by David DeLee
The mine floated into the open cabin.
An antenna struck the edge of the open compartment and another touched Kowalski, triggering the device.
The blast rocked the submersible.
Water bubbled hot around them. A violent wash of concussive energy shoved the submersible to starboard. Kowalski’s dying screams filled McMurphy’s head as the muted explosion roared in his ears. Farthest from the sudden blast and shielded by Kowalski’s body, McMurphy was slammed against the vessel’s far bulkhead. He smashed his head against the metal, hard. The impact reopened the cut over his eye. Blood turned his vision red. A crack formed in his facemask, but it remained intact.
He survived the explosion otherwise unscathed.
That couldn’t be said for the rest of the team. He checked each one but they were all dead. Gruesome only began to describe the carnage.
Kowalski was nowhere to be seen.
McMurphy unhooked his line from the vessel’s air supply and connected his breathing apparatus to his own air tank. Angry and disoriented with a headache to end all headaches blaring in his head, he swam out of the still descending submersible.
Doing so, he bumped into Kowalski’s headless corpse. It floated, his arms and legs dangling. Blood and gore from his open neck clouded the water like a gory Jackson Pollock painting.
McMurphy swam toward the front of the submersible.
There he found the forward compartment, the one where Jones and Hull, his co-pilot sat. The side was blown open on the starboard side. The metal peeled back like an open can, exposed the cockpit interior. Null had taken the brunt of the blast. Like Kowalski. his head was nearly gone. His chest was ripped open and exposed. Already fish were swimming toward the unexpected feast.
Not feeling hopeful, McMurphy grabbed at the ragged opening, holding on to check Jones. The SEAL lieutenant sat limp in his seat. His head lulled to one side. He’d sustained a deep gash through his stomach. Blood leaked from the open wetsuit.
McMurphy was about to turn away when Jones lashed out!
He seized McMurphy’s wrist in a surprisingly strong grip. The young man’s eyes bulged. Alive. He lunged forward and gasped for air. “Help me!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Bannon watched with interest as Lang angrily spoke to General Sucre at the back of the stage.
They spoke in low, heated tones. From the exchange, Bannon began to adjust a number of his earlier ideas. First, this was definitely about more than the President and securing help for the RRA’s struggle against General Cabrillo. Secondly, it was clear to him now, Sucre wasn’t the man in charge after all. He’s a puppet. The public face.
Chase Lang was the one really running the show.
As Bannon mulled over that revelation, he heard a muted explosion. He felt its vibration through the platform under his feet. Those sitting in seats stood up. The armed men stationed at the park doors glanced around, concerned expressions on their faces. The first break in their stoic professionalism.
Bannon glanced at Lang and Sucre. They looked around. Concerned expressions on their faces, too. This wasn’t their doing.
“What the hell was that?” Kingsley asked.
Lang stepped forward on the stage. He keyed his radio. “Command! Come in. Report.”
A static-filled voice reported. “A mine, sir. One apparently detonated.”
“Why?” Lang demanded to know.
Grayson eased closer to Bannon. “A rescue attempt?”
“If so, it’s one that’s gone wrong.” The very thing Bannon had wanted to prevent. “More casualties. More dead.”
Then things got worse.
The first explosion was followed quickly by two more. Twice more the floor trembled.
“The idiots,” Sucre said. More fearful than outraged. “They’ve launched an attack.”
“Relax,” Lang said. “They’ll never get through the minefield. We anticipated this.” He turned his attention toward Kingsley. Staring down at him from the edge of the stage. “Your people are fools, Mr. President. I’ll give you one chance to get them to stand down.”
“Or what?” Kingsley demanded.
“They’ll die trying to rescue you and I’ll start killing hostages down here, too.” Lang drew his 9mm. He aimed it at Kingsley.
Holloway rushed forward, putting herself between the President and the weapon.
“Take her,” Lang ordered.
Two men in security uniforms rushed at Holloway, each grabbing an arm of the Secret Service agent. They pulled from between Kingsley and Lang, exposing the President to the gun pointed at him once more.
Bannon took a step forward but stopped when another of Sucre’s—no, Lang’s—men called out. “Look!”
The cameraman Leary stood up and shouted, “There!”
Everyone turned toward the left quadrant of the dome. The exterior lights were still on, casting the waters with an eerie, reddish ethereal glow. A large black object appeared overhead. Bannon’s first thought was a passing sperm whale. But the front was misshapen, the rear too narrow, and it wasn’t moving forward. It was dropping.
“What is that?” someone asked.
“Is it a…torpedo?’
Bannon understood their confusion. The narrow stern was equipped with two propellers. It wasn’t a torpedo, but it was manmade. A minisub of some kind. Probably a large SEAL delivery vessel. Larger than the ones he was familiar with. Those crewed with only two or four divers. This one, by the look and size of it, had a crew capacity to be six or eight personnel at least.
It was clear. Washington had called up a SEAL team. Probably using the Putnam to launch their infiltration attempt, but it had gone awry.
The delivery vessel had hit a mine.
As it drifted closer to the dome, the hole blasted through the metal nose was visible, exposing the vessel’s cockpit. The glow of waterproof-encased monitors and computer screens bathed the exposed mangled bodies, still strapped in their seats, in green light.
From the damage, Bannon determined a second mine had hit the vessel’s flank, had ripped the side of the crew cabin open, more than likely killing everyone inside.
The vessel continued its downward drift…
Until it crashed into the park dome.
Bannon glanced quickly at Larson.
“It’s okay.” Her tone didn’t instill confidence nor did her frown lines. “It’s designed to withstand—”
Her observation was cut off by the sound of yet another explosion. This one near the tail section of the submersible and close to the paneled dome’s surface. The water around it bubbled. Sections of the submersible pelted the transparent dome panels.
Bannon looked at Larson, hearing a cracking sound. He raised an eyebrow. “And now?”
“Now, we get everyone out of here.” She had already started to move away from the bandshell. “Now!”
Over her words, the sound of the dome’s transparent panels cracking grew louder, as more cracks formed. Like in regular broken glass, irregular white lines radiated outward from the multiple points of impact. In a matter of seconds, the ocean pressure would complete the job of crushing the dome, imploding it like a squeezed egg.
“Go! Go!” Bannon waved at people to head for the exits.
The men at the doors lowered their weapons. Panicked expressions on their faces. Their mouths agape and their eyes wide. They looked from the quickly disintegrating dome to Sucre and Lang, their leaders for direction.
The two men stood, staring upward. Their mouths hung open.
Bannon waved at people to run toward the closest exit to them. He pushed Kingsley and Grayson ahead of him. “Go! Go!”
Lang regained his composure first. His response to the danger was to run, to save his own hide. Sucre looked around, appearing stunned, like a little boy, lost, who couldn’t find his parents. Lang had abandoned him—and everyone else.
Sucre ran, disappearing behind the back of the stage.
Cowards.
T
he posted guards slapped at the biometric panels that controlled the large sliding doors, opening them.
Holloway pushed Kingsley forward, keeping an eye on the men, but moving him quickly toward the closest exit. Bannon put his arm around Grayson’s shoulders, huddled her close as they ran, making sure Robin Larson kept up beside them.
The dome continued to creak. The creaking noise it made was as loud as thunder but crackled like the sound of dozens—hundreds—of fireflies getting zapped in giant bug lamps.
“The doors,” Bannon shouted. “They’ll hold?”
“Yes,” Larson panted. “They’re designed for this. But we need to get through them and get them shut before…”
She didn’t need to finish her thoughts. Bannon glanced overhead and the first panel shards began to break away.
“How much time?” Bannon asked, still running.
She stole a glance upward. “None!”
The exits were unguarded. The men and woman posted there were the first ones through the open doors and offered no assistance to the others rushing for the opening. Bannon expected such cowardice and didn’t care, so long as they didn’t try to prevent them from leaving the park before it was too late.
Or close the doors and seal them all inside.
Holloway reached the closest exit first. She pulled Kingsley along behind her. Bannon pushed Grayson and Larson into the corridor. Holloway caught a tripping Larson, preventing her from falling to the ground. Bannon paused at the door and helped others get out of the park.
Around the park, he saw the large doors slide shut.
They were the last. He glanced up at the damaged dome.
The cracks stretched from the epicenter of the impact area and ran through panel after panel all the way to the mural-painted wall surround the park. He watched as the transparent panels gave way. Broken pieces of panel cascading from the ceiling. With an earsplitting roar, a deluge of white frothy water poured through the imploding dome; as if someone had opened up a Niagara Falls-size spigot.
Bannon stepped through the opening, confident everyone had made it out, only to be confronted by a young man with dark skin. He pointed his machine pistol at Bannon, barring his way into the corridor. “You stay.”
Without hesitating, Bannon grabbed the barrel of the gun and shoved it back at the gunman, cutting his palms on the weapon’s sight. The butt of the weapon jabbed the armed man’s gut. He grunted. Bannon wrenched the weapon from his grasp as more of the dome panels gave way behind him.
Huge waterfalls of cascading water splashed to the ground, uprooting trees and streetlamps. The bridge, a gazebo, and the stage and bandshell were crushed instantly. Splinters and debris were swept up in a torrent of relentless water now rushing at them like a tsunami. The roar of water and destruction was beyond anything Bannon had ever heard before.
Bannon held tight to his newly-acquired weapon as he spun the guard around. He landed a side kick into the man’s chest. A woof of air exploded from his lungs. The man backpedaled into the park, his eyes wide with surprise and fear as he fell back and hit the ground.
Panicked, he stared up at Bannon then over his shoulder at the crashing, sweeping torrent of water barreling toward him.
He screamed. “Noooooooo—”
Bannon stepped through the door. Water spray splashing over him, soaking him to the skin. He shouted, “Close it! Close it!”
Larson slammed her palm into the biometric reader beside the door.
The door started to slide close as the roar of racing water rushed at them. Bannon’s attacker was swept away somewhere, his screamed washed out by the roar of the approaching wave. Water splashed through the closing door with the force of a fire hose, driving those near the door back.
Those huddled in the corridor were soaked.
Bannon was lifted off his feet and slammed into the wall behind him.
The door slammed shut, cutting off the water that lashed against the park’s perimeter but not before sending a deluge of water into the corridor sweeping those there off their feet.
Bannon hit the floor, soaked from head to toe, and let out a relieved gasp of air. “Whoa, that was close.”
Grayson, Holloway, and Kingsley, looking like drowned rats, stared back at him as they picked themselves up off the floor. Kingsley swept his wet gray hair from his face and let out a held breath. “Jesus.”
Holloway shook her head, shaking water from her long blond hair that had fallen from the tight bun she wore. Wet and dark, Bannon wondered if she wore it down that way when she wasn’t working. She should. It was a good look.
Grayson stepped closer to Bannon as he got to his feet. “Are you all right?”
He climbed to his feet. Cold and wet, and his cut hands hurt but none the worse for wear.
A gunman who’d come through the door before them started to clamor to his feet. He wore a Tiamat Bluff security uniform and held a machine pistol.
He shivered, cold and wet, and spit water. “Don’t anyone move.”
Bannon slammed the butt of the weapon he still held into the man’s face, breaking his nose, and knocking him unconscious. The young man collapsed to the floor. Bannon relieved him of his weapon, too, strapping it across his back.
Already he heard people rushing through the corridor towards them. Probably Lang’s people. Too late for Bannon to move POTUS and the others to safety.
He squeezed Grayson’s shoulder. “I’ve got to boogie.”
She nodded, understanding.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Holloway asked.
“To put an end to this,” he said. Not sure how yet, but now armed with two machine pistols, this was his opportunity.
“Not without me,” she insisted.
“No. You need to stay here, with them.” He indicated the others but specifically meant POTUS and Grayson. “Keep them safe. All of them.”
“Go, Brice,” Grayson said. “And hurry.”
He nodded. “Tell ’em I didn’t make it. Ultimately, they won’t believe it, but it could buy me some time.”
She nodded and he ran down the corridor.
With his heart aching at leaving them behind to be recaptured, he knew he was doing the right thing. It was the only chance any of them had of surviving. But, running away like that, it felt cowardly as hell.
CHAPTER THIRTY
In the suite of rooms under the stage, having narrowly escaped death, Chase Lang cursed. The roar—with the force of a hurricane—as a gazillion tons of ocean water came crashing down into the open space, crushing the dome like an egg, and flooding the park, turning it into a sunken wasteland was so loud, Lang was sure the ceiling overhead wouldn’t hold.
But it did.
He ordered Sucre to take as many men as he needed and gather the prisoners. Recapture them all. “Find them! Find them all!”
In the meantime, Lang burst through the door into Ops where Sasha Wilcox, in his absence, supervised the room, now abuzz with activity. Bathed in a red warning glow, several control panels were brightly lit with cryptic messages containing the words ‘critical failure’ and ‘containment breach’, spiking bar graphs and dials with needles hovering in red zones, muted alarms beeped additional warnings.
She turned. “You made it out.” She sounded relieved. “Did everyone?”
“I have no damn idea,” Lang said. “Get me the Putnam! Now!”
She grabbed a satellite phone from the console near her and handed it to him. He put it to his ear. She nodded to one of their men, overseeing the communications console, where a Tiamat Bluff worker manipulated the control.
An inpatient moment passed.
Wilcox switched to a video feed and pointed at it. Lang watched and frowned, waiting until the connection was made. Then through a low crackle of static, a voice spoke. “To whom am I speaking, please?”
“The person who’s going to kill the President if you try another stunt like that again.”
“It’ll be easier for us to talk if y
ou tell me your name, sir. I’m Special Agent Goodwell.”
“We won’t be chatting, Agent Goodwell.”
“I can assume this is General Sucre then?”
“Don’t worry about who I am. Worry about keeping your President alive.”
“What’s going on down there?” Goodwell said. His voice even. “Our equipment recorded explosions. Is everyone all right?”
“Not by a long shot. Your infiltration team is dead. You got your whole damn team killed.”
“All of them?” Goodwell asked. This time, his voice shaky.
Lang knew hostage negotiators were trained to never reveal emotion, but he could tell he’d gotten to Goodwell. “Every damn one of ’em. I warned you. Try something as stupid as that again, and all the hostages will become shark chum, too.”
Lang drew a deep breath, gathering momentum before going on. “Now, tell the Vice-President he’s got twelve hours to provide me with actionable assurances our demands are being addressed. If he doesn’t, I start executing people one at a time until I get to POTUS. His death I will broadcast to the world. Twelve hours.” He disconnected the call, missing the satisfaction one used to get from slamming an old-style phone down.
He looked around the room. “And someone, turn off those damn alarms.”
The alarms fell silent.
Still in the middle of the chaos around him, as men and women, a mix of Tiamat Bluff employees in forced alliance, and Lang’s armed mercenaries supervising them, worked to monitor the strength of the reinforced park doors. Ensuring the deluge of water flooding the park remained contained and didn’t threaten the rest of the facility.
Lang squeezed his hands into fists and closed his eyes, willing the rage inside him to subside. If he had one fault that he’d recognized in himself after all these years, it was his inability to control his temper, to not let his anger overwhelm him, which cause him to make rash, bad decision. He couldn’t afford to allow that to happen now. Here.