Deep Fathom (4 page)

The temperature gauge began to climb again:
110…120…130…

He stopped looking.

“Jack…the readings…”

“I know. I'm just going to take a closer look at the ship. No risks.”

“At least replace your Bio-Sensor clip so I can monitor you.”

Jack wiped sweat from his eyes and sighed. “Okay, Mother.” He slipped the sensor to his earlobe. “Happy now?”

“Ecstatic. Now don't kill yourself.”

Jack heard the worry behind her light words. “Just keep one of those Heinekens in the cooler for me.”

“Will do.”

As he neared the seabed, Jack lowered the sub behind the wreck's stern and edged toward the open rear hold. The giant prop and screw dwarfed his vehicle. Even here life thrived. The old hull, draped in runnels of rust, had become an artificial reef for mussels and coral.

Clearing the keel, he spun the sub and aimed his lights into the hold. He glanced at the temperature reading.
One forty
. At least the rising heat had stabilized in the shadow of the ship's bulk. Beyond the dark ship, the seas radiated a fierce crimson, as if an abysmal sun were rising nearby. Jack ignored the heat, his back and seat now slick in his neoprene
suit.

Lifting the sub's nose, he pointed the xenon lamps into the heart of the dark hold. Two large eyes glared back at him from the hold's cavern.

His heart jumped. “What the hell…?”

Then the monster was upon him. It sprang out of its man-made den. Long, sinuous, silver. The sea serpent shot toward him. Mouth open in a silent scream of rage.

Jack gasped, scrambling for the controls to the sub's hydraulic manipulator arms. He waved the titanium arms, trying to defend himself, but mostly just flailing in his shock.

At the last moment the creature shied from his frantic waving and flashed past him. Jack watched its long silver-scaled body rush past like a sinewy locomotive. It had to be at least seventy feet long. His tiny craft was buffeted by the creature's passage, spinning in place.

Jack craned his neck around and watched the creature flee, disappearing into the midnight waters with a flick of its tapering tail. Now he recognized it for what it was. A rare beast, but no serpent. It had clearly been as spooked by the chance encounter as he was. Jack forced his heart out of his throat, swallowing hard. “Goddamn!” he swore as he stabilized the sub, spinning in the creature's wake. “Whoever said there are no sea monsters?”

Static rasped in his ear. “Sea monsters?” It was Lisa again.

“An orefish,” he explained.

“God, your heart rate almost doubled! You must have—”

A new voice interrupted the doctor. It was Robert Bonaczek, the group's marine biologist. “An orefish?
Regalecus glesne
?” he asked, using the fish's Latin name. “Are you sure?”

“Yep, a big one. Seventy feet if it's an inch.”

“Did you get any pictures?”

Jack blushed, remembering his panic. As a former Navy SEAL, he knew his response to being attacked by a deep-sea monster had been less than heroic. He wiped his damp forehead. “No…uh, there was not enough time.”

“A shame. So little is known. No one suspected they
lived so deep.”

“Well, this one was living large, that's for damn sure. Made its home in the hold of the wreck.” Jack moved his ship forward, lights again delving into the interior. Crates lay stacked and broken everywhere. The
Kochi Maru
had been heavily laden. Jack spotted where the orefish had nested. A cleared-out cubby near the back. Carefully, he eased his sub into the open hold.

Static buzzed in his ear. “Jack, I'm…don't know,
mon
…” Jack recognized the geologist's voice, but the transmission was blocked by the walls of the hold as the sub glided inside. It seemed even the vessel's patented deep-water radio could not pierce three inches of iron.

Jack touched his throat mike. “Say again.”

He received just static and garble.

Frowning, he eased off the thruster pedals, meaning to retreat clear of the hold's walls. Then his eyes caught a bright glint from deeper in the hold. He glided the craft gently forward, nose down. His lamps now splayed the floor.

Amid the crates, against the far wall, was a sight that drew a sharp whistle from him. The swipe of the orefish's tail as it lunged from its nest had brushed free a few bricks, black with algae, from the top of an impressive pile. The exposed section revealed the bricks deeper in the pile.

Gold, shining brighter than a Caribbean sun in the reflection of the xenon lamps.

Jack inched closer, not believing his luck. Once in range, he settled his hands on the controls to the external hydraulic manipulator arms. Having practiced at length, he was familiar with their use. Manning the controls, he extended the left arm's pincers to their full length of fifteen feet. He gripped one of the black bricks, bringing it up to the light. With the other arm, he carefully scraped the surface.

“Gold.” There was no doubt. He grinned widely and used the other arm to grab another brick, then tapped his throat mike. He had to tell topside. Static squelched sharply. He had forgotten about the interference by the hull. He backed the sub slowly, careful not to get hung up on the debris,
meanwhile running through several different salvage scenarios. Float bags wouldn't work. They'd have to hook a dredge to the sub and make a few hauls.

The sub finally cleared the hold and reentered open water. He was instantly assaulted by someone yelling in his ear. “Get out of there, mon! Now! Jack, get your ass away from there!” It was Charlie. Panicked.

“What is it?” Jack yelled back. He glanced at the external temperature reading. It had climbed almost fifty degrees. In the fever of discovering the gold, he had failed to notice the rising temperature. “Oh shit!”

“The seismic readings are spiking, Jack. Radiating out from your location. Haul ass! You're sitting on the goddamn epicenter!”

Jack's Navy training kicked in. He knew when to obey orders. He swung the submersible up and away, chasing after cooler waters, pushing the
Nautilus
to its maximum speed of four knots. Jack craned his neck around. “Damn.”

The forward section of the
Kochi Maru
had melted halfway into the magma pool. The crisscrossing of magma cracks had widened. But the most ominous sight was how the seabed now bulged, like a bubble about to burst.

Jack had both pedals to the floor, jerking the nose of the submersible toward the distant surface. He blew all his ballast. The thruster motors whined as he pushed them to the extreme.

“Damn, damn, damn…” he swore in a continuous litany.

“Jack, something's happening. The readings are—”

He heard it before he felt it. A monstrous roaring from the hydrophones, like thunder rolling through hills. Then the sub caught the shockwave's edge, tumbling end over end.

Jack's head struck the optical acrylic dome. As he spun he caught fleeting glimpses of the seabed.

A flaming wound gaped below him. Magma blew forth, spattering upward. A volcano had opened directly under him. As he flew upward, spinning without control, the seas around him began to boil. Bubbles as big as his sub bombarded his ship, striking like fists.

He fought the thrusters to maintain some semblance of direction, but was shaken and jarred about. He tasted blood on his tongue. He tried to raise the
Deep Fathom
, yelling. But static was his only response.

For what seemed an endless time he rode the chain of bubbles toward the surface, fighting for control of the sub. He had to get clear of the volcanic stream. As his ship tumbled, an idea came to him. To survive a riptide a swimmer had to stop fighting it.

He lifted his foot off the right pedal and tapped only the left thrusters. Instead of trying to stop his spin, he made the vehicle spin faster. He was soon pinned to the port side of the sub by the centrifugal forces. Still, he kept engaging just the left thrusters. “C'mon…c'mon…”

Then one of the monster bubbles struck the undercarriage of the submersible. The spinning sub tilted nose-up. The sudden shift pitched the craft end over. Like a skipping stone, the
Nautilus
shot free of the bubble stream.

As the sub's tumble slowed, Jack pulled himself back into his seat. His feet worked the pedals and halted the spin. Sighing in relief, he aimed for the surface, noting that the midnight waters had already lightened to a weak twilight. Craning his neck upward, he saw the vague glow of the distant sun.

The static in his ear cleared. “Jack…answer us…can you hear us?”

Jack replaced the throat mike. The adhesive had torn away during his assault. “All clear here,” he said harshly.

“Jack!” The relief in Lisa's voice was like a cool spray of water. “Where are you?”

He checked the depth gauge.
Two hundred twenty feet
. He couldn't believe his rate of ascent. It was lucky his sub was a sealed one-atmosphere vehicle, maintaining a constant internal pressure. If not, he would have died of the bends before now. “I'll be surfacing in about three minutes.”

Glancing at his compass, Jack frowned. The needle spun around as if still dizzy from the tumble. He tapped at it, but the needle continued to spin. He gave up and touched his mike. “Compass is fried. Not sure how far off I am, but once
up, I'll hit the GPS beacon so you can track me.”

“And what about you? Are you okay?”

“Just bruised and battered.”

Charlie came on the line. “For someone who just survived a volcanic eruption under the seat of his pants, you are damn lucky,
mon
. I wish I could've seen it.”

Jack grinned. The birth of an undersea volcano was surely a geologist's wet dream. Jack fingered the hard knot atop his head, wincing. “Believe me, Charlie, I wish you had been here instead of me, too.”

Around Jack, the waters grew from a deep purple to a lighter aquamarine. “Coming up,” he said.

“What about the
Kochi Maru
?” a new voice asked, hopeful. Jack was surprised to hear from Professor George Klein, the ship's historian and cartographer. The professor seldom left the
Deep Fathom
's extensive library.

Jack suppressed a groan. “Sorry, Doc. She's gone…so is the gold.”

With disappointment, George finally responded, “Well, we can't even be certain the
Kochi Maru
's manifests were accurate. During the war, the Japanese often falsified records to mask their gold shipments.”

Jack pictured the tall pile of bricks. “It was accurate,” he said gloomily.

Charlie came back on the line. “Hey, Jack, it seems you were not the only one shaken up. Reports are coming in from all over. Earthquakes and eruptions have been rattling the entire Pacific, coast-to-coast.”

Jack frowned. What did he care? Since leaving the world behind twelve years ago, he had little interest in the rest of the planet. All that mattered was this single eruption. It had cost him not only a huge fortune, but possibly even his ship. “Signing off,” he said with a long sigh. “Be topside in one minute.”

He watched the water grow lighter. Soon the bubble of his dome broke the surface. The brightness of the afternoon sun stung. He shaded his eyes. Off to the west, the seas burbled with steaming bubbles, marking the site of the undersea volcano. But off to the southeast, he spotted a dark blip. The
Deep Fathom
.

He hit the distress beacon, activating the GPS locator, then leaned back to wait. As he stared out over the water, a glint caught his eye. Curious, he sat up straighter. He reached and fingered the RMS controls to lift the two external arms. As they were raised, seawater dripped from the titanium limbs.

Jack sat straighter, bumping his head again. “It can't be….”

Sunlight shone brightly off two large bricks, one clamped in each pincer. He'd forgotten about grabbing them before fleeing the hold of the
Kochi Maru
. The gold bars had been scrubbed clean by the rough flight to the surface, but luckily, they had remained clamped in the hydraulic grips.

He whistled appreciatively. “Things are suddenly looking brighter.”

George's voice came on the line again. “Jack, we've got your GPS signal.”

“That's great!” Jack said, jubilant, barely hearing the words. “And make sure you have the champagne chilled!”

George's response was clearly puzzled. “Oh…okay…but I thought you should know we just received a call on the Globalstar.”

Jack sobered, sensing an undercurrent of tension. “Who's calling?”

A long pause. “Admiral Mark Houston.”

Jack felt as if he'd been slugged in the stomach. His former naval commander. “Wh-What? Why?” He had hoped never to hear that name again. He had put that life behind him.

“He's ordered us to a set of coordinates. About four hundred nautical miles from here, and—”

Jack clenched his fists, interrupting. “Ordered us? Tell him to take his order and shove it up—”

Now George interrupted. “There's been a plane crash. A rescue operation is being gathered.”

Jack bit his lip. It was the Navy's right to ask for his aid. The
Deep Fathom
was a registered salvage ship. Still, Jack found his hands trembling.

Old memories and emotions flared brighter. He remembered his awe at seeing the shuttle
Atlantis
shining brightly in the Florida sunshine, and the pride he felt upon learning he would be the first Navy SEAL to fly in that bird. But shadowing these pleasant memories were darker ones: flames, searing pain…a gloved hand reaching for him, voices screaming…slipping, tumbling…an endless fall.

Seated in the
Nautilus
, Jack felt as if he were still falling.

“Did you hear me, Jack?”