Deep Sea One

by Preston; Child

  This late, the only scientists associated with this particular lab were in the lounge, having coffee and playing cards. After all, there was not much movement in minding Petri dishes, growing cultures and frozen strains. That was beneficial to an intruder like Calisto and swiftly she gained access to the normally heavily guarded casings inside the cryo-chambers, which held what she was looking for. Her alert dark eyes read each label rapidly as she picked the lock of the first chamber. Inside a container marked "Variola" and another with "Ebola" on the label lay static and harmless while inside these two receptacles held the vilest viral nightmares known to humankind, save one. That one, marked "USSR Chimera: Small Pox/ Ebola mutation strain," was in the next chamber.

  Quickly the thief passed the containers to the specially made box she had brought with her, making sure not to agitate the samples for fear that these deadly bio-weapons would escape containment. Now and then Calisto would scan the corridor for movement, but she sank to her haunches to open a yellow and black chamber, marked with a red triangle with a biohazard sticker applied.

  "Hello, mumsy," she smiled, as she picked the lock and entered the codes she had stolen from Purdue's briefcase when she moved it for him earlier in the day while he was chatting on his satellite phone. "C. Botulinum" was on the label and she took a moment to prepare for moving this strain.

  "Eickhart, you sick bastard. Do you really think this will be your saving grace, you stupid fuck?" she whispered, as she removed the airborne nerve killer from its cradle. With great care she lifted the holder and slid it into the compartment in her case. She closed all the chambers and made sure that she was not seen before punching in Purdue's code to leave. Calisto got rid of the suit and made her way in her skintight black clothing, her pants designed with various zipper pockets and ribbing in which she could stash her weapons, keys and anything else she wished to carry on her person. The specially designed container fit on her back like a satchel, the inside was temperature controlled.

  When the elevator closed, she saw Johann Storhoi pass from one door to another and she shook her head. It baffled her how they would create an Aryan race below the North Sea as an end to their plan, unless there were other places across the world doing the same. Since she had been involved in the secret world of the post-Third Reich organizations she had come across the most disturbing remnants of Nazism that were being perpetuated by an alarming amount of businesses and companies. There was a whole submerged underworld thriving on Hitler's ideals, but society was too busy concerning itself with what color shoes a celebrity wears, who is dating who and following a bunch of losers through their in-fighting and pointless shenanigans to cheat one another into winning money on cable television. It frightened Calisto to know what was really going on behind broadcast politics and exposed treaties. Something far more ancient and monstrous was waiting on the doorstep and very powerful men were avidly working at answering that door.

  When she exited the elevator, she made her way in the cold night air to the waiting motorboat, which had arrived from the coast of Teesside an hour before. It was sent by her superior to collect her and the strains she was supposed to procure. In her wet suit, she was busy adjusting her watch as she walked toward the docking station. But her escape was perturbed. As the sergeant brushed her hair back into a bun and fastened it, a figure stepped out behind her. Calisto could feel his presence and turned to face her stalker.

  "What have we here?" he asked, running his eyes over her curves. Her front zipper was still open to just below her navel, the mounds of her ample breasts decorating the upper part of the V-shaped suit. Without flinching over his presence, she continued to slowly pull the zipper upward while his eyes were fixed on her chest. Calisto had many weapons, not all took a magazine. Her glistening wet skin shimmered over the curvature and Tommy could not get enough before the suit came together, married by the motion of her hand.

  "Are those the Wolfenstein strains?" he asked nonchalantly. She knew at once what he was after.

  "So, this is what a desperate lackey looks like," she winced, disgusted with him.

  "Where is the Spear? On you?" he asked calmly, as he leaned closer, his hand locked around a steel pole.

  "The spear? What spear?"

  "Don't play dumb, sergeant. The Spear of Destiny was retrieved from its watery grave not a week ago. You were present, so please don't insult my intelligence."

  "I told you before, Tommy, intelligence is not your forte," she smiled mockingly, waiting for him to swing, but he did not.

  "Calisto, give me the Spear," he sang playfully, convinced of his potency.

  "I thought you were here for the Wolfenstein viral strains that Fatima could not eradicate," she played along, her smile as cold as the ice station she spoke of.

  "Oh, I am. I will alleviate you of them as soon as you tell me where the fucking Heilige Lanze is," he sneered. But Calisto was as mean as they come and she saw his threatening mannerism as nothing but a challenge. The wind swept his hair as it became colder and wilder.

  "You believe that shit, Tommy?" she gave him a look of mock-pity and laughed. It infuriated him, but he could do nothing until she handed over what he had been sent to steal.

  "Tommy," he scoffed with a revolted smile. "It's Thomas, sweetheart. Thomas de Freitas," he chuckled.

  I know that name, she thought. Defective operative.

  "Tu estas morto, cadela," he grinned abrasively.

  "Lackey," she retorted indifferently, just to piss him off.

  Tommy's smile vanished and Calisto knew what was coming. He threw a punch, but she blocked it. She matched his weight ounce by ounce, even though she boasted a perfectly symmetrical body. Calisto did not bother to return the favor. Instead she planted her foot on the side of his leg, dislocating his knee immediately, but he snapped it back in and plowed his right fist into her stomach. She screamed in pain, folding double at his blow and sinking to her knees.

  Her shriek drew the attention of Liam and Darwin who were on duty in the control room. They snuck closer as quietly as they could and, anchoring each other by hand, peeked from the shelter of the control room platform window.

  "Look at this shit!" Darwin whispered. "What the fuck is going on with Tommy and the sergeant?"

  "Foreplay?" Liam answered, and received a slap on the back of his head for it.

  They saw Calisto deliver a palm strike to Tommy's nose, immediately shoving it halfway into his face. He staggered, disorientated, as the blood spattered in black stains over his chin and chest.

  "I don't think that was a love tap, Liam," Darwin rasped quietly, lodging his chin on his colleague's right shoulder. The two of them looked like a two-headed Scottish freak perching up over the bottom sill of the glass.

  The two Portuguese agents locked arms. Calisto was very worried about the precious cargo on her back, so she decided to put an end to the pissing contest out of sheer necessity. Nobody enjoyed a good brawl like she did, but there was a time and place for everything, and she had a boat to catch.

  Tommy slammed a hammer fist into the woman's chest and she fell to her knees, while he grabbed her hair. His bleeding face came to her ear and he spoke Portuguese, but Liam and Darwin could deduct that he wanted information from her. Suddenly, Tommy cried out as Calisto shoved her fist into his scrotum and as he folded, she removed the satchel from her back. She put on a mask over her mouth and nose.

  "You want Purdue and Eickhart's strains? It's all yours!" she snarled. Suddenly she looked straight at the two witnesses. They gasped in alarm, but all Calisto did was to motion that they should cover their faces. The two men raced to the MediKit and got something sterile to cover their mouths and noses. Calisto put on her medical mask and held Tommy's head by his hair. He was dazed from the devastation of his balls, unaware of what Calisto was doing as she grabbed a handful of his hair to pull back his head and pinched his nose. Tommy inadvertently breathed in one of the viruses in his struggle to breathe.

  Her choice of infection was
wise, a strain of botulinum that would affect his nerve endings, throw him into muscle spasms so torturous that he would swallow a twelve gauge as consolation. His eyes opened briefly as she stoked his nostrils with the virus she was supposed to cargo back to Eickhart and all he saw was her beautiful dark eyes, alight with hatred's blaze above a germ mask she had prepared for just such an eventuality.

  Then she lifted the treacherous agent on her shoulders and dumped him in a large iron trunk utilized for steel and rubber waste. Calisto shut the lid and fixed her wet suit before making her way to the docking bay where her boat was waiting to take her to France, where her handlers waited for her delivery.

  Her mission, to thwart the theft of deadly virus strains from Ice Station Wolfenstein, was complete. But now she knew that the rogue operative was also sent to lift the holy relic. Information so important that her agency notified MI6 immediately that the artifact was still at large was relayed to the remaining branch of the disbanded PIDE intelligence agency she secretly worked for.

  "Interception successful," Calisto barked over the radio to her handler. "Returning with bio-weapons."

  Purdue would never know that this was what the fiery beauty was after all along. The night that she broke into his mansion she was not looking for food. Her mission was to find Dave Purdue and find the deadly viral strains he had brought back from Wolfenstein. Having no knowledge of Deep Sea One, she improvised to get herself into Purdue's inner sanctum, thus locating and retrieving the biological weapons from Purdue to avert the Portuguese operative, Thomas de Freitas, from selling them to Nazi war criminal Walter Eickhart.

  The Spear of Destiny, however, still proved a threat to the world and when Tommy woke up, he was going to rip Deep Sea One apart to procure it—come hell or high water.

  ☼

  Chapter 39

  Patrick had a car take him to the architectural agency in town he supposedly worked for. It was Friday morning, as scheduled. Mrs. Lancashire met him in what was designated as his office and as soon as he walked in, she closed the blinds and the door behind her.

  "DCI Smith, it is good to see you again," she smiled her deceptively warm smile, as they sat down. She opened her bag and took out her laptop while they exchanged the usual pleasantries and truthfully, the man could not wait to laden her with all the strange discoveries he had uncovered.

  "Did you find out where the agent is who defected from the Portuguese Secret Service, Inspector Smith?" she asked, as soon as they settled in.

  "I did not, madam. But there is something more alarming going on there," he said.

  "Your mission was to locate the rogue operative who would be sent to deal in biological weapons with Walter Eickhart, sir. Did you not gather intelligence on this?" she asked, her voice slightly harsher.

  "I overheard Herr Eickhart speaking to someone on the phone, mentioning contaminants, a gathering he could not attend in the very near future, something about a lanze and he spoke about the adventurous millionaire Dave Purdue," Patrick rambled somewhat, laying accents on the keywords he had memorized in hopes that Mrs. Lancashire would take note of the more disturbing things he had discovered.

  "Dave Purdue?" she asked.

  "Yes, madam. Eickhart discussed Purdue on the phone. Unfortunately I could not clearly hear what it was about, as his housekeeper arrested my attention and I had to follow suit, of course," he said nervously.

  "Of course," she said with more ease, still looking down at her laptop.

  "He also mentioned someone by the name of Calisto, but I am not sure if that pertains . . ."

  "Calisto?" she interrupted. "Calisto Fernandez?"

  "I only heard the first name, Mrs. Lancashire," he nodded.

  "Continue. What else?"

  He told her about the contaminants mentioned in the conversation with Purdue and Calisto's names, and then Patrick moved tactfully toward the looming gathering, the lanze and the plans for building the acoustic chamber.

  "Herr Eickhart assured me that he would soon be in possession of the Spear of Destiny. Soon, but he was not yet. That gives me reason to think he is still pursuing the relic, Mrs. Lancashire," Patrick rambled on, as professionally as he could, but in truth his heart was pounding with the facts he relayed. "I have reason to believe that his acquisition of this sought-after artifact and acquiring the viral strains is running on the same bridge—that bridge being the operative we are pursuing."

  She said nothing. He waited, hoping she would not shoot down his invaluable information. Her fingertips ran over the letters of her keyboard until she stopped and then she looked up.

  "Are you familiar with Purdue?" she asked, removing her spectacles to have a better look at her latest agent.

  "I know him by reputation. And my best friend has worked with him before," he said. She waited for him to elaborate.

  "Oh . . . uh . . . my friend was the photographer on the Wolfenstein expedition," he rushed. Mrs. Lancashire's glasses fell from her hand.

  "Your friend was with that expedition?"

  "Yes, madam. He is currently working with two of the people from that expedition . . . on something else."

  "Again with Dave Purdue?" she asked abruptly, as if she could not get the information rapidly enough from him.

  "I believe so."

  "DCI Smith, where is your friend working at the moment?"

  "I believe he is on assignment again, madam, but I don't know where exactly."

  "Call him. Ask him if he knows anything about Purdue holding those biological agents. Find out his location, but do not disclose the nature of your inquiry. Am I clear?" she said, with that all too familiar authoritarian voice.

  "Crystal, madam."

  "I want that location before the end of this business day, DCI Smith. Surely I do not need to impress on you the urgency of this matter," she added. Patrick nodded. Inside he was very proud of his accomplishments, but he was worried about Sam. What if he could not get hold of him? His friend was known for going off the radar for weeks on end when he was on assignment.

  "If we find Purdue, we find the strains. Once we find the strains, we find the rogue agent and hopefully avert an act of biological terrorism. You are dismissed, DCI Smith."

  "Good day, madam," he said, and made his way to the nearest park where he tried Sam's cell phone, but there was, as expected, no answer.

  On Deep Sea One Liam and Darwin informed their respective crew members about their concerns, but they did it so that Peter and Mr. Purdue could not tell that something was going on within the staff. Secretly the men had prepared for evacuation after several of them had admitted to seeing strangers come up to the platform from out of nowhere. Now their jobs, maintaining a disused oil rig and checking structural defects under sea level, made sense. The money was very good, therefore none of the crew members ever questioned the basic nature of their jobs, where they did not produce raw oil for processing, but instead only checked that the machinery was in order.

  "It was all in working order, lads, not because we were drilling, but because our expertise maintained whatever the fuck is going on in them labs beneath," Darwin gruffly whispered from the center of the gathering of workers who assembled to discuss their voluntary departures or staying on the oil platform. It became clear to the mechanics, engineers and divers that the machinery was acting as generators for the high-maintenance power grids under the platform. They had always known that they were being paid for upkeep, instead of actual drilling, but for the remuneration they received, it was an exceedingly easy job. What made them restless after all this time was the revelation of the volatility of Deep Sea One, should anything go wrong.

  Tommy was nowhere to be seen, but after what Liam and Darwin saw, they did not bother to look for him. It was 5am when the first shift started and the men agreed to wait for Darwin to make alarm, should Tommy cause any serious trouble. They knew now that he was a charlatan, but in trying to alert Mr. Purdue, the boss would not give them a moment's attention.

  "I had neve
r seen him like this," Darwin panted, as he returned from Purdue's office. He met Liam and two other men at the control room entrance. They were getting their gloves and boots on while they chatted with Liam. Darwin looked thoroughly somber as he came toward them. "He won't see anybody, for any reason."

  "Is he bombastic?" Liam asked.

  "That's the thing. He is not in a bad mood at all, but it's like he is not even here. There is something weighing on his mind that makes everything else unimportant. I swear to God you could tell him that there's a pipe bomb in his arsehole and he'd nod and smile about it," Darwin moaned. He wanted, needed, to tell the boss about Tommy and the sergeant who was also at large.

  Purdue did not even notice that his bodyguard was missing. Like Nina and Sam, he reckoned she was still sleeping. He had good reason to be so distracted. Today was the fruition of decades of promise to his peers in the organization. Now that he knew the Spear was real, even before the dating process was complete, there was no time to waste. Down to the laboratory he rushed, ignoring everyone who passed him or greeted. Briskly he entered the red section, walking into Nina's lab, and picked up the relic where it was lying in front of the chest.

  Wrapped only in its leather casing, he shoved it into his blazer and locked the lab again. He had to have everything properly prepared for the gathering. Dave Purdue, high commissioner of the contemporary Vienna Circle descendants, had initiated a meeting of the clandestine and powerful Order of the Black Sun.

  ☼

  Chapter 40

  It was just before 8am when a large red Jet Ranger clamored above the platform. The sky was clear and the ocean breathed lightly, making it easy for the machine to land. Purdue walked out to meet his first two guests, men in flawless suits with unremarkable traits. Smiling, the three walked toward Purdue's elevator.