“I see,” John said. “So all we have to do is kill a one hundred and twenty foot sea monster with our bare hands.”
“We don’t have to kill it,” Mac said. “Just take it out long enough to escape.”
“The suspense is killing me, guys.”
“We’ve got deep-dive scuba gear on board. The helium in the mix is noxious to reptiles. It freezes their innards. Puts them to sleep.”
“Okay. I’m with you. How do we get it to eat the helium?”
Aisling came down. “Kyle is getting worse. I think I stopped the bleeding from the outside but he doesn’t look good.”
The news seemed to hurt Frank the most. He looked away and bit his lip. Mac finished the plan. “Okay. Here’s what we thought. You know the two-man inflatable? We can fill it with helium instead of CO2. We’ll hang the pants and swim fins of the scuba suit to it and it should look pretty much like a walrus from below. I’m thinking the lio should find this irresistible.”
“And if it doesn’t see the decoy in time?”
“We need to bait it. If teacher-girl here can help us load a distress call onto this remote, we’ll set in on the raft. That coupled with the image should bring the big guy running. He’ll bite the raft and get a lung full of the gas. It should knock him out after a few minutes.”
“Out of curiosity. Will it kill the thing?”
“In truth. I don’t know. Once it goes to sleep it’ll sink to the bottom. It’s not an auto breather so if it sleeps longer than twelve hours it’ll drown. We just don’t know.”
“Well, we don’t have time to care. Let’s do it.”
The team set out methodically. Mac filled the small inflatable raft with helium while John fastened the legs and fins to it. It should have given the appearance of a swimming sea elephant or walrus. Frank and Aisling put a repeating wounded distress call on the speaker and mounted it on the raft. The only real problem they had was turning the speaker on, because as soon as they did they were dead. The plan was to tow the bait out silently using the larger wave runner. Frank would sit at the ready while Mac extended the flippers and turned on the speaker. Then he would jump into the runner that Frank would speed away in. Of all the potential targets at that point, the lio would surely go for the one calling out and looking so appetizing. John was to watch the sonar and signal with a flare if they saw the thing coming toward them. That was the plan.
Frank was still reeling from the news of his friend. The plan required all of them so he cleared his head and readied to help. As his eyes cleared, he looked at the monitor for the first time in several minutes. “Oh shit!”
His warning came just as the boat was struck again. The lio hit it from the bottom and swung around. From the deck of the princess, they watched as the giant swatted the crippled vessel with its enormous tail.
“We have to do something,” Beau said.
“You’re right,” Louisa replied anxiously. “This may be our last chance. Let’s get the speeder and get out!”
Jones looked at her. “You want to leave your friends?”
“I want us to get out of here! That’s what they came out here for!”
Jones and Spencer both looked at her in disgust and bewilderment.
“What?” she said defensively. “This may be our last chance to know where the thing is. It’s now or never.”
“You know, Jonesy,” Beau said. “In a way, she’s right.”
Escape was no longer a reasonable hope for the battered crew of Esperanza. The beast was not stopping until she was sunk. The hardy Fairlane had already endured several times more than she was ever intended to undergo. The hull was fractured and the engines were dead. She lay on her side taking on water and going down.
Again the nemesis went silent. John climbed up to the window and looked out. He hoped to see the thing moving off but did not truly expect it. Frank found the sonar terminal. Like all underway equipment, it was bolted to the table and took the shaking better than did the humans. He quickly found the giant circling one hundred and fifty feet below them.
“Get ready for round three.”
“We’re on the ropes,” Mac said. “One more shot and we’re curtains.”
“Then let’s do it,” John said. His team wasted no time preparing the counterstrike. The beast had taken every audio threat they had and recovered. They had no tricks left and had to get physical.
John studied the monitor for any sign of the beast. He could see it but it was well away and circling. Looking out toward the Discovery Princess, he saw a speedboat racing away. It was headed for the Irish coast. The monitor told him the giant predator was not pursuing them but staying below Esperanza. He knew from the behavior of such predators that it was waiting for the wounded prey to sink. The time it takes for this one to decide its prey isn’t dead and needs another shot was all the time they had. “Good luck, Beau. Get her home,” he muttered as the tiny craft sped out of sight. He signaled all clear to Frank and he motored out away from Esperanza. He towed Mac in the smaller raft as Mac sat ready to activate the sound bait.
Aisling stood on the deck with a flare pistol. Her job was to fire it if John said to or if she saw anything that could be the beast. She leaned over and spoke to John through the broken window. “Are we sure this thing will come after the sound? It’s been running so far.”
“That’s because we surprised it. This time it can think about it from below. It can look and see what’s making the sound and I know it will go for it. The only stronger motivation it has is smell.”
Aisling returned to her watchful post, nearly as concerned about the rising water around the crippled boat as the fate of Mac and Frank. John studied the monitor as Frank pulled the boats to a stop. “This should do it,” Frank said to Mac. He spoke softly as though the thing could hear him. “Turn it on and hop in.”
John saw a blip on the screen just as the screen went black. “Oh no,” he gasped, flipping the switch on and off. “Come on. Come on! Not now!” After slapping it on the side several times, he dared to take no chance and called to Aisling. “Get them out of there! Now!” His tone was so threatening that she was startled. She squeezed the trigger of the flare gun and nothing happened. “Now!” he shouted. “Hurry up!”
She opened the gun and closed it. Then as she aimed it straight up and fired, she called out to them. “Mac! Frank! Get out! It’s coming!” The flare shot up with a loud pop.
Frank looked up and saw the flare. “Mac! Jump!” As he called to Mac, he untied the second boat. Mac was remarkably nimble for his age but this leap hampered by fear was beyond the ability of his lean frame. Mac had just time and wit to look down into the jaws of his fate and another second to look Frank in the eye and utter, “Oh my.” He stood with one foot in each boat as the enormous jaw came up all around them. The small raft and all but Mac’s right arm were engulfed.
John managed to get the monitor back on and saw that the monster had surfaced and was still circling. Frank was thrown from his boat but held on and struggled to climb back in. He almost made it to the throttle when the behemoth surfaced behind him. It swatted his tiny craft with its giant tail, hurling Frank through the air.
Aisling screamed and turned away. The sight of Frank swimming hopelessly on top of the waves was horrifying. He seemed so tiny as the gargantuan predator bit him from below and dragged him under. In a cruel instant, Frank was gone.
Aisling came into the cabin in tears. She fell into John’s arms and he so wanted to tell her it didn’t happen. He wanted to tell her everything would be all right and they would be home soon. He thought briefly about telling her that the thing would soon be dead or sleeping from the gas it had ingested. But he could not bring himself to lie to her.
John held Aisling tightly as they watched the image on the tilted screen turn up and start toward them. He had no hope to offer. This was the final blow. As they watched, the beast suddenly stopped and turned as if threatened.
John fumbled with a few buttons and manag
ed to turn on the sound. They heard an odd ples call. It was lower and multiplied several times. John looked out the window to see the Discovery Princess steaming toward them. She was billowing smoke and leaning hard to her port side but the sound she emanated was enough to drive the giant predator away once more.
“All right Beau!” John shouted.
Jones had wiggled into the destroyed remains of the helm and doing his best to pilot the wreck. Beau shouted instructions to him from outside as he worked the battery operated transmitter.
“Nagle’s not the only one who can come up with a plan,” he said. “How do you like them apples? How much time do we have, Jonesy?”
As if on cue, the engines spit and rocked to a decisive halt. The Princess turned as her rudders fell limp to port. Her last gasp seemed to be effective.
Already miles southwest and speeding frantically for land, Louisa steered the speedboat with the throttle as open as she dared. She was too savvy to risk burning out the engine and stranding herself at sea. Especially this sea. She was petrified beyond reason as she raced on, fearful of looking back to find it on her tail. She watched the instruments on the polished wood grain console. She had fuel enough to make it, engine temperature was holding, her marker was dead on the northwestern coast of Ireland. All systems were a go. Then she saw the blip. It was a brief signal from her sonar. Something went under her at a depth of ninety feet. It was there so briefly it must have been going the other way. Or maybe it was a malfunction, she thought. She watched but saw it no more.
Chapter Twenty-Six
John looked out to the Princess. She was now close enough for him to see Beau waving; he waved back. Then he saw the giant come up the side of the Princess and nearly close its insatiable jaws on the unsuspecting Spencer. He jumped back and it fell back into the sea. The Liopleurodon had survived throughout the ages by uncanny stealth but it had never known fear and was not to be driven far or for long. Again and again it pounded the resilient hull. Each time, the ship sank a little more, a little faster. The giant was winning the battle.
John looked frantically around. “We have to do something.”
“Like what?” Aisling demanded. “You have another life raft?”
The suggestion, though sarcastic in intent, gave John an idea. “I’ve got one more.” He led her to the mini sub in the back of the boat. Despite the awkward angle, it could still be launched. John held the glass dome up and switched on all the power sources. It booted up as if no disasters had ever befallen her mother ship this day. It was almost perfect. John put Aisling in the cramped back seat and started to sit in the pilot seat when he looked back at the release lever. It was eight feet behind him. If he released it with the window open the craft would take on more water than it could pump and sink. He had to be sealed inside it when it launched.
The beast came up and brazenly bit at the sides of the Discovery Princess. It had clearly decided to make a stand and bring this big ship down. “Stay there!” John ordered Aisling. He ran to the life preserver hanging on the back of the cabin. It was a waist-sized ring with a sturdy nylon rope attached. He looped the preserver around the release handle that had to be pulled forward. Then he ran the nylon rope through the ladder to topside and back to the sub. He climbed into the cockpit and pulled the rope tight.
“Hold on. We get one shot at this.” He felt the sub leaning more and he realized Esperanza was going down. With a breath for courage, he pulled the rope as hard as he could. Then he slammed the dome shut and dogged it before he hit the water. He had ample time, as the sub did not move. He looked back to see the ring had slipped off the handle before it released. They were trapped. He started to get back out as the seawater came up to the left side of the sub.
“Look!” Aisling shouted. John looked back to see Kyle at the handle. He was drenched in blood and had left a crimson trail down the ladder. Somehow this man who was supposed to be dead of a horrific wound managed to stay alive long enough to see his friend in danger. John reached for the latches to release the dome but Kyle waved him to stop. With a courageous ‘thumbs up’, he fell backwards. His weight was enough to pull the lever. It took every remaining bit of strength in him just to hold on. His last sight on this earth was that of the mini-sub plunging into the encroaching sea.
Esperanza took on more water than she could hold and slipped beneath the surface.
“There’s something you should probably know,” Aisling said.
“You’re not claustrophobic,” John said as he powered the sleek craft toward the besieged Princess.
“How did you know?”
“That you think you are or that you’re not?”
“Okay.”
“Everyone says that the first time they go down. If you were claustrophobic, you couldn’t have gotten in.”
“But I’m terrified. What’s that called?”
“Intelligence.”
John brought the craft to within visual range of the battered hull of the Discovery Princess. The sonar readout on his console told him the lio was below but coming up at her again. “Hold on!” he warned her.
“Ya think?” she replied as she dug her fingers into his shoulders.
John sped directly between the giant hunter and Beau’s ship to lure it to him and away from Beau. He was confident he could outrun it if he had a head start. Passing under the ship, he raced off. Glancing at the monitor to see how much of a lead he had, he saw that the monster was again attacking Beau. It didn’t seem to be the least bit interested in the eighteen-foot morsel. He turned and went in for another pass.
“Are you crazy?” Aisling shouted. She could see the enormous rear fins and serpentine tail under the boat and ducked her head as John passed close enough to be swatted by the thirty-foot tail. But again he was ignored.
“It’s too focused on Beau. I can’t pull it off him!”
“Can we do a call from here?”
“All the CDs are on Esperanza. Besides, I think it’s had enough of them. We need something else.”
His comment about the calls being on his boat sparked a thought in her. “Something else?” she asked. “Something more than a sound? What about a smell?”
“That would be perfect. But we haven’t got any.”
“Maybe you do.”
On board the Princess, Beau helped Jones out of the wrecked bridge. They could do no more than ride it out now. Jones stood up on the deck and peered apprehensively over the rail. “So we drew it away from Nagle?”
“Yup,” Spencer nonchalantly replied, as he sat on a raised portion of the deck.
“And Louisa. She got off all right, too?”
“Uh huh.”
Jones came away from the rail and sat next to his boss. “Well that about covers it.”
“Seems so,” Beau said, allowing the smile of a man who has accepted his fate.
Jones looked at him with the same smile. “I guess this would be a bad time to ask for a raise.”
With that, Beau laughed and gave Jones a brotherly punch on the shoulder. From below them, the beast readied for another assault on the resilient prey. Having ignored the pesky sub as a shark swims oblivious to the pilot fish inches from its fangs, the beast tired of waiting for its chosen prey to die.
John steered the sub back toward Esperanza. She was drifting just below the surface as the last air pockets escaped. He was within visual of her when she finally let go and began her slow spiraling descent into the abysmal darkness.
“Oh no,” John gasped.
“We’re too late?”
“Not yet,” he replied with a snarl of determination. He accelerated and the sub showed true form. It sliced through the water to catch the plummeting wreck. Matching her descent speed, he angled around to the aft deck and forced the nose of the sub through the doorway down to the galley. Only the sleek nose fit but it was enough to see inside. The fridge was against the wall just to his right.
“Watch the depth gauge,” he told Aisling as he released the pistol
grip controls of the sub and activated the mechanical grappling arm.
“Which one’s the depth gauge?”
“In the middle on top. Tell me if it gets to three hundred feet.”
“I’m going to regret this but…why?”
“Because that’s when we die.”
“Bloody Yanks. Then hurry the hell up!”
John extended the arm toward the fridge and opened the door. There amidst all the floating cans of soda and beer, he saw a light blue bra tied around what he knew was the egg.
“One twenty,” she warned as he tried to focus on the task at hand.
The mechanical hand closed on one of the straps and he skillfully extracted the prize from the tiny fridge. “I got it! Now we have to get out of here.”
“One hundred and eighty! My ears are popping.”
“Oh my God! Really? Not your ears! What could be worse?”
“Shut up and get out of here, you cheeky git! Two hundred and ten!”
John reversed the propellers hard but the sub was well wedged in the doorway. “Aw crap! What next?”
“John! Two fifty!”
He kept it full astern but couldn’t budge. “Rock me, baby!” he shouted as he started throwing his weight from left to right. She immediately joined him and their combined body weight was enough to start the sleek craft wriggling against its bonds. “Harder! It’s working!” That rock let the sub move back an inch. The next one was three inches. Little by little, they were getting out. The sub finally started moving free of the tight doorway.
Aisling looked up to the depth gauge. “John. Two hundred and ninety feet!” She looked ahead and saw the grappling arm still holding the precious egg was cocked to the left. The egg was about to be knocked loose or broken by the doorframe. “John!” she screamed in his ear from two inches away from it. “The egg!”
John deftly pulled the arm to the left as the sub pulled away from the plunging wreckage of his boat. At three hundred feet, he left her to drift upward as the Esperanza fell out of sight. He thought for a fleeting moment that he could see Frank’s body on the deck, but it vanished before he could be sure. He thought a farewell to the hero nonetheless.
Loch Ness Page 25