Omega Deep (Sam Reilly Book 12)

by Christopher Cartwright

  Commander Bower nodded at the pilot. “All right, take us down gently.”

  “Copy that, sir.”

  The Omega Deep dropped another half a foot.

  Bower said, “SEAL team, report?”

  “No good, sir. We’re still not making contact. We’re going to have to come down lower.”

  “All right, will do.” Bower stared at the downfacing viewing sphere. Their keel was so close to the damned submarine — he felt he could reach out and touch it through the sphere. “All right, pilot. Nice and easy, it’s time to bump shoulders.”

  The pilot took the Omega Deep gently downward.

  Commander Bower’s eyes widened as they appeared to continue their descent. He held his breath and braced for the inevitable collision. His eyes focused on the viewing sphere below.

  But there was no collision.

  Instead, the Omega Deep kept descending.

  It passed right through the wreck of the USS Jimmy Carter.

  They descended through a layer of sediment like fog and kept sinking.

  Commander Bower was the first to regain his composure. “Ballast, take us up.”

  “I’m trying, sir, but the controls aren’t responding.”

  Even as Commander Bower saw what had happened with his own eyes, he didn’t believe it could be real.

  “Emergency ballast blow!” he ordered.

  The navigation’s officer was the closest to it. He pulled the emergency main ballast blow lever.

  No effect.

  The Omega Deep crashed into the soft seabed below.

  Bower searched their new environment. But, both the upper and lower viewing half-spheres were a complete whiteout in the murky gray silt.

  “Sonar, give me one ping – I want to know exactly what’s coming for us!”

  “Copy, sir,” Lieutenant Callaghan said. “One ping.”

  The active sonar made an audible ping.

  Commander Bower’s eyes were fixed in disbelief at the sonar screen as a clear outline of the surrounding seabed right through to the edge of the submerged ravine rapidly came into view. The seabed was clear, but more than a hundred small shapes approached. They were small. Much too small and plentiful to be other submarines. They were moving in a direct line toward his ship. Much too direct to be fish or any other marine life.

  The commander gritted his teeth and knew in an instant that he’d been caught by one of the cleverest, yet simple ruses in the book. He oscillated between anger and acceptance, believing that he could muscle the Omega Deep out of her predicament or, at the very least, contain the fallout.

  Commander Bower gripped the onboard microphone and gave the order he’d never expected to give as a submarine commander. “Prepare to repel boarders!”

  Chapter One

  Barents Sea – 120 Miles North of Norway – Present Day

  The Maria Helena swayed heavily under the large swell of the Barents Sea, some hundred and twenty miles above Norway. This close to the Arctic Circle, the seas were rarely gentle, and even if they were, Sam Reilly wouldn’t have waited any longer. There simply wasn’t enough time to do so. Every day they lost was another day where they were guessing what caused the bizarre crash of the Boeing 747 Dreamlifter. Another day of playing Russian roulette with some thirty thousand commercial jets in service that may have the same critical fault with the aircraft’s software.

  No one knew for certain if it was a one-off fault or the outcome of a coordinated cyber-attack. If it was intentional, someone had achieved the extraordinary and compromised the highly-secure computer controlling the most advanced and reliable flight and navigation system on board any modern jetliner, causing it to crash into the sea. Thrumming in the back of his head was the same terrible fear.

  Next time, it might not be a cargo carrier.

  Sea spray lashed the aft deck. It would be a miracle if they didn’t lose their latched-down Sea King helicopter to any number of the tremendous waves. Sam wore heavy wet weather gear to defy the near-freezing environment and stood outside the pilothouse door, facing aft. He watched as another wave lashed across the deck and glanced up at Veyron who was manning the purpose-built crane fitted to the aft deck.

  He met Veyron’s eyes, planted his palms upward and mouthed the words, “What the hell’s taking him so long?”

  Veyron simply shrugged.

  It was out of his control and most likely out of all of their control. It should have been ready to bring up nearly twenty minutes ago. However, these things seldom worked as smoothly or simply as expected. Sam pulled the hood of his rain jacket tight so that it cradled his face. His cold blue eyes watched as another wave broached the deck. The icy spray stung his unshaven face. He waited for the water to dissipate over the sides, as the deck shifted more than thirty degrees in either direction – and then fought his way across the aft deck to the crane’s small pilothouse.

  He climbed inside and closed the door. “Well, Veyron… what’s the problem?”

  “I don’t know…” Veyron slouched in his chair, his face set with indifference, enjoying the heated comfort of his station. “Tom’s having trouble fitting the cradle.”

  “All right. Did he give you an ETA?”

  Veyron shook his head. “All he said was he’d let me know the second it was ready.”

  “All right… let me know as soon as you get word it’s on its way up.”

  “Sure will, boss.”

  Sam waited for the crest of two waves to crash against the Maria Helena. She rode them surprisingly well, and he took the opportunity to climb out and return to the ship’s main pilothouse to check on Matthew.

  He quickly climbed up the three sets of internal stairs, removed his wet weather gear and entered the bridge. His skipper, Matthew wore a blue Hawaiian shirt and had the temperature cranked up on its highest setting so that it made Sam feel like he’d just stepped straight out of the arctic freeze into the tropics.

  Matthew was standing up, steering the Maria Helena manually. Despite the phenomenal advancements in autopilot technologies, nothing could beat the careful and studied manipulation of a ship through a rough sea like an expert skipper. Almost working as a sixth sense, the man had developed an uncanny ability to predict the movements of the swell and where each wave would strike his vessel.

  Sam asked, “How’s she riding out the swell?”

  “She’s holding together.” Matthew kept his eyes focused on the upcoming wave. “I’d rather not keep her here a minute longer than I have to. Any news about when Tom and Genevieve are going to be finished?”

  “No.”

  “They’re taking their time,” his eyebrows narrowed a touch. “Do you think they realize what the weather’s like up here?”

  Sam nodded. “I know. I just checked with Veyron. They’re having some problem with the cradle.”

  “Right.” Matthew adjusted the wheel to take a giant wave on at a slight angle. “You might want to tell Tom if he doesn’t have it sorted soon we might need to drop the cable and wait until the weather eases.”

  Sam pursed his lips slightly. “You know we can’t do that.”

  Matthew sighed. “And we can’t stay here being bombarded by the waves indefinitely, either.”

  Sam said, “Just a little while longer. There’s too much at stake to give up now, and you know as well as I do that it might be a number of weeks until the sea gives anyone any respite.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  Sam slipped into his wet weather gear again and returned downstairs. He stepped outside and faced the aft deck once again. The series of cables riding over the end of the crane was taut. His heart raced, and he found himself holding his breath for a brief moment. Had Tom and Genevieve managed to get the cradle fitted and attached to the lift cable? He stared at the cable, and a moment later he heard the whine of the electric winch start to turn – and the lift cable started to move.

  On the side wall at the back of the pilothouse the ship-to-ship phone rang.

&nbs
p; He picked it up on the first ring. “Tell me the news?”

  “We’re in business,” Veyron confirmed.

  “I’ll let Matthew know.”

  Sam flicked the ship-to-ship call to the bridge. “Matthew, we’re finally bringing her up.”

  “Great. I’ll reduce throttle and try and keep her steady in position, but you’ll have to let me know if I start to drag backward.”

  “Okay, I’m on it.”

  Sam watched as the wet cable retreated from the sea and ran across the long arm of the crane and smoothly through a series of pulleys and neatly around its holding drum. He breathed easily. The hardest part of the job was now complete. Any second now the massive aft tail of the Boeing 747 Dreamlifter would open, and then Tom would make short work of locating the aircraft’s black box.

  The phone at the wall behind him started to ring. Not the ship-to-ship one, but the satellite phone that could send and receive information anywhere in the world. Sam let it keep ringing. He had a fair idea who wanted to reach him and what it was about. He took a deep breath and sighed. The secretary of defense would have to wait until he had answers to give her.

  She would just have to wait.

  The phone kept ringing.

  Elise opened the door. “Sam?”

  “Yeah?”

  “There’s a gentleman from Phoenix Shipping after you,” she said.

  He could barely hear her through the external noise of the electric cable motor and the cantankerous seas.

  “Who?” Sam asked.

  “Gene Cutting,” she shouted above the roar of the wind and sea.

  Sam glanced at her. He searched his memory for the name but came up empty.

  Elise sighed. “Says he works for a shipping company… but not in shipping though. Something about insurance.”

  “I’ve never heard of him.”

  She persisted. “Says he needs you to go over a recent shipping accident. Something about an expert opinion for the insurance companies?”

  Sam had been called in as an expert to give his opinion to various maritime disasters and events in the past. He didn’t mind when the information gathered was used to improve the safety of the industry and all those at sea, but in most cases, it became a field trip into bureaucracies and the idiosyncrasies of technical language. In the end, it was the lawyers who won, as they went head-to-head in the court. Sam knew exactly why this man from the insurance company wanted to talk to him, and he wasn’t interested.

  He made a dramatic sigh. “Get rid of him for me, will you?”

  Elise nodded. “Sure thing.”

  Thirty seconds later, the cable winch stopped turning. It hummed louder for a few moments. Sam’s gaze quickly swept the end of the crane’s arm. The pulleys were intact, and the cable appeared taut. The pitch of the electric motor suddenly increased, and the winch began to turn again.

  Sam swore loudly because the cable had come loose – and they had lost purchase of their haul.

  The blue phone rang. This one used a communications cable along the lift cable – allowing ship-to-diver communications.

  He picked it up before it finished its first ring. “What the hell are you doing down there, Tom?” Sam asked. “Are you trying to break my lines?”

  “No, boss. The tail appears to be a hell of a lot heavier than we gave her credit for.”

  “Can you do it?”

  “Sure we can. We’re just going to need a much larger cable…”

  “You want me to bring you up?” Sam asked.

  “No. Genevieve and I will stay longer.”

  “You’ll overstay your decompression times.”

  “I know. Tell Elise to warm up the hyperbaric chamber.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah. It’s safer than waiting around for another go at this.”

  “Agreed.”

  “Oh, and we’ll need another cradle.”

  “Ah Christ, I’m going to have to come down there, aren’t I?”

  Chapter Two

  Sam checked his full-face dive mask, regulator lines, and tank one last time before climbing into his infrared-heated thermal undersuit, followed by a thick dry suit. He was diving with a single air tank. There was no need for elaborate dive gas mixtures at such a shallow depth, and he didn’t intend to stay down very long. The Dreamlifter wasn’t particularly deep at 100 feet, but the topside conditions were horrendous, and the Barents Sea was not known for its hospitality, above or below the surface.

  The Maria Helena bucked and rolled as Sam discussed the plan with Veyron on the intercom, whilst he was suiting up. Veyron had just returned from the deck after spooling the heaviest cable the Maria Helena could hoist on to the crane drum, with the largest cradle on board attached. Considering the conditions, he was nothing short of a magician – a master of his craft.

  Sam stood behind the door and gripped the handle with his right hand. In his left, he held his fins and mask. Beads of water raced down the small window on the door, and he peeked out across the deck. He turned to face Elise, who was barely visible beneath her cord-closed hood and life jacket ensemble. He smiled at her. “You ready?”

  “You bet,” came her muffled reply.

  Sam pushed the door out into the howling wind and spray. As he and Elise scrambled out on to the aft deck, the elements assaulted them. Dark clouds had closed in while Sam had made ready, and rain now joined the sea water that strafed them as they crossed the slippery, rolling deck surface toward Veyron and the crane box.

  There was just enough room for the three to squeeze into the control room and close the door. Veyron sat at the crane controls, relaxed as ever. Sam and Elise were saturated from the brief exposure to the deck and tried not to get water over everything as they finalized the ad-hoc plan for the dive. With Tom and Genevieve waiting below, time was not their ally if they wanted to get it done today.

  Moments later, Sam stood at the starboard toe-rail of the aft deck in his fins and mask, holding tightly to the lifeline. To his right he watched the boom of the crane as it dipped and swayed toward the broken swell, accentuating the uneven movement of the ship. The dark green foaming sea reached up to his feet with the troughs between waves, and then sucked away deeply as the boat climbed another peak. He ensured his shoulder strobe was flashing and checked again for his pocket EPIRB – Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon.

  Rain and sea spray whipped at him as he checked his air supply once more.

  Time to go.

  Sam waited for the moment when the Maria Helena was at her lowest in the water at the aft. He planned to step out into the water, descending as quickly as he could and getting as far from the boat as possible.

  Veyron prepared a running line for the 8-inch-thick steel cable that Sam would bring down with him with the attachments to make the new cradle.

  Sam ran his eyes across the cable, appraisingly. “You’re certain it will carry her?”

  Veyron nodded. “That’ll carry as much as the Maria Helena’s capable of lifting.

  “All right. Let’s get this thing done.”

  Elise came out again, with the sat phone in her hand. “Sam, it’s Gene Cutting.”

  “Who?”

  “The guy who wants your expert opinion for the insurers…”

  Sam shook his head. “Tell him I’m not interested. Tell him I’m diving.”

  “I already did. He didn’t want to listen. Said he appreciates you’re busy. Says his company’s willing to pay big, just for your insight. Nothing formal. Doesn’t want to drag you through the courts – just wants some expert opinion on what could have possibly gone wrong. Apparently the Buckholtz, a large container ship ran aground under some fairly unusual and mysterious circumstances as it was leaving Hamburg this morning.”

  Sam sighed. “What happened?”

  “Apparently the Buckholtz came out of its shipping lane while leaving the Elbe River, turned ninety-degrees and ran aground into Neuwerk Island.”

  “Neuwerk Island?” S
am confirmed, with an incredulous grin. “How the hell does a large cargo ship manage that?”

  “No idea. That’s what Gene Cutting wants you to find out.”

  Sam held his palms upward in supplication. “We’re already racing to raise the tail of the Dreamlifter and gain access to the main fuselage so that we can retrieve the damned black box. If this isn’t an isolated incident, and there’s a generic virus or fault with the program, we’re going to see a lot more 747s crash – and next time we might not be so lucky – it might be a commercial passenger jet that gets hit, so I’m afraid we just don’t have time for him.”

  “He says he’ll come to you…”

  “I’m not interested!” Sam placed the full-faced dive mask over his face, gripped the eye of the 8-inch cable with its hook, and dropped over the stern of the Maria Helena, disappearing into the dark waters below.

  Chapter Three

  The icy water enveloped Sam’s body in an instant.

  Despite his protective layering, the extreme temperature shift was enough to shock him into focus. He didn’t wait on the surface to check his dive equipment. In the violent seas, the safest place for him would be deep below the raging waves.

  Without any air in his buoyancy control device, he immediately started to sink. The weight of the hook and cradle afforded Sam a gentle descent, at the measured rate of the crane’s cable. He had attached a lead-line to keep the lifting tackle at a comfortable distance, to allow for the rise and fall of the boat on the swell above.

  He swallowed as he descended, allowing his ears to equalize to the new pressures. On his heads-up display, he watched as the depth increased rapidly. His eyes swept over the other gauges, confirming that his air supply readings remained where they belonged.

  The stormy conditions at the surface denied the sea much of its ambient light, making it difficult for Sam to see very far as he trailed the hook into the deep ocean water, but after closing half the distance to the bottom, he could start to make out the Boeing 747 Dreamlifter on the seabed. From his high viewpoint, the great jet already started to fill his entire vision. Tom and Genevieve’s flashlights danced off the fuselage far below, like tiny stars as they prepared for the arrival of the new cradle.