Don Pendleton: Seismic Surge

The glow of the liquid crystal display showed the interior of a gutted freighter and small docks low in the water and designed for slender craft less than a quarter of the width of the hulk. They would have gone unnoticed had it not been for all of the recent accidents and the diligence of a young inspector with a head full of ideas. The dead freighter didn’t look out of place in a boatyard, as many shipbuilders found that good, extant hulls were a basis for updated craft. However, the footage showed a hull without a keel and small hydraulic doors at the front.

“That is damn strange,” Jackson muttered. “Especially since Heyerdal doesn’t have anything in its records about designing submersibles, just light seacrafts.”

“Told you!” Gerber snapped, all excited. “Secret submarines!”

Jackson pinched the skin at the bridge of his nose. Whenever Gerber got a hair up his ass, he was nearly incomprehensible. What a secret berth had to do with a conspiracy involving the government and Heyerdal’s deck designs would take forever to straighten out in an intelligible manner. But first he had to calm Gerber down, and right now, unfortunately, the kid had a gallon of adrenaline to burn off before he could make any sense.

“Gerb! Focus!”

“This could be used to sink international ships and draw the U.S. into another stupid, bloated war,” Gerber continued. “It’s the Lusitania all over again!”

“Gerb, they must have had weeks to clear anything out. Why would they even leave that area unlocked for you to stumble upon?” Jackson asked.

Something gave the older man pause.

Their two friends, though they had only been about a hundred feet away, close enough to laugh out loud at Gerber’s renewed antics, were now nowhere to be seen. That didn’t feel right, and Jackson’s scalp tingled as if his close-cropped gray-white hairs were all trying to stand up at once.

“Hey, Jake! Ned! Where’d you two go?”

Gerber’s agitation seemed to drain away, as if someone had cut a hole in the bottom of a tub. The call to their coworkers hadn’t seemed to calm the young man, but it had silenced him for the moment.

Gerber snatched back his camera and pulled his phone from his pocket. With a device in each hand, Gerber’s left thumb flew across the touch screen, his lips moving silently as if quietly narrating his own actions. “This is bad.”

“What are you doing?”

Gerber spoke up. “They don’t want witnesses.” This time his manic energy had disappeared, and his voice was flat and serious. The thrill of discovery had been shocked into submission by the dread of some realization. “Got to get the footage out.”

“Because Ned and Jake are probably smoking on government time?” Jackson asked. Even as he spoke the words, he lost faith in his rationalization. Something could have been wrong; he could feel that in the air, even though logic dictated that the deaths or disappearance of ten OSHA inspectors would actually invite even more intense scrutiny to whatever secrets lurked in the boatyard. Such a loss would probably involve the FBI or the Department of Homeland Security, so any top-secret construction projects would simply be uncovered in the wake of foul play. They were simply too high profile to warrant any harm, even by the most desperate businessman intent on concealing his shady dealings.

Submarines? he thought to himself.

Why the hell would that be so important to kill witnesses? Sure, there were cases where companies, if they had failed at bribery, sometimes resorted to violence, but there had been no interaction between the OSHA team and the Heyerdal company. There should at least have been a man at the gate with an envelope full of cash.

As much as he tried to dismiss his fears, Jackson couldn’t quiet his nerves. He could sense a predator stalking in the shadows. No one had been allowed through the gate for the past week except for the OSHA team, not even the usual security guards hired to babysit the shipyard. He just couldn’t shake the feel of being stalked, the weight of malevolence hanging in the air.

“It’s out.” Gerber sighed with relief. “They can’t keep this shit quiet.”

“What? Where?” Jackson asked.

“App on my phone and built into the camera. It can read off the memory and then upload it to a backup site,” Gerber explained. “Better than the little piece of garbage in the usual cell. This transmits good, crisp images.”

“Why?” Jackson continued.

“Safety for us. Keeping my documentation of their secrets kills any incentive for them to do the same to us.”

Jackson looked around.

“Kill us? Try to silence us? No go,” Gerber said. He let loose a nervous titter. “Their dirt is now in the Cloud. The whole conspiracy sphere knows and is breathing this all in now.”

“Gerb, they wouldn’t kill federal inspectors,” Jackson countered. His strength ebbed, and he added in a softer, more nervous tone, “Would they?”

The red-haired ex-Navy man pocketed his phone after frowning at its screen. “I wish I had brought my knife.”

That was all Gerber had to say for Jackson’s sake. The older man brought out his walkie-talkie and keyed it. All he received was static, unfortunately. He tried again, but the radio was working; it just wasn’t receiving or transmitting any usable signal.

“Hey! Anyone’s walkies still working?” Jackson yelled as he transferred to his own cell. “Ned?”

“All the phones are out, Bernie,” Gerber said, deadly serious.

In the distance he could hear spasmodic coughing erupt. A silhouetted form, Jackson couldn’t tell who, staggered into view, then clutched his throat and chest, toppling over. Sudden bright flares, vomitous blossoms of flame, erupted throughout the area. Smoke billowed from multiple sources, obscuring the scene as at least two men screamed their last.

“Gerb, you think you can swim?” Jackson asked, his mind racing.

“Hello! Navy submariner!” Gerber replied. He waved to the hulk, where no flames had erupted yet. “Come on!”

Jackson followed blindly, sweeping the boatyard around him for signs of impending death or onrushing danger. He hoped that Gerber, in all of his paranoia, knew what he was doing. The coughing brought to mind choking smoke, but the men appeared to be suffocating even before the flames erupted and thick, strangling clouds spread out to suck the breath from them.

Now all he could see behind him were yellow splashes of glow that burned through black roiling darkness that flowed into the air. Getting to the water was the means to get to safety, a place to duck from the fury of blaze and asphyxiation.

Jackson tabbed his phone again, dialing 9-1-1, but there was still no signal.

It didn’t make sense. Only moments before, Gerber had transmitted a call, sending data to the internet. Maybe he’d done that, or now Jackson was hot on the heels of a delusional freak, not a former military man who showed the foresight to upload conspiracy documentation.

Gerber led him to the hull of the dead freighter, and as they passed through a door, Jackson stopped cold. What he saw was something out of a James Bond movie, a wide, empty interior dock with spaces for four submarines, two on each side of the hull, with loading cranes above to supply the subs with their gear. The covered docks were empty now, but there was no other explanation for the catwalks and support equipment inside the empty ship’s corpse.

It was crazy.

Or was he just influenced, mentally contaminated by the ravings of his jug-headed friend?

Gerber pointed to the water. “We can dive out through there!”

Jackson followed Gerber, but only visually. His feet had been rooted to the spot thanks to fear and indecision.