James Rollins - Deep Fathom

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.”

Karen’s image flickered. “Maybe we’d better. The last scientists are due to leave in an hour, leaving me alone with David’s second-in-command. If there’s gonna be a rescue, it’ll have to be soon. But what about the pillar? What are we going to do if we don’t hear from Dr. Cortez?”

“Pray we do. Pray he’s been too damn busy making arrangements to save the world to bother updating us.” But even Charlie knew that such a prayer was unlikely to be answered. “Listen, Karen, I’ve been working on something, something we might try. Let’s all keep in close contact from here.”

“I’ll try, but it’ll be difficult. Lieutenant Rolfe is below assisting in the launch of the next sub. I feigned an urgent need to go to the bathroom to make this call.” She checked her watch. “And I’m running out of time. I should be getting back down there.”

“Then let me patch you through to Jack.” Charlie turned to Miyuki.

The professor hit a button and spoke aloud. “Gabriel, can you patch this line to the Nautilus .”

A pause. “I am afraid I cannot comply. There appears to be some sort of interference.”

Karen’s brows knit with worry, then her image flickered, giving way to static, which ate the rest of the transmission.

“Gabriel, get her back!” Charlie ordered.

“I am afraid I cannot comply. There appears to be some sort of interference.”

Before Charlie could ask for clarification, the sound of someone running down the stairs drew his attention.

Robert’s voice came over the tiny intercom speakers, “We’ve got—”

“Company,” Kendall McMillan finished as he burst into the room. “Two ships, military, circling around from both sides of the island.”

They all moved toward the stairs except Miyuki, who remained at her computer, her fingers flying over the keyboard. “I’m not abandoning Karen,” she called to him. “I’ll keep trying to reach her, let her know what’s happening.”

Charlie nodded. “Do your best. But if we’re boarded, hide that computer. It may be all that stands between us and the end of the world.”

He climbed to the stern deck of the Fathom and watched a long ship sweep around the southern coast of their little islet.

An air horn blared from its deck, followed by a message. “Prepare to be boarded! Any resistance will be met with deadly force!”

McMillan stared. “What are we going to do?”

“We have no choice,” Charlie said. “Not this time. We surrender.”

Karen tried typing in Gabriel’s address again. Still no answer. Checking her watch, she pushed out of her seat. She could delay no longer without risking suspicion. She frowned one last time at the computer. The abrupt end to her conversation with the Deep Fathom threatened to send her into a panic.

Crossing to Level 2’s ladder, she climbed down, her mind still on the communication glitch. As she reached a leg down to the next rung, her ankle was grabbed and yanked.

She squawked and fell from the ladder.

Rolfe caught her, clamping her upper arm. “What took you so long?”

Karen swallowed, avoiding his accusing stare. She forced a tremor into her voice; not all of it was feigned. “It…it’s…”

“It’s what?”

She glared at him. “It’s my time of the month, if you must know!”

Rolfe’s face grew a shade more ruddy. It seemed even these tough SEAL-trained assassins did not care to know about such fine womanly details. “Okay then, but stick by my side. We’re just about to launch the last shuttle to the surface.”

Karen did not like the sound of that. Last shuttle …What about her?

Rolfe led her to the docking bay’s control station. He gazed through the window, then spoke into the thin-poled mike. “All set, Argus ?”

Karen peeked through the window. The pilot and the last two scientists, both crammed into the rear passenger compartment, were locked into the sub.

“Systems green. Ready for launch,” the pilot radioed.

“Pressurizing.” Rolfe poked a large blue button, initiating the docking bay system.

Karen watched. As soon as the pressures equalized, the outlet pipes opened and water poured into the bay, quickly swallowing up the sub. She studied it all intently. Without Dr. Cortez here, she might need to do this herself.

All morning long she had dogged Rolfe’s steps, learning by quiet observation how the base operated. It was all user-friendly, thanks mostly to this compact control station. A bank of four monitors showed external views from all around the station. An additional two monitors for the ROV robots rested above a pair of joysticks. The remainder of the panel was devoted to the docking bay itself.

She watched the seawater level rise past the tiny porthole observation window. As the bay filled, a glint of metal caught her eye. Something small floated loose in the docking space. She dismissed it as some mislaid tool and returned her focus to the sub. Across the bay, the pilot tested the sub’s thrusters, floating up from the deck.

But again the glint drew her eye. It was the same object, whirling past the tiny window now.

Leaning closer, Karen recognized the bit of flotsam.

A pair of eyeglasses . Its lenses broken, its frame twisted and bent.

She covered a gasp with a hand over her mouth.

Hidden in a cloud of silt, Jack edged his sub along the base of the cliff, clinging under a lip of rock to diminish his sonar shadow to the sub above. He feathered his pedals with the lightest touches, trying to move no faster than the current. He dared not move any quicker, lest he raise a wake trail in the cloud and reveal his position. Overhead, the glow of the Perseus ’s spotlight swept past in a crisscrossing pattern, searching, waiting for the silt to settle.

Jack knew he had to be gone before that happened.

Still, he forced himself to maintain a snail’s pace, flying the sub blind, no lights, guided by sonar alone. He edged forward. His goal: a side canyon up ahead. He had no idea where it led or if it was a blind alley, but knew he had to be out of the main channel before the cloud dissipated.

Then a voice blared from his radio earpiece. “I know you’re down there, Kirkland. You can’t hide forever.”