“Sir?” Ajax asked from the back of the room. “Have you heard anything from the rest of the civilians?”
Nassar shook his head, hitting his earbud. There had been chatter before. The civilians had found the security hub along with nearly ten dead. After that the talk had been of getting power back up and cameras. But Ajax was correct. That had died down a bit ago.
Died down or cut off. He flipped through the channels getting either silence or static.
“What should we do?” Ajax asked.
This was the problem with civilians. You couldn’t just let them fend for themselves. Even with the robots they were vulnerable. And if someone was on the station actively blocking their communications, then every one of those civilians was in danger.
However, he had his orders, which were very clear and very specific as to what was the priority of the mission.
He weighed the two.
The civilians had gone off on their own. They had made that choice. Not him. He didn’t feel guilty about leaving them to their own devices for a few minutes.
“We find the prize,” Nassar stated.
Ajax gave a smile like a child who had been told he could steal candy from a baby.
Nassar could only hope it would turn out to be that easy.
CHAPTER 8
Nick gulped. He somehow thought he was ready to take on some sharks again, but it was becoming clearer and clearer that something very human, or in this case, inhumane had caused this tragedy.
For one, he was glad to be out in the hallway. With the robots. Yes, he liked being out here with the robots. Quax had gone in with the rest of the humans.
Of course at any moment Nick felt like one of the walls was going to burst open, allowing a shark or more than likely a dozen sharks inside the facility.
“Oh no,” Tonaka groaned from inside the room.
That wasn’t good. He looked to Nami. “I’ll just be a moment.”
She stayed within Dillon’s arms as he entered the room.
“What’s wrong?”
Callum spoke through Quax. “They had a major breach. On purpose.”
Great. Weaponized sharks and a saboteur. This was not a great mix. And Nick should know, he’d barely survived a similar combination the last time at Salechii and those hadn’t even been weaponized sharks.
“How bad?” Nick asked.
“There are at least a dozen sharks loose in the inner pens,” Tonaka explained “It looks like at least four of them made it into the facility. The lower levels are flooded, allowing them pretty much free access to those passages.”
Okay. That wasn’t so bad. However Tonaka’s frown told him there was more he hadn’t mentioned. “What is it?”
“Those levels are taking on water. I give us a ten to twelve hours before the entire station is flooded.”
Which meant by nightfall they would be swimming for their lives. Perfect.
“There is a sub on its way though? The Russians should have some seaplanes in the air already, right? That’s what Nassar said in the briefing. Or did I just dream that?”
Tonaka shook his head then nodded. Talk about mixed signals.
“Yes to both, but we never expected this much damage. Neither will get here in time.”
“And?” Nick probed. Tonaka was being way cagier than he normally was.
“We have lost contact with both Shalie and the SEALs. Someone is jamming our signal.”
Nick took in a deep breath. Great. Just great. Talk about piling on. But there was no point in worrying about any of that right now. Either a rescue showed or it didn’t. Either the saboteur attacked or he didn’t. They had other concerns. “Now it is all about finding survivors, right?”
A look passed between Tonaka and Callum.
“What?”
“Of the hundred people listed on the crew, over ninety have been reported dead,” Tonaka reported.
Nick gulped. “Someone had to survive to list the others dead though. Don’t we owe it to those other ten to try?”
Tonaka nodded. ”As long as we stay above level 5 we should be good.”
“Let’s get the QXs geared up then, right?” Nick urged. “They can heat seek can’t they?”
* * *
Tonaka was secretly pleased. Although there really wasn’t anything to be pleased about, but he had been chomping at the bit to test the QXs in a real life rescue operation. They were 100% in simulation, but as Salechii had shown, simulations were less than ideal.
Callum waved them away and spoke in his forceful Russian that was interpreted into casual Aussie by Quax. “Go ahead and go on, I want to study these maps and the information on the sharks.”
Tonaka nodded as Dillon walked in the room. “I know you want to shield me from this, Dad, but I think I can help.”
The room was looking less and less like a slaughterhouse as the QXs removed the bodies to another storage room that was iced. Callum nodded. Nami snuck in behind him.
“I think I’ll stay as well.”
Tonaka looked to Nick as the movie star raised his eyebrow. “Keep her safe, Callum. Quax.”
So the movie star was going. Tonaka had to admit he had gravely underestimated Mr. Flack’s bravery and humanity. But the man had stayed in the trenches with them. Battling side-by-side, saving them all time and time again.
He was proud to walk these halls with these men.
Nick clapped Tonaka on the back. Such an American thing to do. He should be glad it wasn’t the rear end as so many of their footballers did.
With a dozen QXs they left the security hub and headed down the hallway.
“Start heat seeking protocols,” Tonaka stated “We are probably looking for a group huddled together but do not ignore a solo signal.”
The lead QX nodded. Clearly this one did not yet have Shalie’s emotional chip installed. There was no glimmer of self-awareness in those eyes. To his surprise, Tonaka missed it.
“This way,” the QX stated. “I have a reading of six different heat signatures, one of them cooling, up ahead.
The QX, not realizing the danger below decks headed to the staircase.
“Which level are the signals?” Tonaka asked.
“The fourth level,” the mechanical voice responded without any intonation.
Tonaka looked to Nick. That was cutting it a bit close. It was only one level above the sharks.
Nick shrugged. “Like I said, we’ve got to try.”
* * *
Shalie watched the screen intently. Communications were still down, but she had high hopes of getting at least incoming audio back. The jammer the saboteur was using was a good one, but the QXs were equipped with microwave transmitters. Microwave tech was relatively new and expensive so most communications jammers weren’t equipped to block those signals.
Still it was taking a while to activate those modules. They were not part of the QXs core equipment pack. They were high energy drain devices so were turned off until needed. Shalie was remotely having to try to turn them on and then align the signal.
Neither of which was easy.
One of her screens bloomed to life. She had contacted the Secretary of the Navy, or at least one of his assistants and found out that they too had lost contact with the Russian station. They were providing her with what little satellite coverage they had of the area, which wasn’t much.
A little thermal imaging and that was about it.
Putin had made a lot of threats about his Arctic plans, but so far, until the shark station, he hadn’t really made good on them.
She was happy to see that there were three strong heat signatures in the security hub. Another two red globs walked the corridors. Another eight signatures were in the command center. They seemed to be searching the room for something.
For what she did not know and did not have time to consider.
She had a microwave array to set up.
* * *
Nick really needed to stop saying brave stuff. Every step down m
ade his eye twitch. To think just a few feet below them, the sharks were having a little party. That was one invitation he did not want.
And already as they stepped onto the level four landing, there was ankle high water. This wasn’t good.
“Down here,” the lead QX stated as he walked along the hallway.
Nick followed more slowly. Why didn’t he ask for a weapon from the SEALs? These were the things he really needed to put on his to-do list because he didn’t think of them beforehand.
“How are you doing?” Tonaka asked as if to lighten the mood. Blood red streaks pretty much confirmed they were going in the right direction. Beneath the water, they could see streak marks on the floor as if someone had been dragged this way.
“Good,” Nick said swallowing. “Actually I should be the one asking you.”
The robotics specialist shrugged. “I think we all came along for each of our own reasons. I have come to honor Nica and perhaps do some good in her name. It is what she would have wished of me. Not to mourn but to move forward.”
“She seemed like a very nice woman,” Nick said feeling pretty lame. He was never very good at things like this.
“Nica was,” Tonaka said. “That was kind of you to notice.”
Then they fell into silence as they followed the lead QX to the end of the hallway. There was only one room that capped the passage.
“Are they moving?” Tonaka asked.
The QX shook his head. “They have not moved since we picked up the signals.”
Nick stalled out. Maybe they should wait for the soldiers before they went barging into a group of people holed up. But the water was rising fast. The cold, cold, water swirled over his ankles now, the chill now biting into his calves.
“I don’t think we can wait,” Tonaka stated as if Nick had voiced his concerns, but wasn’t it their common concern?
* * *
Nassar grunted as Ajax gave the death tally. It was a large number. Whatever had happened here, happened fast and furious. A blitz attack, then add in the shark deaths, none of which they had found yet.Nassar feared this had become a recovery operation, and was no longer a rescue mission.
“Time to move,” Nassar said. “We’ve got to get down to the first level and crack that vault.”
His primary mission was still to find out what Putin had hidden in there. Who knew with the Russian leader? It could have been the keys to the Ukraine for all he knew. Nassar didn’t ask a lot of questions. He preferred to follow orders. Most of what he did was way over his pay grade.
“Sensors show level three and below are completely flooded,” Ajax stated. “There’s no way to avoid it, we are going to have to swim.”
“Kind of a good thing we are SEALs then,” Nassar stated.
“Oh, Nassar scores a joke!” Ajax said putting his hand up for what appeared to be a high five.
Yes, Nassar might interject some levity in to the situation, but high five? He did not think so.
“Let us get our dry suits on,” Nassar ordered even though several of his men were already changing.
This mission was about to get what Ajax would call, seriously real.
* * *
Nami sat in one of the only chairs that did not have blood stains on it. She had tip-toed between the blood pools to find the seat. Everyone else was hard at work trying to get the computer system back up and hopefully get the shark defenses back online. Callum was hoping to drive the sharks back into their pens before the flooding started full bore.
Without any really outstanding computer skills, the best Nami could do was take her iPod off of shuffle and even that was a little sketchy sometimes.
Feeling bored and a little ashamed she wasn’t contributing while everyone else was so intent and busy, Nami studied the video panel in front of her. There were twelve screens in that bank. All of them shut down. Apparently the power was still on, yet the screens were blank.
There were about a gazillion controls in front of her, all labeled in Cyrillic, which she, of course, couldn’t read. Maybe Callum could, but she didn’t want to bug him. He seemed pretty busy at the moment and all she was doing was fulfilling some casual curiosity.
Lucky some commands were pretty universal. She found the little round button with the circle with a line through the bottom. The power button for this module, or at the least that’s what Nami hoped.
She pressed it and was rewarded by the button lighting up, strobing slowly in green. The screens blinked to life, however they were only filled with static. Nami scanned the other controls. There it was. The little sideways triangle. Play.
Nami hit the button for the first screen. It was weird. It looked like the camera was underwater, moving. There was something grey behind the camera, like a platform. The camera also swayed side-to-side. Like she said, weird.
The camera was going along a large fence. Nami could only assume it was the shark pen enclosure. Weird, but after a moment kind of boring. She rapidly hit the play buttons for the rest of the screens. There were all about the same.
Then one caught her eye. This camera was cruising around inside the building. It coursed up a flooded stairwell. Up ahead Nami could see splashing. Then she spotted legs. A pair of legs.
“Oh my god!” Nami exclaimed as the camera rose above the water.
“What’s wrong?” Dillon asked rushing over.
Nami couldn’t say anything as she found the figure attached to those legs, at least for the moment. It was a pretty blonde woman, about her dad’s age with cropped blond hair. She was wearing a Russian Navy uniform.
“Dad, you better get over here,” Dillon stated. “I think… I think… this is some kind of shark cam.”
Nami watched in horror as the camera tilted up. The shark must have opened its mouth in anticipation of its next meal. The woman’s eyes dilated in horror. Nami wanted to turn away, to not watch the inevitable, but she couldn’t leave the woman alone to her cruel fate.
Nami had to give the woman credit. Despite the shark bearing down on her, the Russian woman didn’t lose it. Instead she used her elbow to break the glass on a fire ax’s enclosure. The woman didn’t hesitate, grabbing the ax, swinging it high above her head, then bringing it down into the shark’s skull.
Blood squirted all over the camera lens as the shark thrashed, trying to get away from the woman. She put her boot on its nose, yanking the ax out again, then bringing it down, this time hitting the camera, terminating the feed.
The screen’s hissing static was disconcerting.
“We’ve got to go find her,” Dillon said but his father shook his head.
He spoke rapidly in Russian as Quax translated. “Look at the time stamp. That happened yesterday.” He looked over the control panel. “This is a tape. We need to figure out how to get a live feed.”
Nami had just barely recovered from watching a tape. A live feed?
She gulped. Sure, they needed to get right on that.
* * *
Nick’s hand shook as he laid his palm onto the doorknob. They had knocked, called out, but the QXs said there was no movement inside. Just a bunch of warm bodies clustered in the far corner.
He couldn’t delay any longer.
Turning the knob, Nick winced. What were they going to find inside?
The door creaked open. Nick took a deep breath and stepped into the murky darkness.
“Here,” Tonaka stated, having one of the QXs put his hand out. A fiber optic light flared to life, illuminating the room. Those robots sure did come in handy.
“Ostat'sya nazad!”A female voice shouted.
The QX translated. “Stay back!”
Funny how the robot tried to match the woman’s tone of defiance and terror.
It took a moment for Nick’s eyes to adjust to the bright light. In the corner were several people huddled. At their fore was a striking woman. Her face might have been grime streaked, she had a head wound with crusted blood and her lips were pulled tight into a grey line, but he’d neve
r seen a woman more beautiful. It was her eyes. They sparked in the light. There was intelligence there. And strength. And concern for her people.
All the qualities he hoped Nami would embody as a woman.
“It’s okay,” Nick said, his hands spread wide to prove he didn’t have any weapons. “We’re here to rescue you.”
“Americans,” the woman spat onto the floor and spoke in heavily accented English. She pointed an old gun at Nick. It looked like it had been old in World War II. Her hand shook slightly. It didn’t seem to be in fear, but from exhaustion. “There will be no help, only plunder.”
“Look,” Nick said, his hands widespread. “I don’t know what the military guys are doing, but we came along on a rescue mission.”
The woman’s eyelids narrowed even further.
Nick hadn’t exactly agreed to go on an American-Russian diplomatic mission, but he was the one here and Tonaka had conveniently stayed just outside the door. Guess Japan and Russia weren’t exactly on the best terms either.
Taking one step inside, Nick indicated to the half dozen people huddled behind her. “And you guys need to get out of there. You need food, water, and probably some medical attention.”
That blow to her head looked kind of nasty.
“So we are your prisoners in our own station?” the woman retorted. Nick was sure it was meant to be a forceful accusation, but her tone wavered as she swayed, barely able to keep her feet under her.
“Not by my sights,” Nick stated. He honestly didn’t know what Nassar would do once he got back, but right now these people looked like they needed a serious potty break. “What can it hurt to come out and give your people some water?’
The woman snorted as only a Russian woman could snort. “And what makes you think you can keep us safer than we are in here?”
Nick drew up to his full height, which really was kind of impressive he had to admit. “We’ve got the world’s preeminent shark expert on board.”
Apex Predator Thriller Series Collection (Including the blockbuster new shark park thriller, Salechii) Page 38