minute to lockdown.”

  OPS CENTER, ABOARD THE ALAMIRANTA

  “I’ve got an idea!” DJ said, her hand playing across her keyboards with lightning speed.

  Everyone in Ops turned to face her.

  “I’m sending a jamming signal to the actual mechanisms that control the inner and outer steel doors at both portals of Savage Bay — the electronic mechanisms that actually receive signals from Manticore,” DJ said. “It won’t stop the lockdown, but it might buy us a few seconds.”

  * She’s even more beautiful when she’s in crisis. *

  I was just noticing the same thing.

  Caine said nothing.

  Too little too late, she thought.

  TITAN TEN AND TWELVE, SAVAGE BAY

  The outer door at the south portal was ten feet above ground.

  “Drop and roll!” yelled Vista. “Drop and roll under the damn door!”

  The Titan team members and Alamiranta forces dragged their bodies and their gear under the massive twenty-five ton door. Ambegris brought up the rear. He threw his leather bag under the door in front of him and hurled his body to the ground and rolled. He was inside.

  Razor stood up, eyes wide with horror. Another door was almost at the concrete floor of Savage Bay.

  “An inner blast door,” said Vista. “We’re not gonna make it.”

  The team and Ambergris ran forward. As they did, a screeching sound filled the outer entrance chamber at the South Portal. The second steel door straight ahead was two feet above the concrete, but it was shuddering and moving more slowly.

  “Warning. Lockdown in ten seconds.”

  86th FLOOR, JIN MAO TOWER, SHANGHAI, CHINA

  Admiral Hwai-su once again stood before Yang.

  “Titan Forces have penetrated Savage Bay despite the lockdown initiated by Miss Caine,” the Admiral said.

  Yang rose from his desk and walked to the window. It was morning in the bustling, feverish metropolis of Shanghai. So many people below were sick despite the city’s reputation as one of the world’s leading industrial and financial capitals.

  Maybe they wouldn’t be sick for much longer.

  “Instruct Commander Chu to proceed with Order Nine,” said Yang dispassionately. “He is free to fire.”

  TITAN SIX, SAVAGE BAY

  Tank was unconscious. Hawkeye felt as if every muscle and cell in his body had betrayed him. He vomited and rolled onto his back, but not before gripping his 9mm sidearm.

  “A
ttention. Lockdown is now — ”

  Hawkeye fired at the speaker mounted above him.

  “Shut up,” he said in a hoarse whisper. “Can’t a man die in peace?”

  The automated voice ceased.

  OPS CENTER, ABOARD THE ALAMIRANTA

  “Two torpedoes away from the Ming class sub,” Touchdown said. “They’re headed for the Alamiranta. I also read an energy surge in the cruise missile silos. They’re minutes away from launching.”

  “Deploy countermeasures,” Caine ordered.

  Touchdown toggled switches at the left of his station, causing several torpedoes to be deployed from the Alamiranta’s own marine arsenal located below-decks. Hopefully the Chinese torpedoes would chase those from the Titan ship.

  “Flamer, are you there?” asked Caine.

  “Yes, ma’am. This is Flamer. Squadron Two is in position.”

  “Go after the Ming sub,” Caine ordered. “They’ve fired on us and might possibly launch on Es Vedra.”

  “Roger,” said Flamer.

  “So now it’s a question of who blows up who first?” said Cruz.

  “Essentially,” answered Caine, “that’s correct.”

  TITAN TEN AND TWELVE, SAVAGE BAY

  “Now!” screamed Razor.

  Ambergris scuttled under the inner steel door.

  “My bag!” he cried. “It’s got the radiation meds!”

  The leather bag Ambergris had been carrying was ten inches from his hand — on the other side of the door, which was inches from closing.

  “No!” cried Vista.

  Lying on the floor, Ambergris swept his arm in an arc and swept the bag towards his body. He tugged hard on the handle as the door made contact with the concrete. The edge of the pouch was trapped beneath the thick steel door.

  “Can you cut it free?” Ambergris asked Razor, his face a study in panic.