Nick got an idea. It was an old-school Hollywood staple. He started backing Zoya and he toward the jellyfish.
The sharks came at them faster and faster, their mouths open, ready for their close up. Nick waited and waited. He could see the whites of the eyes, but still he waited.
He waited until the last possible moment when he could feel the rush of water that preceded those large snouts, then shoved Zoya up against the wall. The sharks couldn’t react in time and they plowed right into the school of jellyfish. The jellyfish entangled the sharks in their web of tentacles.
If it had been only one or two of them, the jellyfish would have been eaten, but there were dozens upon dozens of them. And as Zoya had said, a single sting only hurt, but many could be deadly, held true
The sharks writhed and jerked as the jellyfish stung them over and over again.
While the sharks sheared off a fair number of tentacles there were more than enough left to ensnare the shark’s fins and tail. One seemed to give up, floating within the school, suspended by thin tentacles. Another still fought, still flailing within the cloud of jellyfish.
The third actually had a chance of escape. It had managed to turn, coming back toward Nick and Zoya. True to form, the shark had its mouth open, still trying to come at them. If it hadn’t been for the hundreds of tentacles wrapped around its dorsal fin and tail, they would have been done for.
The Greenland was dragging the entire school toward them.
That wouldn’t do. Nick couldn’t wait and hope the jellyfish’s toxins did the trick. He swam forward and hit the shark on the nose as hard as he could with this pipe. He wasn’t a QX, but he got the job done.
The shark, disoriented, reeled back, forcing himself deep within the jellyfish nest. Soon, it too stopped struggling. The tentacles were so thick that all you could see of the sharks were a few fins sticking out.
Nick let out a breath, grabbed Zoya’s hand and got the hell out of there.
* * *
Callum had tried to get away from the brightly colored stalkers. He glanced over his shoulder. They were still following him, but at a distance. He was only a few hallways from Tonaka.
Again, he thought about ditching the supplies, but they were too vital. Besides the adrenaline of thinking a predator behind him had given him a second wind. His muscles no longer complained. He felt like he could swim the last leg of an iron man triathlon right now.
An orange body flecked with green streaked by. The school of whatever they were seemed to be tired of stalking. They seemed ready to make their introduction. If only he could get a clear view of them. He would know whether he had to be worried or not.
Callum figured the safe thing was just to be worried. That was just his luck.
“Callum, are you okay?” Tonaka asked in his ear.
Not sure would have been his answer, but he didn’t want to worry the others. It wasn’t bravery, he didn’t honestly know.
“I’m good,” Callum responded hoping he wasn’t lying as another flash of green slid past his vision.
“Dillon and the others are back safe. We’ve got some severe hypothermia in the survivors, but I think they’ll make it.”
That was great news. Now if only he had equally good news to share.
Now orange and green whipped by him, blurring they were moving so fast. So far though, no bites so Callum was content.
He stopped, letting his body float just above the floor. He hoped the stillness would allow his groupies to show themselves.
His instincts were correct. After a few moments of no movement the orange and green creatures swam around him.
Callum breathed a sigh of relief. They were just gunnels. Silly little fish. These must have been banded gunnels given the dark stripes along their back that create a whirl pattern on their face. Just banded gunnels. That was all.
They were cute little fish, highly curious and other sub-species in warmer waters frequently checked out divers. They were attracted by the bubbles. Callum slowly moved his hand in front of them. A few brave members of the school darted forward, picking at his gloves. A few picked at his silver ankle, fascinated by their own reflection.
He couldn’t dawdle as this school of gunnels dawdled, especially as the adrenaline started to wear off and his muscles began to quiver.
Time to move on.
Callum pushed off, heading for Tonaka when the gunnels spooked. Their lazy, playful swimming abruptly stopped and they formed into a tight school, darting away from Callum.
Had he scared them off?
Then he saw a large shadow on the wall.
The gunnels had fled because they were being hunted.
And now, so was Callum.
* * *
Nassar crammed himself next to Ajax as the corporal swung the locker door closed. Just in time as a Great White slammed into the metal. It bent but held. But for how long?
Ever since Lopez had taken off on his jaunt, Nassar and Ajax had been dodging sharks.
“Need I remind you if we are going to separate a piece of the station, we must do so quickly?” Tonaka stated in Nassar’s ear.
No kidding, but circumstances kind of precluded Ajax and him hurrying off to the rendezvous point.
“Roger that,” Nassar answered as the shark rammed the door again.
“Are you safe?” Tonaka asked.
“For the moment,” Nassar answered, but wasn’t quite sure how much longer that would be true.
Ajax peaked through the vents. “He doesn’t look like he is going anywhere soon,” Ajax whispered.
“Tonaka, we will be there as soon as possible. If you have to blow the station before then, do it.”
“Captain, that would --”
Nassar looked to Ajax who nodded. “I know what it would do. And I am telling you to blow it if you have to, regardless of our status.”
“I really need to detonate within the next five minutes if we have any hope of stabilizing the section.”
“Then I hope to see you in four minutes and fifty-nine seconds, but if I don’t, blow it.”’
Nassar turned off his radio. There was no more debate or discussion. The decision had been made.
He joined Ajax at the vent. He watched the great white open its mouth. He could clearly see the shark’s mucosal folds at the back of its throat. He could see the esophageal sphincter open. The shark was ready to eat. That was for sure.
It slammed into them again, forcing him and Ajax back. The metal was so badly warped that Nassar didn’t think it could take another hit. He stepped forward and peeked. The shark apparently thought the same thing as it circled back around for another attack.
“I’ve been honored to serve with you, sir,” Ajax said, patting Nassar on the back.
“And you.”
There wasn’t much more than to pray to Allah for his eternal salvation as the shark came at them full bore.
It was coming and coming, then the keeling blow. The metal cracked, opening. Ajax and he plastered themselves to the back of the locker, but the Great White knew better.
It circled in what it knew was the final run. This time it would be rewarded with a meal.
Nassar tried to shut his eyes, but he couldn’t help but watch the mighty warrior surge towards them.
Then suddenly it wasn’t. At the last moment it was knocked to the side and ground against the far wall.
It was Lopez on his very own Great White.
He let the other shark off the wall and with a flick of its tail it left the room, cruising for easier prey.
Lopez leapt off his shark, hitting it hard on the tail. It too streaked out of the room, fleeing from Lopez.
Ajax swam out. “Dude, you have some seriously good timing!”
Lopez shrugged. “Yah, well, after I figured out how to steer the thing by pressing on its fins, it kind of got boring.”
CHAPTER 20
This race to Tonaka would never end, Callum thought. After that initial sighting, Callum hadn’t se
nsed a predator around, but the gunnels were taking the threat very seriously. They had vanished. He hadn’t seen them in a few minutes.
Not until one dashed in front of him, then the rest of the school. Bright colors crossed his path, momentarily blinding him. Once blinked, he realized what the fish were fleeing from.
A walrus. Yep, a walrus. The thing had tusks down to here and a mouth nearly large enough to take Callum’s head off. However the walrus wasn’t interested in him. It tilted on it axis, its wide girth shoving Callum to the side as it pursued the gunnels.
Callum was happy to get out of the huge walrus’ way. Stiff whiskers brushed the side of Callum’s face as it passed and then it was gone.
“Callum?” Tonaka said loudly in his ear. “We only have a minute left before I have to blow the section.
He wasn’t surprised by that. The station had been shifting and sinking this whole time. Metal creaked and groaned as he swam.
“On my way,” Callum reassured Tonaka.
Predator-free, Callum turned the corner and headed down the backstretch.
He should make it back in time.
If nature quit messing with him.
* * *
Nami rubbed the dog with a towel. As soon as she stopped, the dog shook, spraying her with icy water. She laughed. She didn’t care. At the least the dog was recovering quickly.
Its young owner lay on the floor still shivering even after being wrapped in four heat blankets. At the least, the girl’s lip color had gone from a shocking blue to a muddy grey pink. That wasn’t perfect, but it was an improvement.
The girl smiled as the dog shook again.
“He really is a rascal,” Nami stated. She didn’t speak Russian and the girl didn’t speak English. With animals involved it hardly seemed to matter.
The girl’s smile widened as her teeth chattered. She reached a thin arm out and patted the dog. “On spas menya.”
Again, Nami didn’t know the spoken language but she did know body language. She assumed the girl said something like the dog saved me. That he had.
Through the QX they had learned that the girl’s parents were still missing and had only the dog to look after her. Nami glanced to the two women and older man they had saved.
He was pretty gruff, removing himself from the group and sitting in the corner mumbling to himself. Tonaka had been worried that he’d suffered brain damage during the rescue, but the others said that he had always been a bit strange.
Nami turned her attention to the two women they had rescued. How could they leave this little girl to her fate? Nami just didn’t get it.
“The land of Tolstoy,” Tonaka said, patting Nami on the back.
Was Nami’s distaste so evident?
“You did a great job,” Tonaka stated.
Nami grinned back up to the robotics expert. If ever she doubted her courage again, she would remember this day.
It helped salve the sting of losing her friend, Rusty. Then she hadn’t done anything to help him. She had run as a matter of fact. Ever since Salechii for the most part she was on the run.
Not this time. This time she had swum into the breach. She had redeemed herself. The little girl put her hand in Nami’s and squeezed it.
No more guilt. She thought Rusty would be proud.
* * *
It was getting close. Tonaka stared at the countdown. He had been updating the structural integrity values every few minutes. They were degrading at an exponential rate. As more and more water poured into the station, the greater the stress and the faster the station sank. They were a good ten feet deeper than they had been when the men went out to place the explosives.
Would the maneuver even work anymore? There were too many variables for Tonaka to make an accurate assessment, which worried him even more. He didn’t like unassigned risk.
Unassigned risk had not been very kind to them.
“He’s here!” Dillon shouted, pointing at the monitor. Callum pulled himself up the steps, dragging along supplies behind him.
Dillon was out the hatch in the blink of an eye.
Tonaka watched their progress as the father and son were reunited. Hugs were exchanged. Tonaka smiled as he watched the exuberance. How he missed his Nica. She would have been embarrassed by such naked emotion, but would have smiled and given him a squeeze to his posterior if no one else was looking.
“Doctor,” the QX stated. “We are reaching the point of no return.”
Tonaka turned his attention back to the robot. He was not wrong.
“Nassar?” Tonka asked into the ether. No response, just as there hadn’t been for the last few minutes. The Captain must have turned his radio off. Not a great time to be out of communication.
Tonaka watched as the timer spun down, getting closer and closer to the moment he would have to blow the station and Nassar with it.
He flipped through several screens. The Captain and his men must have been moving through zones of blackout because they didn’t show up anywhere on the monitors.
Nick and Zoya were the next to arrive. They were laughing as they emerged from the stairwell, greeting the others.
“Your dad is arriving,” Tonaka informed Nami.
The young woman looked up, clearly torn. She didn’t want to leave the dog and child, but equally wanted to go greet her father.
“He’ll be here any second,” Tonaka reassured her. Nami nodded and went back to drying the dog.
So nearly everyone was here. The only strays were the SEALs and the Special Forces corporal.
Tonaka could only pray they made it back in time.
* * *
Nick clamored with the rest of his crew into the rendezvous room. He’d never felt so alive. He had Zoya tucked under one arm. She felt like she fit there. Even the stoic Russian was smiling. Nothing like a near-death experience to teach you how to live.
Nick looked around the room. “Where’s Nassar?”
Tonaka frowned. “Not back yet.”
He glanced to the countdown on the QX’s chest. “What are we going to do?”
Again, Tonaka frowned. “He said if they weren’t back yet to go ahead and detonate.”
“Of course he did,” Nick groaned. “He’s a SEAL.”
“Didn’t you have that line in “Off the Radar?” Nami asked.
“Yes, I believe I did,” Nick chuckled. These military guys. They were as stoic in life as they were on the big screen.
“We aren’t going to leave them out there, are we, dad?” Dillon asked Callum.
The biologist narrowed his eyes. “Do we know where they are?”
Tonaka shook his head. “Ever since Lopez hopped off his shark, I haven’t seen them.”
“I’m sorry, did you just say ‘hop off his shark?” Nick asked.
Tonaka, always the cool one, simply nodded.
“Okay, moving past that,” Nick said. “How are we going to find them? And how are we going to hurry them along?”
Everyone seemed to be looking at someone else for the answer.
Right now the vast majority of them were safe. If they went out looking for the SEALs, they might all not make it back. Still it bugged Nick to just abandon Nassar and his team. He didn’t want to die, but neither did he want to lose the other men either.
“Don’t we just have to think like Lopez?” Dillon asked.
Most people snorted at that thought. Wasn’t the last thing the corporal was doing was riding a shark?
“Can’t we just contact them?” Nami asked.
Tonaka shook his head. “Nassar turned off his mic.”
“But what about Lopez?” Nami asked.
The computer expert’s eyebrow went up. “That I had not tried.”
He pressed a few buttons on the QX. “Lopez?”
“Right here, my man,” came the response over the QX’s speakers.
“Where are you?”
“Hell if I know,” came the response, “But let me check.”
The comm clicked
and Nassar came on. “I thought I told you to blow it.”
“We still have ninety seconds,” Tonaka stated. “Get back here.”
“Easier said than done,” Nassar stated.
“Come on, Nassar,” Nick said. “Give us something.”
* * *
Nassar wished he could. There was no getting back in ninety seconds. They had reached a dead end. And down each hallway was a shark. And there was no Lopez to ride in on his to save the day.
“I said blow it. Now. We can’t make it back.”
Lopez tread water. Through his mask, the man looked almost bored. “I told you that you should have taken that left back there.”
“Into the Greenland shark?” Ajax asked.
“Better than this…”
Nassar ignored the men. “Tonaka. I am serious. Blow it now. I want to hear explosives.”
Clicking off the connection, he counted down as he and his men, grabbed hold of a hatch door. It was the best they could do.
The shock wave hit, popping his ear drums as they were slammed against the metal door. The sound threatened to overwhelm Nassar. It was loud yet incredibly a-sensory.
His bones quaked at the force. His fingers began to slip. Ajax put his hand over his, keeping it in contact with the metal as they rode out the shock wave. They had been through a few of those in their careers.
Then the strum that rode up and down his spine stopped. Not all at once. No, the force dissipated, bleeding off slowly. His ear drums echoed the sound over and over again.
This was normal. He knew how this went. He held on, making sure his inner ear was stable and knew which way was up before he let go of the metal.
“That was mildly distracting,” Lopez said tossing his head side-to-side, obviously trying to clear his ears.
“Phase one complete,” Ajax stated. “Now we just have to get back to the rendezvous point.”
If it had seemed difficult before the explosion, it felt nearly impossible now. Who knew where the floating portion of the station had ended up after that?
“Okay, so who’s up for some ‘dodge shark?’” Lopez asked.
CHAPTER 21
Zoya held onto Nick as his vision spun one way then the other. No one was unscathed. Even the dog had ended up on top of a cabinet.
Apex Predator Thriller Series Collection (Including the blockbuster new shark park thriller, Salechii) Page 48
