From the Deep (16 page)

CHAPTER 35

Paul peered into the gloom, clinging to the outside of the shark cage, feet kicking rhythmically as he looked at the abundance of sea life. As impressive as the uncountable species of fish were, he was really only waiting for the sharks to show.  He glanced through the cage towards Greg, who met his gaze across the water. He held up a thumb to Paul, who responded with the same gesture. Greg pointed out into the ocean.

Paul felt a surge of adrenaline as the eight-foot tiger shark veered towards the side of beef on the side of the cage and took a cautious bite, sending tiny morsels of flesh drifting into the depths.

Paul was elated, thrilled, humbled, and a little frightened. At that moment in time, there was nowhere in the world he would rather be. As he watched, more sharks came, appearing like phantoms out of the deep blue depths and taking turns at attacking the carcass.

Greg had made his way around the cage, was now beside Paul, and pointed down. Milla looked and felt his heart leap into his throat.

The eighteen-foot great white shark circled in fifty feet of water.  With a body designed by nature to be streamlined and efficient, the predator glided with grace, steering with its pectoral fins. It sensed other sharks in the area, but none big enough to pose a threat.  With fearless inquisitively, it angled towards the cage.

Paul tightened his grip on the bars and was incredibly aware of how small and insignificant he was in the expanse of open ocean around him. Greg put a hand on his shoulder and gave the thumbs up. His eyes were relaxed and unconcerned, and that in turn helped him to relax. They watched as the shark angled past them, scattering its smaller cousins as it made towards the carcass. Paul realised he could have reached out and touched the creature as it passed him, its size and beauty awe-inspiring. He glanced at Greg, who also seemed to appreciate the sheer size and majesty of the creature as it attacked the carcass, its jaws hyperextending and eyes rolling back as it took a huge bite, shaking its massive head from side to side, and in turn rattling the cage as it tried to tear away its prize.

Breathing in ragged gasps through his regulator, Paul could only stare and appreciate the simplicity of the creature, and how in the grand scheme of things, he was such a small and insignificant part of the food chain. It was an incredibly humbling experience. As they watched, the shark broke away from the carcass and accelerated into the darkness. Paul looked over at Greg, and was alarmed by his expression. The earlier confidence he had been able to see in the Australian’s eyes was now gone, replaced by a worrying uncertainty. Paul and Greg looked around the ocean. It was only then he realised what was wrong.

The ocean around which had moments ago been teeming with life, was now completely deserted.

They were alone.

Russo and Andrews watched the radar as the creature changed course.

“What happened?” Russo said, looking at Andrews for answers.

“Looks like it might be hunting. A whale maybe.”

“Get Thompson up here. I want her opinion on this.”

Andrews nodded and activated the loudhailer, requesting Clara’s attendance. As his amplified words echoed around the ship, Andrews watched Russo beckon one of the soldiers by the door towards him. The blond haired, square jawed, giant saluted and stood to attention.

“Mito, ready the device.”

“Right away, sir”

“What device?” Andrews asked.

“For once, I’m not going to keep you in the dark on this one. Come with me and I’ll show you how we’re going to tag this creature.” Russo widened his grin as he said it, and then walked towards the door, pausing at the threshold.

“You there, on the radar.”

“Yes sir?” the operator said, removing one bulky earphone from the side of his head.

“Make sure you don’t lose that signal. If anything unusual happens, I want to know. Call me directly. Miss Thompson will be here shortly, tell her to wait here until we come back.”

“Yes sir,” the operator replied, turning back to his console.

Russo headed out of the door, making his way down into the ship as Andrews followed with Mito bringing up the rear.

“When I was a boy,” he said over his shoulder as he walked, “there was a small pond near where I used to live. Every year, frogs would spawn there and in summertime, the pond would be crawling with them. There was a kid I used to know by the name of Francis. He would ditch classes then spend pretty much every day smoking or reading smutty magazines there.”

Russo walked past the cabins, and past the door to the engine room.

“I used to spend a lot of time there too, but my reasons were different. I enjoyed the quiet away from my classmates. Francis, however, was a bully. He used to make life hell for the other kids, yet, for whatever reason, he never tried it with me. I was already taller than he was, and had a reputation of someone not to be messed with, so we existed in the same circles content to keep out of the way of each other. One day, he walked over to where I was sitting. I knew he was up to something because he had a stupid grin on his face.  For a moment, I thought he had finally decided he wanted to try his luck and add me to his bully list. I wasn’t afraid of him, I was just curious as to what he wanted.

“Hey, Russo, check this out,” he said, and held up a bunch of firecrackers tied together around the middle. I watched as he put them inside one of those plastic zip bags and weighted it with stones, and I knew right away what he was intending to do. I watched as he lit the fuse wires, pressed the plastic seal closed and tossed the bag into the pond. It sank straight away, and for a while, nothing happened. I was sure it must have extinguished, or maybe the bag had sprung a leak. I was about to say as much when the water exploded, sending dirt and reeds raining down on us. We watched and waited. A few seconds later, they started to float to the surface. Frogs. Fish. All dead. There were way more than you could ever imagine for such a small body of water. Francis chuckled and cheered as more and more dead animals surfaced. I just watched and tried to decide how I felt about it.”

Russo stopped at a steel door marked with a red and white ‘restricted’ sign, and turned towards Andrews, a wide grin etched onto his face.

“That’s what I intend to do to our fish.”

“You want to kill it?”

“No, of course not, that would be pointless.”

He opened the door and stood back to allow Andrews to see inside.

“I just want to make it float to the surface.”

CHAPTER 36

Greg stared into the expanse of deserted ocean. His gut said to get to the surface, his wallet said he needed the payday from this trip. Bills don’t pay themselves and neither do gambling debts, and he already owed Victor Malone a ton of money. This charter would at least get the heavies off his back for a few weeks and if that meant babysitting another pushy prick who wanted to get a thrill from swimming with the sharks, so be it. He glanced towards his meal ticket, and thought it was a good thing the sharks didn’t decide to take a bite out of the cage or the guy would have likely shit his wetsuit.

Something caught Greg’s eye, and he turned back towards the gloom. His first thought was that it was a whale. However, as more of the creature appeared from out of the murky ocean that idea faded away. He felt fingertips dig into his arm as Paul also saw what was approaching. The pair could only stare as the creature drifted towards the cage.

The T7500 resembled a miniature snub-nosed missile, which, in effect it was. Andrews looked over the green painted unit as Russo looked on.

“Well, what do you think?”

Andrews didn’t answer. Russo seemed keen to explain anyway as Mito continued to prepare the weapon.

“This is my answer to the school bully firework.”

“What does it do?”

“Before you start to panic, don’t. This isn’t an explosive device, not as such. This is strictly short range.”

“How short?”

“Within a thousand feet for best results.”

“That seems a little
too
close.”

“There is a reason for having such a short range. It doesn’t explode on contact like a conventional missile or torpedo, but in proximity to its target. The explosion launches a concussion wave that will be powerful enough to stun this big son of a bitch. After that, we tag our fish with a tracking device. Once we do that, the hard part is done. We can just keep our distance and know where it is at all times.”

“How do we launch the torpedo from here?”

“Traditionally, the weapon would be fired from a hand held rocket launcher, however, for this mission we’ve rigged an underwater frame, which will enable us to fire it remotely from the boat.”

“What if you miss?”

“As unlikely as it is that we would miss, we do have a reserve unit, however, we would want to be certain we hit our target with this weapon, as the backup isn’t yet fitted for underwater operation.”

“This concussion wave, it would have to be powerful to stun something so big.”

Russo nodded. “Oh, don’t worry about that. The T7 might look small, but it packs a hell of a punch.”

Andrews ran a hand across the smooth surface of the weapon.

“What about the other things this concussion wave of yours hits?” he said, glancing towards Russo.

“You mean the fish?” Russo snorted. “A few go belly up. No big deal.”

“I was actually thinking about the boat.”

“We might feel a little disturbance, but most of the damage will be done under the water. The blast wave will be directed away from us.”

“This sounds dangerous. What if you trigger a tsunami or something?”

Russo snorted and shook his head. “That’s highly improbable.”

“But not entirely impossible, right?”

“I said it’s improbable. We know what we’re doing.”

Andrews thought about arguing, but knew it was pointless. Instead, he turned his attention back to the missile.

“I have level three clearance, and I can’t say I have ever heard of this type of weapon before.”

“I’m not surprised at only level three clearance,” Russo scoffed, popping a mint into his mouth. “This is strictly off the books. A prototype.”

“So it’s untested?”

“Of course not,” He replied with a shake of the head. “We’ve tested less powerful versions of it, but we needed to up the potency if you will, to ensure that we knock this thing silly for long enough to tag it.”

“And who made that call?” Andrews asked. “Who decided how powerful a blast would be needed to do what you intended without killing the thing? Thompson has only been a part of this for a few days. I can’t imagine she had anything to do with this.”

“Don’t be so naïve,” Russo said. “You really think the Thompson woman is the only source of information we have? She is one of a few experts I have working on this project. Besides, it’s not really that hard. We can estimate its weight based on its length, then from that, the size of concussion wave needed to put it to sleep for a few minutes.”

“It sounds like you have it all figured out.”

“I do. That’s why I’m so good at my job.”

Andrews looked Russo in the eye.

“Let me ask you something, completely off book.”

“Go on,” Russo said with a thin, arrogant smile.

“Is there a limit?”

“To what?”

“How far you will go to win even if people get hurt, even if they die?”

Russo shrugged his shoulders. “People get hurt and die every day.”

“Does that include you? Me? The crew? Dr Thompson? Are we potential statistics in all this?”

“If you’re asking if you are expendable, the answer is no. As long as you do as I say, we will all get along fine. It’s when people start to think for themselves that things tend to get ugly.”

Before Russo could say anymore, his phone began to vibrate. He pulled it out of his pocket and answered.

“Russo.” he barked into the headset. Andrews watched as Russo listened. “Got it, I’ll be right there,” he said, before disconnecting the call.

“Our fish is close, but there’s a damn boat on the water.” He turned to Mito, who was busy making final adjustments to the unit.

“I want this thing in the water right now. It’s time to get to work.”

“Yes sir,” Mito said, as Russo swept past and out of the room, heading back upstairs. Andrews took a last look at the missile and followed, jogging to catch up.