Return to The Deep (From The Deep Book 2) (19 page)

"Okay, that must prove it," Andrews said in her ear. "Get the hell out of there."

She half considered it, especially when she saw there were more bones littering the cave, large creatures in their own right, which had been pulverised by some immense force of nature that could only be the creature they were looking for. The reason she didn’t leave was because of what she saw beyond the remains, which littered the floor of the cave.

There were around ten eggs as far as she could tell, the milky spheres each around eight feet in diameter. Beyond them, at the back of the cave, she could see the creature. It was unaware of her as it pushed out another egg accompanied by a bloody cloud of fluids.

"Get out of there. Do it now," Andrews hissed in her ear.

She agreed it was time to go, and yet, couldn’t help but stay where she was, knowing she was capturing something remarkable on film. She adjusted the torch, its beam flashing against the creature, which turned its massive head in her direction and started to move towards her.

This time she did move. Knowing there was no way she could get anywhere close to the surface before the creature got to her, she looked for somewhere to hide, a small space where the creature couldn’t access. Eight feet away there was a cut in the cave, no more than a crevasse really, but big enough for her to squeeze into. Guessing that the creature was attracted to the light, she dropped the torch and took the camera with her as she swam for the hole. Confused by the splitting signal, the creature hesitated, before moving towards the visual stimulus of the torch beam. Clara squeezed into the gap, wishing there was more room for her to back up out of reach, but the rough wall gave her little room to move. It was then that panic set in, when she realised she had backed herself into what was nothing more than an underground coffin of sorts. Even the camera was momentarily forgotten in her distress, as was the rambling tone of Andrews in her ear as he yelled at her to get out. She lifted the camera with trembling hands and pointed it out of her makeshift prison.

Andrews on board the ship, Rainwater and Ross in Scotland, and Clara saw the creature, and could only look on as it lost interest in the torch which lay on the ground, and turned its attention towards her.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Tom knew the device was a bomb. Greg hadn’t said as much, but it was obvious. He, Fernando, and Jim, were helping the Russev’s carry the heavy, cumbersome device out onto deck. Tom flicked his eyes towards Joanne and Marie, and saw that they too knew what it was. Greg pushed the boat on, flashing excited glances over his shoulder at the device. In the distance, they could see the white hull of Andrews's boat, unaware that there was somebody in the water. Tom was conscious of the fact that as bad as things were when they set out, they might be about to get a hell of a lot worse.

They set the device down on the deck. Encased in a steel frame, the blue bowl within was where Tom suspected the explosives were housed. As if reading his mind, Pavel spoke, his grin wide as he chewed his way through the English language.

"Very high explosive," he said, switching his gaze between Tom and Greg. "We drop device off back of boat above target, and boom." He clapped his hands together. "Target destroyed."

Tom glanced at his brother, and then nodded to Pavel, who was speaking to his brother in Russian as they lit cigarettes. Tom and Fernando retuned to the table where the girls sat, pale faced and afraid.

"You have to do something about this," Joanne whispered as they sat down.

"What the hell can I do about it?" Tom said. "These aren’t just your average guys on the street. They're killers."

"If we don’t do something and you help them drop that bomb in the water, no matter what's down there, you'll be an accessory. You'll go down with them."

"Don't be so dramatic," Jim grunted. "If anyone asks what happened, we just say they forced us."

"I wasn’t talking to you," Joanne spat, her hand almost going to the knife concealed in her jacket.

"Look, everyone just relax," Fernando said, trying to keep the peace. "Tom, you need to talk to the Australian guy. Get him to see sense."

"Why me?"

"Because you're the oldest. Plus, he seems to like you."

"I might be the oldest, but I didn’t want any of this. This is all on you." He looked at the others as he said it, not even sparing Joanne for her part in it.

"Come on, please just try," Fernando said.

"You really think anything I say can change his mind? Just to let you know, a guy who hires Russian gangsters and brings a huge bomb out to sea isn’t going to be talked out of whatever he intends to do by the likes of me."

"You have to try," Marie said, her voice cracking. It had been so long since she had spoken to anyone that they had almost forgotten she had come along. Of them all, she seemed to be suffering the most. Her eyes were wide and frightened. Tom thought she would make the great subject for a painting, so tragic and hopeless was the look in her eye.

"Okay, I’ll try it, just don’t expect any miracles," Tom said as he got up from the table.

He walked over to Greg, alarmed at how much closer they were to the other boat. He tried to put his thoughts into some kind of order, to figure out what to say, when Greg beat him to it.

"Don’t bother trying to talk me out of it," he said without taking his eyes from the window.

"What do you mean?" Tom stuttered, completely thrown off guard.

"I’m disabled, not deaf. You and your friends should learn to whisper more quietly."

"Look, I get that you have issues with this thing, but we don’t. I know we were in the wrong by freeing the creature, but just look how things have gone since then. Gangsters? Bombs? Where does it end? What happens to us?"

"You made your decision to come out here. Whatever happens now, happens."

"That’s alright for you to say. These are people's lives you're messing with."

Greg turned towards him then, his face a twisted mask of rage. "You don’t think I've suffered? You don’t think my life was ruined by this thing? I never thought I'd ever get a chance for revenge and nobody - not you, or those government pricks out there are going to stop me."

"Come on, you must see what this is. You'll go to jail. We’ll
all
go to jail. Is that how you want to live the rest of your life? Locked up in some prison cell?"

"My life has been like living in prison ever since that thing took my hand. I don’t care what happens, just as long as this fish is dead."

"What if we don’t help? You need us."

Greg glanced at Tom and smiled. "No. Maybe before I knew the Russev's were coming along I did, but not now. For as much as I don’t particularly care if you help or not, they might," he said, jabbing a thumb over his shoulder towards the Russevs who were out at the stern of the boat, smoking and chatting to each other. "Trust me; you don’t want to get on their wrong side, especially with these good looking girls on board. Do you understand what I'm sayin to you?"

Tom nodded. He understood perfectly. There was no choice, no option but to let it play out to the bitter end, whatever that might be.

"Get those pals of yours ready out on deck, we're almost on top of them."

II

Andrews didn't see the boat bearing down on them at first. His attention was fully on the screen showing grainy footage of the creature as it approached Clara. So far, it hadn't attacked, but that didn’t make him feel any better about it. Rather than fear, it was anger that he felt. Anger at the situation she had put him in. If she, as a civilian - a celebrity no less - was to come to any harm under his supervision, he didn’t like to think about what that could mean for his future. He could hear the muffled ranting of Rainwater down the phone, which was on speaker and lying on the table beside the monitor. Andrews wasn’t ready to speak to him yet, he had no answers to explain the images he knew Rainwater was watching. He half considered cutting the feed before anything happened, however, knew that if he did, Rainwater was likely to try to contact Tomlinson, which was something Andrews wanted to avoid at all costs.

It was at that point, as he was torn between what to do that he heard the whine of the approaching engine. At first, he thought it might be local Coast Guard, or even Tomlinson sending someone out to check on him, but he dismissed both ideas immediately. The white hulled pleasure cruiser, which bucked over the water towards him at speed, was obviously a private vessel, the sunlight shimmering off the hull making it hard to see who was on board and why they were in such a hurry. Something in the pit of his stomach - call it instinct or some other intuitive sense, sent alarm bells ringing. The approaching boat was too deliberate in its direction, and was obviously approaching with a sense of purpose. He glanced at the monitor screen, which showed the creature rubbing its huge snout against the gap in the rock where Clara was wedged.

It can smell her.

He wasn’t sure if 'smell' was the right terminology, but he was certain it knew she was there. It would be able to feel the racing tempo of her heart beat, perhaps even 'taste' the unusual scent of her in its domain. The shampoo on her hair, the makeup on her face - all things that were in the water and completely alien to the creature. As Andrews watched, a probing tentacle tip came into view, pushing gently against the gap in the rock face.

"You," Andrews said to one of the cameramen, whose name he couldn’t remember, "watch that monitor. Let me know if anything happens."

"Clara said I’m to keep filming the surface in-"

"I'm in charge here," Andrews raged. "In case you haven’t noticed, she's in danger. Forget recording, this is a person's life we're talking about."

The cameraman nodded, hurrying to the monitor beside Andrews, who in turn went out on deck, grabbing the binoculars from a hook by the door. He focussed on the approaching boat, his stomach filling with ice.

At the stern, four men were lifting a silver framed object onto the transom. Andrews had seen them before. Russian made deep water explosives. He didn’t recognise any of the men, and was struggling to put it all together until the boat changed angle slightly and the sun glare moved off the wheelhouse window.

He recognised the man who was driving the boat, his face twisted into a grimace. How he had located them was a question for another time, Andrews, however, knew well enough their intentions.

Tossing the binoculars onto the deck, he raced back into the wheelhouse and snatched up the radio. He had to make contact with them before it was too late. He had to let them know there was somebody down in the water.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Rainwater paced the floor, glancing at the screen every few seconds as he listened to the chatter from the open line to Andrews's boat. Communication had stopped, but he could hear well enough that something was wrong. He could clearly hear Andrews on the radio, although his words were frustratingly unclear, coming in snatches of half heard sentences. Ross kept his distance and watched as Rainwater paced, pausing only to take a swig out of the whisky bottle, which he was carrying loosely by his side. Knowing it was no use, Rainwater spoke again into the phone.

"Andrews? Andrews? What the hell's happening out there? Why haven’t you got her out of the water yet?"

As expected, there was no response.

"Fuck!" Rainwater grunted, taking another huge drink, which further stoked the fire in his belly. Several things came to him at once, triggering a mixture of emotions from rage, to sorrow, to frustration. He realised he was completely helpless to do anything to help, and that by not going along with Andrews when given a chance, he had relegated himself to mere spectator. The more he thought about it, the more he hated himself. He should have suspected she would do something like this. Not the Clara of old of course. She would have known better, but the new, celebrity Clara, the fake one who was trying to live up to the portrayal the media had of her, most certainly would do something so stupid and reckless.

The thing that surprised him most was his lack of reaction when first seeing the creature. He had expected to be terrified, expecting the sight of it to dredge up memories from the last encounter. Instead, it was indifference. He had lived with the horror for so long that he had built up a kind of immunity. He didn’t even blame the creature. It was just a product of nature, a slave to its instinctive nature. If there was any blame to be placed, he put it firmly at his feet. True enough, he felt anger towards Clara for putting herself in such a dangerous situation, and he also felt old feelings, feelings he thought were long dead. He wasn’t sure if he could exactly call it love. He wasn’t even sure what that was anymore, but it was an overwhelming desire to do anything to protect her and keep her from harm, even if such a thing would be unwelcomed by her. Once again, the complete and utter helplessness of his situation became apparent, which was sated as always with the golden alcohol.

II

Tom, Jim, and Fernando, waited at the stern with the Russev's as the boat closed on its target. Tom and Fernando locked eyes across the steel framed device, able to communicate their concerns without words in the way only siblings can. Jim seemed indifferent, and if not for the visual differences, could have been one of the Russev's, such was his lack of concern.

In the wheelhouse, Greg slowed, ignoring the radio calls from the other boat as he lined up alongside and pulled back on the throttle.

"Let it go!" he screamed over his shoulder.

The Russev’s and Jim shoved with everything they had. Tom and Fernando did their best to make a show of it. Just as the device slipped over the side and plunged into the ocean, Andrews raced out on deck.

"You assholes!" he raged. "There's a diver down there!"

Andrews was staring at Tom as he said it. Greg hurried out of the wheelhouse just as the stern of the boat was thrown out of the water by the concussion wave, as the bomb exploded on contact with the cave roof seventy feet below.

III

Clara's first thought was that the creature had attacked. A deafening rumble surrounded her seconds before the roof of the cave collapsed, huge boulders crushing several of the creature’s eggs as it buried the animal itself under tons of rubble. Only because she was safely tucked away in the crevasse was she saved from certain death. Dropping the camera, she braced her hands and feet against the confines of her space, waiting for the chaos to subside. She bit down on her regulator, vaguely aware that if the air tank were to slam against the wall of the cave too hard, it would explode, killing her instantly. Dust and silt were thrown up from the impact, making a claustrophobic blanket of darkness as her torch was obscured.

Oh God, please don’t let me die here.

After what felt like an eternity, the noise subsided. Against the odds, she was still alive. She waited for the dirt thrown up from the floor of the cave to dissipate and the pace of her heart to slow, then surveyed the damage. A huge section of the roof had collapsed. Directly above her, through the twisted rock, she could see the distant pale blue of the surface waters. Her eye, however, was drawn back to the remaining roof above her, which looked ready to collapse in at any given second. She knew if that happened, she would die. There would be no rescue, no escape, and no second chance. Her heart pounded against her ribcage, and she forced herself to calm and stop sucking such large mouthfuls of air. She closed her eyes and looked within herself, looking for the Clara of old, the one she had buried someplace deep in order to keep up with the public perception of who she should be. She didn’t need the current incarnation of herself anymore, the one who attended charity lunches and book signings, the one who flew first class to movie premieres and hobnobbed with other tanned celebrities. She needed the old Clara. The one who didn’t mind getting her hands dirty, the one who was fearless and resourceful, the one who was selfless and able to think on her feet. The one who had led two grown men in scaling the Ross Ice Shelf some five years earlier on what was deemed to be a suicide mission.

Clara knew she was in there somewhere, buried deep and forgotten, cast aside in order to build a new life. She would know what to do, she would know how to react, and she would-

She froze. The rocks further down the cave began to move and were shoved aside as the creature rose from beneath. It flicked its tail and pushed its snout against the pulpy remains of the eggs that were crushed, then in a single motion, launched itself at the crevasse where Clara was still wedged. She bit down hard and tried to push back as the creature smashed snout first into the cave, as it tried to get to what it perceived as the attacker of it and its young.