by JE Gurley
“Try sonar.”
“Operating within specs. Range is six-hundred yards.”
“Good! Now, disconnect the umbilical and see if we maintain control.”
The taller one glanced up from the screen and replied in a nervous voice, “If we disconnect now, Simon, we can never recover the ROV, not without help.”
“Look, Asa, if we survive this, the company can sue me. If not …”
Will saw the speaker’s shoulders lift in a defiant shrug.
“Ok. We still have control.” There was relief in Asa’s voice.
“We’ll practice operating the ROV for a while. At dawn, we’ll bring it to just below the surface and moor it to a pontoon. When the megalodon show up, we’ll move it to the dock and load the syringe.”
“What if the Navy catches us,” Asa asked.
Taking the words as his cue, Will stepped into the control room, his right hand resting lightly on the butt of his .45. “That’s an interesting question. The short answer would depend on just what you two are up to.”
The pair froze, staring at him. Finally, Asa said, “You’re the lieutenant from the meeting in the cafeteria. Cobb, right?”
“What are your intentions?” the heavy-set man, Simon, demanded in a gruff voice, as he noted the pistol at Will’s side. Asa placed his hand on Simon’s shoulder to restrain him from attempting anything foolish.
“The real question is what your intentions are,” Will replied. He sensed defiance in the pair, but no danger. He moved his hand away from his sidearm to ease the tension.
“We’re hunting giant sharks,” Simon said. “We’re going to kill as many as we can.”
Will suppressed a grin at their audacity. “That’s the Navy’s job.”
“You’ve been taking your own sweet time doing it. We deserve first crack at them,” Simon snapped. “They killed my sister.” He nodded at Asa. “He barely survived an attack.”
Will stared at Asa more closely, recognition finally dawning. The three-day growth of beard had disguised his features. “I thought I recognized you. You’re the survivor from the Global Kulik disaster.”
Asa sighed and shook his head slowly.
Will turned to Simon. “What do you do?”
Simon rubbed his ample belly and smiled. “I’m the chef. Never trust a skinny cook.”
“You both have my sympathy; I lost two crewmen yesterday, but you could endanger the operation and risk Navy personnel, not to mention your own lives. I cannot allow that.”
“It’s not right,” Simon burst out.
“Just what did your plan entail? I assume that’s the rig’s ROV down there.”
The two men stared at one another for a moment; then, Simon spoke. “We rigged the ROV to deliver a large dose of saxitoxin, enough to kill a megalodon.”
Will whistled. The two men were resourceful, as well as foolish. “I won’t even ask how you came by an illegal chemical agent. Even if your plan worked, it wouldn’t matter. There are dozens of megalodon—fifty by last count. We’ve killed a few, but they’re fast and deadly. Killing one won’t do much. I’ll call a chopper for tomorrow morning. Fly out of here and leave the killing to the Navy.”
“If we refuse?” Simon asked.
“Look, I don’t want to lock you up, but I will if necessary. If I report you, it will be out of my hands. Why not make it easy on both of us and return to your rooms? I assure you conditions are much better there than in the brig of a Virginia-Class submarine.”
Simon continued to stare at Will in defiance. Asa returned to the ROV controls. “I’ll set the ROV down on top of the pontoon.”
Will nodded. “That will suffice for now. We can recover it later.”
“You had better not screw this up,” Simon warned, jabbing his finger at Will, “or you’ll never stop me.”
“We have a plan of operation in place.”
Simon sneered. “You think those missiles will do the job?”
“They’re not missiles. They’re ASROC torpedo launchers and quite formidable. We have a special weapon ready for the sharks, a new type of mine. If it works as predicted, we’ll finish them here.”
“If?” Simon growled. “And if it doesn’t?”
Will smiled. “Then you can use your ROV. It won’t matter by then anyway. Please, gentlemen, return to your rooms.”
“Come on, Simon,” Asa said, tugging at Simon’s shoulder. “We can’t do anything more.”
Will watched the pair until they entered the main building; then shook his head. “Damn, they’ve got some balls. Neurotoxin.”
He was certain he hadn’t heard the last of them.
* * * *
12:05 a.m.–
Simon stomped the room as if tromping down an enemy, his anger written plainly on his scowling face. Asa sat on the bed with his legs out of the way of Simon’s pacing. Unlike the chef, his feelings were less clear. Once he had decided to help Simon, he wanted to get the job done, but a small part of him felt the same relief of an undersized schoolboy whose fight with a large schoolyard bully a teacher has just stopped. Now, the fear that had been gnawing at his gut could subside. It was out of his hands.
“Damn! What do we do now?” Simon asked.
“Do? We do nothing,” Asa replied. His head still pounded from his blinding migraine. The confrontation with the lieutenant had not helped matters. All he wanted was a couple of aspirin and a glass of water. And sleep, but good luck with that. “The lieutenant could have arrested us. He won’t be as lenient next time.”
“I didn’t come this far just to …” He stopped speaking and cursed, “just to sit here twiddling my thumbs.”
Asa tried reasoning with Simon. “Look, Simon, if the Navy has a plan, let them carry it out. As long as the megalodon die …”
“No,” Simon growled. “That’s not good enough.” He made fists of his hands. “I need to do something personally. I need to make things right.”
“You can’t make things right, Simon. Your sister is dead. My friends are dead. It’s all been about revenge. Revenge is for the living, not the dead. Hold on to the memory of your sister and get on with your life. Life is too precious to waste on grieving, or on self-doubt,” he added. “I’m beginning to learn that.”
Simon shook his head. “So close. We were so damn close.”
“At least we have front row seats for the battle,” Asa reminded him.
“If the lieutenant doesn’t ship us home in the morning on a helicopter.”
“If you’re right about that storm, he won’t have time.”
“I’m right,” Simon replied, nodding. “Can’t you feel the change in the air?”
Now that Simon had mentioned it, Asa, too, felt something different about the air, not just the slight ionic change in the atmosphere before a storm. The air bore a strange odor previously masked by the normal smells aboard a drillship, and then by the tang of a dozen welders burning metal, the same stench fouling the water and the air after the Global Kulik had broken through the cavern ceiling and sunk. The megalodon were coming and bringing the foul air of their primeval world with them.
“Well, there’s nothing we can do now.” He paused before continuing, “Maybe the lieutenant is right. Maybe we should leave in the morning. I have a bad feeling about this whole Navy versus megalodon thing. Maybe dying for a front row seat isn’t such a good idea.”
Simon stared at Asa for a moment before replying. His voice was softer than Asa expected. “Go ahead. I won’t hold it against you. You kept your part of the bargain.” He grimaced and shook his head slowly. “I can’t go. I have to see this thing through, one way or another.”
“But—”
Simon stopped him. “Somehow, I’ll get the chance to strike my blow. That’s all I want, one good lick; then, after that, it doesn’t matter.”
“Surely, your sister wouldn’t want you to die to avenge her death. We weren’t close, but I knew her a little. She enjoyed life. I don’t think she would want anyone t
o die for her, especially for revenge.”
“It’s not for her; it’s for me.”
The knock at the door startled Asa. He glanced at Simon, who shrugged and opened the door. A young Navy ensign with a solemn look on his face and an armed sailor stood outside the door. Asa’s heart sank. It did not look good. Lieutenant Cobb had turned them in anyway.
“Gentlemen, I’m not sure why you chose to remain on board the Vanguard, but your presence here is unauthorized.” He looked at Simon. “You, sir, will remain in your room. Mr. Iverson, you will return to your room. Tomorrow, you will both be airlifted off the drillship. Tonight, you will remain confined to your quarters.”
“What if we refuse?” Simon challenged.
The ensign grinned. “I wouldn’t advise it. The corporal is armed for a reason …” He looked at Asa. “Mr. Iverson.”
Asa pretended to stretch and yawn. “I think I’ll go to my quarters and get some shut eye. No matter what happens tomorrow, I want to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for it.” He smiled at the ensign.
“Yeah,” Simon said. “Go ahead. Looks like nothing is going to happen tonight anyway.”
He left Simon in his room staring at the large Arctic Ocean map on the wall with all its telltale pins and cryptic notes. Simon had dedicated a large part of the past year to his quest for revenge. Asa feared he would not lightly abandon this dark desire in spite of their incarceration.
He stopped in the corridor. “Did the captain of the Sunfish turn us in?” he asked the sailor.
“I don’t have that information, sir,” the sailor said. When Asa stood there, he frowned. “Please move along, sir.”
Asa stared at the young sailor for a moment, ready to refuse, but then decided his fight wasn’t with the sailor, but with Lieutenant Cobb.
9
December 26, 2018, 2:40 a.m. USS Sunfish –
Will wasn’t certain if he had even fallen asleep before his new second, Chico Rodriguez, was shaking his shoulder vigorously. At first, he saw Rich’s face leaning over him. He mentally banished the foggy veil that lingers between sleep and wakefulness and snapped awake instantly. “What is it?”
“We just got a call from the Utah. The storm is moving faster than anticipated. The timeline has advanced by six hours. They want us on station in twenty minutes.”
He nodded. He could tell by the roll of the boat that the storm was almost upon them. The waves pounded the hull like fists hammering a punching bag. “Start the engines and alert the crew.”
“Already done, sir.”
Will nodded at Rodriguez’s thoroughness, rose from his bunk, and splashed water on his face from the basin on the wall to wash the sleep from his eyes. He wanted to brush his teeth to remove the taste of last night’s microwave dinner of Penne Alfredo from his mouth, but didn’t have the time. Instead, he grabbed a stick of peppermint gum from the pack on his table and tossed it in his mouth. He had slept fully dressed. He straightened his shirt and donned his cap; then stepped from his cabin onto the bridge to find the crew standing by. He noted the time on the clock above the com – 0240 hours.
“What about the Utah? Where is she?”
“She’s still two clicks off the drillship’s windward side, but they deployed the DSV three hours ago. It’s placing the last of the mines in position.”
Mines. He wondered if one could truly call the Navy’s new secret weapon mines. Each three-hundred-pound modified mine, nicknamed Porcupines, contained a twenty-five-pound high explosive core, but unlike conventional mines, the core was surrounded with twenty, four-foot-long metal spikes, or harpoons, designed to impale the megalodon when detonated. The velocity of the five-pound harpoons ensured maximum damage to flesh and internal organs. At twenty yards, a fifty-foot-long shark would receive five or six of the lethal spikes. At forty yards, two or three.
From previously observed megalodon behavior, the blood in the water should incite a feeding frenzy, where shark ate shark, further reducing their numbers. It also bunched them closer together. Exploded among the tightly packed sharks, the mines could kill or severely injure several creatures at a time. Altogether, the DSV was deploying twenty of the Porcupines around the drillship.
Now the trap needed baiting. That was where the Sunfish came in.
“Take up the lines and move us away from the drillship,” he ordered.
Moving up the timeline concerned him. With a dozen last minute things that needed doing, he would have to trust his crew to get them done without his supervision. He did not doubt their ability. They were a good bunch, well trained and eager to get the job done.
“Have you heard from the Amberjack?” he asked McGee.
“They report nothing on sonar. They’re making a wide sweep north to south; then, they’ll head in closer to the Vanguard and stand by.”
“Good. Our overlapping sonar sweeps will give us better coverage.”
The chop had increased throughout the night as the wind picked up in velocity. Powerful six-foot waves battered the boat as it headed into the wind, slicing through the sea of whitecaps. The Sunfish shuddered as she nosedived into the deep trough between waves. Will winced at every creak and groan, but the boat held together. Once they reached their station twenty clicks from the drillship, Will surveyed the area through his binoculars, continuously wiping the lenses as waves splashed water over them and drenched him. The wan moonlight and choppy water made seeing anything impossible. A roiling mass of black, lightning-streaked clouds darkened the horizon to the southwest, ominously closer than just a few hours earlier, indicating the forefront of the storm bearing down on them.
The original plan had called for using the Sunfish’s aerial drones, in conjunction with unmanned drones and helicopters from the USS Kirby, during daylight to scan the surface for movement, giving the crews some lead-time for their preparations and to move resources to intercept the sharks, drive them toward the minefield. That scenario was now a bust. The storm had picked up speed. The megalodon would arrive early. At night, his small drones, not equipped with Infrared cameras, were useless. He hoped the UAVs from the carrier arrived soon. Their night vision cameras could come in handy. He didn’t want to be caught with his ass hanging out.
“Anything on sonar?” he called out.
“Nothing yet, but I’m getting false echoes from heavy thermal layering.”
“Hmm. Keep sweeping the area.”
Lack of sonar made them effectively blind and deaf, but he still had a job to do.
“Helm, take us in a slow arc relative to the drillship. Keep speed below ten knots.” He nodded to Rodriguez. “Chico, start dumping the fresh water tanks.”
Will winced as the wind bore the smell to him, the sickening stench of five-hundred gallons of congealing blood. Fish blood from the docks in Barrow, bovine blood from slaughterhouses, the blood of two hundred butchered caribou, and expired human blood from hospital blood banks filled the tanks. The megalodon with their supersensitive sense of smell would be able to detect the faintest traces of blood from miles away, placing his small boat in the center of ground zero. He did not like being a target, especially one barely able to outrun the megalodon.
He hoped the Deep Sea Vehicle managed to position the Porcupines before the sharks arrived. Waiting until the last minute was risky, but they could not anchor the mines, and time and current would disperse them quickly. The buoyancy tanks on the mines allowed the crew to place them at various depths, but that took time. He felt a moment of pity for the DSV crew, but then remembered that the Hy-100 steel hull of the submersible, designed to withstand the crushing pressure at sixty-five hundred feet, was three times as thick as the hull of the Sunfish. Maybe they felt sorry for him.
Will worried about the very real possibility of friendly fire. The ASROC launchers on the Vanguard provided Offensive Ring One. The rocket-launched Mark 46 torpedoes were faster than the sub’s Mark 48 ADCAP torpedoes and had a greater range. When the megalodon entered the twelve-mile mark, the ASROCs would beg
in launching and continue until the sharks entered the minefield. The Porcupines were Offensive Ring Three, deployed in a wide arc at a distance of between five-hundred yards to twenty-five-hundred yards from the drillship and between fifty feet and four-hundred feet in depth, but they were stationary and avoidable. The Utah was Ring Two, patrolling the area between the two rings. Armed with twenty-two Mark 48 ADCAP torpedoes, it was well equipped for the task of preventing any megalodon from retreating.
The Sunfish and the Amberjack would perform the roles of mop up, staying out of the main fray. Both were equipped with .50 caliber machineguns, 25mm chain guns, and depth charges to kill any strays. The Sunfish had the added capability of her Griffin missile launchers. If all went as planned, the megalodon threat would end today.
Nothing ever goes as planned—an old Navy maxim.
“We’ll never get those water tanks scrubbed clean,” Rodriguez complained.
“Maybe the Navy will spring for new freshwater tanks,” Will said. He continued to keep an eye on the horizon, though the frigid water tossed up by the waves had drenched his clothes and was chilling his body.
His orders called for two swaths of blood spaced two hundred yards apart. As the Sunfish completed her first arc, he called out, “Bring her around for a second run. Mind your distance.”
Now, they headed directly into the wind. He held onto the rail as the boat’s bow rose and fell, looking at times as if it would continue to plunge beneath the dark surface. As the tanks of blood drained into the ocean, the boat became lighter, becoming a piece of flotsam tossed about by the waves without mercy. She lingered dangerously long atop the crest of each wave before plunging down the back slope. Will prayed the boat held together long enough to complete her run.
“The tanks are dry,” Rodriguez called out a few minutes later with obvious relief in his voice.
“Good. Take us back to the drillship. We’ll drop a sea anchor on the leeward side of one of the pontoons and wait.”
“Are you scared, Skipper?” Rodriguez asked.
“Mr. Rodriguez, a boat skipper is never scared. He is merely concerned.” He smiled at his second. “Besides, this wet uniform won’t let anyone see me piss my pants.”