He depressed a foot pedal and was immediately enveloped in a blinding cloud of stirred-up silt that settled after a moment. He turned the Hardsuit's searchlights off. The faint glow coming through the B3's previously buried windows indicated that systems were still operating. Austin blinked the suit's lights on and off to get Zavala's attention.
Zavala saw the flashing lights, and his mind lost some of its cold-induced sluggishness.
Kane had seen the lights as well.
"What should we do?" he asked.
Zavala hungered for the opportunity to do something, anything, to get out of this mess, but he knew they would have to be patient.
"We wait," he said.
Austin unclamped his manipulator from the cable and began to tap out a new message on the bathysphere's skin. He got out only a few letters before the current suddenly caught his suit and pushed him several feet away from the sphere. Regaining control, he returned to tap out more letters.
The Hardsuit's camera had been transmitting his struggles to the surface ship.
"What's going on down there?" Gannon's voice called. "Picture went dark, and now it's back all jumbled."
"Stand by," Austin said, then finished tapping out his message.
"Standing by," the captain replied.
Austin's efforts had sapped his strength. Sweat was dripping into his eyes, and he was gulping for air like a beached flounder.
"Haul away!" he shouted breathlessly into the suit's microphone.
Zavala had listened carefully to the measured tapping coming through the skin of the B3. He'd caught the first few letters. After a pause, he'd caught the rest.
Float.
Hell, Kurt, if I could float, I would float.
The bathysphere still stuck in the mud, and Zavala vacillated between anger and despair. Maybe this was all a dream brought on by lack of oxygen. Maybe he was imagining all this, playing out a rescue that existed only in his mind.
A buzzer yanked him back to reality.
A red light blinked madly on the control panel. He realized that the light had been going on and off for some time, but his slow-moving mind had not realized it was warning that the air supply was about to end.
He reached out for the spare tank, barely got it off the wall, and turned on the valve.
Air hissed into the cabin and blew the fog from his brain. He flipped back the panel covering the manual switch for the flotation system and waited for something to happen.
Austin hovered above the bottom of the ocean with the Hardsuit's lights trained on the top of the B3. The cable went taut as, a half mile above his head, the winch began to turn, but the bathysphere didn't budge. Dire scenarios marched through Austin's head: the jury-rigged hook would break immediately and the sphere would remain trapped in the suction created by the mud; Zavala would forget to deploy the flotation system or the system wouldn't work when he did; worse of all, both men were unconscious.
"Cable's tight to the winch," Gannon called down. "Anything happening at your end?"
Austin saw that the cable splice was unraveling.
"Just keep hauling," he said.
He gritted his teeth as if he could lift the B3 through sheer willpower. The bathysphere remained where it was. The cable unraveled some more.
"Move, damnit!" he yelled.
Plumes of mud billowed around the bathysphere. Then the sphere pulled free, popping from the mud like a cork from a bottle, and righted itself. A thick cloud of silt hid the sphere for an instant before it rose into the glare of the Hardsuit's searchlights.
Austin's triumphant yell blasted through the ship's public-address system.
The B3 was ten feet from the bottom, mud streaming off its sides, then twenty feet, and still there was no sign of air-bag deployment. What was Joe waiting for? Maybe the flotation doors were clogged with mud.
Austin kept pace, rising slowly with the bathysphere, his eyes glued to the hook and cable.
As the last strand of cable splice gave way, doors along the sides of the sphere suddenly blew open and six air bags blossomed and rapidly filled. The bathysphere rocked back and forth, stabilized, then began to ascend.
Austin watched the B3 until it was out of sight.
"They're on their way," he notified Gannon.
"You're next," the captain said. "How are you?"
"I'll be a lot better topside."
Austin steadied the thrusters so that he was in a more or less vertical position, and was ready when the Hardsuit jerked at the end of the cable. As the suit began its long trip, Austin turned off his lights and saw that he was not alone.
The blackness was speckled with dozens of constellations. He was surrounded by luminescent sea creatures that hung in place like stars. Occasionally, he saw something moving like the lights of an airplane across the night sky. Then his eye caught movement off to the left. The constellation hanging there at the edge of his peripheral vision seemed to be growing larger. Turning his head, he saw what looked like a trio of glowing amber eyes moving closer.
An alarm went off in Austin's brain. He'd been focusing on the rescue and forgotten about the sinister shadow loitering nearby when the cables were cut on the B3 and the ROV.
The Hardsuit's searchlights reflected off the smooth, dark surface of something shaped like a flattened teardrop. It was a submersible of some kind, most likely an automated underwater vehicle, or AUV, because he couldn't see a tether. The glowing eyes on the leading edge were apparently sensors, but Austin was more interested in the sharp-edged metal mandibles protruding from the front of the vehicle.
The vehicle moved fast, gliding at a depth where the mandibles would intersect the cable pulling him to the surface. Austin stomped on his vertical-thrust pedal. There was a second's delay before the thrusters overcame the Hardsuit's inertia, then he shot up several feet, his attacker passing below him, the mandibles snapping at empty water.
The vehicle made a wide banking turn, rose to keep pace, and circled back for another attack.
Gannon was watching the encounter on the ship's monitor.
"What the hell was that?" the captain yelled.
"Something that wants me for dinner!" Austin yelled back. "Haul faster!"
The nimble AUV was quick to adjust its strategy and speed. Coming in for its second attack, it slowed to a walk, stalking its target with the wariness of a predator whose prey showed unexpected behavior.
Austin waited until the thing was just yards away and then tapped his foot pedal. The Hardsuit rose a few feet, but not fast enough to escape the attacker. He raised his arms defensively, holding them out straight and close together. He crashed into the AUV's extended manipulators glancingly, but not before his claw stabbed the AUV in its middle eye.
Austin's head slammed against the inside of the Plexiglas helmet. The impact knocked him sideways, and he swung at the end of his cable like soap on a rope. Pain shot up his left arm from the wrist.
The AUV went for another pass, but it was moving slowly, and it jerked erratically from side to side like a hound sniffing out prey. Rather than coming straight for Austin, it feinted a frontal attack, then angled upward toward the cable. Because Austin was still dazed from the last attack, he was slow to give the vertical thrusters juice. The AUV's pincers caught his raised right arm at the elbow and closed around it.
With his left manipulator, he grabbed onto a thruster mandible and powered himself down, then up, operating like a yo-yo. The thrusters were designed for horizontal rather than vertical movement, and the weight of the vehicle worked against it, bending the mandible so that it was useless. Then the blade snapped at the base. The AUV thrashed wildly, peeled off, and disappeared into the darkness.
"Kurt, are you okay?" the captain's voice rang in Austin's earphones. "For God's sake, answer me!"
"Finestkind, Cap," Austin managed to croak. "Haul me up."
"Hauling away," the captain said with relief in his voice. "What kind of music do you want for the ride to the top?"
A moment later, the strains of a Strauss waltz came through his earphones, and he began his long trip to the surface to "Tales from the Vienna Wood."
As Austin was hauled toward the ship, he was vaguely aware that he still clutched the AUV's blade in his metal claw as if it were a hunting trophy.
CHAPTER 11
Thousands of miles from the William Beebe, Lois Mitchell was trying to quell a riot in the mess hall, where Gordon Phelps had herded the staff at gunpoint. Someone had noticed that Dr. Logan was missing, and when Lois said that the marine biologist had been shot dead the news had prompted a chorus of anger and fear.
Lois tried to shout down the cacophony. When that didn't work, she lined up several mugs on the counter and filled them from a coffeepot. The simple ritual had a calming effect. After the uproar had quieted down and she could be heard, Lois flashed a sweet smile.
"Sorry this isn't a Starbucks Grande, but it will have to do for now."
Her attempt at humor triggered an outburst from a young female lab tech whose pale face and tearful eyes indicated that she was on the verge of hysteria. Lacing into Lois in a voice choked with sobs, the tech demanded: "How can you be so calm knowing Dr. Logan was murdered?"
Stubbornly refusing the urge to break into tears herself, Lois said, "Dr. Logan is lying in the passageway outside the control room with a bullet in his heart. He tried to fight back and was killed by the man who locked us in here. If you want to avoid the same fate, I suggest you take several deep breaths and calm down."
With a trembling hand, Lois pushed a mug across the counter. The young lab tech hesitated, then reached out for it and took a noisy slurp. Lois then gathered everyone around a large table and described her encounter with Phelps and the murder of Logan. A biologist who had been Logan's closest friend rose from his chair and picked up a kitchen knife from the counter. He summed up his rage in a single word.
"Bastard!"
Lois remained in her seat and regarded the biologist with a calm gaze.
"You're absolutely correct," Lois said. "In fact, the man who shot Dr. Logan is worse than a bastard, he's a murderer, but his moral character is not at issue here. You might get him with that knife, although I doubt it, but what then? Phelps obviously is not the only one involved. We are dealing with ruthless people who have the resources to gain entry into a heavily guarded facility three hundred feet below the ocean's surface. I don't know how they learned about the Locker, who they are, or how many are involved, but we are completely at their mercy."
The knife clattered on the counter, and the biologist sat down.
"You're right, Lois," he said in defeat. "I just wish I knew what they wanted."
"I'm sure they'll let us know," she replied. "In the meantime, let's have something to eat. It's important we keep our strength up. "MiGod!" she said with her rollicking laugh. "I sound like an actor in one of those disaster movies telling everyone to remain calm after the ocean liner turns upside down or the plane crashes in the jungle."
The comment produced nervous smiles. A couple of people headed for the kitchen and, in short order, returned with a tray stacked with ham, turkey, and peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches. Fear must have sharpened the scientists' hunger because they devoured the sandwiches like victims of a famine.
They were cleaning up when the mess hall reverberated with loud humming. Everyone stopped working and listened. After a few moments, the humming stopped, and the floor jolted as if jarred by an earthquake. There was a second jolt, and the room shuddered and swayed.
Those still standing fought to keep their balance, and there was an outcry of alarm, but the room went silent when the door burst open and two armed men stepped into the mess hall to clear the way for Phelps. The two strangers were wearing black diver's suits still wet with seawater and carried short-barreled machine pistols.
Phelps grinned and said, "Looks like we arrived too late for lunch."
"What's happening to the lab?" Lois asked, holding on to the edge of a counter to keep from falling.
"Don't you remember what I said about going for a little ride? The lab's being moved to a new neighborhood."
Lois thought she must be going mad. "That's impossible."
"Not really, Dr. Mitchell. All we had to do was hitch the lab to a tow truck, so to speak."
"What happened to our support ship?"
"It's out of action," Phelps said. He issued an order to the gunmen: "Take these folks to their quarters."
The gunmen stepped aside to allow the scientists to pass.
"Thank you for allowing my staff to leave," Lois said. She went to follow her colleagues through the door, but Phelps reached out and held her arm. He shut the door, pulled up a chair, and asked Lois to sit down. Then he sat in another chair and leaned on the backrest.
"I've been looking at your bio, Dr. Mitchell. Pretty impressive background. Bachelor's degree in marine biology from the University of Florida, master's from Virginia Institute of Marine Science, topped off with a Ph.D. in marine biotechnology and biomedicine from Scripps."
"Is this a job interview?" Lois said in an icy voice.
"I guess you could call it that," Phelps said. "You've been doing some work that my bosses are interested in."
"Who are your bosses?"
"They're kinda shy. Just think of them as the folks that sign my paycheck."
"Did they pay you to kill Dr. Logan?"
He frowned. "That wasn't in the plans, Dr. Mitchell. That was an accident, pure and simple."
"An accident like hijacking the lab, I suppose."
"Guess you could say that. Look, Dr. Mitchell, you may not like me, probably hate my guts, and I don't blame you, but it's best for you and your staff if we try to get along because we're going to be working together."
"What do you mean?"
"My bosses didn't tell me exactly what you're doing here in the lab, but I heard it's got something to do with jellyfish."
Lois saw no reason to hold back. "That's right. We're using a chemical found in a rare species of jellyfish to develop a vaccine for an influenza-type virus that has a lot of people worried."
"My bosses said that you're about ready to wrap things up here."
So much for secrecy, Lois thought.
"That's correct," she said. "We're within days of synthesizing the chemical used as the basis of the vaccine. You still haven't answered my question about working together."
"When we get to the new location, you'll continue your research. You'll have free run of the lab except for the control room. You'll report your results to me on a regular basis. I'll pass the reports along to my bosses. Otherwise, it's business as usual."
"And if we refuse to work for you?"
"We know we can't make scientists do their jobs by beating them with truncheons. We'll just leave you down here on your own and withhold food and oxygen until you feel like working again. The rules are simple: If you go on strike, you will die. Not my idea, but that's the way it is."
"Thank you for your kind advice. I'll pass it along to my colleagues as soon as you allow me to rejoin them."
He stood up and opened the door.
"You can go along now, if you want to."
Lois stayed where she was.
"One question," she said. "What happens after we complete our research? Are you going to kill us or leave us to rot on the bottom?"
Phelps was a hard man and seasoned professional. He considered his job as a mercenary a link in a proud profession that stretched back hundreds, probably thousands, of years. Older than prostitution, he often joked. He had his own peculiar sense of honor that would not allow him to harm a woman, especially one as attractive as Lois Mitchell. He pushed the dangerous thoughts aside. There was no room in his business for personal attachments, but he vowed to keep a close eye on Lois.
"They hired me to hijack this nifty little hideaway and to make sure you keep on working
. My contract doesn't say anything about killing you or your friends. They know that when the work is done, I plan to take you from the lab and drop you somewhere close to civilization. We'll probably run into each other in a bar in Paris or Rome someday and have a big laugh over this thing."
Lois had no desire to see Phelps ever again. More important, she had no idea whether Phelps was telling the truth or not. The strength seemed to flow out of her body. She felt as if she were being smothered even though her lungs were hyperventilating. She concentrated on her breathing, taking breaths deep into her diaphragm, and after a moment the hammering of her heart began to subside. She became aware that Phelps was watching her reaction closely.
"You okay, Dr. Mitchell?"
Lois stared into space for a moment, reordering her jumbled thoughts, then rose from her chair. "I'd like to go to my quarters now, if you don't mind."
He nodded. "I'll be in the control room if you need me."
Lois made her way to her room. The floor still swayed, and she had to walk wide-leggedly to keep from losing her footing. Somehow, she made it to her quarters. She crawled into her bunk and pulled the covers over her head, as if she could shut out the world she had found herself in, but to no effect. Thankfully, after a few minutes, she fell into a fitful slumber.
CHAPTER 12
Captain Gannon furrowed his brow as he gazed out the bridge windows at the restless sea. The weather had changed for the worse in the hours since the B3 had dropped into the depths. Gray slabs had replaced the puffy white clouds of morning. The easy breeze that had greeted the ship's arrival had freshened, puckering the heaving sea. The water gained a dark, leaden cast as the sun lowered, and foam crested the corrugated wave tops.
The rugged research vessel had been built to take the worst kind of weather imaginable, but retrieving the bathysphere and an exhausted Hardsuit diver would have been delicate operations even without dicey conditions.
Gannon had moved the ship back from the bathysphere's last known position to give the B3 room to surface. The starboard crane was still hauling up the Hardsuit, and Austin would not appreciate being dragged all over the ocean, so the ship could only move a short distance.
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