by David Wood
LOCH- A Dane Maddock Adventure
By David Wood
An ancient legend guards a deadly treasure.
When former Navy SEALs turned treasure hunters Dane Maddock and Bones Bonebrake discover a sunken German U-boat at the bottom of the Irish Sea, they find something shocking- the tooth a prehistoric reptile embedded in the hull. Soon, Maddock and Bones join a beautiful reporter and an eccentric cryptid hunter on an action-packed search for a lost treasure and brings them face to face with one of the world’s most enduring mysteries.
Praise for David Wood
“David Wood has done it again. Within seconds of opening the book, I was hooked. Intrigue, suspense,monsters, and treasure hunters. What more could you want? David's knocked it out of the park with this one!”-Nick Thacker- author of The Enigma Strain
“Dane and Bones.... Together they're unstoppable. Rip roaring action from start to finish. Wit and humor throughout. Just one question - how soon until the next one? Because I can't wait.”
-Graham Brown, author of Shadows of the Midnight Sun
“What an adventure! A great read that provides lots of action, and thoughtful insight as well, into strange realms that are sometimes best left unexplored.” -Paul Kemprecos, author of Cool Blue Tomb and the NUMA Files
“A page-turning yarn blending high action, Biblical speculation, ancient secrets, and nasty creatures. Indiana Jones better watch his back!” -Jeremy Robinson, author of SecondWorld
“With the thoroughly enjoyable way Mr. Wood has mixed speculative history with our modern day pursuit of truth, he has created a story that thrills and makes one think beyond the boundaries of mere fiction and enter the world of 'why not'?” -David Lynn Golemon, Author of the Event Group series
“A twisty tale of adventure and intrigue that never lets up and never lets go!” -Robert Masello, author of The Einstein Prophecy
“Let there be no confusion: David Wood is the next Clive Cussler. Once you start reading, you won't be able to stop until the last mystery plays out in the final line.”-Edward G. Talbot, author of 2012: The Fifth World
“I like my thrillers with lots of explosions, global locations and a mystery where I learn something new. Wood delivers! Recommended as a fast paced, kick ass read.”-J.F. Penn, author of Desecration
Loch- A Dane Maddock Adventure
Copyright 2017 by David Wood
All rights reserved
Published by Adrenaline Press
www.adrenaline.press
Adrenaline Press is an imprint of Gryphonwood Press
www.gryphonwoodpress.com
Edited by Melissa Bowersock
Cover design by Kent Holloway Book Cover Designs
This is a work of fiction. All characters are products of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously.
Prologue
April 30, 1918
The Irish Sea
“Officer on deck!” The men inside the control room of the UB-85 came to attention and snapped precise salutes at the sublieutenant’s sharp command.
“Carry on.” Captain Günther Krech moved a few paces into the room and halted, looking around at the cramped space.
With quick replies of, “Aye, Sir,” the men returned to work.
Inside the periscope well, Sublieutanant Lars Westmann turned back to the periscope and peered into it. He scanned back and forth, and then again, and again, until Krech suspected the man was stalling.
“Do you see any targets out there, Oberleutnant?” Krech asked.
Now, Westmann turned to face him.
“Nothing yet, Kapitänleutnant. We just surfaced.”
Krech nodded, unable to hide his grimace. They needed prizes, and needed them soon.
The North Channel of the Irish Sea, less than twenty kilometers wide, had long been a favorite site for buccaneers seeking to prey on shipping between Ireland and the main British isle. Now, in the midst of the Great War, a new threat patrolled these waters.
The U-boat, German’s greatest weapon against the might of the British navy, had made these waters deadlier than ever. Just this month, U-boats had sunk nearly 280,000 tons of Allied shipping, gaining much-needed supplies.
Krech’s boat had sunk none, her full complement of ten torpedoes still waiting to be unleashed. That needed to change.
Westmann approached slowly, casting nervous glances from side to side. Sensing his second in command sought a private audience, Krech moved out of the control room. With the roar of the UB-85s engines to contend with, he didn’t have to go far in order to be out of earshot of his crew.
“Permission to speak, Kapitänleutnant?” Westmann asked, his voice hoarse and his brow lined with worry.
Krech nodded. He already knew what the man was going to say.
“We have been out here for two weeks, and have met with no success. We can’t stay much longer.”
“I am aware of that. We have time, still.”
“Precious little.” Westmann cleared his throat. “The prize the agent gave you yesterday, if it is as valuable as you believe, surely that will suffice?”
Krech shook his head. “It’s more complicated than that. We must take at least one prize before we return.” He stared down at Westmann until the underliuetanant nodded. “Take her up top and we’ll have a look.”
Krech stood atop the conning tower, peering out at the moonlit horizon through a pair of binoculars. Down below, Westmann, flanked by two junior officers, stood on the deck, also searching for targets.
The early morning breeze tugged at Krech’s uniform. The sea gently rocked the ship. Dawn was not far off. Surely he’d soon see the telltale column of smoke that announced a ship’s approach.
Without warning, a loud crash pierced the quiet morning. It rocked UB-85, sending the crewmen tumbling to the deck. Krech managed to remain standing, looking all around to see what they had hit. His first thought was an iceberg, but that made no sense. It was the wrong place and wrong time of the year for such an obstacle.
“What did we hit?” he shouted.
As if in reply, another crash shook the boat.
And then he saw it.
A dark hump sliced through the water, circling away from UB-85, then changed directions. Krech watched as it shot forward, impossibly fast, once again on a collision course with the boat.
“It’s going to ram us!” he called, moments before the third collision, the hardest yet, sent him tumbling to the deck.
“Is it a whale?” one of the officers cried.
“I don’t know what it is,” Westmann replied. “But we can’t take many more of those collisions.” He took out his sidearm and the other two followed suit.
Kneeling atop the conning tower, Krech pressed his binoculars to his face and searched for the creature. He spotted it, thirty meters away, turning for another run. Could it be a whale? The dark hump rising from the water looked wrong. And then, for the briefest of seconds, the creature raised its head.
Krech’s binoculars slipped from limp fingers and clattered to the deck. Everything the agent had told him came rushing back.
“It’s true,” he whispered. “He wasn’t lying.”
Against the crackle of small arms fire, the creature smashed into the ship again. The impact sent the sailors flying. And then the deck tilted wildly to starboard as the monster flung its massive bulk up onto the deck.
Clouds had drifted across the face of the moon. Krech could make out few details in the darkness. He heard a loud, metallic wrenching, and fired his sidearm in the direction of the sound. In the brief, faint light of muzzle flashes, he caught a glimpse of dark skin and the mangled remains of UB-85’s gun mount.
“This beast might sink us,
” he whispered. He had to make sure the treasure was safe.
For a brief, irrational second, he wondered if he could return the treasure to the creature. But that was absurd.
But is it any more absurd than the guardian of the treasure following us out into the open sea?
He could ponder the improbability of it all after it was over, if they lived through it. Right now, he had to get down below.
His crewmen had regained their feet and emptied their pistols into the massive beast. Krech did the same.
The creature, whatever it was, let out a reptilian hiss and slid its bulk back into the water.
“Do you think it’s gone?” Westmann asked.
“I don’t know,” Krech said. “We should get out of here. Come on.”
He slid down into the hatch, followed by the other officers. All around, sailors cast confused glances in his direction.
“Kapitänleutnant,” Westmann called, “the hatch will not close.”
“What do you mean?”
“That…thing damaged it. We can’t dive.”
Krech’s guts twisted into an icy knot. “And unless we can repair it, we’ll take on water in anything other than the smoothest seas.”
“Kapitänleutnant, what is happening out there?” one of the midshipmen shouted.
Before Krech could reply, something tore through the fabric of the hull. He had a moment to register the sight of shiny, black fangs penetrating the steel skin of UB-85 and then water began streaming in. The men shouted in surprise, and then the beast bit into the ship again, this time ripping long narrow gouges in the steel.
We are all going to die.
With his crew’s cries of alarm ringing in his ears, Krech turned and ran for his quarters. They might not survive this night, but he would preserve the treasure.
Chapter 1
Off the Coast of Wigtownshire, Scotland
Gray clouds rolled in across the dark waters of the Irish Sea. Dane Maddock looked out at them, his guts twisting in a knot. The last thing they needed was another fruitless day of treasure hunting cut short by the inclement Scottish weather. It had been a risk taking on a job so far from home, but it had seemed like the right thing to do at the time. He had a lot on his mind, and getting away from familiar places, and a few familiar people, had been too enticing an opportunity to pass up.
“Key West this place is not.” Bones Bonebrake folded his powerful arms over his chest and scowled at the dark horizon. “At least you won’t get sunburned, mister short, blonde, and pale.”
Maddock eyed the tall, deeply-tanned Cherokee. “When have you ever known me to sunburn, mister Coppertone?”
“Mister Coppertone! I like that.” Bones flashed a smile, but it quickly turned to a frown. “Wait a minute? Is that racist? I never know what I’m supposed to be offended by nowadays. I think I’m supposed to hate the Washington Redskins and that stupid ‘tomahawk chop’ that the Braves and Seminoles fans like to do.”
In the years since they’d served together in the Navy SEALs, Maddock had mostly grown accustomed to his friend’s cavalier attitude toward the sensibilities of his own race. Still, sometimes Bones managed to make him cringe.
Maddock grimaced. “Can we save that conversation for later? I’d like to get in one more dive—a quick in and out in case the storm doesn’t change direction.”
“I suppose. You sure you don’t want to knock off early? I want to try some real Scotch.” He gazed pointedly in the direction of the Scottish mainland. Bones’ lack of enthusiasm at the prospect of another dive underscored just how badly things had gone thus far. Ordinarily, Maddock couldn’t keep him out of the water.
“As soon as Matt and Willis get back, we’ll go in.”
No sooner had Maddock spoken than a pair of heads broke the surface. Willis Sanders and Matt Barnaby swam to the side of Sea Foam and hauled themselves on board. Willis was another former SEAL comrade, while Matt was an ex-Army Ranger.
“Man, I ain’t seeing a thing down there.” Willis, a dark-skinned, muscular man of almost a height with Bones, mopped the salt water off of his shaved head. “I hate to say it, but I think we might have come here for nothing.”
“Maybe,” Matt said, running a hand through his short, brown hair. “But even if the wreck of the Regal Crown isn’t down there, there are bound to be other wrecks waiting to be discovered. This place has seen centuries upon centuries of ship traffic. I think it might be worth expanding our grid and seeing what else might be down there.”
“Sure, take Maddock’s side.” Bones glanced at Willis. “Notice how the white people all stick together?”
“Hey, I’m on your side!” Corey Dean, the fifth member of the crew, called from the cabin. “I’m totally ready to pack it in for the day.”
“Gingers are a minority, too,” Willis replied.
“Bones and I are going to make one more run at it before the storm hits,” Maddock said. “We’ll take Matt’s advice and expand our search. We’ll head northeast and broaden the search parameters beyond our current grid.”
Bones frowned. “You want to go against the current? Seems like we ought to do the opposite.”
Maddock shrugged. “Our current grid is based on a projection of how far the Regal Crown would have drifted since its sinking. Maybe we overestimated the distance.” The Regal Crown was a British ship reputed to have gone down in this area in the late eighteenth century. Rumor had it there were gold and jewels belonging to a noble house on board. It had never been found.
“You mean, maybe I overestimated it?” Corey asked, once again poking his head through the cabin door.
“Yes, but I wasn’t going to say so.” Ignoring Corey’s profane reply, Maddock fixed his mask and regulator in place, sat down on the deck rail, and flipped backward into the water. His tensions eased as he plunged into the welcome depths. A splash in his peripheral vision moments later told him Bones was right on his tail.
Enveloped by the cool water, they swam hard against the weak current. It wasn’t long before they had passed beyond their marked search area. He knew they shouldn’t go too far afield. Time was short and to venture out too far would be an unnecessary risk. Maddock gave Bones the signal, and they dived.
This stretch of seabed looked no different than any other section they had explored that day. Maddock swam at a steady clip, sweeping the beam of his headlamp back and forth. The circle of light roamed over sand, rock, and vegetation, but nothing of interest. They continued on, staring balefully down at their relentlessly ordinary surroundings until Maddock was ready to call it a day. He was about to turn back when Bones caught his attention and pointed off to their right.
Swimming in the direction Bones indicated, the two men soon found themselves looking down into a crevasse. At first, Maddock saw little of interest, but then he realized that what he’d initially taken for gray stone was, in fact, metal. As they drew closer, Maddock recognized it for what it was—the conning tower of a German U-boat. A spark of excitement flared inside of him. He doubted it would hold any treasure, but the history buff in him couldn’t resist taking a closer look.
They swam along the length of the submarine, taking in its well-preserved lines. Maddock could clearly make out the deck gun, conning tower, and the periscope, all encrusted in a century of marine growth. It was a UB, a World War I German submarine. He’d never seen one in person and was fascinated by it.
He spotted a jagged gash in the starboard side, wide enough for a diver to swim through. Heading down for a closer look, Maddock was puzzled to see a series of smaller cuts, scrapes, and indentations all around the tear. Some were punctures, almost as if something had bitten through the hull. Of course, that was impossible. He wondered what sort of weapon would leave such oddly shaped holes.
He tried to form a mental image of the submarine’s last minutes. Probably it had surfaced for some reason and come under fire from a surface vessel. The punctures must be the result of machine gun bullets. But what had caused it to si
nk? Not such small arms fire, to be sure. A larger shell must have struck the submarine, causing it to take on water. The scrapes and the large tear in the side would have likely been caused by the rocky side of the crevasse as the dying boat slid down to its final resting place.
He glanced at his dive watch. They hadn’t been down very long and had plenty of air left, but he had no idea what the weather on the surface was like. He glanced at Bones.
As was often the case, his friend knew exactly what Maddock was thinking. Bones nodded and then pointed emphatically at the hole in the sub. The message was clear—let’s check this thing out.
They swam slowly, careful not to stir up too much silt, which would cause virtual whiteout conditions, rendering them near blind.
As they moved forward, he marveled at the many sights he’d seen only in photographs. Inside the control room, a myriad of handles, like steering wheels, jutted out from the walls. He spotted a pair of gauges, and carefully wiped the grime from their surfaces. One measured depth, the other, fuel. Nearby, a small manhole afforded access to the periscope well.
Bones spotted the voice pipe. Predictably, he removed his regulator and began mouthing words into the trumpet-like end, sending up a stream of bubbles. Laughing internally, Maddock made a circular gesture to tell his friend they needed to hurry up and finish their exploration before it got too late. They didn’t want to run out of air down here.
They passed through the electrical control room, the engine room, and into the torpedo room. Oddly, the sub appeared to still be fully armed. The attack that sank it must have come suddenly for the sub not to have fired any of her deadliest weapons.
They completed their exploration, picking up a few artifacts—coins and the like—but nothing of great value. Bones paused on the way out and gave the sub’s damaged hull a close inspection. Maddock wondered what had drawn his friend’s interest, but when he swam closer, Bones turned and waved him away.