James Rollins - Deep Fathom

Staring past his toes, David suddenly sensed danger above his head. He jerked around — and screamed.

An arm’s length away a huge maw opened, lined by razor-sharp beaks, large enough to bite the slender pod in half. Still crying out in horror, he was drawn head first into the hungry creature’s mouth. It gnawed on the glass end, grinding its surface with its viselike beak.

David retreated, cramming himself into the stern half of the lifeboat. As he did, his elbow struck the communication system.

His eyes flicked to its palm-size screen. He still had communications! He could call in a rescue. Perhaps the bulletproof glass would resist the creature long enough. Or maybe the squid would tire of its stubborn prey and simply let him go.

Clinging to this small hope, he forced down his panic, told himself to stay focused, in charge.

Elbowing his way forward, David reached the transmitter. As he called up topside, a horrible noise echoed through the pod.

— crack —

He stared overhead. Tiny cracks skittered across the glass. Oh. God…no… He remembered the way Dr. Cortez had died, crushed, his skull imploding.

The monster continued to gnaw. The threadlike stress cracks spiderwebbed around him. At these immense pressures, implosion was imminent.

David clenched his fists as his hopes bled away. He was left with only one desire: revenge .

His boss, Nicolas Ruzickov, ever paranoid, had built in a fail-safe system in case the pillar site were ever compromised. The CIA director had not wanted the power here falling into foreign hands. “Better no one get it than lose it to another,” Ruzickov had explained.

David called up a special screen and typed in a coded sequence. His finger hovered above the Enter key.

He looked up. The beast’s maw continued to grind against the glass. More cracks.

Monster or pressure…which death was worse?

He tapped the final key.

FAIL-SAFE ACTIVATED blinked for a brief second.

Then the lifeboat collapsed, crushing the life out of him in a heartbeat.

Sitting beside her captor, Karen knew time was running out. In a little over two hours the solar storm would hit. She had to contact the Fathom and let them know Dr. Cortez had been murdered. But her bodyguard had refused to let her out of his sight.

As she sat with her hands clutched in her lap, Lieutenant Rolfe leaned over the radio. A call had been wired down from topside. Though he whispered, she managed to make out two words: “evacuation” and “fail-safe.”

Straining, she tried to eavesdrop on more of the conversation.

Finally, the lieutenant hung up the receiver and turned to her. “They’re sending down the Argus . We’re leaving immediately.”

Karen noted the man refused to make eye contact. He was lying — he might be leaving, but she wouldn’t be.

Feigning acquiescence, she stood and stretched. “It’s about time.”

The lieutenant got to his feet, too. Karen saw his left hand drift to the knife strapped to his thigh. No bullets. Not at these pressures.

Turning, she hurriedly crossed toward the ladder that led down to the docking bay. She mounted it first, keeping an eye on her adversary.

He nodded for her to climb down, hand leaving the hilt of his knife.

Karen quickly calculated. She’d been taught the safety systems as soon as she boarded here. Everything was automated. For her plan to work, she had to time this perfectly. She moved slowly down the ladder, a rung at a time. Rolfe followed, keeping close, as usual.

Good.

Halfway down, Karen leaped from the ladder, landing with a thud.

Lieutenant Rolfe frowned down at her. “Careful, damn it!”

Karen thrust herself to the wall and smashed her elbow into the safety glass, breaking the seal. Pushing through the glass, slicing her fingertips, she reached to the emergency manual override. It was a safety feature to lock down the levels in case of flooding.

Understanding in his eyes, the lieutenant, who stood halfway through the interlevel hatch, pushed off the rungs, dropping toward her.

Karen yanked the red lever.

Emergency klaxons blared.

The hatch whisked shut.

Karen rolled away as the lieutenant fell through the hatch, kicking at her head. But his attack was halted in mid-swing.

Twisting around, she saw him hanging from the hatch, gurgling, his neck caught in the sliding door. It closed with a pressure meant to hold back six hundred meters of water pressure.

Bones cracked. Blood splattered the deck.

She turned away as his body fell to the floor, headless, twitching.

She ran a few steps away and vomited, remaining bent over, her stomach quivering. She knew she had no other choice. Kill or be killed , Jack had told her once.

Still…

An intercom at the control station buzzed. A voice spoke. “Neptune, this is Topside Control. We’re reading an emergency hatch closure. Are you okay?”

Karen straightened, heart thudding. The Argus must be on its way down. She could not risk being caught. Hurrying to the controls, she frantically tried to remember how to work the radio, moving toggles and dials. Finally, she thumbed the right switch and leaned to the mike. “Topside, this is Neptune. Do not attempt evacuation. I repeat, do not attempt evacuation. The station has been damaged. Implosion imminent. Do you copy?”

The voice returned, somber. “Read you. Implosion imminent.” A long pause. “Our prayers are with you, Neptune.”

“Thank you, Topside. Over and out.”

Karen bit her lip. Finally free, she now turned her attention to more important concerns.

Where the hell was Jack?

Jack limped down the last canyon. He spotted lights ahead. It was the crash site! He was so close. He pumped the foot pedals, trying to eke a little more power from the drained batteries. The thrusters whined weakly.

If nothing else, the frantic chase through the seamounts had brought him within a quarter mile of the base. After watching David’s lifeboat implode, it had taken Jack only eight minutes to reach the site. However, his computer screen was riddled with blinking warning lights in hues of red and yellow. Worst of all, the battery power level read zero.

The charge was so low that he’d been forced to turn off all immediately unnecessary systems: lights, carbon dioxide scrubbers, even heaters. After such a short trip, he was already shivering violently, lips blue from the icy cold of these depths.

And now with the lights of the base illuminating the last of the canyon, Jack turned off his sonar. This earned him another half minute of power to his thrusters. He glided the Nautilus forward. The sub’s skids, bent and twisted, rode an inch above the sandy bottom.

At long last he pulled free of the canyons.

After so long in the dark, the lights glared. He squinted. The pillar lay twenty yards to his right, the sea base straight ahead, its three doughnut-shaped sections lit up brightly. He swore under his breath at the distance yet to travel. Why had they constructed the base so far away? He’d never make it.

Proving his words true, the thrusters whined down and stopped with an ominous silence. Jack pounded the foot pedals. “C’mon, not when we’re this damn close!” He managed to earn a weak whine, but nothing more.

He settled back, thinking. He rubbed his hands together, his fingertips numb from the cold. “Now what?”

Karen wiped the blood from her hands onto her pants. She had climbed back up to Level 2 after disengaging the emergency lock-down. For the past five minutes, she had been fruitlessly trying to raise Gabriel.