by Steve Alten
* * *
The Benthos descended, dwarfing the Epimetheus within the confines of its three dangling pillarlike legs, which came to rest on the bottom. One hundred feet above the submersible, the abyssal docking station spread its winglike clamps to full capacity, waiting to guide the Epimetheus safely to the docking clamps, which would then raise the sub, sealing its conning tower within the pressurized chamber above.
Four strobe lights ignited from the Benthos’s hull, piercing the blackness like a lighthouse beam.
Terry focused on one of the vertical shafts of light. Fifty feet from her window, she saw a great gust of sediment swirl upward from the bottom.
Before she could react, the two Kronosaurs slammed headfirst into the starboard side of the Epimetheus, rolling the vessel hard to port.
Terry screamed, tossed backward in total darkness, landing hard across buckets of manganese nodules. One of the crew fell over her, pinning her legs against the rocks.
“Cease mining!” the captain ordered. “Drop weight plates—”
Red emergency cabin lights switched on as the sub rolled upright.
Terry moaned in pain as she tried to sit up. Pushing the unconscious crewman off her legs, she struggled to her feet. A droplet of water fell from a titanium plate above her head.
Oh, my God . . .
The Epimetheus rose straight up from the bottom and into the bosom of the Benthos, its conning tower guided into the docking sleeve by the tightening clamps.
* * *
From his vantage behind eight-inch LEXAN glass within the docking bay’s control room, Benedict watched the top of the conning tower rise up into position in the flooded chamber. Brass seals moved into place around the sub’s dorsal fin while docking clamps lifted the Epimetheus into its locked position.
Powerful pumps forced the water out, draining and depressurizing the vault within minutes.
* * *
Terry squeezed her way toward the conning tower. She watched impatiently as Captain Warren ascended the ladder, waiting for the all-clear alarm to sound from above. Bending down, she stole a glance out another window.
An immense shadow was circling close by, gathering speed.
The metallic bell sounded. Captain Warren opened the hatch.
Terry forced her way up the ladder and into the damp vault. She saw Benedict in the control room, speaking into a microphone.
“Captain, instruct your men to unload the nodules into the docking chamber.”
“Sir, the Epimetheus took a beating. Can we wait?”
“Now, Captain!”
Terry ran to the locked vault door and banged her fist against the unyielding metal. “Let us out!”
Several men had already climbed out of the sub, only to be pushed back down the conning tower by their captain. “Form a line,” he ordered. “Get those rocks off the sub!”
White buckets filled with black potato-size rocks were carried out from the conning tower.
From below, the adult female Kronosaurus glided beneath its motionless prey.
Captain Warren gave Benedict a desperate glance. “Sir, we could really use some help.”
Benedict watched the exhausted men struggle to lift the rocks from the sub. “Prokovich, send some of your men into the chamber to assist.”
“Aye, sir.” The Russian pointed to two men.
Terry heard the titanium bolts click back into place. The door swung open and two burly men pushed past her, hustling into the vault.
With a tremendous surge, the fifty-thousand-pound female Kronosaurus drove its skull upward into the belly of the Epimetheus.
Red lights flashed, sirens wailed. Terry dove through the vault doorway, the door slamming shut behind her with such force that it propelled her through the air and into the far wall of the outer corridor. As she raised her head, a deafening roar echoed through the passage. Her body trembled and, for a bizarre moment, she found herself bouncing six inches off the floor as the Benthos shuddered beneath her.
She struggled to her feet and ran into the control room.
“Oh, God—oh, my God . . .”
Its titanium hull compromised on impact, the Epimetheus had instantaneously imploded under sixteen thousand pounds per square inch of water pressure. As the sub folded in like a crushed aluminum can, the sea rocketed upward, blasting into the sealed docking-station vault, killing everyone. The air inside compressed, superheating to thousands of degrees in a millisecond. It was the ten-foot-thick layer of titanium surrounding the chamber that prevented the Benthos from imploding with the force of a small nuclear explosion.
A swirling torrent of debris-infested water whipped around the circular inner walls of the flooded chamber, searching in vain for a way to pierce the titanium plating that safeguarded the rest of the mother ship.
As Terry watched, the whirlpool of brackish water began unraveling, revealing its devastation. Disfigured jellylike corpses slammed against the LEXAN window, their empty eye sockets leaking rivulets of gray matter and blood. Pockets of imploded skin disfigured the bodies, masking the frozen expressions of horror from the victim’s unrecognizable faces.
Terry turned in disgust and fled with the others, all gagging as they escaped into the adjacent corridor for air. Only Benedict remained, staring at the kaleidoscope of human body parts and floating excrement.
“Naturam expellas furca, tamen usque recurret,” he whispered, wiping a tear from a lashless emerald eye. “You may drive nature out with a pitchfork, but she will keep coming back.” He closed his eyes. “C’est la guerre.”
Revelations
U.S. Naval Base
Guam
Base Commander James Adams adjusted his gold-rim glasses as he walked out from behind his desk to greet Masao Tanaka, motioning his secretary to close the office door behind them.
“Mas, it’s good to see you. I want you to meet someone. This is Dave Ross.”
A short, slender, intense-looking gentleman in his early forties stood and offered his hand. “Mr. Tanaka.”
“Mr. Ross is with the CIA. He has something he wants to discuss with you . . . regarding Terry.”
Masao sat. “I’m listening.”
Ross pulled his chair around to face the older man. “Mr. Tanaka, what’s said in this room stays in this room, are we clear on that?”
“Go on.”
“About four years ago Israeli intelligence learned of a secret meeting that took place in the Sudan between a small group of Islamic terrorists and your partner, Benedict Singer. Six months later, construction began on the Benthos, the Prometheus, and the Epimetheus, construction paid for by funds discreetly channeled into Geo-Tech from the organization of exiled Saudi millionaire Osama bin Laden.
“Eighteen months ago the NSA intercepted a communication that revealed the nature of Singer’s meeting. It turns out that Benedict Singer had discovered a fuel source capable of sustaining fusion energy.”
“What do you mean by ‘sustain’?”
“Scientists have been experimenting with fusion power for some forty years,” Ross said. “Their biggest challenge has been in containing a plasma of charged tritium or deuterium while its atoms fuse into helium. Singer’s new fuel source stabilized within the shifting magnetic fields of his tokamak reactor, creating a sustained output of fusion energy. In layman’s terms, he broke the fusion barrier.”
Masao raised his eyebrows, impressed.
“The United States, Russia, Japan, and the European Union have been working for years to complete the ITER, which stands for International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor,” said Ross. “Singer’s discovery changes everything. This new fuel source puts him thirty years ahead of ITER and the rest of the world.”
“Masao, the Arab coalition bankrolling Benedict Singer represents an organization responsible for bankrolling acts of terrorism,” said Commander Adams. “We simply cannot allow these factions to monopolize fusion.”
“What does all this have to do with me—or my daugh
ter, for that matter?”
Ross leaned forward. “Bin Laden didn’t spend over a billion dollars so GTI could explore the oceans or deploy your UNIS robots along the seafloor of the Mariana Trench. The source of Benedict’s fusion fuel originates in a remote area somewhere within the gorge. The Benthos allows Benedict to steal the fuel from within our own territorial boundaries, EEZ laws be damned. It’s the equivalent of the United States slipping into OPEC countries in order to steal their oil.”
Masao closed his eyes in thought, absorbing the information. “I don’t understand. If the CIA knows what Benedict is up to, why allow him access into the Trench?”
“Two reasons,” Ross answered. “First, we only just learned the source and the true nature of this fusion fuel. Second, controlling access into a seven-mile-deep, fifteen-hundred-mile-long gorge is a lot more difficult than it sounds. We just weren’t prepared.”
Commander Adams walked out from behind his desk. “The Benthos is so deep that it’s impossible to detect using our satellites. Sonar reconnaissance is difficult at best, the ship’s engines barely give off a signature, and even if we could detect her, how would we reach her once she descended into the Trench?”
“What about depth charges?”
“Even if we could pinpoint her, I doubt the explosion would cause much damage. Her hull is one hundred eight inches of titanium.”
Ross interrupted the explanation. “Our biggest fear was that Geo-Tech would simply transport the Benthos into international waters and enter the Mariana Trench undetected somewhere along the bottom. Fortunately, MOSSAD’s informants revealed that Benedict Singer was searching for a scientific expedition—an excuse to legitimately enter the Trench that would allow him to utilize the Goliath to shadow the Benthos along the surface as a safety precaution.”
Commander Adams forced a smile. “These gigantic sharks of yours became the wild card that saved us.”
“Wait a moment—” A dark revelation suddenly dawned on Masao. “The new UNIS project, the lucrative JAMSTEC contract?”
Ross shot Adams a look. “We needed to provide Benedict with a legitimate opportunity to access the Mariana Trench. The completion of the UNIS project seemed a perfect fit.”
“My God—how far did you people go? The class-action lawsuits, the outrageous monetary awards—the court denying our right to appeal . . . You bastards set my company up, didn’t you? You wanted us to go bankrupt!”
Masao stood, kicking back his chair. “You used my Institute to bait Geo-Tech—to entice them to buy us out in order to give them an excuse to legally enter the Trench.”
Commander Adams stepped in between Masao and Ross, afraid his friend might actually strike the CIA director. “Masao, calm down, the CIA has assured me that reparations will be made. Try to understand—”
“Reparations? James, do you know how much damage they’ve inflicted on my family?”
“It couldn’t be helped,” Adams said. “You must understand what was at stake—”
Masao’s face turned red with rage.
“Mr. Tanaka, your daughter’s life may be in danger,” Ross said. “If you want to help her, I advise you to sit down and let me finish.”
“If anything happens to my daughter—”
“Sir, let me finish.”
Adams nodded to Masao, replacing the elder man’s chair.
Masao sat.
“I’m genuinely sorry for what we put you and your family through,” Ross said. “Try to understand that this is not just a CIA operation, that the Japanese, Russians, and Europeans are involved, as well. Benedict would have suspected we were on to him if the United States or Japan had approached him directly. We used the Tanaka Institute as a buffer. Timing was everything. Did we push you into bankruptcy? The lawsuits were real—”
“But the closing of the Institute? The freezing of our assets?”
“No comment. Let’s just say we wanted to make sure you were desperate enough to contact Benedict Singer for assistance once JAMSTEC offered you the lucrative UNIS contract. Only Geo-Tech possessed the resources necessary to complete the project, not to mention the money to bail you out of your financial difficulties. You were forced to sell, and we knew Benedict would grab the bait—hook, line, and sinker.”
Masao took several deep breaths, attempting to calm himself.
“The biggest problem we faced,” Ross continued, “was figuring out what the fusion fuel source was. We got a huge break when MOSSAD managed to get one of their operatives aboard the Proteus. Unfortunately, the sub imploded, killing the agent before he was able to transmit the information.”
“One thing we did learn, “ Adams said, “was that Benedict entered the Mariana Trench not knowing the exact location of the fusion fuel. It turns out the Proteus had been designed to conduct a thorough search of the canyon floor. Its destruction added months to GTI’s timetable.”
Ross stood. “Two days before the Megalodon escaped from your facility, NSA intercepted a coded transmission from the Goliath to Celeste Singer mentioning Jonas Taylor.”
“Jonas?” Masao looked up. “What does Jonas have to do with this?”
“Eleven years ago, your son-in-law piloted a series of dives into the Mariana Trench aboard a Navy submersible called the Seacliff,” Commander Adams explained. “It was on the last of these dives that Taylor apparently ran into one of these Megalodon sharks and panicked. The two scientists aboard were both killed. Turns out they were both fusion physicists, Dick Prestis being a former colleague of one Benedict Singer.”
“Once we realized the connection, the rest was easy,” Ross said. “Analysis of the remaining manganese nodules collected by the two scientists during the Seacliff dive revealed inert gases trapped within the rocks.”
“The fusion fuel,” Adams added.
Ross leaned against the commander’s desk. “Knowing the exact location of these particular manganese nodules changes everything. We’ve begun preparing our own remote submersible robots to mine the rocks ourselves, hoping to avoid a direct confrontation with Singer, who still wields a lot of power in the financial and political world.”
“But the Benthos is already in the Trench,” Masao said. “How did you possibly expect to force Benedict out without him becoming suspicious?”
“By instituting JAMSTEC’s investigation of the Proteus accident,” Ross answered. “We were hoping to use that as an excuse to force Benedict out of the Trench before he could locate the nodules. Unfortunately, your daughter sent JAMSTEC a positive report regarding Geo-Tech’s activities in the Trench, while Jonas unknowingly spilled his guts about the secret location of the dive site to Celeste Singer. Thanks to your son-in-law, the Benthos is now on its way to collect the nodules, and there’s nothing we can do to stop him.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Adams said. “MOSSAD has operatives aboard the Goliath. Once we know Benedict has found the manganese nodules and loaded them on board, the Navy will move in and confiscate the goods under EEZ law.”
“What about my daughter? You said she’s in danger.”
“As far as we know, she’s still on board the Benthos, along with one of my best agents,” said Ross. “We expect them topside aboard the Goliath within the next few days. It’s very important that we get them off the ship before the Navy shows up, or Benedict may resort to using them as hostages.”
“Which is the reason you’ve revealed the truth about all of this,” Masao said. “You want me to intervene, to pick up my daughter and your agent so the Navy can move in without Benedict becoming suspicious.”
“Correct,” Ross said.
Mariana Trench
Angel remained just below the thermocline, her luminescent-white skin casting an eerie light as she moved through the dark Pacific waters. As she continued south, a strange tingling sensation began buzzing within her nervous system, causing the female to shake her massive head like a horse tossing a fly.
The creature’s built-in compass, the Earth’s powerful magnetic f
orce field, had suddenly become distorted, the north-south current disrupted by seamounts and other geological formations surrounding the Mariana Trench. These geomagnetic anomalies were instantly recognized by the shark’s ampullae of Lorenzini. Locking onto the primordial landmarks, the Megalodon began descending in a wide circular pattern, allowing her thirty-one-ton muscular girth to gradually adjust to the dramatic changes in water pressure.
Icy water bit into the creature’s thick hide. Ignoring the pain, the female swam faster, the additional propulsion momentarily warming her. Down and down she descended, her core temperature dropping dangerously low. Finally the animal plunged through the dense layer of floating minerals and sulfur, entering the warm hydrothermal waters of the abyss.
Gliding just below the cloudlike ceiling of silty debris, Angel cast her moonlike glow upon the ancient gorge, just as her ancestors had over the last one hundred thousand years. The female descended, warming herself in the dissipating heat flowing from the Earth’s furnace before continuing south along the canyon floor.
Hours later, the Megalodon’s receptor system detected another life-form approaching quickly. The female turned to intercept, heading for the source of the vibrations that were rapidly stimulating her reproductive system.
Looming out of the darkness ahead was a male Megalodon. At fifty-eight feet and forty-six thousand pounds, the shark was distinctly smaller, though quicker than its would-be mate. Avoiding a head-on confrontation, the male circled warily, then came up from behind the big female.
Highly stimulated, Angel permitted the male to slide up along her left flank.
With a thrust of its tail, the male shark lurched forward, biting into the female’s left pectoral fin, beginning the act of copulation.
Angel arched her spine and inverted, rolling over the male Megalodon’s dorsal surface to swim on her back as she twisted below her smaller mate.