Deep Storm by Lincoln Child
“May I help you?” a neutral female voice asked.
“Yes, I need to speak with somebody named Vanderbilt. Gene Vanderbilt, in Oceanographic Research. I don’t have access to a directory.”
“One moment, I’ll connect you.”
As Crane walked briskly down the pale red corridor, his phone clicked audibly a few times. Then a man’s voice sounded: “Oceanography, this is Vanderbilt.”
“Dr. Vanderbilt? Peter Crane here.”
There was a brief pause. “You’re Dr. Crane, right? Asher’s man.”
“That’s correct.”
“He’s greatly missed.”
“Has Michele Bishop contacted you?”
“Dr. Bishop? No, not recently.”
Crane stopped dead. “She hasn’t? And you’ve been in your lab?”
“Yes. For the past several hours.”
Crane began to walk again, more slowly this time. “Listen, Dr. Vanderbilt. Something’s happening, but I can’t talk about it over the phone. I’m going to need your help, and the help of the other top scientists.”
“What is it? Is there a medical emergency?”
“You could say that. I’ll tell you the details in person. For now, all I can say is that it concerns the safety of the entire Facility and maybe a lot more besides.”
Another pause. “Very well. What is it you want me to do?”
“Gather your senior colleagues together as quickly and quietly as possible. When you’ve done that, ring me back.”
“It may take a few minutes. Some of them are in the classified section.”
“Then get to them as quickly as possible. Tell them not to say anything to anybody. Believe me, it’s vitally important, Dr. Vanderbilt—I’ll explain when I see you.”
“All right, Doctor.” Vanderbilt’s voice had become slow, thoughtful. “I’ll see if I can’t assemble a group in the deck twelve Conference Center.”
“Call my cell, it’s in the directory. I’ll come up.” He hung up, then clipped the phone to the pocket of his lab coat. If Spartan comes through, I’ll just tell Vanderbilt everything’s been resolved, he thought.
Ahead lay the double doors of the Drilling Complex. To his surprise, Crane noticed the doors were no longer guarded by marines but rather by two black ops agents armed with M16s. As he approached, one of them raised a hand for him to stop. The agent gave Crane’s ID badge a careful scrutiny, then at last stepped back, pulling one of the doors open as he did so.
The complex was bustling. Crane paused just inside the entrance, looking around. Marines and black ops agents were stationed in strategic locations. Technicians and maintenance crews moved briskly about the crowded hangar. The greatest concentration of activity was at the center, where one of the two remaining Marbles hung from its robotic clamp. The laser scaffold stood nearby.
Loudspeakers in the corners of the ceiling coughed static. “Attention,” came a clipped voice. “Marble Three descent initiating in ten minutes. Dive control officers, report to your stations.”
Crane took a deep breath. Then he began walking toward the Marble, where the three-person crew—wearing distinctive white jumpsuits—were surrounded by technicians. If Spartan wasn’t nearby, he knew, at least somebody could point him in the right direction….
As he approached, one of the crew members turned to look at him. Crane stopped in surprise. Above the white jumpsuit, he recognized the lined face and unruly white hair of Dr. Flyte.
Seeing him, Flyte’s eyes widened. He separated himself from the group and walked over to Crane.
“Dr. Flyte,” Crane said. “Why are you wearing a uniform?”
Flyte looked back at him. His delicate, birdlike features seemed drawn and nervous. “I do not wish to wear it—oh, no! My job is to repair the arm, improve the arm, teach others of its mysteries—not to wield it myself. But he would insist. ‘The Olympian is a difficult foe to oppose.’” He glanced over his shoulder furtively, lowered his voice. “I have to be here, but you don’t. You must leave. It’s as I told you: everything is broken.”
“I need to find—” Crane began. Then he fell silent abruptly. Because somebody else was approaching: Commander Korolis. With fresh surprise, Crane saw he, too, was wearing the white jumpsuit of the Marble crew.
“Get back to the Marble,” Korolis told the old man. Then he turned his pale, exotrophic eyes to Crane. “What are you doing here?” he said.
“I’m looking for Admiral Spartan.”
“He’s unavailable.” Korolis had dispensed with his earlier, hypocritical veneer of civility. Now his tone, his expression, his very manner, exuded hostility and suspicion.
“I need to speak with him.”
“Impossible,” Korolis snapped.
“Why is that, Commander?”
“He’s had a breakdown. I’ve assumed command.”
“A breakdown?” Could this be what was keeping Bishop? But as soon as the thought occurred to him, he rejected it. If the head of the Facility had suffered some kind of seizure or collapse, Corbett, or one of the medical interns, or Bishop herself would have told him.
And that meant only one thing: none of the medical staff had been notified.
Alarm bells went off in Crane’s head. Suddenly he realized just how precarious his present position had become.
“Attention,” came the voice from the loudspeaker. “Crew insertion now commencing. Sealant team, prepare to restore and verify hull integrity.”
“Don’t do it,” Crane heard himself say.
Korolis frowned. “Don’t do what?” His eyes were red rimmed, and his voice, normally soft, was loud and breathless.
“Don’t make the dive.”
“Sir!” a worker from a monitoring station called out to Korolis.
The commander turned toward him. “What is it?”
“There’s someone who needs to speak with you. Bryce, an intern in the Medical Suite.”
“Tell him I’m busy.”
“Sir, he says it’s of the utmost importance—”
“That”—and here Korolis shot out an arm, pointing it daggerlike at Marble Three—“is the only important thing at the moment.”
“Very good, sir.” The man hung up the phone, returned to his instruments.
Korolis turned back to Crane. “And why shouldn’t I make the dive?”
“It’s too dangerous. It’s a fool’s errand.”
Korolis took a step closer. Beads of sweat were visible on his forehead and temples. “I heard about your little theory. You know what I think, Doctor? I think you’re the one that’s dangerous. A danger to morale. A danger to this very mission.”
He stared at Crane a moment longer. Then, abruptly, he wheeled toward a brace of marines. “Hoskins! Menendez!”
They shot to attention. “Sir!”
Korolis jerked a thumb at Crane. “This man is under military arrest. Once the Marble is safely launched and the all clear is sounded, take him to the brig and post an armed guard outside his cell.”
And before Crane could protest, the commander walked back to Marble Three, where an unhappy-looking Dr. Flyte and his fellow crew member were already slipping into its silvery maw.
49
Roger Corbett lay in a spreading pool of his own warm blood, wrapped in a fog of pain. At times it seemed he was dreaming; at others, as if he were already dead, floating in some limitless dark oblivion. Thoughts, feelings, associations drifted in and out, seemingly without his ability to control them. A minute might have passed, or ten; he didn’t know. There was only one thing he was certain of: he could not let the crouching figure with the gun realize he was still alive.
The pain was intense now, but pain was good: it helped him fight against the terrible lassitude that kept trying to drag him down forever.
As he lay there, he felt a pang of regret. His three o’clock appointment would be waiting for him. She was probably there now, tapping her foot and glancing at her watch. She’d been making such progress in anger
Then the faintness returned, washing over him, and he surrendered to dark dreams. In them, he was a diver who had swum too deep. And now the surface was a mere smudge of faint light far, far above, and his lungs were already bursting as he kicked his way upward, swimming as fast as he could, yet with so very much farther to go…
He forced himself back to consciousness. The figure in the corner was done.
She rose in the darkness and turned toward him, her eyes shining faintly with the light from the adjoining chamber. Corbett held his breath and lay motionless, his own eyes mere slits. Leaving the duffel where it lay, she took a step toward him, then another. Then she stopped once again. There was a dull gleam as the barrel of her gun rose toward him.
Suddenly she turned sharply. A moment later, Corbett heard it, too: voices, sounding faintly over the whine of compressors.
Others—two at least, maybe more—must have entered the first compartment of Environmental Control. Sudden hope brought a measure of clarity back to him, helped steady his flagging senses. His gambit had worked. Bryce was sending help.
The voices came closer.
She stepped over him, gun at the ready, and slid up to the hatch leading to the second chamber. Opening his eyes a little wider, Corbett watched her peer carefully around the corner. The curved line of her hair, the barrel of the gun, were silhouetted by the yellow halo of light. Then she slipped through the hatch into the second chamber, ducked behind a turbine, and was lost from his view.
The voices continued. They no longer seemed to be getting any closer. He guessed they were still in the first compartment, somewhere between Bishop and the main exit from Environmental Control. From the few words he could make out, they sounded like maintenance workers, checking one of the innumerable pieces of equipment.
That meant the cavalry hadn’t arrived—at least, not yet. Maybe it wasn’t going to.
Corbett put out a hand, tried to raise himself to a sitting position, but his hand slipped and skidded on the bloody floor. A spear of pain lanced through his chest, and he bit his upper lip savagely to keep from crying out.
He lay there, breathing shallowly, letting the pain ease somewhat. Then, planting his feet on the metal floor, he pushed himself forward, slowly, toward the far bulkhead.
It was agonizingly slow. One foot, two feet, a yard. Bloody bubbles frothed in the back of his throat. His shirt and coat were sodden with blood and acted like a dragline, slowing him still further. Halfway to the far wall he stopped briefly when faintness threatened to engulf him again. But he could not stop for long; if he did, he knew he would never start again. Once more, he planted his feet, forced himself a few inches at a time across the floor.
Now at last his head bumped against the far wall. With a sob of pain, he forced his gaze upward. Just above were the fat ropes of Semtex, four in all, pressed against the metal bulkhead in parallel lines. Into each had been set a detonator.
Focusing his strength, Corbett lifted an arm, fumbled for the nearest detonator, and plucked it from the shaped charge. Searing pain filled his chest again and he fell back, gasping. He could hear blood dripping from his elbow and wrist onto the bare floor.
From his supine position he examined the detonator. He could dimly make out a battery, a manual timer, two thin plates of metal separated by foil, a coil of optical fiber. Everything was miniaturized. He knew only a little about explosive ordnance but it looked like a long-period-delay “slapper.” When the timer went off, the foil would be exploded electrically, and the plates would deliver the initial shock to the charge.
He placed the detonator as gently as possible on the floor. Ten minutes, she’d said; he figured he had maybe four or five left.
Three detonators to go.
Marshaling his strength, he lifted his arm again, strained for the next detonator, plucked it free—careful not to accidentally readjust its timer—and fell heavily back again.
This time the pain was much worse and he almost slipped into unconsciousness. The blood boiled in his throat and he choked and coughed. A minute passed while he recovered enough strength to continue.
The third shaped charge was out of reach. Digging in his heels once again, he pushed himself along the floor until he was near. Then he looped his hand upward a third time, pulled the detonator free, swung it back to the floor.
The pain was now so intense he did not think he could move to the fourth. He lay in the darkness, struggling to remain conscious, listening to the low murmur of voices. They seemed to be involved in an endless argument over some bit of engineering trivia.
How much time did he have left? A minute? Two?
He wondered where, exactly, Bishop was. No doubt she was crouched behind some piece of machinery, listening impatiently to the chitchat, waiting for the workers to move on so she could safely escape.
Why hadn’t she just shot them? The gun was silenced. There could be only one reason: the hybrid weapon had a small magazine, maybe just two rounds. And she couldn’t run past them; that would give the game away. She still had a chance to escape. But not if two more people took up the hue and cry…
No. She wouldn’t run past them. She’d retreat to the Semtex and readjust the timers on the detonators, buy herself some more time.
He realized he’d been too preoccupied with his task, too overwhelmed by pain, to grasp this before. She’d be back—and at any moment.
Desperation gave Corbett renewed conviction. With his last reserves of energy he swung his arm up one more time, his hand closing over the fourth and last detonator.
Just as he did so, a shape appeared in the hatchway to the second compartment, silhouetted in deep black relief. Catching sight of him, she gave a muttered curse and leapt inward.
Corbett jerked in surprise and dismay. As he did so, his fingers pinched together involuntarily; there was a crackling sound and a tiny puff of smoke from the detonator—a terrible suspension of time that lasted a millisecond, yet that to Corbett seemed to go on and on and on—and then, with an unimaginably violent scream, the universe came apart in an apocalypse of fire and steel. And water.
50
“Outer doors closed,” a voice droned over the speaker system. “Pressure seal activated. Marble Three in the pipeline. Estimated time to dig interface: nineteen minutes, thirty seconds.”
From a far corner, Peter Crane watched in frustrated rage as the huge robotic clamp—now empty of its burden—swung away from the water lock and back to its resting position. While the Marble was being painstakingly sealed, then lowered through the lock, he’d looked around at the Drilling Complex staff, hunting for a sympathetic glance, a furtive nod, anything that might signal a potential accomplice. But there had been none: the engineers, technicians, and support staff were already resuming their normal duties, busying themselves with the familiar motions of a dig session in progress. Nobody seemed to notice he was there.
Except for the brace of marines who stood at his shoulders. The all clear sounded, and one of them nudged him. “All right, Doctor. Let’s move out.”
As they walked toward the doors that led into the corridors of deck 1, a sense of unreality settled over Crane. Surely this was all a dream. It certainly had all the skewed, misshapen logic of a dream. Was he really being marched to the brig by two armed marines? Were they really still digging toward some terrible retribution? Had Korolis really taken over military command of the Facility?
Korolis…
“You don’t want to do this,” he said in a low voice to the marines. Their response was to pull open the double doors, escort him through.
“It’s not the admiral who’s unfit for command,” he went on as they marched down the corridor. “It’s Commander Korolis.”
No answer.
“You see the pallor of his skin? The hyperhidrosis—excessive sweating? He’s got the sickness that’s going around. I’m a doctor; I’m trained to notice these things.”
Ahead, the corridor fork
“Since I’ve arrived at the Facility, I’ve seen many cases. Korolis is a classic presentation.”
“You’ll be better off if you button your lip,” the marine said.
Crane glanced at the pale red walls, the closed laboratory doors. His thoughts returned to the other forced march he’d made: the one with Spartan, when he’d been processed and cleared for the classified sector. At the time, he hadn’t known where he was being taken. This time it was different. The sense of unreality grew stronger.
“I was in the military, too,” he said. “You’re soldiers, you’ve taken an oath to serve your country. Korolis is a dangerous and unstable man. By taking orders from him, what you’re doing is no better than—”
The rifle butt slammed into his shoulder, much more violently this time. Crane sprawled onto his knees, neck snapping forward painfully.
“Take it easy, Hoskins,” the second marine said gruffly.
“I’m tired of his mouth,” Hoskins said.
Crane picked himself up and wiped his hands, staring at Hoskins through narrowed eyes. His shoulder blade throbbed from the impact.
Hoskins nodded with the barrel of his gun. “Get moving.”
They continued down the corridor, made a left. Ahead lay the elevator. They approached it and Hoskins pressed the up button. Crane opened his mouth to reason with them again, thought better of it. Maybe the brig guards would listen to reason…
With a low chime, the elevator door slid open.
At the same moment, a tremendous boom came from somewhere far overhead. The entire Facility seemed to briefly rise off its footings. The lights dimmed, brightened, dimmed again. There was a secondary explosion that shook the installation as violently as a dog might shake a rat. With an ear-splitting shriek, a piece of gray metal ducting fell from the ceiling, pinning Hoskins to the floor.
Crane acted without conscious thought. He gave the second marine a quick, disabling downward kick to the knee, then dove headlong into the elevator, pressing the floor buttons indiscriminately. His lab coat tore against the metal grille and his cell phone was knocked from its clip, skittering away across the floor.