What Lurks Beneath (33 page)

“I
might know what Mack has,” Rabinowitz said, shouting over the drone of the engine.

He sat beside Sturman on one of the bench seats in the pontoon boat, opposite Val and Eric. The vessel was almost identical to the one Mack had rented, but in much worse shape. It had been anchored in a shallow private lagoon. Clive had found the keys in a shed near the house onshore, and taken them without bothering to see if the “friend” who owned it was home. He was now at the helm.

“What do you mean?” Val said. She thought Rabinowitz was doing quite well for someone struck by lightning a day before, having only received minor burns and gone briefly unconscious. He'd come reluctantly when Sturman called him. Wits was another Navy guy, and a technology and weapons expert. He might know how to disarm a device, if Mack actually had one down there.

“Tell her, Wits,” Sturman said. “All of it.”

Rabinowitz rubbed his face. “Well, you said he might have found a Navy ROV twelve or thirteen years ago. Our testing facility supposedly lost one around that time. And its rumored payload was what we called a DCD. Short for ‘Deployable Cavitation Device.'”

“What did it do?” Val said.

“I really shouldn't be telling you this.”

“Please, Tom. We need to know.”

He winced as ocean spray came over the side and wet his face. “It was supposed to be some bad-ass sort of sonic weapon. But I never worked with one, or even saw one used. I wasn't even sure it was real.”

Eric said, “The Navy actually lost an ROV, and a weapon attached to it?”

“They were both experimental. The details are classified, but rumor has it the ROV's guidance system failed after it retrieved a DCD, during a test run near the Andros wall. Nobody knew where the submersible ended up. But it disappeared in relatively shallow water—just a few hundred feet. Since we never found it, some of the brass supposedly suspected it had been stolen.”

“Cavitation,” Val shouted. “Isn't that what happens when a boat propeller generates bubbles underwater?”

Wits nodded. “Water produces more friction than air, so drag creates vapor cavities on fast-moving objects underwater. Basically, lots of small bubbles. Supercavitation technology has actually been in use for years, to address this problem. It allows our torpedoes to travel hundreds of miles per hour, by producing streams of bubbles from their noses that surround them in a coating of air. Presto. No friction.”

“But it can also be used as a weapon?” Eric said.

“The idea is to use sonar itself to destroy things. A cavitation weapon requires two or more devices, set a few hundred feet apart, which create acoustic beams. At their intersection, the beams generate an intense pressure bubble and incredible heat. With enough power, you can essentially use pure acoustic energy to destroy targets.”

“Seriously?” Sturman shouted.

“Seriously. I won't say much more, other than that this technology is real. But the DCD was only a rumor. Because it supposedly could create a destructive cavitation field all by itself, without the need for another device. It supposedly somehow overcame that, with two closely joined emission devices that could merge their beams effectively, even from a narrow angle.”

Clive slowed the motor. “We almost dere.”

 

 

Mack moved deeper into the cavern. In the beam of his dive light, he could see that here it became a sideways fissure, a split in the ancient limestone that ran laterally off the main shaft.

Arming the weapon had been simple enough. Years ago, back when Breck had brought the deceptively heavy device ashore that night, they'd spent some time looking it over, their beers on the ground beside it. Breck said he'd help set one before, as a Navy freelancer, but had never seen it actually go off. It had a benign enough appearance, consisting of twin toaster-oven-sized cylinders of metal affixed to one another, side-by-side, the way double air tanks are mounted for diving. But Breck had explained it was a state-of-the-art deployable weapon.

When at the inland blue hole a week later, he'd showed Mack how it worked. It operated off a digital timer, and was intended to be set stationary, by an ROV or Navy divers, and directed at its target—in that case, the far side of the blue hole they'd brought it into. Fifty feet under, they'd placed it on a ledge and set the timer for fifteen minutes, and then quickly surfaced. For good reason. When it had gone off, sending a sonic pressure wave against the far wall, there had been no loud detonation. But a small tsunami rose from within the hole when a submarine slab of rock blasted free on the other side of the pool, displacing the water around it.

Apparently, the device was designed to destroy mines and bridge supports, or rupture ship hulls. All using sonic waves.

 

 

Mack needed to hurry. He'd already been down for almost an hour, and this time he'd set the timer at the surface—for ninety minutes—in case something happened to him before he could complete his mission. He'd figured it would give him time to get down here, to find the beast's lair. To position the device. But not so much time that others might have the chance to figure out what happened, follow him down here if he didn't come back.

He knew he might not have enough time to safely resurface. But that was okay, as long as he found the den first, and the device still had enough power to fire one last time.

He had some idea what an octopus's midden would look like, or the pile of debris it might create outside its lair. He'd seen what must have been older ones on DORA's recordings from deep in the bottom of this pit. He hoped the old whore hadn't laid her eggs deep down there, where he couldn't reach, since he still hadn't been able to locate the new den. If he couldn't find it before the timer ran out, he'd decided he'd just find a ledge, and aim the device down the center of the main shaft, then swim like hell for the boat.

The resort schematics had provided exact coordinates for the mouth of the outflow pipe, and using a GPS to estimate where it would be before he entered the water, he'd located it in a side tunnel branching off the Bottomless Blue Hole. One they hadn't been in before. The metal grate that had guarded its opening had been torn free and lay ten feet away, on the bottom of the cavern, now bent and twisted. He'd sucked in a breath of air, a single thought entering his mind then:

He'd started at the end of the pipe, and began to search carefully through the darkness. The light would betray him, but at least he was wearing a rebreather, to give him extra bottom time and not give off air bubbles that would reveal him too soon.

Now, after investigating two smaller tunnels that yielded nothing, he entered the broad horizontal fissure. He moved slowly, taking deep, measured breaths. He stopped.

Ahead of him was a barricade of rock, with a cinder block and some other rubbish resting on top. The objects were free of excessive barnacles or other growth, which could only mean they'd been added recently. He finned toward the rock pile, clutching the heavy device in both hands. Underwater, its weight was manageable. But it dragged at him, trying to pull him down deeper.

When he reached the berm-like heap, he set the device down and pulled himself over the rubble, staying low, on his belly, like a soldier peering out at the enemy from a foxhole. At the crest, he took a deep breath, preparing himself, and shined his light over the top, into the darkness.

He'd found it.

There was no octopus looking back at him in his beam of light, no great tentacles squirming inside the protected nook, but what he was seeing he'd never seen before. Nobody had. He knew he was looking at the brood of something enormous. Looking at her spawn.

He swept the light around the cavern, which was about the size of a basement. He waited. Nothing happened. But he knew she might still be here.

He was as sure as he could be that she wasn't inside. It was time. He steeled himself for the crush of her tentacles as he lifted the weapon off the bottom and dragged it over the embankment. Moving to the edge of the nearest targets, he shoved the device into a recess in the rock, where it would be less visible, and directed its business end toward them.

He checked the timer one last time. It was still counting down steadily:

31:46 . . . 31:45 . . . 31:44 . . .

He turned away from it and kicked for the shaft. He cleared the barricade and covered another twenty feet, forty, sixty. Swimming down the broad, flat-ceilinged tunnel as fast as his crippled leg would allow. Nothing grabbed him. Finally, he saw a bright light ahead. He was nearing the main shaft.

He checked his air supply. He still had plenty to make it back. He could even make a safety stop. He hadn't even considered what he'd do if he made it out of here. He'd have to run, because the US government would be after him. Maybe he'd spend a few years in South America, or the Virgin Islands. He smiled at a thought: Maybe he wouldn't be seeing Breck anytime soon, after all.

The thought quickly faded. Because he
wouldn't
be seeing Breck again. Not ever. To see him again, there would have to be a heaven. A God. After seeing what had happened to his friends, even to his enemies, in the war, how could he believe there was a God?

He heard something. Something artificial. A clanging, a ceaseless ringing, resonating down through the dim water.

Mack knew immediately what it was. A sound he'd heard so many times, one that carried well underwater, and that he'd often made himself to get the attention of other divers. Someone was here. In or above the shaft of the hole. They were trying to get his attention. And his niece likely was with them.

It was too late, though. The device was set to go off in less than thirty minutes. He didn't know how to stop it.

“Y
ou're sure this is it?” Val said.

Clive looked down through the waves with the experienced eyes of a fisherman. He nodded at her from the helm. “Dis is it.”

She glanced over the bow of the small fishing boat. The boat was rocking slowly, deeply, from their exposure to large waves at the reef edge. She couldn't make out the mouth of the blue hole—only darker and lighter blotches below them. She hoped Clive was right. She was an experienced diver, but she had no idea how anyone could identify dive locations by peering down through the waves.

They were idling just above the edge of the darker water, where the turquoise colors reflected off the shallower sand flats and corals of the island shelf began to fall away into the sharp blue edge of the mile-deep trench. The visibility seemed good, for now. The rain had stopped the previous evening, but the new volume of freshwater on the island might find its way into this hole, to be expelled while they were down there.

“Is this really a good idea?” Eric said, pausing to rest. He stood knee-deep on the swim ladder lowered off the starboard side, slamming a lead weight against a scuba tank hung underwater. He'd started as soon as they arrived, upon her instruction, as the others assembled the dive gear. She wanted Mack to know they were here. Maybe by some miracle he'd stop whatever he was doing and come up.

Val looked back at Eric, then at the others: Sturman, Clive, and Wits. Above the men a torn Bahamian flag stood sideways in the stiff breeze. She gently touched her belly, and then pulled her hand away. She took a deep breath.

“I don't expect anyone else to go, but that's my uncle down there. I don't have a choice.”

Sturman said, “Neither do I.”

But of course he would come. She knew that, in his own way, he loved her. Loved her more than anything, or anyone. The man had many faults, but cowardice and lack of loyalty were not among them. She couldn't say anything to him, not now, or he would never let her go down there.

Val guessed that her uncle had wanted to find the octopus by following it where it had left through the outflow pipe. That's what she would have done. But the tank at Oceanus had been blocked off, the pipe sealed. The entire area would have been guarded all night. He couldn't have gone that way. Mack did have schematics, though—schematics that showed right where the pipe led. So he'd taken the boat here instead.

Clive had assured them that the buried outflow pipe, which ran out from the edge of the island, emerged in a side cavern off the massive underwater hole beneath them now. He knew the men who had helped install it.

“I should come,” Eric said, looking down. “Mack probably wouldn't even be doing this if it wasn't for me.”

Val said, “Don't be ridiculous, Eric. You're not even a certified diver.” She placed a hand on his shoulder. “It's okay.”

He leaned down into the water and resumed clanging on the tank with the heavy weight.

“Wits will be coming too,” Sturman said. “If that weapon's down there, and it's armed, he has the best shot of knowing how to stop it.”

Val said, “But he's still hurt.”

“Bullshit,” Sturman said. “He's fine.”

Wits glanced at the nearby naval vessel, ran his hand through his close-cropped brown hair. “Man, I don't know. I'm already putting myself in a very bad position. You know what will happen if my CO catches me messing around with stolen naval weapons? I shouldn't even be out here.”

Mack's vessel now appeared to be tied off to the Navy warship, which still sat in deep water a half mile out. Rising from its deck was a soaring mast platform, stabilized by scaffolding and bristling with radar housings, antennae, and weather gauges. An American flag waved behind it. Clive had said Mack's boat had been adrift. Abandoned. Either Mack had been in a real hurry, or he'd never planned to come back.

Sturman stopped attaching a regulator to his tank. He would be using a standard A-clamp, not ideal for cave diving because of the risk it could dislodge, but since they had no other caving rigs he didn't have a choice. He looked at Wits. “You owe me,” he said.

“But what if it's down there, that thing—”

“You're coming, goddammit.”

“But—” He looked down at his feet, then shook his head and took a deep breath. “Jesus. Then I'm bringing a bang stick. Who else wants one?” He reached into his gear bag and produced a short, dark rod.

“Are you kidding?” Sturman said. “You're more likely to hurt yourself or one of us. That will only piss off this thing.”

Val had never used one, but knew what Rabinowitz held in his right hand. A twelve-gauge shotgun shell was loaded into the tip, and a pressure trigger on the front made it go off, point blank, into whatever it contacted underwater. A crude but effective weapon. Macho divers used to use them to kill sharks, back when the big fish had a bad reputation. She hadn't seen one in years.

She sat down to strap on her tank. “He's right. Leave it here. We need to focus on finding Mack.”

“Screw you guys. I'm bringing it. There's one more if you want it.”

Sturman, rigging a BC vest to another air tank, shook his head.

Clive said, “I'll go without.”

“You're coming, Clive?” Val said. “You know you don't have to.”

He looked afraid, but smiled. “Mr. Wits gonna need a buddy. Keep him from shootin' himself.”

Val considered for a moment, rubbing at the talisman now tied around her neck. “I guess it makes sense for us to split up. Wits, you and Sturman can't go together, since you both have the best shot at deactivating a classified military weapon.” She knew Sturman wouldn't let anyone else go down with her anyway.

“I'm sorry,” Eric said, gasping for air. “I wish I could do something—”

“Really, it's okay, Eric,” Val said. “We need someone to stay with the boat. Move it away from the top of this hole, maybe two hundred meters. Just in case. If anyone comes over here, you need to tell them we're down there. And keep banging on that tank as long as you can.”

“Val, they see us,” Sturman said. “They're coming.”

She followed his gaze. Beside the Navy frigate, several sailors were boarding an armed rubber assault boat.

She said, “Everyone in the water. Now.”