Clive Cussler - Dragon

Edward Cain, with his wife floating close to him, swam blissfully unaware of any danger, viewing the sculptured garden of coral through his dive mask, enthralled by the vivid colors and the swarming schools of luminous fish.

He heard a humming sound in the distance but thought it was probably one of the guests bobbing over the water on a Jet Ski. Then, as if in a practiced precision movement, the surrounding fish abruptly darted away and vanished. Cain felt the breath of fear on his skin. The first thought that ran through his mind was that a shark had entered the lagoon.

Cain raised his head above the surface, searching for a telltale fin slicing the water. Thankfully, none was in sight. All he saw was a sailboard gliding in his direction and his wife dozing on the floating pad. He heard the shouting from the beach, turned, and spied the crowd of resort guests and employees frantically motioning toward the channel.

A rumbling vibration seemed to agitate the water, and he ducked his head back under the surface. What in God’s name was it? he wondered. Through the turquoise void, no more than fifty meters away, a great shapeless thing covered with green and brown slime crawled into view.

He grabbed a corner of his wife’s float and began madly paddling toward a rise in the coral where it broke through the surface of the water. She had no idea of what he was doing and hung on, thinking he was simply in a playful mood and wanted to roll her into the water.

The awesome thing ignored them and rolled past the reef into the lagoon and headed directly for the beach. Like some unspeakable monster out of a deep-sea horror movie, it slowly rose from the lagoon. The dumfounded crowd of resort guests parted as the immense thing, water pouring down its sides, the sand trembling beneath its weight, pulled up between two palm trees and stopped dead.

In total silence they all stood rooted and stared. They could see now that it was a huge mechanical vehicle that traveled on wide tracks, with a large, cigar-shaped housing on top. Two mechanical arms rose into the air like mutated antennae on a giant insect. Colonies of crustaceans clung to crevices of the exterior that was coated with hardened brown ooze and slime, shrouding any view through the normally transparent bow.

There was a soft clunk sound as a hatch on the roof was unsealed and thrown back.

A head with a shag of black hair and a beard slowly rose into view. The face was gaunt and thin, but the eyes that were sunken in dark hollows sparkled with green intensity. They gazed around the stunned audience and picked out a young man who was gripping a round tray in both hands.

Then the lips spread in a great flashing smile and the voice rasped hoarsely. “Am I right in thinking you’re a waiter?”

“Yes… sir.”

“Good thing too. After a diet of moldy bologna sandwiches and coffee for the past month, I’m ready to kill for a crab louis salad and a tequila on the rocks.”

Four hours later, his stomach supremely sated, Pitt was sleeping the most enjoyable and satisfying sleep he had ever known.