Mega: A Deep Sea Thriller

by Jake Bible

  Lieutenant Mark Bisbee spoke up. “Maybe it’s a trap. There’s a Russian sub somewhere out there. Maybe we had better move cautiously.”

  Bisbee’s prudence might be called for under normal circumstances, but his reluctance concerned Crabtree. “Now is not the time for caution. The fate of the Free World is at stake. Last plot places the Russian sub forty miles north of us and presents no present threat. The Sumner is not afraid of a Russian submarine.”

  Even in his bloodlust, he had no desire to tangle with a Russian sub. Not for fear it would sink his ship, but because he didn’t want to precipitate a nuclear holocaust. Intercepting a Russian freighter was one thing, but tangling with a submarine was different.

  “Yes, sir,” Bisbee replied, but his nervousness was not lost on Crabtree.

  “Have we made radio contact with the Russian freighter?”

  “They’re not replying.”

  Crabtree nodded. He wouldn’t reply either, if the situations were reversed. He braced against a bulkhead once more as the bow dipped into a wave trough. “When we’re within torpedo range, we will attempt one more hail, and then fire a shot over her bow with the 127 mm. If she refuses to yield at that time, I want two torpedoes placed in her side. I want to see that ship on the bottom of the ocean.”

  “If she’s carrying a nuclear cargo …”

  “Mr. Bisbee,” Crabtree said, not bothering to hide the exasperation in his voice. “Her nukes will not go off if we sink her. Had you rather see one of those missiles detonate over Washington, D.C., or Annapolis?”

  Bisbee licked his lips. “No, sir.”

  “Very well then, let the depths have them. Instruct the torpedo crew of my orders, and sound battle stations.”

  A few seconds later, the ‘Battle Station’ claxon went off, sending the crew scurrying for their stations. Crabtree was proud to see them moving calmly and efficiently. Since arriving in the Caribbean, he had trained his crew ruthlessly day and night. They would know what to do when the time came to act. He left the radar room and struggled up the stairs to the bridge, as the ship suddenly climbed a wave. An ensign handed him a metal battle helmet as soon as he entered the bridge. He removed his hat, laid it on the console, and donned the helmet, carefully slipping the strap under his chin. Stepping outside into the open air, he leaned against the rail, bracing himself against the ship’s heavy list. The fog was so thick he could barely see the fantail of the ship. Without radar, they could pass within a stone’s throw of the Russian freighter without seeing it.

  His choices were limited. He could pursue at full speed, praying that the ship’s twenty-year-old hull didn’t come apart at the seams, and that the rough seas didn’t render his radar useless, or he could reduce speed, and hope the Russian captain didn’t realize he was being followed. He chose hard pursuit. The Russian wanted him to think he was on his way to South America, but Bisbee wasn’t buying it. Unless somebody had slipped up, and intel had been on the nose so far, the Russian was carrying nukes destined for Cuba. He couldn’t allow that to happen.

  The full force of the squall struck from the northeast half an hour later. The rain hammered his face as he stared into the deepening darkness, but he ignored it. The Russian was running without lights, but for just a split second, he thought he saw a dark blur atop a wave, silhouetted against the deep purple sky. It disappeared so quickly he thought it might simply have been his desire to see the Russian placing it on the horizon. He chose to think it was real.

  “I’ve got you, you bastard,” he whispered into the night. He clenched his right fist around the rail.

  The distance between the two ships closed slowly. The Sumner was capable of making thirty-four knots on a calm sea, but now she was reduced to less than twenty. The Russian captain must have been a fool to risk his rust bucket of a ship at that speed.

  The speaker on the bridge sang out, “Sonar here, sir. I picked up a ping about two clicks out, just astern of the Russian.

  The Russian sub. Captain Crabtree gripped the railing tighter. “Stand by depth charges.” He smiled as he imagined the look on Bisbee’s face when he heard that order. “Do not unload the racks unless the sub makes an aggressive move first. When the Russian freighter is within range, you have my orders.”

  God help me if I’m wrong.

  * * * *

  He could not see them, but Captain Voshok could feel the American’s presence as a small itch between his shoulder blades. He had experienced the same discomfort during the siege of Stalingrad, as the German Stukkas dive bombed his ship and strafed his passengers, raw recruits for the meat grinder that was Stalingrad. He had survived Stalingrad. Could he survive this? A heavy wave crashed into the bow, sending him sprawling across the deck like a bit of flotsam. He fetched up against a bulkhead and fought his way to his feet. He caught sight of the American destroyer less than four-thousand meters to port in a sudden flash of lightning. They could not escape. He had to scuttle his ship, but he could not give the order. Better to let the Americans do the job for him. At least, he would not be around to watch his ship sink.

  “The Americans are hailing us again,” the radioman announced.

  He tensed. Answering them was his last chance at surviving. He could not. “Ignore them,” he snapped.

  A few seconds later, a flash of light and an explosion a hundred meters off their starboard bow. A geyser of water rose into the air. The Americans were being serious.

  “Continue on course,” he called out. Did the Americans want to start a war?

  “Torpedoes!” rang out from the top look out.

  Voshok swung his binoculars to port toward the American warship, expecting to see twin lances of death streaking toward him. He saw nothing.

  “What bearing?” he yelled.

  “Starboard.”

  He quickly spotted the wake of a single torpedo six hundred meters away. He smiled as realization dawned on him. Rather than risk his cargo being intercepted, his own countrymen in the Velikovsky would assure his death. The ship shuddered and lurched as the torpedo struck the stern, lifting it into the air. The deck rose to smack him in the face. He felt his cheekbones shatter. He spit out a broken tooth with a mouthful of blood. His ears rang from the blow. The aft of the ship disappeared in a bright orange ball of flame. The heat and concussion washed over him, rendering him deaf and scorching his clothing and skin. He struggled to his feet and saw the American torpedoes pass by the bow. The American captain had been a good shot. If not for the Velikovsky, the American’s torpedoes would have done the job. The American had been robbed of his victory. Voshok forced a smile to his smashed face.

  The second explosion shattered the ship’s spine. The aft section split apart with a screech of rending metal and fell away. He watched two crewmen, friends, swallowed by a large crack in the deck, engulfed in flames. Lifeboats broke free of their hoists and crashed into the ocean. His countrymen were taking no chances. There would be no time to abandon ship. His crew, which had become his family, would die with him. He regretted that their lives would be sacrificed to the ever-starving beast of politics, but no story of the Pokhomov’s deadly cargo could ever told by survivors. Her cargo would soon rest at the depths of the Cayman Trench, forgotten by time.

  Voshok clung to the railing as the sea washed over him. The captain rode his ship to the bottom.

  * * * *

  The second explosion ripped the Pokhomov in half. Captain Crabtree watched both halves slide into the water. Men and equipment on her decks slid over the side. One burning crewman leaped over the side into the water and vanished. Flames spilled from portholes and rents in the ship’s hull. He had never witnessed a large ship sink. It left a dull ache in his stomach. His battle lust died quickly. Instead of elation, he felt as if he were trapped in her hold, water rising around him, filling his lungs with oily water.

  He lowered his binoculars and wiped his brow, gasping for air. When he raised his glasses again, the freighter was gone, leaving only a cloud of steam, qu
ickly dispersed by the wind, and scattered debris that would just as quickly be scattered by the waves. He was surprised that both fish had hit. He had fired two torpedoes from a range of two thousand yards. It wasn’t a perfect firing solution, but he couldn’t afford to let the Russian slip away in the squall. They had ignored his hail and his warning shot. He told himself had no choice, but was he fooling himself?

  The dying ship emitted one last groan, a protest at the murder done to her. Or a promise of revenge. Of course, the Russians would deny the sinking; deny even that the ship existed. They could not admit to its deadly cargo. His report would quickly be lost amid the reams of paper amassed during the blockade. The world would never know how close to the brink of war it had come.

  Captain Crabtree lowered his binoculars and stepped back into the wheelhouse out of the squall, trying to distance himself from his deed. It would soon be over, as would the blockade. The President was rumored to be considering removing American missiles from Turkey, and in return, the Russians would withdraw their missiles from Cuba. No one would know of the deal, but no one would care. The danger was over.

  He fumbled a cigarette from a pack of Camels and lit it, trying to hide his shaking hand from the crew. Now I get the shakes. He took a puff and glanced at his watch. “Note the time of the sinking, Mr. Bisbee, 2440 hours.” He called out to the helmsman, “Take us back to the fleet, Mr. Lee.” Standing by the open door, shielding his cigarette from the rain, he thought he heard a long, loud scream rise from amid the debris of the dying ship, but marked it down to his imagination. Still, the sound raised goose bumps on his flesh, and he knew the dead ship would haunt his memory for a long, long time.

  2

  Oct. 23, 2014, Little Cayman, Caribbean –

  Josh Peterman emerged from the emerald green water, ran his fingers through his wavy, blond locks to ease them back into place, and stood, looking up and down the almost deserted beach. Hurricane Clive was still a day out, but the rough surf, the lack of sun, and the scuttling clouds had driven anyone hardy enough to brave the storm into the bars to sip pina coladas. A strong wave surged onto the beach, breaking against the back of his legs with enough force to send him reeling forward. He stumbled and caught himself before falling, but his heels began sinking as the wave retreated, eroding the sand from beneath his feet.

  “Enough for today,” he muttered and headed for his towel lying on the sand.

  Josh, a senior at Texas Christian University, had saved for two years to take this trip to Little Cayman, and he wasn’t about to let an impending hurricane spoil it. However, now it would be a total wash out – no sun, no diving, and no women. His anticipated weeklong stay would be shorter than he had hoped. Today, his third on the tiny island would be his last day. He was evacuating with the last batch of tourists on the last plane leaving at six p.m. Only the island’s one-hundred-and-seventy or so residents would remain, enduring the hurricane’s wrath and fury with the same serenity with which they faced daily life.

  Toweling dry as he walked toward to the Sunset Cove Resort, a British Colonial-style, two-story building, he eyed the hammocks suspended between palm trees. He plopped down in one, allowing the nylon netting to enfold him, but after a few minutes, the constant swaying of the tree in the wind brought on a bout of seasickness. The thought of an early dinner on his queasy stomach didn’t appeal to him, and he really didn’t feel like drinking again so soon after last night’s epic binge. Two-for-one deals should include a warning that the bartender is not responsible for the drinker’s inability to know when he has overindulged.

  A grain of sand blew into his eye. As he rubbed it out, he spotted something washing up on shore. The crashing waves rolled it over the sand. It moved. He blinked back a tear and rose from the hammock to investigate.

  As he neared the object, some type of animal, the first thing he noted was the teeth, long, curved and vicious, sprouting from both the upper and lower jaws. The gills fluttered as it fought for oxygen. It was still alive. The size of the fish surprised him, nearly five feet in length. It was too dark, almost black, for a barracuda, and didn’t have the fins of a shark. It fact, it didn’t resemble any other tropical fish with which he was familiar. As he leaned over it for a closer look, the fish wriggled toward him, snapping its jaws at him. An incoming wave moved the fish toward his feet. He leaped back to avoid a bite that would probably have severed his foot.

  “Damn!” he exclaimed, looking around to see if anyone saw his startled reaction.

  As his mind worked overtime, trying to recall to what species the fish belonged, he noticed several more of the creatures flopping up and down the beach, brought in by the rising tide. It appeared he would have no dearth of specimens to examine. As he considered the possibility of mutations, it all finally snapped into place. His mind reeled, astounded at what he was seeing. The creature was a member of Anoplogaster comuta, the common fangtooth, also known as the Ogrefish, but instead of its usual six-inch length, this creature was ten times as large. What it was doing on a beach in the Cayman Islands rather than in the deep dark at sixteen-thousand feet, its usual habitat, feeding on plankton, he couldn’t imagine. The storm alone couldn’t have brought it up from the depths. Had the tremor that had rattled the island two days earlier disturbed the deep creatures? The news had reported a 5.4 magnitude quake with its epicenter about one-hundred twenty miles south of Little Cayman at a depth of twelve-thousand feet. That placed it in the Mid-Cayman Spreading Center, an area noted for slides and tremors.

  He took a series of photos with his cell phone, laying his watch on the sand as a ruler to indicate the creature’s true size. He had to hurry before the tide swept the creature back out to sea. Satisfied with the results, he then attempted to send the photos to his professor at TCU.

  “Damn, no bars.” He scanned the darkening sky to the southeast. “Must be the storm.”

  As he entered the resort lobby, the manager, Nigel Hawthorne, met him at the door. Hawthorne, a middle-aged man who was much too pale for living on a tropical island, was going bald, but insisted on combing over his few remaining hairs and plastering them to his scalp. His hand repeatedly flew to his head to replace errant hairs as the wind blew them around. He reeked of patchouli oil.

  “Mr., ah, Peterman, I just wanted to remind you about the plane at six p.m. tonight.” He stared at Josh with folded hands as he waited for an answer.

  “Yes, I remember. I’ll be ready.”

  Hawthorne dipped his head, said, “Very good,” and scuttled away.

  Josh smiled at Hawthorne’s back as he was retreating. Hawthorne was much too nervous for such an easy-going climate, always rushing about, while his employees sauntered from task to task as if it working, personally assaulted their daily routine of laissez faire. With his pencil-thin moustache, Hawthorne reminded Josh of a prim and proper mortician. The lobby was deserted. In fact, only three guests remained in the resort. One was a long-time resident, and the other two were a couple from Minnesota leaving on the same plane as Josh.

  Josh’s room overlooked the beach. He grabbed a cold cola from the room’s mini fridge and walked straight through the room to the veranda that all the beachside rooms shared. He plopped down in a white wicker armchair and propped his feet on the railing. The vase of flowers that had fallen from the table beside his chair and shattered during the tremor two days earlier was still there, one of the few signs of visible damage from the tremor. He was surprised the staff hadn’t gotten around to cleaning it up, but he supposed they were busy preparing for the hurricane.

  He scanned the beach, but it was clear of giant Ogrefish. The tide had washed them back out to sea. He wished that he could have saved a specimen on ice, but it would never have survived the long journey back to TCU. The photos would be proof enough, and perhaps provide a basis for his thesis. Watching the tide eat away the sand, he sensed a twinge of sympathy for the island’s residents for when the storm surge arrived. The resort lobby would be flooded, as would most of th
e island. The island’s highest point was barely forty feet above sea level. Even if it survived the ravages of the hurricane’s winds, the island would be devastated.

  Josh’s stomach rumbled, but he had no desire for a large dinner. Instead, he nibbled on fruit from a bowl beside the chair and the remains of a package of potato chips to curb his hunger, wondering how much of his stomachache was due to too much alcohol and how much from fear. He had never been so close to a hurricane before. He had seen photos of the aftermath of one and had no desire to be caught in the middle of one. He also had a fear of flying. He had fought the fear during the entire journey from Texas, tempting fate in his desire to visit the island. Thoughts of flying through the fringes of a hurricane in the dark made him more than a little uneasy.

  He pulled out his cell phone and stared at the photos of the Ogrefish. He had dived with sharks and barracudas, and even had a small scar from a moray eel’s bite, but meeting giant Ogrefish in the dark depths sent a shiver up his spine. Such creatures couldn’t live in a vacuum. They had to eat something, and in turn, something larger ate them. Such was the cycle of nature. Whatever had driven them up from the deep, earth tremor or hurricane, had it also brought other deep denizens to the surface, creatures that would make Ogrefish pale in comparison? He had heard of giant squid, had seen their sucker marks on blue whales. If this was an example of sea life in the depths, what else lurked below?

  A gust of wind swept across the veranda, swaying the trees, bringing with it the strong scent of rain. The day was rapidly fading into an early twilight. The surf was rising and powerful waves began to pound the beach. He thought of huddling in the dark confines of the flimsy wooden structure of the resort during a hurricane and shuddered.

  He hoped the plane would take off on time.

  From The Depths is available from www.severedpress.com and Amazon here