Deep Fathom (43 page)

Cortez rubbed his eyes. “Is there any more data?”

“I'm not sure. That's all they sent me. But I can find out.”

“How?”

She typed in Gabriel's code on the computer keyboard. Almost immediately, a voice came over the speakers.
“How may I help you, Dr. Grace?”

“Who is that?” Cortez asked.

“No one…really.” Karen directed her attention back to the computer. “Gabriel, I need to contact the
Deep Fathom
.”

“Of course. Right away.”

The connection whirred through to the distant ship, and a small video window bloomed in the screen's corner. Miyuki's face flickered into existence. “Karen?”

“I have Dr. Cortez with me. He's willing to help.”

Miyuki vanished from the camera's view for a few moments, then Jack and Charlie appeared. Introductions were quickly made.

“Do either of you have any recommendations?” Cortez asked. “I can get the information to the right people, but what then? From the data, I can only assume we must find a way to block the solar storm's bombardment from reaching the main deposit. That leaves few options.”

Jack nodded. “We've been discussing it. The easiest method is to shield the pillar. Bury it, seal it in a lead box, something like that. But I don't know if either is feasible in the narrow time frame. If this can't be done, then we take our chances and adjust the explosives to a specific focused charge, aimed at cracking the pillar from its base.”

Cortez frowned. “But the kinetic energy from the blast—”

“We know, but like I said, it's our
second
option. And it's better than doing nothing because there's only one option after that.”

“And what might that be?”

“We kiss our asses good-bye.”

Cortez's face grew grim.

Charlie spoke into the silence. “I'll keep working with the crystal, see if I can come up with anything else.” But he didn't sound hopeful.

Jack continued, “That leaves only one other obstacle—Spangler. I can't risk leaving Karen over there any longer
than necessary. Once word reaches David that you're going behind his back, her life won't be worth a plug nickel. We need to make sure she's out of there before Spangler finds out what we're doing.”

Cortez frowned. “That'll be difficult. Tomorrow morning they're evacuating the station as a safety precaution before they blow the explosives. I already checked on the departure schedule. Karen and I are the last to leave, along with Spangler.”

Karen moved in front of the camera. “And after today's incident, I doubt Spangler will let me out of his sight tomorrow.”

“Then it looks like we'll need your help again, Professor Cortez. My ship is a half day out from your perimeter. Once close enough, I'll dive down in my own submersible. From there, we'll need to coordinate sneaking Karen out from under that man's nose.”

“I'll do my best. I'll show Dr. Grace everything I know about the Neptune, and we'll come up with some sort of game plan.”

Jack nodded. “I'll contact you when I'm en route.”

Somewhere behind Karen, a hatch clanged shut. Both she and Cortez jumped. “Someone's coming,” Karen hissed. She faced the screen. “We have to sign off.”

Jack stared back at her. “I'll see you tomorrow.”

Karen touched the screen as the line went dead.

Cortez slipped out the DVD disk and pocketed it. “I'll get on the wire as soon as I settle you back in your room. By morning it will be a whole new day. We'll get through this—both you and the world.”

Karen grinned, finding a twinge of hope. She remembered Jack's last words:
I'll see you tomorrow
. She meant to hold him to that promise.

“You were right, sir,” Rolfe said, pulling off his radio headpiece.

Huddled in his cabin, David yanked off his own headphones. The two, with topside assistance from Jeffreys, had eavesdropped on the covert transmission to Kirkland's ship. David threw his radio headpiece across the room. “The bastard's still alive. The next time I see Kirkland, I'm going to shove a grenade up his ass. Make sure he stays dead.”

“Yes, sir. What are your orders?”

David leaned back in the chair and folded his fingers across his stomach. He had heard only the last portion of the conversation. Jeffreys, the team's communication expert, had kept a close ear to the wire and knew when the connection was made, but the damn thing had been cleverly encrypted. By the time Jeffreys decoded it, the conversation was ending. Still, David had heard enough. The group was planning to sabotage the site and free the woman.

“Sir?”

David cleared his throat, arranging a plan in his head. “We keep quiet. Let them think they've won.”

“Then when do we act?”

“Once we know Kirkland's on his way here. Away from his ship. Isolated.” He sat up. “Then we end it. You take his ship, jam all communication, and leave Jack to me. As long as I have the woman, he'll come to us.”

Rolfe nodded. “Very good, sir. But what about Cortez?”

David grinned, unfolding his hands. “It seems we still have a bit of housecleaning to do tonight.”

Grumbling, Cortez climbed down the ladder to the docking level.

The lowest tier was divided into three sections: the large docking bay; the pump room, with its quad of six-hundred-pound hydraulic ram pumps; and a small control room with neighboring storage facilities, called “garages.” The DSU's armored suits were currently stored here.

Cortez crossed to the control panel. The board was automated. Push one button and the whole docking procedure would run smoothly. The bay would pressurize to match the outside water. Once done, the doors would open, allowing a sub egress or ingress; then the doors would close again.

Or so the blueprints suggested.

After dropping Karen off in her cabin, he had been informed by one of his technicians that there was a problem with the docking board. He thought about leaving it to one of the technicians, but no one knew the Neptune's systems as well as he did. And with a call out already to his friend at Los Alamos, he was full of nervous energy.

Crouching by the control panel, Cortez slipped out a tool kit and quickly had the board open. The problem was easy enough to discover. One of the pumps had burned out a fuse. A minor problem. The docking bay could still function with the three remaining pumps, but it would slow things down.

Cursing the nuisance, Cortez made sure his toolbox held the proper fuses and entered the empty bay. The two subs—the
Perseus
and the
Argus
—were currently topside. In preparation for tomorrow's evacuation of the sea base, both subs were being dry-docked and examined. Empty, the bay looked like a large warehouse, the walls lined by thick water pipes.

Toolbox in hand, he crossed toward the far side. It was a simple repair.

As he walked, he sensed that he wasn't alone. Some primitive intuition of danger tingled his nerves. He slowed and turned, saw movement outside the bay door, a twitch of shadows.

His heart thundered in his chest. “Who's there?”

He studied the door and the tiny observation window over the control station. No one answered. No one moved. Maybe it had been his imagination.

Slowly, he turned and continued walking toward the screw plate on the far side of the room. Already on edge, his nerves jangled warnings. His ears were keen to the smallest noises. All he heard was his own footsteps.

As he neared the far wall, a loud clang rang across the bay. He gasped with shock. With his heart now in his throat, he swung around. The bay's hatch was closed. He watched the latches wheel tight.

“Hey!” he hollered. “I'm in here!”

He dropped the toolbox, pushed up his glasses and hurried across the bay. What if he got locked down here all night? The others were counting on him.

Halfway across, he heard a high-pitched hissing from overhead. He looked up in horror. He knew every inch of this place, every sound and wheeze of the great station. “Oh, God…no!”

The docking procedure had been engaged. The room was pressurizing.

He ran toward the door. He had to let someone know he was in here. Then movement caught his eye. Through the observation window, a head came into view. Cortez knew that face and its twisted, condescending smirk.

Spangler.

This was no accident. Cortez stumbled to a stop. Already, the pressure grew in his ears. Unchecked, it would build to match the outside depths—over a thousand pounds per square inch.

Cortez spun. Spangler must have been the one who had damaged the pump's fuse—a trap to lure him down here. His only hope was to disable the remaining pumps' engines. If he could remove the other three fuses…

He crossed toward the far wall and the abandoned toolbox. As he did, the pressure climbed in the room. It was getting hard to breathe. His vision narrowed. Gasping, he struggled onward.

Pain exploded in his head as his eardrums ruptured. He cried out, his hands flailing up, knocking his eyeglasses off. Blood ran down his neck.

And still the pressure built.

Stumbling, his vision dimmed; lights danced at the edges. Falling to his knees, he fought for breath. He collapsed to one hand, then another, as the pressure crushed him. Unable to breathe, he rolled to his side and fell. On his back, he was
blind now, his eyes forced too deep into their bony sockets.

His fingers scrabbled at the floor, begging for mercy.

The large weight on his chest continued to grow. A flood of fire pained him as his ribs began to break, collapsing, ripping lungs that could no longer expand. And still the weight grew.

He quit struggling, releasing control. His wife, Maria, had given her life to the Neptune project before she died. It was somehow fitting that it should take his life, too.

Maria…honey…I love you.

Then at last, as if sighing out a final breath, his consciousness fled and darkness took him.

Through the observation window, David stared out at the sprawled and broken body of the former research leader. He watched the man's skull implode under the pressure, brain matter splattering out. As a diver, he had always known such a danger was faced by all who challenged the depths. But to witness it firsthand…

David turned away, swallowing back a twinge of queasiness. Horrible.

Rolfe stood by the control board. “Sir?”

“Flush this toilet.”

His second-in-command obeyed, flooding the bay.

Admiral Houston stood on the stern deck of the destroyer, the USS
Hickman
. Dawn had yet to rise, but to the south, fires raged, lighting the entire horizon.

He had never seen the ocean burn.

The nuclear strikes had been clean and decisive, destroying missile and air support installations along the blockade's front. Batan, Senkaku Shoto, Lu wan: unknown to most of the world, these tiny outlying islands would soon become synonymous with Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

Already, American forces were moving in to shatter the remaining blockade.

But not the
Hickman
. It was limping with the wounded back to the refuge of Okinawa. His right arm in a cast, Houston was counted among the injured. He had survived the sinking of the
Gibraltar
, escaping the ship just before the rain of missiles had torn her apart. Many had not. The dead and missing numbered in the thousands, including the C.O. of the ship and much of his command staff.

As he stood, he silently spoke their names…those he knew. There were so many more he did not.

“Sir, you shouldn't be out here,” a lieutenant said softly at his side. The young Hispanic officer had been assigned as his aide. “We're all supposed to be belowdecks.”

“Don't worry. We're far enough away by now.”

“The Captain—”

“Lieutenant,” he warned sternly.

“Yes, sir.” The young man fell silent, stepping back.

Houston felt a chill morning breeze slip through his loose flight jacket. With his arm in a sling, he couldn't zip the jacket fully. He shivered against the cold. They would be reaching Naha on Okinawa within the hour, just as the sun rose. From there he was scheduled to ship back to the States.

Slowly, the fiery devastation sank beyond the horizon, becoming a fading glow. Dull booms occasionally echoed over the waters.

Houston finally turned his back. “I'm ready to go below,” he said tiredly.

The lieutenant nodded, offering an arm of support just as a klaxon blared. Both men froze. Radar warning. Incoming missile.

Then Houston heard it. A whistling roar.

The lieutenant grabbed his good arm, meaning to drag the admiral to the closest hatch.

He shook off the grip. “It's heading away.”

As proof, the fiery trail arced high across the night sky, aiming north over the ship.

“An M-11,” Houston noted, moving to the starboard rail with the lieutenant in tow.

As they followed its course, another missile joined the flaming display…then another. The new rockets rose from the west, from China. Though coming from different directions, Houston could guess their target. Okinawa lay directly ahead. “Oh, God…”

“What is it?”

To the northeast new fireworks joined the show. A dozen thin flames streaked upward into the night, on intercept
courses. The bevy of Patriot II missiles whistled skyward, like bottle rockets on the Fourth of July.

One of the Chinese missiles was struck a glancing blow. Its fiery arc became a tumbling fall, flaming out and disappearing. But the other two continued their course, vanishing over the dark horizon.

“What's happening?” the lieutenant asked.

Houston just stared.

At first there was no sound. Just a flash of light, as if the sun itself had exploded beyond the horizon.

The lieutenant backed away.

A low sound flowed over the water, like thunder under the sea. At the horizon, the brilliant light coalesced down upon itself, forming a pair of glowing clouds, sitting at the edge of the world. Slowly, too slowly, they rolled skyward, pushed up atop fiery stalks. Brilliant hues glowed from the hearts of the caldrons: fiery oranges, magentas, dark roses.

Houston closed his eyes.

The blast wave, even from so far off, struck the
Hickman
like a hammer, burning Houston from the deck before even a last prayer could be uttered.

Dressed in an insulated dry suit, Jack climbed into the
Nautilus
as it bobbed in the small waves behind the stern of his ship. He wiggled himself down into the pilot's seat and began running through one last systems check.

He knew it probably wasn't necessary, and the press of time weighed upon him, but he used the routine to settle himself. He would not fail. He must not fail.

All night long, as the
Deep Fathom
continued to steam toward the site where Air Force One had crashed, his crew had labored at readying the sub for the long trek: charging the main batteries, topping off the oxygen tanks, changing the filters to the carbon dioxide scrubbers, lubricating the thruster assemblies. With a fresh wax and polish, it could've passed for new.

But it was all necessary. Today, Jack was about to take the
Nautilus
on its longest trip yet.

An hour ago the
Fathom
had dropped anchor on the lee side of a small island, no bigger than a baseball field. It lay some twenty nautical miles from the crash site. Jack's plan was to sneak the sub in as close as possible, then coordinate with Dr. Cortez and Karen on a plan to free her from the sea base. It would take impeccable timing.

Jack gave a thumbs-up to Robert, who lowered the acrylic dome and used a portable power drill to screw the O-rings tight. This was normally Charlie's job, but he had been holed up in his lab all night, working with the crystal.

Robert patted the side of the sub, the usual two-thump signal that it was okay to dive. Jack nodded to the marine biologist. Robert laid a palm atop the dome, silently wishing him good luck, then dove off the sub.

Jack glanced back. His entire crew had gathered along the stern rail. Even Elvis stood by Lisa's side, the old dog's tail slowly wagging.

He saluted them all, then hit a button, sucking ballast water into the empty tanks on either side. The submersible slowly sank. As the waterline rose over the dome, he felt a twinge of misgiving. He dismissed it as the usual predive jitters, but in his heart he knew that this time it was more.

In six hours the mother of all solar storms was going to strike the Earth—and if he and the others failed, it wouldn't matter if Karen were rescued or not.

Jack let the sub sink under its own weight. He could have descended faster under thruster power, but he had to reserve his batteries. Around him the water turned a midnight-blue as he aimed for the fifty meter mark. Once there, he gave the thrusters the tiniest juice to push the
Nautilus
into a gentle glide, aiming away from the tiny island and out into open sea.

Slowly, the sub sank into twilight…
one hundred meters
…then full night…150.

Jack kept the ship's xenon lamps switched off, preserving the batteries, guiding himself through the black waters with the computer alone. The region had been mapped by sonar
when the
Fathom
first arrived and the information loaded into the sub's navigation. He would switch to active sonar once he was near the bottom. He had also ordered radio silence between himself and the ship, maintaining as much stealth as possible.

Two hundred meters
…small pinpoints of light began to appear. Bioluminescent plankton and other tiny multicelled bits of life.

Jack enjoyed the display. Even here, life found a way to survive. The sight gave him a flicker of hope.

Four hundred meters
. He finally switched on the sub's sonar for the final approach to the seabed. Where he was headed, it was too dangerous to fly blind. He watched both the analog depth meter and the sonar readings. With the deftest touches he manipulated the foot pedals to make tiny course corrections.

He watched the numbers climb.
Five hundred meters
. Finally, he thumbed the switch, and twin spears of light shot forward, penetrating the gloom, illuminating the landscape below.

Jack pushed a pedal and tilted the sub on its side, surveying the terrain below him. It was as perfect as he had hoped, the seabed maze of deep canyons. The section of broken landscape beneath him led all the way to the crash site. The plan was for him to use the sheltering cover to mask his approach, similar to the way he had used the sunken ruins to sneak up on David's cutter. However, this time he hoped the end result would improve. Before, he had come back empty-handed.

As the depth gauge approached the six hundred meter mark, Jack angled the sub into a wide canyon between two ridges. He slowed his speed, balancing out his ballast to neutral buoyancy.

Ready, he engaged the thrusters and began the long winding journey.

The walls to either side were covered with clams and mussels, anemones and deep-sea coral. Lobsters and crabs worked around the boulders, waving and clacking claws at the stranger in their midst. Other life fled from his lights:
schools of silver-bellied fish darted in unison and vanished in a blink, bloodred octopi swept away in panicked clouds of murky ink, and winged black skates shuffled deeper into the silt.

Momentarily awed by the marine life around him, Jack continued gliding along the canyon. Over the next hour, using his sonar and compass, he navigated the maze as best he could, wending a zigzag path.

Circling around a seamount, he dove into a long narrow canyon. It was perfect. Side channels and offshoots branched away, but ahead was a straight shot to his target.

He checked his watch.
Four hours till noon
. He was cutting it close. Gunning the thrusters, he shot into the channel. It was this sudden burst of speed that saved his life as the rock wall to his right suddenly exploded.

Caught from behind, the sub's stern catapulted upward, flipping the
Nautilus
end over end and slamming it into the far cliff.

Jack gasped, his head cracking against the dome. The
Nautilus
scraped down the rockface, rolling. A sickening metallic scrunch sounded as something tore away from the sub's undercarriage. One of the xenon lamps burst with an audible pop, casting shards of thick glass.

He fought to keep his seat, praying for the inner shell of titanium and bulletproof acrylic to maintain its integrity. Even a single seam rupture at these depths would implode the sub in a nanosecond, crushing the life from him.

Working the foot pedals, he righted the sub. His visibility was zero as he hovered in a cloud of silt and sand. Through his hydrophones, a hollow tumble of rock sounded behind him. Looking over his shoulder, he could just make out a collapsed wall of boulders.

He craned his neck up. Beyond the top of the seamounts the silt cloud was clearing as swifter currents swept it away.

Overhead, he spotted his attacker.

Another sub circled like a shark. Cigar-shaped with stubby wings, it prowled along, hunting. He knew this vessel.

The
Perseus
—the Navy's newest submersible, as deadly
as she was sleek. The admiral had shown him the specs on the night of the sabotage. She was twice the vessel the
Nautilus
was: quicker, able to dive deeper, more maneuverable. But worst of all—she had teeth.

Jack spotted the dorsal fin of this titanium Great White.

A stacked array of minitorpedoes.

With a twitch, Jack flicked off the remaining lamp of his sub. Darkness collapsed over him. Through the murk above, a weak beam of light sought him out, circling and circling overhead.

The hungry predator hunted its trapped prey.

Charlie paced the small confines of his lab, mumbling to himself. “The idea could work….” He had run the calculations over and over again, and tested the crystal several more times.

Still, he remained unconvinced. Theory was one thing. Before he was ready to commit to his plan, he wanted to consult with Dr. Cortez at the sea base. But time was running out, and Charlie had no way of checking in with the geophysicist. They were dependent on the sea base calling there.

Leaning back over the computer, he tapped a button, and a three-dimensional globe of the Earth appeared on the monitor. A hundred small X's orbited the planet. They moved slowly in a complex ballet. Off to the left a radiating wavefront of tiny lines edged minutely toward the center of the screen, toward Earth. It marked the front edge of the solar storm blowing their way. Charlie checked the upper right-hand corner, where a little clock was counting down the time until collision with the upper atmosphere.

Four hours.

The dance of X's around the globe were based on real-time data from the Marshall Space Flight Center, monitoring the incoming wavefront and extrapolating how it might affect
the satellites in orbit.

Charlie placed his finger on one of the small X's.

A knock on his door interrupted him. Lisa said, “Charlie, we have a call from Karen.”

Charlie straightened with relief. “Thank God! It's about bloody time,
mon
!” He popped the disk of his latest data from the computer's zip drive and dashed out the door.

He found Lisa and Miyuki gathered in front of the professor's portable supercomputer. He immediately sensed the tension in the room. Neither woman looked happy.

“What's wrong?” he asked Lisa, coming around the table.

On the screen, Karen had heard him and answered, “I was calling to see if you had heard from Dr. Cortez.”

Charlie bent in front of the camera. “What do you mean? Why not ask him yourself?”

“Because this morning I'd heard he'd gone topside during the night, and I've heard no word since. I had hoped he contacted you.”

“No. Not a word.” Charlie assimilated the information. “I don't like this. With Dr. Cortez AWOL, maybe we'd better rethink things on our own. Just in case. Jack's already left in the sub. I'll patch you to the
Nautilus
so you two can coordinate on getting your ass out of there.”