by JE Gurley
“Oh, I see by some of your faces that you think I trivialize the problem. I assure you that I don’t. We face not only a gigantic monster capable of sinking ships, but a host of other creatures just as deadly.”
“Why the effort to study this bastard?” Germaine asked as he slammed his drink on the table top. “Why not just kill it?”
Several heads nodded approval at his suggestion. Not everyone agreed with Professor Hicks or approved of his commandeering the Institute for his expedition.
“It may come to that, but consider this. We do not yet know the extent of the danger we face. Suppose this ceresiosaurus is not the only one in existence. Indeed, it is highly likely that it is not. They are reptiles and require both sexes to reproduce. What if it isn’t at the top of the food chain? These are questions to which we must learn the answers. We can’t afford to kill a single creature and consider the danger over.”
“What about the sunken Russian freighter?” Doctor Samuel Estes asked. Estes was the Director of Public Relations for the Institute. Unlike his colleagues, he was ecstatic over the notoriety the Institute was receiving in the press. “Are we going to attempt to recover it?”
Hicks shrugged. “That is up to the Navy. They have the equipment and the knowledge to descend to those depths and survey the situation. I hope the warheads can be safely retrieved and disposed of. Our task is to capture the creature for study.”
Germaine finished his drink, but it was clear to Josh that he wasn’t satisfied with the professor’s answer. He whispered something to Bodden that brought a smile to the mate’s face, and then stood. “Me and my crew are heading back to the Miss Lucy,” he announced. “We sail in two hours. Don’t be late.”
Germaine caught Josh’s eye and nodded toward the door. Josh rose and followed him outside. He appeared less intoxicated than he had inside. Josh suspected his behavior had been a façade, the tough sea captain act. A light drizzle was falling and wisps of clouds cloaked the moon like a tattered veil. Or a shroud, Josh thought; then shivered at his morbidity
“Your Navy friends aren’t being exactly truthful to you,” Germaine said. The rain didn’t seem to bother him.
Josh was taken aback by the captain’s claim. As far as he knew, the Navy had been very cooperative. “What do you mean?”
“Bodden’s been asking a few questions around the docks. There’s another ship a few miles off the coast.”
Josh hadn’t heard of a second Navy ship, but it didn’t surprise him. “What kind of ship?”
“The kind painted all black and gray with no name or registry showing. No flag.” Germaine’s scowl revealed what he thought of the idea of a ship with no name.
“Bodden must be mistaken.”
Germaine cocked his head to one side. “How much of that MS-222 was delivered?”
“A couple of gallons. More than enough. Why?”
“Bodden saw a skiff from the other ship load up drums of that stuff. They also loaded some pretty sophisticated sonar gear.”
Josh shook his head in disbelief. “No, Bodden’s wrong. He must be.”
“The men on the boat didn’t look like any normal crew. They were all young, clean-cut, and built like American football linebackers.”
“Coincidence,” Josh replied. “Maybe their captain runs a tight ship.”
Germaine ignored Josh’s barb. “What do you know about Nemo? Bodden overheard two of the men talking about Nemo.”
Josh swallowed hard. The name struck a chord. He had heard rumors about the DSV-5, a deep-sea submersible vehicle sold to an unknown group a few years ago. They had reportedly named it the Nemo, Latin for no name, after the fabled captain of the Nautilus. He had dismissed the tale as preposterous at the time. Now, he wasn’t so certain. A nameless ship, gallons of sedative, sophisticated sonar gear, and a missing deep-sea submersible all pointed to one thing – a second clandestine operation.
“CIA black ops?” he suggested.
Germaine nodded. “Something ain’t right about this whole deal. While we’re playing tag with Cere, it looks like the CIA is going down in the Trench.”
Josh glanced back toward the door. He could hear the group laughing politely at one of the professor’s notoriously bad jokes. “I should inform Professor Hicks.”
Germaine grabbed Josh’s arm. “Don’t say nothing. Don’t forget about our Navy lady friend with the rifle.”
“You don’t think …”
“I don’t think nothing, and I don’t trust nobody.”
“Why are you telling me this?” He shook free of Germaine’s grip. “Do you trust me?”
“Look, lad, I like you, but you’re a college boy tied to the professor’s coattails. You’ve got higher ideals than I do. You travel in different circles. I’m here for the money, but if I think you’re a danger to me or my boat, I’ll drop you, the old man, and the lady sniper over the side in a heartbeat.”
Josh stared at Germaine trying to judge the truth in his words, but he couldn’t read the captain. Was he capable of tossing them over the side? Had he abandoned the three divers he claimed were eaten by Viperfish? “I’ll keep quiet for now, but if you try to harm the professor…”
Germaine smiled. “I don’t want to harm anyone. I’m no pirate, though there’s some in these waters that don’t fly the skull and crossbones,” he said, a clear reference to the black ship. “If you do right by me, I’ll stick with you, but I don’t trust the Navy, and believe you me, they know all about the black ship. You shouldn’t trust them either.”
Josh didn’t like keeping secrets, but if Germaine was right, he and the professor were caught in the middle of chicanery of the biggest order. If the black ship had a submersible aboard, its occupants had two goals – capturing one of the ceresiosauri and recovering the Russian nukes for purposes of their own. Their reasons for capturing a second specimen eluded him for a few seconds before it dawned on him that a creature like the ceresiosaurus or the other mutated specimens would make good weapons if unleashed upon an unsuspecting enemy. Unregistered nuclear warheads of Russian origin would fetch a large price on the black market.
Perhaps he was being too skeptical of the black ship’s motives, allowing captain Germaine’s paranoia to influence him. The submersible could be another part of the same operation, a back-up plan, and recovering the warheads, the source of the radiation, simply part of the overall operation. The Navy could have its reasons for the secrecy. After all, knowledge of the warheads had been buried for over forty years. Relations with Russia were at an all-time low. Public knowledge could cause considerable diplomatic problems.
Still, he would keep a close eye on Corporal Elansky.
13
Oct. 29, freighter Pandora, Cayman Trench, Caribbean –
Captain Simon Knotts stood on the bridge of the Pandora and watched the crew ready the Deep Submersible Vehicle Nemo for its dive. A crane in the massive sub bay suspended the submersible by the diesel-filled buoyancy tank that rode above the spherical cabin like a dirigible. In a way, that’s what it was. The diesel tank was lighter than water, supporting the sub. Without it, the sphere would drop like a stone to the bottom where the tremendous pressure would crush it like a soda can.
A hatch in the bottom of the freighter was open, revealing a pool of seawater designed to allow the DSV Nemo to be deployed unobserved. Technicians bustled about on raised walkways around the pool checking each connection and fitting. The ten-foot-diameter sphere held two men in cramped quarters. He could see Devers through the Plexiglas porthole waving at him. He lifted his hand and returned the wave. A second, smaller, robotic operated vehicle lay nestled in a niche beneath it. They would use this ROVER to locate the warheads. Then the Nemo’s twin manipulator arms would snag the nukes and place them in its belly basket. If they were lucky and all went well, the Nemo would be down less than twelve hours. Knotts never expected things to go well. If they did, they wouldn’t need his expertise.
He glanced down with contempt at the wal
king cane he needed to negotiate the steps. His bad leg prevented him from making the dive himself. He had tried it once. The hours of confinement were a torture for his knee. Devers and Matthews would make the dive. Matthews was an experienced ex-Navy submariner from the dry state of Arizona, while Devers had worked at Woods Hole before the Company had lured him away with more money. Knotts had faith in Devers’ ability and in the equipment, but he had no faith in luck. As he watched the winch lower the DSV-5 into the water, he lit a cigarette and hoped.
* * * *
As the Nemo reached a depth of three hundred feet, the titanium alloy hull groaned as gaskets sealed under the pressure. From his position in the small sphere in the sub’s nose, the clear Plexiglas gave Devers a 240-degree view around him. They were leaving the Epipelagic Zone where sunlight penetrated the depths and most of the ocean’s plants and animals thrived. Below them, lay darkness and unimaginable pressure.
Beside him, lying on his belly, co-pilot and remote arm technician Matthews, stared at the gauges as the craft sank. Matthews, a tall, lanky man, appeared uncomfortable in the sphere’s confining space, but he never complained. Like Devers, he loved diving. Devers, barely reaching five-six, sat comfortably in the cushioned pilot’s seat manning the single joystick controlling the sub’s descent.
Four independent electric motors operated four four-bladed propellers, two fore and two aft, each capable of moving forty degrees for delicate maneuvering. The batteries supplying power, lights and, more importantly at deep depths, heat, would last eighteen hours. Neutral buoyancy was maintained by the bag of diesel fuel inflated like a metal balloon above them. The sub pumped water into holding tanks to descend and expelled it to ascend. Additional lead ballast could be dropped to aid the descent.
In theory.
Devers had been diving enough to know that a thousand things could go wrong. At eighteen thousand feet, water pressure was eight thousand pounds per square inch, enough to crush the metal hull like crumpled aluminum foil. One tiny hole in the foot-thick hull or a crack in the Plexiglas port, and water would burst in like a sieve. Underwater rivers could twist the sub like wringing a cloth rag, and thermals could slam it against the bottom. If the reports he had read were true, they had one more problem they might encounter – sea monsters.
“Coming up at fifteen hundred feet,” Matthews announced.
They were entering the Mesopelagic Zone, the aptly named Twilight Zone. As pilot, Devers had very little to do during the descent. This gave him time to worry. He tried to force images of crushed soda cans from his mind. And remember his last leave in Savannah. That cute redheaded Southern belle he had met at Paula Deen’s The Lady and Sons restaurant had managed to keep him occupied for three long days and nights. Her slow drawl hadn’t affected her nimble tongue, and her Southern Baptist upbringing hadn’t curbed her sexual appetite. In fact, he had been hard pressed to meet her needs, a challenge he relished. He couldn’t remember if her name was Lila or Lilly, but he remembered her number.
A shudder ran through the sub. Matthews cast him a quick panicked look.
“Just a small current,” he assured his companion.
At eight thousand feet, the middle of the Bathypelagic Zone, midnight reigned. They encountered a flurry of small shrimp and feeding squid. The shrimp glittered briefly in the sub’s searchlights, and then vanished into the inky blackness, pursuit by the squid in a silent ballet. The freighter lay another six thousand feet below them at the edge of the Abyssopelagic Zone, the Abyss, resting on a ledge that sloped downward for a thousand feet before dropping off into the depths of Cayman Trench. They would have to move carefully to avoid dislodging the precarious freighter and being carried to the bottom with it. Fourteen thousand feet was pushing the sub’s operational limits. It couldn’t withstand the crushing ten-thousand psi pressure of the Trench.
“Sonar picking up something,” Matthews announced at thirteen-thousand-five-hundred feet.
“Headed in that direction,” Devers said, adjusting the controls.
His breath became a mist in the air as he spoke. Even with the electric heaters at maximum, the temperature was only forty-five degrees. In spite of the chill, beads of cold sweat dotted Devers’ forehead. His hand gripping the joystick was cold and clammy. The sub vibrated as he increased the rpms of the propellers.
The lights illuminated a tiny slice of the blackness around them, reaching outwards a distance of only seventy feet. Without the sonar, the sub would be flying blind. Even so, the bottom appeared abruptly at the edge of the lights. Devers hit the reverse thrusters. The propellers kicked up a cloud of sediment that obscured their surroundings.
“It’s above and to the right,” Matthews said, as he scanned the sonar, guiding Devers.
Devers crept along the steeply sloping bottom in the direction Matthews indicated. The rear half of the freighter, as pristine as the day it sank, loomed ahead. Currents had kept it free of sediment and growth. Two eel-shaped hagfish tussled over a bit of food. The name, A.K. Pokhomov, stood out clearly on its hull.
He called the ship above to inform them of their discovery. “Nemo to Pandora. We’ve located the stern. Starting a search pattern for the rest of the ship.”
“Watch your time,” Knotts replied.
They had been down six hours. That left twelve to reach the surface with their find, but they need to ascend long before then or risk running out of power. They had, at most, four hours to locate and collect the nukes.
The nukes would have been stored in the ship’s forward hold. If that section had slipped down the slope, it was gone forever. The Pandora’s sonar indicated a single metallic mass. It couldn’t resolve the sonar reflection any further. As he moved up and across the slope, he noticed the large gash in the hull where the torpedo had struck.
“Didn’t the action report of the destroyer that sank the Russian say they fired from off the port beam?”
Matthews pulled out his I-pad and pulled up the copy of the report. “Yes. Two torpedoes from port side.”
“This hole is on her starboard side.”
Matthews shrugged. “Maybe the captain was wrong.”
Devers doubted a captain could get that confused even in the heat of battle, but replied, “Maybe.”
“Getting another signal,” Matthews called out a few minutes later. “Ten degrees starboard. Radiation level is rising.”
Devers adjusted the controls and slowed to a crawl. He had been assured that the steel hull of the Nemo was sufficient to negate background radiation, but only if the nukes were still intact. Knotts believed that at least one casing had been compromised, and Devers trusted Knotts more than he trusted the Company.
“How bad?” he asked.
“One hundred millisieverts, more than we would get in a year topside. Short-term exposure won’t be bad, but I wouldn’t want to live here.”
A dark shape appeared ahead. “There she is,” he said.
The aft section of the Russian freighter had landed bow first amid a jungle of large boulders and skidded to a stop. A three-hundred-feet-long gouge in the sea bottom indicated its path down the slope. Sections of hull plating lay scattered along the trail. A crane, bent double, protruded from the dirt like a thumbtack. Winches, steel cable, a funnel, and other debris littered the area. The ship had cracked in two just aft of the cabin. The cavernous area of the forward cargo hold yawned like an open mouth. Devers settled the Nemo on the bottom twenty yards from the wreckage.
“I’ll send in Spot.”
Spot, the five-foot-long remote rover, was equipped with three cameras, a bank of sensors, and an oxy-acetylene cutting torch capable of burning through most debris. Handling the controls as if playing a video game, Matthews’ nimble fingers guided the rover to the opening and inside. Its powerful spotlight revealed wooden crates and steel barrels jumbled into an untidy heap, woven tightly together with a mesh of steel cables like a giant spider’s web.
“We’re going to have a difficult time cutting thr
ough that mess,” Matthews said.
“See if you can maneuver around it. We don’t have time.”
The view screen revealed a small gap to the right side of the tangled jumble. “It looks just big enough to squeeze through.” Matthews smiled at Devers. “It’ll be like deflowering a virgin.”
“Like you’ve ever met a virgin,” Devers needled.
The focus of the rover’s camera narrowed as the small robot wormed down the tight opening. Devers jumped when a grinning skull leaped into view. He suppressed a shudder as Matthews panned the camera to reveal a complete skeleton wearing tatters of a Russian seaman’s uniform. The cause of his death was still apparent after forty-two years. A piece of steel protruded through his ribcage, splintering two ribs.
“At least he died quickly,” Matthews commented.
A few yards further, the tunnel split, one continuing straight, the other going off at an angle.
“Which way?”
“Take the straight one.”
The passage ended at a dead end within ten yards. A farm tractor and assorted plows and tillers blocked the tunnel. The rover couldn’t cut through so much debris.
“So much for that,” Matthews sighed.
“We’ll have to try the second one.”
Spot couldn’t turn around in such a tight space. Matthews maneuvered the rover backwards until it reached the second tunnel. The tunnel widened and seemed promising, but it too ended, this time in a disorderly pile of wooden crates, some of which were crushed and splintered. Matthews whistled softly as the rover’s lights illuminated the objects scattered around the crates.
“Munitions,” he whispered, as if his voice could set the explosives off.
Large caliber artillery shells, belts of machine gun ammunition, boxes of hand grenades, bazooka shells, and boxes of rifle ammunition lay sprinkled around the area like confetti after a parade.
“They must have been expecting another invasion,” Devers said. “We can’t do any cutting here. Back it out, and for God’s sake, be gentle. We’ll have to cut in from the outside hull.” Cutting through the hull would take hours, time they didn’t have, but he could see no other way to locate the warheads.