Sam fixed his gaze on the row of shipping containers beside him. A tiny camera mounted within his dive mask took in the image. He held his attention on the first of the shipping containers for a moment longer until it triggered his augmented reality to spit out the shipping container’s position.
10/14/10
Sam said, “It should be directly below here.”
“Great. Can you see how to get down there?”
Sam adjusted his heads-up-display, so that he zoomed out from the ship’s schematics, allowing him to see what he was looking for – a set of stairs and ladders, which would allow him to drop down to the 8th tier.
“Got it!” he said. “There’s a set of ladders that run all the way to the bilge.”
“All right,” Tom said. “I’ll follow you.”
Sam continued to swim toward the ladder. It wasn’t that he needed a ladder to get down, but with the rows upon rows of shipping containers secured so close, it was impossible to move anywhere. Even the gangway and passageway that he was traveling above didn’t have railings – it didn’t need to; the shipping containers formed a natural barrier.
He glanced at another shipping container. The location flashed across his heads-up-display. 10/08/10. Sam kept swimming until he reached the internal ladder system. There, he released a small amount of air from his diving buoyancy wing until he slowly sank downward.
It took only a few seconds to descend to the 8th tier.
Sam followed the narrow gap between the rows of shipping containers, heading toward the port side, and then stopped.
A dark void filled the portside.
He shined his flashlight around and then swore - the 60-foot, specialized shipping container was missing.
Chapter Fifteen
Sam stared at the note being displayed by his heads-up-display’s augmented reality.
10/14/08 – shipping container: missing.
He shined the beam of his flashlight across the dark, empty space. It almost certainly matched the dimensions of the shipping container at 60-feet by 8-feet wide. Directly surrounding its edges were rows upon rows of shipping containers.
Sam's lips formed an incredulous grin. “All right. I’ll bite. Someone’s stolen the damned thing.”
“Looks like it,” Tom agreed.
“The question is, how did they do it?” Sam flashed the beam across the bay. There wasn’t even enough spare room for him or Tom to swim freely, without following the narrow passageways. “It’s not like they could have stolen the shipping container but left the other twenty between here and the deck.”
“No. Which means, they needed to get out through the side of the hull.”
Sam’s head snapped around to Row 14. His eyes hadn’t given it any thought before because he knew that he was at the last row on board the Buckholtz, but now, as he glanced toward the port hull, he spotted it.
Sam stared at the opening. “I don’t believe it!”
Tom moved to follow him. “That’s impressive. A lot of work went into stealing that shipping container. It makes you wonder why?”
“You mean, what’s inside that shipping container that’s worth sinking the entire ship for?”
“Exactly.”
Sam fixed his flashlight on the opening. It was a little over 8-feet wide by 11-feet tall. Almost the same dimensions as the specialized shipping container.
The edges were razor sharp angles, forming a wound of surgical precision rather than a gash made by the sinking of the Buckholtz. There was one thing for certain, the steel had been cut with a powerful piece of hardware.
Sam kicked his fins and moved toward the opening.
There was something about it that caught his eye. Water appeared to be flowing through the opening.
A small eddy had formed, where the murky waters of the Elbe were mixing with the stilled water of the interior hull. That would have made sense if someone had cut the opening moments ago, but surely the damage had been caused nearly twenty-four hours ago when the ship first ran aground?
He swam out through the opening to get a better look and formulate some sort of explanation. The water outside the hull was slightly warmer and the visibility obscured by clouds of mud.
That’s when he stopped.
There, thirty or so feet away, lying on the muddy seabed was the specialized shipping container. From what he could see, the purpose-built container was still intact. According to Gene, it had been designed to withstand significant pressures in the event of water damage.
“Over there!” Sam shouted.
“I see it!” Tom said, without making any move toward the massive hold.
Sam kicked his fins and swam toward the shipping container.
He was nearly there. Maybe five feet shy of placing his hand on it, when the shipping container started to move.
The massive structure jolted forward.
It looked like a magic trick, until he looked up, and spotted the dark fin of the large submarine.
Chapter Sixteen
A series of divers had secured the shipping container onto a buoyant sled and then attached the front of that to the submarine.
Mentally, Sam tried to orient himself to the shipping lanes. There was deep water to the north of Neuwerk Island, where the North Sea began. Even a large submarine could conceal itself indefinitely in its depth.
He had no way of knowing just how valuable the contents of the specialized shipping container might be, but that didn’t matter to him. What counted was the fact someone had gone to such extreme lengths to steal it, and for that, he was willing to put his neck on the line to stop them.
Sam kicked harder until he reached the side of the shipping container. A series of thick nylon cables enmeshed the entire thing like a spider’s web.
He grabbed his dive knife and started to slice through the first one he could find.
The container jolted forward again. It was a tentative movement, like someone was testing it and making certain its cradle would hold. They didn’t have much time to cut it free, or the submarine would drag it off into the North Sea – where it would disappear for good.
“Quick!” Sam shouted. “Tom, try and cut the other side.”
There was no reply.
“Tom?” Sam looked over his right shoulder.
Still no response.
Holding on with his left hand, he flashed the beam of his light behind him, toward the razor-sharp opening of the Buckholtz.
The void was dark, and visibility nearly impossible beneath the recently disturbed muddy waters, but Sam spotted the series of large bubbles as they drifted toward the surface.
There were too many, and they were too large to be the natural result of Tom releasing excess gas from his buoyancy wing.
Had he been injured somehow?
The fleeting thought dissipated as quickly as it had arrived. Sam’s heart raced and the lines of his face creased with concern.
Those bubbles looked like what you’d expect to see from a traditional scuba as the expired air bled into the water.
In fact, those bubbles had come from three scuba divers.
Sam forgot about the specialized shipping container and its precious secret cargo. He let go of the remaining nylon tiedown, switched off his flashlight and raced toward the Buckholtz in cover of darkness.
He took in the scene at a glance.
They had caught Tom as he swam out of the hold, and in the process had somehow damaged his underwater radio – thus explaining why he hadn’t called for help. It had taken three divers to get Tom down, but Sam couldn’t see what they were trying to do to him.
All he could see was that Tom wasn’t going down without a fight.
He struggled and fought like a frenzied fish. Hand-to-hand fighting is difficult in enclosed spaces, like the interior hull of the Buckholtz, but it was next to impossible in thick dive gear, while submerged in narrow spaces. The viscosity of water forces every move to slow down. Numerous weapons still fired under water, but bulle
ts rapidly lost their momentum, rendering any shots ineffective unless the barrel of the gun was pressed up against an enemy. Kicks and punches were mostly useless too, for the same reason.
A sharp, streamlined weapon, like a speargun, was the most lethal.
The fact that Tom was still alive suggested to Sam that the divers weren’t expecting trouble and thus weren’t equipped to fight. They had most likely spotted him and Tom and tried to kill Tom while he was on his own.
Right now, they were working to physically maneuver Tom until he was face down and they could easily close off his oxygen supply.
Sam gripped his dive knife firmly in his right hand.
There wasn’t much time.
Three of them versus him and Tom. They had the advantage, but he might still surprise them – and once Tom was free, it would be a much fairer fight.
Sam reached the diver closest to him. The diver had his back up against the internal wall of the Buckholtz. He was trying to work out how to shut down the oxygen supply to Tom’s closed-circuit rebreather system. It was nearly impossible without dismantling the aluminum backpack, but the sight gave Sam an idea.
The scuba diver’s tank was directly in front of him. Sam reached forward and closed the attacker’s regulator valve.
Confident it was now closed, he positioned himself backward in the dark and waited for a few seconds. Sam watched as the diver realized something was wrong, and unable to do anything about it, broke free from the fight and headed toward the surface.
The second diver turned to see what was going on. Sam watched as he peered out the opening in the hull, where the first diver was now making a rapid ascent to the surface.
When the diver turned again, to face Tom, Sam slid his knife into the diver’s throat.
The blade was razor sharp, designed for slicing ropes and anything else that he might become entangled with, and he drove it straight through his attacker’s windpipe. The diver frantically, reached for his throat, as though he could somehow protect himself.
Sam twisted the blade, causing further damage, and then yanked it free.
It was a disturbing way to kill a man, but there was nothing else to be done. It was either the scuba divers or Tom and him. Kill or be killed. Given the options, Sam was happy with his choice. He stared at the diver. Sam’s knife had inflicted a fatal wound, and the man knew it. His eyes were wide with terror, and his arms flailed frantically, searching for some sort of support.
Sam stared at the stranger’s eyes. There was something else there, too. Concealed within the man’s death throes, was another emotion, something that took Sam by surprise – triumph.
Sam tried to back away, out of reach, but he wasn’t quick enough. The dying man’s hand connected with Sam’s full-faced dive mask and the man yanked it free.
In an instant, his visibility was taken from him.
Sam tried to orient himself, but there was little he could do. The second his mask was ripped free, murky water gushed over his face, flooding his mouth and blinding his eyes. He forced himself to open his eyes. In the darkened mess, his eyes swept the environment, trying to distinguish the darkness of the internal hull of the Buckholtz and the radiant light from outside.
His only chance was to reach the surface, but until he got control, and knew in what direction that was, he would end up doing nothing more than racing toward his death.
The seawater turned white with bubbles gushing out of the end of the piping that should have formed his closed-circuit rebreather system – a system no longer closed with the destruction of his mask.
Still, he needed to reach the end of that tubing. It wouldn’t last long, but the air inside might sustain his life long enough to reach the surface.
He groped in the dark for the end of the pipe and then pulled it toward his mouth. The bubbles went everywhere. He couldn’t seem to form a seal. Why not? Mentally, he struggled to come up with an answer. Had his attacker managed to rip the piping down the middle? It seemed impossible. He tried a second time to form a seal over the end of the tube but failed.
Next solution, locate his pony bottle.
A pony bottle was a small tank with 50 bar of compressed air. It encompassed a small regulator and single mouthpiece. It was generally attached to his right leg as a last resort, emergency, breathing source.
Only now, he couldn’t reach it.
He ran his hands all the way down his torso and thighs.
It wasn’t there.
Could his attacker have managed to knock that off, too?
Sam shook his head. It didn’t matter. Right now, he needed to surface. But the darkness was overcoming him.
He thought he saw the light and started swimming toward it, only when he reached it, his world got darker again. The problem was that without vision or an air supply it was almost impossible to determine in which direction the surface was. He followed the light, as his chest burned with the tightness of suffocation.
Sam felt his ears ache and swallowed to equalize the pressure.
He should have been near the surface. Was he going deeper? The thought horrified him. He gritted his teeth and kept swimming. The world in front of him was bright like he was nearing the surface. He reached his hands forward expecting to break the surface of the water.
Instead, they slammed into something metal.
Sam stared at the light in disbelief and grabbed it.
In an instant, full understanding dawned on him. It was a flashlight. Not his, but the other diver’s. The light must have fallen free, dropping to the lower levels of the Buckholtz’s internal hull. He’d followed the light all the way down to the bottom, which meant he was now what… 50…or possibly 60 feet from the surface?
Terror stripped at his hardened resolve, and part of him was ready to take a deep breath and end it all then and there.
But he’d never been a quitter and didn’t plan to make this the day of his death. So, instead, he gripped the flashlight and kicked off the bottom of the hull in a desperate race to the surface. He kicked both of his legs in a slow and continuous motion.
Despite his tenacity, Sam couldn’t stay submerged without air indefinitely - his vision started to darken.
He felt his world come apart as his oxygen-deprived brain struggled to make sense of his environment.
Above him, Sam’s hands struck steel. It was possibly the internal deck of the Buckholtz, or even simply a gangway or passageway.
It didn’t matter.
There was nowhere else for him to go.
Sam stopped kicking. And why shouldn’t he? It was now impossible for him to reach the surface. A ghost, or was it simply a figment of his imagination, told him to have a rest and take it easy. Everything was going to be just right.
The ghost was big and friendly. It handed him something and told him to breathe. Sam kept pushing it away. No thank you… I’m quite all right, dying here without your help. But the ethereal specter was insistent, until Sam finally felt something forced into his mouth.
The creature patted him heavily on his back, encouraging him to breathe.
I can’t breathe this, it’s just water.
I’m dreaming, but I know I can’t breathe water!
He felt two more heavy blows to his back. The ghost was persistent if nothing else. Sam no longer had the strength to resist. He took a deep breath in and waited for his lungs to fill with water. The breath was followed by another one.
It felt good. Cold but good. Not at all like what he expected drowning, or even death for that matter, to feel like.
A moment later, he started to move.
The creature was pulling him downward. Sam no longer had any fear. And why should he? Nothing can harm the dead, can it? It didn’t take long, and he was pulled through an opening, and dragged to the surface.
Sam felt his head broach the sea. The mouthpiece was removed from his mouth. He closed his eyes he took a deep breath of fresh air. It tasted salty but fresh.
Next to him, the ghos
t was removing something that covered its face.
He opened his eyes and stared at the specter.
“Tom?”
Tom suppressed a grin. “Who the hell else did you expect to save your sorry ass from the bottom of the hull?”
Chapter Seventeen
Sam climbed the ladder on the side of the Buckholtz until he reached the bridge. It was a quarter past two in the afternoon, and the sun shined warmly on the deck. Once there, he laid down over the warm external wing, taking in the radiating heat. He was exhausted and could have slept there for a week.
Instead, he turned to Tom. “Thanks.”
“No problem. Like I said, if not me, then who? Besides, you came back for me in the first place.” Tom crossed his arms. “Obviously, I could have taken care of the three attackers by myself, but you did help speed the process up a little.”
Sam smiled. “About that. Last I saw you, you were still fighting one of them. So, what happened?”
“It was easy. While you cleverly distracted him by losing your dive mask, and nearly drowning, I knocked him off me. In the subsequent fight, he took one look at me and decided to swim after the container.”
Sam sat up. “We should try and find it.”
“I wouldn’t bother. That team was filled with pros. The container was already being towed by a submarine. That submarine’s well on its way into deep water, and we’re never going to see it again.”
“We might get lucky and spot it from the air if we get on the helicopter.”
“Sure. But we’d need a helicopter first, and the Maria Helena won’t be here for a few hours.”
Sam said, “Maybe we can resume the search once they get here?”
“What?” Tom laughed. “And get lucky finding a submarine that’s had a three-hour head start?”
“You think it’s unlikely?”
“Unlikely?” Tom shook his head. “It’s impossible. If you know of a way to do that, you should talk to my dad. He’s spent his life trying to locate submarines that wanted to remain hidden.”
Omega Deep (Sam Reilly Book 12) Page 10
