“It’s a chance I’m willing to take,” replied Grant. “A man running for his life climbed aboard this ship, and so far, we haven’t seen hide nor hair of him. I want him found alive.”
“Don’t worry, Professor, these Ranger boys are good at their job,” said Maclean. “Not quite Australian SAS good, but better than most.”
“And if we run into something abnormal, then what?”
“We’ll worry about that when it happens. Besides, all I have to do is run faster than you, and I’ll be okay.”
35
Grant waved to Maclean as his team climbed down the stairs leading deeper into the bowels of the trawler.
“Okay, Sergeant Wright, anytime you’re ready,” said Grant.
Wright tapped Jackson on the shoulder and pointed at a closed door. A sign above the entrance read Preparation Room. Two Rangers edged forward and took up positions covering the door, while Jackson stepped forward and prepared to open the door.
“Do it,” ordered Wright.
Grant felt Elena squeeze his right arm tightly.
Jackson yanked the door wide open and jumped to one side so he wouldn’t be in the line of fire. The nauseating stench of fish guts wafted out of the room.
Wright moved to the doorway and peered inside. He looked back at Grant and said, “The room stinks to high heaven but looks deserted, sir.”
Grant nodded. “Roger that. Proceed inside.”
The Ranger fireteam, moving in pairs, swept through the room to the far side and took up positions covering another closed door.
Grant and Elena entered the room but kept back to allow the soldiers to do their job. Fish covered the floor. It was impossible to take a step without slipping on them.
The Rangers opened the far door and shone the lights affixed on their weapons down the dark corridor.
“Sir, we’ve got bodies up here,” reported Wright.
Grant made his way over the slick, steel floor. He moved next to one of the Rangers covering the doorway and looked down the darkened corridor. Slumped against the wall in a pool of blood were three men. Grant grimaced as he moved his light over the bodies. The men had been disemboweled and left to die.
“Okay, Sergeant, there’s nothing we can do for them, so let’s carry on to the fish processing area,” said Grant, stepping back.
The Rangers entered the passageway and moved to the next room.
“It’s not a pleasant sight,” warned Grant, helping Elena through the doorway. She never said a word but kept her eyes fixed on the far wall.
“The door’s locked,” reported one of the Rangers.
“Blast it open,” ordered Wright.
The soldier removed a small, pre-made charge, placed it against the door, and pulled the fuse.
“Everyone move back into the other room,” said Wright.
Exactly one minute later, the sound of the charge going off reverberated through the ship.
Grant had to stop himself from being the first man on the move. He got to one knee and watched as the Rangers moved back into the corridor and advanced toward the blasted open doorway. He was about to help Elena to her feet when he heard a shot. His blood turned cold as a barrage of gunfire came from the processing room. Grant jumped to the door and looked down the corridor. Two Rangers were down. The others were returning fire. He jumped into the hallway and crouched down to Wright’s side.
“Sergeant, get your men to pull back,” said Grant.
“Why?” asked Wright.
“Because we’re probably firing on friendlies. Now pull back.”
Wright tossed a smoke grenade into the processing room to blind the people firing at them. Grant helped pull back one of the Rangers shot in the leg. The other man was dead.
Elena saw the wounded man and rushed to his side. She opened a pouch on the Ranger’s tactical vest, pulled out his combat first aid kit, and got to work staunching the blood pumping out the man’s leg with each heartbeat.
The gunfire coming from the other room died down and stopped.
Grant clenched his jaw when he saw it was Sergeant Jackson who had been killed in the firefight. He crawled over to the doorway and yelled, “Can anyone in there speak English?”
“I can,” replied a man with a Chinese accent.
“Okay, I’m coming over to your side.”
“No weapons.”
Grant laid his SMG on the floor and stood up. “Fair enough. Don’t shoot.”
“Sir, what are you doing?” asked Wright.
“This is a case of mistaken identity. I need to assure our jumpy neighbors that we’re not the enemy before anyone else gets killed.”
“And if they shoot you?”
“Then Mister Maclean is in command.” Grant hauled himself into the askew passage and walked with his hands up all the way to the other room. “I’m coming inside.”
The second Grant’s foot touched the deck, a light was shone in his eyes, blinding him. He felt a pistol jammed against the side of his head. “Why did you attack us?”
“We didn’t. We’re looking for survivors, and when we came to your door, it was locked, so we blew it open.”
Grant could hear a couple of men talking back and forth in Chinese.
“Are you American?” asked the man holding the gun to Grant’s head.
“Yes. My name is Captain David Grant. We came to Bouvet Island trying to find out what happened to the Norwegians working here. Unfortunately, we found all but one of them had been killed. We followed the surviving scientist’s tracks to your ship. That’s why we boarded it. If you’re worried that we’re here to claim the ship for salvage, that’s the last thing on our minds.”
There was another animated discussion in Chinese.
A man asked, “How did the Norwegians die?”
Grant knew there was no point in hiding anything. “They were ripped to pieces.”
The gun lowered. A slender man in his early twenties walked out of the shadows. “My name is Shen. I’m sorry that we fired on you, but we didn’t know if you meant us any harm.”
“Did we kill or injure any of your people?”
“Yes, Peng was hit in the chest and died,” replied Shen.
“How many of you are still alive?”
“Now there’s only Chang and me.”
“Do you know of anyone else who might be still alive on the ship?”
Shen shook his head.
“Okay, put your weapons on safe and come with me. We’ve got a lot to talk about.”
Maclean looked up at the deck above him. The sound of gunfire was like a hunting horn, calling him to the fight.
“What’s going on?” asked Hayes.
“By the sounds of it, I think Dave’s people have just bumped into some of the ship’s survivors.”
“How can you be sure?”
“I’m not. But whatever killed those scientists didn’t use a gun.”
The sounds of battle faded. In seconds, all was quiet again.
“Mister Maclean, your orders, sir?” asked Sergeant Daniels, the fireteam leader.
“Push on into the engine room,” replied Maclean.
“What about the rest of the squad?”
“If they need our help, they’ll ask for it. Let’s carry on and see if we can find that missing scientist.”
Daniels nodded and ordered his men to enter the engine room.
“Jesus!” cried out a Ranger as he slipped on the blood-soaked deck and fell onto his back right next to a dead body.
Maclean stopped at the door and sucked in a breath through clenched teeth. The room was a charnel house. Body parts were strewn all over the machinery. “Are you okay?” he asked the soldier as the man got back to his feet.
“Yeah, just a little spooked.”
“This is a nightmare,” croaked Hayes. “What a horrible way to die.”
“Okay, people, I know this is a hard thing to see, but we’ve got a job to do, so let’s keep our minds in the game,” said Maclean. “Ca
rry on and finish your sweep.”
The sound of a toolbox hitting the floor at the far end of the room made everyone freeze in place.
“Hello? Is there someone in this room?” said Maclean.
Silence gripped the darkness.
“If you’re hiding in the shadows, come out where I can see you. No one is going to hurt you.”
A man with a thick beard, wearing only his thermal underwear, stepped out from behind a generator with his hands in the air. “Please don’t shoot me.”
“No one is going to shoot you,” said Maclean. “Move toward us, but keep your hands in the air.”
The man walked forward. He was shaking from the top of his head all the way down to his socked feet.
“You can lower your hands now. Is there anyone else hiding in here with you?” asked Maclean.
The man shook his head.
One of the Rangers found a blanket and wrapped it around the man’s shoulders.
“Are you from the Norwegian research station?”
“Yes.”
“What’s your name?”
“Magnus Holst.”
“Mine’s James Maclean, and this fellow next to me is Professor Jeremy Hayes.”
Holst looked around the room at the Rangers. “I don’t understand. You two aren’t Americans, like the others.”
“It’s complicated,” replied Maclean. “Magnus, can you tell us what happened to your comrades?”
The man’s eyes glazed over. “I woke up around three-thirty in the morning to go to the bathroom, and before I got back to our sleeping quarters, something attacked and killed my friends. I heard the men screaming for their lives and ran for my life. It must have heard me, because it came after me. I was faster than it and made it to this ship before it could grab hold of me.”
“Did you see what was chasing you?” asked Hayes.
Magnus nodded.
“Can you describe it?”
“In the moonlight, I saw a figure as black as the darkest night coming for me. It was as tall as a man, but its arms hung down past its knees. It had abnormally large hands and feet.”
“Is there anything else you can remember about your attacker?”
Magnus gulped. He took a second to compose himself. “The last thing I saw before climbing onto this ship were its eyes. They were as red as the fires of hell.”
“That’s a load of crap,” said Sergeant Daniels. “He’s making it up to cover the fact that he murdered his colleagues in their sleep.”
“Sergeant, how do you explain this ship washing ashore on this island and the bodies of the men we found in here?” asked Maclean.
“I don’t know, but I sure as hell don’t believe in monsters.”
“Let’s hope you don’t have to,” said Hayes.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” snapped Daniels.
Maclean’s patience was wearing thin. “Sergeant, we’re done down here. Round up your men and lead us back upstairs, so we can link up with the rest of our people.”
“Best idea so far. The sooner we’re out of here, the better,” said Daniels.
“When we’re settled, I’ll make you a hot cup of tea,” said Hayes to Magnus.
“Thank you. I’d really like that,” Magnus replied.
Maclean was the last person out of the engine room. He shone his light around and tried to imagine the sheer terror the men must have gone through in the seconds before they were killed. A shiver ran down his back. Maclean shook his head to clear his mind of such horrid and unsettling images. He turned and closed the door to the engine room behind him before running to catch up with Hayes and Magnus. Being left in the dark on a ship full of death was the last thing he wanted right now.
The cold, dark waters of the Atlantic crept toward the ship as the tide rolled in. In the shadows, a darkened figure, followed by two more, stood upright and looked up at the hull of the trawler. The tallest of the three let out a gurgling noise from its throat and waved a webbed hand at the net hanging over the stern. The two other creatures let out guttural cries from deep inside their chests and ran for the net. Hand over hand, the pair climbed until they vanished from sight. Satisfied that his orders were understood, the Alpha male turned around and walked back into the water until it disappeared beneath the waves.
36
“No,” said Elena, looking away from the body at her feet.
“Damn it,” added Wright as Specialist Houston, the squad’s cross-trained medic, pronounced Ranger Juarez dead.
Grant placed an arm around Elena and hugged her. “It’s not your fault. You and Houston did everything you could. The wound cut his femoral artery. I doubt he would have survived with a fully trained doctor being here.”
“I’m sorry,” said Shen, lowering his head.
“It’s not your fault, either,” said Grant. “Sometimes these things happen.”
Maclean’s team walked into the room but came to a stop when they saw the bodies of the two Rangers lying on the deck.
“What happened?” asked Maclean.
Grant quickly filled his friend in on what had happened. Maclean shook his head.
Grant saw the Norwegian and Hayes seating themselves off in one corner. “Well, I’m glad our search wasn’t a total bust. I see you found our missing scientist alive.”
“That’s not all,” said Maclean. “He claims to have seen what killed his colleagues.”
“Did he describe them?” asked Elena.
“He said they were the size of a man, with black skin and large hands and feet and glowing red eyes.”
“I couldn’t help but hear what you were saying,” said Shen. “That is the same thing that attacked and killed my friends, too.”
“What can you tell us about the attack?” asked Grant.
“I was working in the forward fish bin when the first shots were fired. Peng, Chang, and I dropped what we were doing and ran to see what was happening. No sooner had we entered the processing area than the ship lost power. Some of the men grabbed flashlights, but they didn’t work. A small fire broke out near one of the generators, and that’s when I saw it. It was just like the other man described. It grabbed and tore my friends apart as if they were nothing more than children’s toys. We panicked and ran back to the stern of the ship.” Shen stopped and licked his lips.
Grant handed the young man his water bottle.
“An officer ran past us, babbling something about a light in the sky that had disabled the ship. I tried to stop him, but he ran below. The next thing I heard was more shooting and screaming. My friends and I hid under a tarpaulin and watched in horror as men jumped over the side of the ship to die in the cold water.”
“Did you see the creature again?” asked Maclean.
Shen shook his head. “The storm made it impossible for us to remain where we were, so we crept back to the processing area, picked up a couple of discarded guns, and locked the door so the monster couldn’t get back in to kill us.”
“For a sailor, you speak better English than half my mates,” said Maclean to Shen. “Where’d you learn it?”
“My father taught English in Hong Kong,” replied Shen.
“David, we’ve got two eyewitnesses who claim to have seen the same thing,” said Elena. “It can’t be a coincidence, can it?”
“Whatever it was, it doesn’t appear to be on the ship anymore,” said Grant.
“When the trawler ran aground, it must have gone off in search of more prey; and that’s when it found the Norwegians,” suggested Maclean.
“Well, whatever happened, I don’t want the same thing to happen to us,” said Grant. “Sergeant Wright, let’s make our way back up to the crew accommodations. We’ll spend the night there before deciding what to do in the morning.”
“Bravo fireteam, you’ve got our fallen,” ordered Wright. “Martinez and Houston, you’ve got point.”
It took a couple of minutes to prepare the bodies to move. The two young Rangers led off, followed by Wright, a
long with Bravo fireteam with the remains. Grant’s people and the traumatized survivors brought up the rear.
37
South Atlantic
Death approached.
Flying twenty-six kilometers above the Earth at a speed in excess of six thousand kilometers an hour, the experimental aircraft, designed and built by Roth Industries, began its descent. The craft looked more like a long spear thrown by an ancient Greek god than a conventional aircraft. It was slender, without any windows on the fuselage. The craft was ninety meters long, with a wingspan of twenty-six meters. It could circumnavigate the world in under four hours by flying in a low-Earth orbit. Unlike a conventional aircraft, there was no cockpit; a pilot back at Roth’s secret test site north of Santiago, Chile flew the plane by remote control. Incorporating the latest in stealth technology, the plane was invisible to radar. In a shuttle attached underneath of the fuselage, sat six mercenaries, led by Roth’s bodyguard, Charles.
On a viewscreen, the men watched the curvature of the Earth give way as the plane began a series of turns in the air to slow its rate of descent. The flight from Roth’s test site to Bouvet Island, a distance of more than six thousand kilometers, had taken less than one hour to fly.
“Five minutes,” said a voice over the ship’s speakers.
Charles pressed a button on a console. “Understood.”
In the pilot’s chair sat a chubby man with short, blond hair, wearing thick, black-rimmed glasses. “Sir, when we’re a kilometer out from Bouvet Island, I’ll detach us from the Pegasus and fly us down onto the glacier.”
Charles had never met the pilot before boarding the craft. He would have preferred to select a man he knew he could trust but soon discovered that the one person who could fly the shuttle was the man sitting at its controls. He leaned forward and tapped the pilot on the shoulder. “How many times have you done this in the past?”
“Thirty-two times…simulated.”
“And how many for real?” asked one of the mercs.
The Founders Page 17