“We don’t have time.” Kathy jumped down into the cabin. Underway, the cabin stank of oil and unburned gasoline. She pulled a big plastic bowl from the tiny kitchen area. She dipped it into the bilge. When it filled with water, she dumped it into the cockpit. The water ran back to the stern and drained out a hole through the transom.
“Now that might be the ticket,” Marc said. “That chore’ll keep you busy.”
“As long as it keeps us afloat, and you keep us on course.”
“Aye, aye. Zero-four-seven it is.”
Below deck, the thrum of the engine was much louder than in the cockpit. With little ventilation, the petroleum stink and manifold heat had nowhere to go, and the cabin quickly turned oppressive. Kathy began scooping and sloshing seawater from the cabin floor to the cockpit, like a character from some old-time cartoon.
She remembered that the boat always sank in those stories.
Chapter 34
The Zodiac pounded through the waves north of Garden Key. For the first time in months, Larsson felt, dare he say it, happy.
So much had gone so wrong. The crabs’ premature escape. The rush to get his team assembled. The loss of the trawler. The crashed helicopter. That bitch of a park ranger discovering the hidden room. But despite it all, here he was, with the lures, heading out to drop them as planned, and start the crabs on a path of chaotic destruction across Florida.
Had there been losses executing his plan? Sure, but weren’t eggs broken to make an omelet? Anything this risky carried a downside potential. But everyone he’d hired or recruited should have weighed the odds when they started, the potential consequences if things moved a little off-center. Their deaths could not have surprised them, and the plan’s success would make the sacrifices all worthwhile.
The GPS in the Zodiac blinked and indicated he’d arrived at the first waypoint. Time to drop Lure #1. He throttled back the engine to idle. From the stern, he picked the top lure off the stack. With a flick of a switch on the side, he powered up the sonic transmitter. The indicator light flashed yellow, then green. Ready to rock.
He went to the controller and turned on the switch for that lure. The light beside the switch turned yellow, then red.
Larsson ground his teeth. He didn’t know exactly how this whole system worked, but he sure as hell knew that it didn’t work like this. Step one was two green lights. Without that, there was no step two.
He cycled the switches on both units. The lure turned green again, the controller did not. He cursed and tossed the lure aside. He tried a second lure, then the rest. Same results every time. Active lures, no contact with the controller.
He cursed and pounded the side of the inflatable with his fists. “No, no, no! Not after everything that happened, not after getting so close.”
The controller, that had to be it. It had to have been damaged in the crash. Why the hell hadn’t he taken both controllers? No point in having a backup if you didn’t have the backup with you, was there?
He checked his watch. There was still enough daylight to get back, get the controller, and keep the plan rolling forward. By now, everyone who remained behind would have been reduced to crab food, and the crabs would have moved on to new prey. He hoped. He wouldn’t need much time anyway. In, grab the controller, and out.
He rolled the engine up to full power, turned the Zodiac around, and set a course for Garden Key.
***
The dead crab on the parade ground reeked. The cannonball had torn a hole through it and the stink of crab and seawater seemed to fill the fort’s interior. Flies buzzed in the air.
Nathan’s personal turn in the moat muck only add to the aroma. He wrinkled his nose in disgust. “I think this experience has taken crab off my menu forever.”
He joined Gianna at the stack of supplies salvaged from the downed helicopter. They sorted through the remaining crates to see what ammunition was available to fend off the next attack. There wasn’t much.
“There’s going to be panic and chaos when those crabs hit a populated area,” Nathan said.
“Nothing to worry about. While the three of you were beating back the first crab attack, I saw my chance, snuck out, and reset the controllers to the wrong addresses. They won’t turn anything on, and Larsson doesn’t know enough about how they work to be able to reprogram them.”
“I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that that’s going to really piss him off.”
Gianna smiled. “I was hoping it would.”
Nathan’s face fell. “But then he’ll be coming right back here. And even two-on-one, I don’t like our odds against him in a firefight.”
“And we could face more crabs before that happens.”
Nathan thought a moment. “There are still some lures on the beach. Looks like they were left here because they were damaged. Think you can make one that works?”
“I can try. And I can reset the backup controller here to the right arming address. Why would we want to lure the crabs back here?”
“We wouldn’t. The Park Service skiff is hidden under the dock. We can load the lure and take it out to deeper water. We turn it on and at least we could direct the crabs somewhere away from civilization long enough to set the rest of the world to work killing them.”
“I think that I like that plan.”
“At a minimum, it beats waiting here to be killed by Larsson or a giant crab. Let’s make it happen.”
***
Larsson closed on Garden Key. Through binoculars, the fort looked deserted and far worse for the wear of the giant crab attack. Two crab corpses lay beside the moat. Looked like Valadez had gotten two before the rest got him. Good for Valadez.
From this angle, he couldn’t really see the east beach, but he could see that the island was crab-free. That was good. His plan for a touch-and-go to grab the controller would work just fine.
He looked down to check the radar and noticed a blip for a boat off the key’s southern coast. It was heading northeast, dead on the compass heading for the crab’s underwater den.
That couldn’t be a coincidence. The only boat out here is heading straight for Crab City? Maybe the History Ranger had survived, defeated the radio jamming, and called in help. Then again, he’d never come across Kathy’s body, so maybe she had swum for help. More likely than either scenario, it was some random pleasure boater. But at this point, he wasn’t taking any chances.
First step, make certain his supply of crabs would be uninterrupted. Second step, return to the key for the lure’s controller.
He turned the boat southeast, away from the fort, and prepared to intercept whoever it was trying to throw one last monkey wrench into his plan.
Chapter 35
“Okay, you’re gonna need to give that a rest for a bit,” Marc said.
Kathy was ready to. Her back and arms burned from the constant stoop-and-slosh bailing of the flooding cabin. The engine fumes made her dizzy, and the closed space made her nauseous. But she was barely keeping ahead of the rising water.
“I can’t,” she said.
“Ain’t no choice in it. We gotta get the torpedo in position.”
Kathy set the plastic bowl on the deck and climbed up into the fresh air and sunlight. She really wished she had her hat.
“Now you gotta swing the winch around so the torpedo is nose-first along the starboard side. Once we find the crabs’ den, I’ll circle back around, line the boat up for the shot, and let the fish do the rest.”
It seemed like there had to be more to firing torpedoes than that, but she had to trust that Marc knew what he was doing. He had so far.
She went back to the rear, steadied the torpedo with one hand, and tried to swing the winch around with the other. It didn’t budge.
She gripped the winch with both hands, wedged her feet against the cockpit, and pulled. Still nothing.
“When was the last time you moved this thing?” she asked Marc.
“I move it all the time…or I used to…well, now t
hat I think of it…might have been a while.”
She gripped the winch again, flexed her knees to put her legs into the effort, and pulled. The winch broke free and swung around. She tried to stop it, but the momentum of the heavy torpedo was too great. It slammed sideways against the hull of the boat with a loud boom.
“What are you doing back there?”
Kathy looked over the side. Marc had hung three white, round dock bumpers along the side of the boat. Now the one furthest back looked like a deflated balloon.
“It’s okay. The bumpers saved us. When did you put them out there?”
“While you were bailing. Let me fill you in on Rule #1 from torpedoman school. Never sink your boat with your own torpedo.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” Kathy tied the winch in place with the line from the burst dock bumper. She wasn’t going to take the chance that it might decide to move easier on its own than it had with her assistance.
When she’d finished, she checked over the side and looked down into the water, so clear that she could see over twenty feet down, though through the churn of the boat’s wake everything shimmered. On the sandy bottom, something moved.
She looked closer. It was a giant crab, moving in the opposite direction. Once she recognized the one, it was as if her eyes had been opened. Suddenly, she could see a half dozen spread out across the sea floor.
“Marc, we have a problem down there.”
“Not as big as the one I’m seeing up here.”
She doubted that. She looked up, and she was wrong. A grey Zodiac bore down on them. She grabbed the telescope and trained it on the boat. Larsson’s angry face was unmistakable, as was the rifle slung across his shoulder. The faster Zodiac was closing on the Solitude.
“Do you have any guns aboard?” Kathy asked.
“Never carry one. We got a torpedo, though.”
“That’s not going to help. That’s Larsson. He’s not going to be happy about us trying to screw up his plan.”
“You don’t get back to bailing, we’ll sink before he catches us.”
Kathy looked down into the cabin. The plastic bowl floated on water six inches deep.
“Dammit!” She jumped down and landed on the lower deck with a splash. She snatched the bowl from the water and began bailing furiously.
All their effort and sacrifice was about to be for nothing.
Chapter 36
“There you go, good as new.”
Gianna lifted up a finished lure from the parts she’d scavenged from two. She flipped a switch on the side and a green light illuminated. She flashed a proud smile.
“You didn’t just send an all-crabs-on-deck call did you?” Nathan said.
“No, that only happens when I activate it from the controller. I reset this lure to a unique address and set the controller to that same address. We drop it somewhere deep, scoot away, and turn it on from a distance. Crabs should come running.”
“From how far away?”
“Miles. Sound really travels in water.”
“Something else I learned today. I might turn into the Science Ranger Geek in spite of myself.”
“I don’t get that.”
“Inside joke between me and Larsson. Ready to go play Pied Piper to crabs?”
“Let’s use my skills for good instead of evil.”
Nathan scooped up the controller briefcase and a rifle, and headed to where the skiff was nosed up on the sand. He’d brought it around to the east beach while Gianna worked on the lure. He sat in the skiff’s stern and started the motor. Gianna tossed the lure in the bow, pushed the boat into the water, and climbed in.
Nathan gunned the engine and headed them east away from the fort.
“So is being a park ranger always this exciting?” Gianna said.
“This? This is a slow day. I feel guilty even getting a paycheck if this is all I have to do.”
“Do you think anyone will believe this latest chapter in the history of Fort Jefferson when you tell it?”
“I’m not sure that I believe it, and I’m living it. What about you? Anyone going to believe you when you go back to Silenius Imports and tell them you were kidnapped and then fought off giant crabs?”
“Given all the secret projects they work on, I think they might believe me. But this brush with black operations has convinced me to find a safer line of work.”
“Like cleaning up nuclear waste spills aboard space stations about to crash to Earth?”
“Yes, safer like that.”
Gianna looked over the side of the boat and gasped. She shuffled back to the middle. “We might not need the lure to find crabs.”
Nathan glanced over the stern. The clear, shallow water was about fifteen feet deep. A giant crab crawled by underneath them. Another followed right behind it.
“We got off the beach in time,” Nathan said. “And those crabs prove more are coming. We need to act fast to draw them out into deeper water.”
Far off to port, a boat appeared, low to the water, heading southeast at a faster rate than the skiff. Nathan put the binoculars to his eyes. His heart sank. It looked like the Zodiac Larsson had escaped in.
“Is that a boat over there?” Gianna said. “Help is on the way?”
“If by ‘help’ you mean ‘catastrophic hindrance’ then, yeah, it’s on the way.”
He handed her the binoculars. She trained them on the boat and cursed. “That’s Larsson in that Zodiac. I can see the stack of red and white lures in the back.”
“But the fort is behind us and there’s just open water ahead. Where’s he going in such a hurry?”
Gianna turned around and trained the binoculars ahead. “Wait. There’s a boat out there as well. A power boat, like an old cabin cruiser. Looks like a big winch coming up from the stern.”
“Whoa, that’s Metcalf’s boat. Kathy’s on board. If she’s heading out to sea, she’s got a plan to stop this disaster. And if Larsson is racing to intercept, he’s worried she might succeed.”
“She and this Metcalf can hold Larsson off?”
“Metcalf’s probably an octogenarian, and Kathy’s unarmed. I paint their situation as bleak. We’re fast enough to catch up with Metcalf’s boat, but the Zodiac will get there long before we do.”
Too far away to help, but close enough to see Kathy die. After all he’d been through, it couldn’t end like that.
Chapter 37
“Wait!” Gianna said. “I have an idea.”
She put the controller briefcase on her lap and popped it open. She raised a small panel door in the lower corner and reset some pin switches. The panel dropped back down with a click and the buttons of the controller lit up.
“Are you going to set off our lure?”
“Nah.” She pointed the briefcase toward the speeding Zodiac. “I’ll reset the addresses to the other lures. I’m going to set off his.”
***
Larsson saw a second, smaller blip appear on his radar to the southwest. He cast a quick glance in that direction, but nothing caught his eye. He returned his focus to the cabin cruiser dead ahead. He trained his binoculars on the boat’s cockpit. There was no mistaking it. That bitch park ranger had somehow gotten on board the boat.
Well, that was just going to make this even more fun. Finally, everything was coming up Larsson.
Something buzzed behind him. He turned to see one of the lures at the bottom of the pile vibrating. Its solid green light now flashed. He looked at his controller. The lights were still red.
“How the hell…?”
He gave the lure a kick. It kept humming.
“First I couldn’t turn one on, now I can’t turn one off. Of all the malfunctioning crap…”
He realized he needed to get the thing off his boat before crabs began to congregate at the signal. He stepped away from the wheel and yanked the lure out from the bottom of the pile. He heaved it as far away from the boat as possible. It sailed through the air, end over end.
Just before it
hit the water, a huge claw broke the surface and snapped it in half.
A second, and then a third lure began to buzz and flash at his feet. His heart leaped into his throat. He’d be crab food before he got all of them overboard.
He turned back to the controls and jammed the throttle against the forward stop, though the engine was already wide open. He glanced over the starboard side. A crab scrambled along the sea floor. Off to port, another scurried through the sand.
The rest of the lures went active. The pile sounded like a hive of furious wasps.
The crabs couldn’t swim. At least he was pretty sure, based on the CIA documents, that they couldn’t swim. He needed to get to deeper water. He just didn’t know where that was. All the waters around the Keys seemed to randomly get shallow.
He clicked on the depth finder. The red number read fifteen feet. He’d need way more than that. Other crabs joined the chase after the Zodiac.
The depth finder flashed red. The number changed to ten, then nine, then eight.
“Oh, hell.” Larsson spun the wheel.
Larsson’s turn was too late. A crab burst up out of the sea straight ahead. It screamed a hiss like escaping steam. One claw swept across the sea and hit the Zodiac square on the side. The little boat went airborne and launched Larsson into the water. He went under.
Underwater, he couldn’t hear the lures, but he could feel them. With so many so close, the water vibrated all around him.
The weight of the rifle across his back dragged him down. He struggled to pull it over his head. His feet touched sand and he finally freed himself. He reached to swim for the surface, his lungs begging for air.
A crab stared him down from a foot away. Panic froze him in place.
Claws slashed through the sea. Blue water turned blood red, and then everything went dark.
***
From the skiff, it looked like the Zodiac disappeared in an explosion of white water and giant claws. Crabs crawled all over the wreckage in the shallows, a melee of one on top of the other. Even at this distance, the unnerving clack of legs against shells filled the air.
Claws Page 12