by David Wood
“One thousand meters…” he announced without enthusiasm.
“Just about a half mile to go,” Dane said. “We’ll make it.” He tried to sound confident. At least he took comfort in the fact that the water outside their protective sphere was now only black as opposed to pitch black. And looking up, he was pretty sure he could see some gray. Their rate of ascent was increasing, too, although that also meant less control over the sub’s trajectory.
“Vertical thrusters on high,” he informed Bones. Eyeing the compass, he kept the submersible pointed in the direction of their trawler.
Bones glanced at their sonar, which thankfully showed an empty screen. The Russian sub was not yet in pursuit. He knew that a missile could show itself on the monitor, though, for a few seconds before it slammed into them, ending their existence in a single muffled implosion. He was about to voice this concern to Dane when the comforting hum of the sub’s thruster motors stopped. Silence. The cabin lights and instrument displays flickered for a moment, then came back on.
“We lost main battery power,” Dane said, almost panting now. “Reserve kicked on but it’s only got enough juice to run the oh-two pumps and the cabin lights.”
Bones studied their depth gauge. “We’re still rising. 500 meters. I can see light up there,” he said, plastering his face to the acrylic dome while he gazed toward the distant sky.
And then the cabin lights blinked out.
Dane and Bones looked around in the near darkness. The constellation of LEDs and various indicator lights that normally lit up the inside of the sub had been extinguished. Bones waved his hand in front of his face and could barely discern it. Most worrisome of all, their rate of ascent had begun to slow.
“Are we sinking?” Bones voiced their worst fear: plummeting back into the abyss as helpless as a stone, where they would suffocate on the bottom in their acrylic tomb. “No more depth gauge readout.”
Dane stared in vain out through the sub’s spherical window. With no reference points to look at, he couldn’t tell if they were rising, falling, or maintaining position. “Can’t say. I can dump the rest of our ballast, though.”
“Do it.”
It was the closest thing to fear in Bones’ voice that Dane had ever heard. Glad for the fact that the ballast dump was a mechanical system and therefore not dependent upon battery power, he pulled a lever that opened a flap in the buoyancy tubes, releasing hundreds of pounds of lead shot. “There they go.”
“Hopefully they land on Ivkin’s submarine down there,” Bones said. In spite of the situation, Dane laughed. “Clog up the missile tubes, right?”
Bones started to laugh then forced himself to quit. “Stop it, man. We don’t have the air for that.”
They could only stare outside their bubble and wait. After a couple of minutes their eyes had adjusted to the low light conditions, and it soon became clear that they were in fact still rising.
“Getting lighter,” Bones rasped. He craned his neck to look upward, where he saw only a dimensionless, whitish haze.
Dane reached down toward the floor of the cabin. “No mechanical override for the rudder’s joystick. We’re going straight up, which means we’ll probably come up short of the boat.”
“I don’t care where we come up,” Bones gasped, “as long as we come up.”
Dane did not want to vocalize his thoughts. Looking up, he could see that it was definitely getting lighter, but they were perilously close to going unconscious. Peering out the dome, his heart spiked with hope as he saw a school of silver fish dart overhead, their white bellies flashing as they turned. They had left the deep sea zone behind and entered the upper layers of the ocean, the realm where scuba divers could venture.
“I see fish, Bones. Hang in there.” But he heard no response from his fellow SEAL. Bones kept nodding off.
“Bones! Don’t go to sleep, buddy, c’mon!” He gave him a shove.
“Huh…what?”
“Wake up, man! Dane’s voice was at a near whisper. “Almost there.” He pointed up.
Bones supported his head against the cabin dome. Dane’s urge for oxygen was painful now, and he entertained thoughts of throwing the dome hatch open and making a mad dash swim for the surface. Deep down he knew that even if he wanted to try that—or needed to, if the sub began to sink instead of rise—that the water pressure even at shallow depths would prevent them from pushing it open while underwater.
Minutes passed in a haze of shallow breathing. Dane’s headache made it difficult to think straight and Bones hadn’t said anything in a while. He occupied himself by trying to start the dashboard controls; he knew that sometimes batteries would build up a reserve charge after they rested, but now he was having no luck. Then he gazed up through the dome, and there it was.
The surface!
The shimmering underside of the waves sparkled and danced above their rising sub.
“Bones. Bones! Get ready.”
“What?” he whispered without moving.
“One hundred feet! Let’s get ready to crack this hatch as soon as we surface.” The Indian SEAL remained motionless.
Dane saw a sea turtle fly by their window and he could tell that their little sub was moving fast. “Hold on, Bones. We’re gonna pop on out like a champagne cork and splash back down.”
He moved his friend’s hand to a handhold and was relieved to feel Bones grip down on it. He could see his face now and was reassured by the fact that his eyes were open.
Another quick glance at the surface told Dane that they were maybe fifty feet away and closing at some scary feet-per-second rate that would have made their sub instructors furious.
He did not have the breath to put air behind it, but he mouthed the words, “Here we go…”
The Russian mini-sub burst through the sea surface into the realm of sunlight and air. The world was a chaotic swirl of blue sky, water, and a ball of sun. Dane saw the form of their trawler perhaps fifty yards from them, bobbing serenely on the surface.
Unbelievably to Dane, Bones instantly scrambled to life and went for the latch that would open the hatch and deliver them sweet air.
“Wait!” Dane rasped, but it was too late. Bones could no more be stopped from opening that hatch even though their sub was now airborne than a starving dog could restrain itself from gobbling down a bloody steak dropped in front of its nose. Bones leaned over the seat and Dane heard a clicking noise. Immediately he felt the rush of cool air.
Then the sub reached the apex of its airborne arc and began to fall back to the ocean. It canted over and splashed down on Dane’s side, drenching him with water as the sea invaded their cockpit. They’d landed almost upside-down and with the hatch open. Dane knew from his training that usually this type of situation was the result of a botched sub launch. But regardless of the cause, he was all too aware that it was a potentially deadly position that he had been trained to avoid at all costs.
His feet sloshed in water as he turned to Bones. “We gotta get out. Now!” Bones made a move to grip the edge of the sub and nearly lost the fingers of his right hand when the dome hatch came slamming back down under the force of the water currents. He withdrew his hand just in time. Then the hatch opened again, closing and opening like an angry clam as they drifted.
Dane didn’t see how they would escape without injury. But the water was up to his waist now, so he was preparing to take his chances when suddenly Bones reached down to the cabin floor.
“Bones, you okay?”
He could see the strain on Bones’ face, and then the nuke appeared in his lap as he lifted its weight from the floor. “Help me,” he said, hefting the bomb up toward the rim of the sub’s cabin. Dane moved over to the co-pilot’s seat and together they wrangled the heavy device onto the edge of the cabin such that it prevented the hatch from closing all the way.
Water swirled about their shoulders.
“Go, Bones. Slip through!”
Bones stared wide-eyed for a second at the hazardous
cylinder propping the flapping dome open, then squirmed out through the slim space into the ocean. Once through, he treaded water, holding the bomb in position while Dane squirmed through after him.
Dane looked around. The TV expedition’s Ocean Explorer was in the same spot, looking busy with their salvage operation. Much closer by was their trawler. He saw no other activity. Their mini-sub was rapidly filling with water and would soon sink back into the depths from whence it came. Dane knew that even in their weakened condition, he and Bones would be able to make the swim back to their boat. Their BUDS school experiences had seen to that. That wasn’t the problem.
He eyed the nuke, still wedged in between the sub’s frame and the dome hatch. It was far too heavy for even both of them to tread water with. The thought of losing it now after all they had been through nearly made him sick.
“Bones. We need to get the bomb.”
Chapter 21
“Bomb’s way too heavy to swim with,” Bones sputtered, still weak from his ordeal in the oxygen-depleted submersible.
“I know,” Dane said, eyeing their boat about two hundred feet away. With the trawler’s autopilot system maintaining a fixed position, he and Bones were drifting in the opposite direction from the boat. He knew they had to do something, and fast. There had to be a way to float the nuke…
Dane peered inside the rapidly flooding cabin. Submersible, flotation…buoyancy…He mentally ticked through all of the sub’s systems and still came up empty on how to use them to save the nuke. Then the sub wobbled precariously, and he saw it: a snatch of orange behind the seats.
Life jackets!
Like all seagoing vessels, even submersibles were required to carry them aboard. Dane gripped Bones’ shoulder.
“I see PFDs inside. Going in.” Before Bones could reply Dane took a deep breath and squiggled though the hatch held open by the nuke. Inside the cabin his head was underwater. He opened his eyes to a blurry cockpit and the sting of saltwater. He pulled himself by feel back to the seat where he’d seen the life preservers. The sub knocked over to the right once and he had to reorient himself. Then he saw the blurry patch of orange and reached a hand out. He yanked on it but it stuck, secured in place by some kind of restraint. He slid a hand along the front of it and located a clasp. He undid it, pulled again, and a personal flotation device came free.
He swam up so that he could put his head up to the dome in the hopes of securing a breath. He managed a half gulp of air before the entire cabin gave in to the ocean.
Sub’s flooded!
Any second now, the underwater craft would succumb to the depths.
Dane returned to the PFD area and saw the remaining blotch of safety orange. He reached out and grabbed this one, which he liberated. Both PFDs in tow, Dane pulled himself back over to the open hatch, where he was relieved to see the nuke still in place, Bones’ hands supporting it from outside. He slithered back through the open hatch, the dome bruising his lower back on the way out.
Outside the sub treading water next to Bones, Dane wrapped the first life jacket around the nuke and cinched it down tight with the straps. By the time he finished the sub was four feet underwater.
“Better grab it,” Bones cautioned.
“Let’s go,” Dane said signaling with a thumbs-down for Bones to swim under with him. Forcing the PFD under, Dane wrestled it down to the sub and managed to tie it to the first PFD. Then he saw Bones strong-arm the nuke out from under the hatch. Dane clutched the nuke also and the two SEALs kicked back up to the surface.
Even with both PFDs attached to the nuke, it still wanted to sink. But with both Dane and Bones gripping the bomb and kicking, they could just manage to keep it afloat.
“The boat,” Dane coughed, nodding in the direction of their trawler. They began to kick, heads going underwater after each breath they took. But they kept kicking, and when Dane looked up some time later, he saw their boat’s stern welcoming them. They swam to a ladder and Dane climbed aboard while Bones cradled the nuke in the water, supported by the ladder. Climbing up with the nuke would be too difficult in their weakened state. Dane searched the work deck and came up with a long, stout rope. He brought it to the stern and dropped it down to Bones, who tied it around the nuke and knotted it.
Dane hauled the nuclear weapon aboard their boat. He and Bones rushed it inside the cover of the lower cabin area where they secured it beneath a pile of fishing gear.
The SEALs high-fived one another. “To the wheelhouse,” Dane said.
They ran up the stairs to the cockpit. Inside, Dane quickly took out the satellite phone.
He lit the thing up and dialed the number Epson had made them commit to memory. As instructed, when the line opened he input their latitude and longitude coordinates, followed by their speed and heading. He heard a synthesized voice: “Your information has been recorded,” and then the line went dead.
“Do we sit and wait knowing the Russians could blow us out of the water any second or get out of here under our own power even though it’ll change our position?” Bones asked.
In answer, Dane disengaged the auto-pilot and flipped the hidden switch to activate the secret twin engines. He set them on a course due east at full throttle.
As they left the site, they looked over at the Ocean Explorer, where an arresting sight awaited them.
Suspended by an A-frame crane, the space capsule Liberty Bell 7 dripped water onto the ship’s deck.
“He did it.” Bones said. “Roland Streib, that crazy bastard.”
“I hope he decodes his dimes,” Dane said with a grin.
“I’m sure he’ll come up with a great hidden message for them.”
“As long as Jimmy was right and it doesn’t say, ‘Don’t forget the nuke’, we’re all good.”
Bones opened a window to the wheelhouse and gazed out across the waves. “So weird,” he said, contemplating.
“What’s that?”
“A sixteenth century Spanish treasure ship carrying radioactive ore sinks right here, on the same spot that a nuclear bomb sank in a spacecraft four centuries later.”
Dane nodded as he also stared out over the open sea while their vessel plowed toward the Florida coast. “It all worked out pretty good. We completed our mission. The Admiral gets his A-bomb. Streib gets his capsule.”
“We got to destroy two mini-subs!”
“Right, so I was thinking about that. Not sure how happy they’ll be about us leaving Deep Black with the Russians. But it was just you and me out here, on this Top Secret mission. That means we get to write the history here, Bones. So how do we explain coming back with the nuke but without the submersible?”
Bones gazed out across the silver-colored sea. “Chalk up another one for the Bermuda Triangle.”
The End
About the Authors
David Wood is the author of the popular action-adventure series, The Dane Maddock Adventures, as well as several stand-alone works and two series for young adults. Under his David Debord pen name he is the author of the Absent Gods fantasy series. When not writing, he co-hosts the Authorcast podcast. David and his family live in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Visit him online at www.davidwoodweb.com.
Rick Chesler is the author of the popular Tara Shores Thriller series and several other thrillers. Rick holds a Bachelor of Science in marine biology and has had a life-long interest in the ocean, its creatures and the people who call it their home. When not at work as a research project manager, he can be found scuba diving or traveling to research his next thriller idea. He currently lives in the Florida Keys with his wife and son. Visit him online at rickchesler.com.
Books by David Wood
The Dane Maddock Adventures
Dourado
Cibola
Quest
Icefall
Buccaneer
Atlantis
Dane and Bones Origins
Freedom (with Sean Sweeney)
Hell Ship (with Sean Ellis)
Splashdown (wit
h Rick Chesler)
Liberty (with Edward G. Talbot- forthcoming)
Dead Ice (with Steven Savile- forthcoming)
Stand-Alone Works
Into the Woods (with David S. Wood)
Callsign: Queen (with Jeremy Robinson)
Dark Rite (with Alan Baxter)
The Zombie-Driven Life
The Dunn Kelly Mysteries
You Suck
Bite Me (forthcoming)
Writing as David Debord
The Silver Serpent
Keeper of the Mists
The Gates of Iron (forthcoming)
The Impostor Prince (with Ryan A. Span- forthcoming)
Books by Rick Chesler
Tara Shores Thrillers
Wired Kingdom
kiDNApped
Solar Island
Other Works
Blood Harbor: A Novel of Suspense
Lucifer’s Machine (with Steven Savile)
Splashdown (with David Wood)
O.U.T.C.A.S.T. Ops series (with Rick Jones - forthcoming)
Writing as Jack Douglas
Quake (With Douglas Corleone - forthcoming)
Enjoy this preview of
LIBERTY- A DANE AND BONES ORIGINS STORY
By David Wood and Edward G. Talbot
“On the plus side, he hasn't tried to shoot us.”
Uriah “Bones” Bonebrake wasn't gripping the wheel of the rented Mustang convertible with any more than normal pressure, but his face did betray a small amount of concern. Dane Maddock, the man sitting in the passenger seat, couldn't quite bring himself to chuckle at the joke. They were being followed and he had no idea why.