Devil's Gate (NUMA Files 9)

The intercom buzzed. “Paul, we’re picking up a sonar contact.” Now his heart had a different reason to race. “What kind?” “Unknown,” the controller said. “West of you and very faint. But moving fast.” “Mechanical or natural?” Paul asked.

“Unknown…” the controller began, then, “It’s small…” Paul and Gamay could only wait in silence. Paul imagined the sonar operator staring at the screen, listening to the earphones and trying to place the nature of the target.

“Damn it,” the controller said. “It’s a torpedo. Two of them, heading your way.” Paul grabbed the Grouper’s thrust controller, switching off the autopilot.

“Get Rapunzel back,” he said.

Gamay began to move, gesturing quickly as she turned the little remote explorer around.

“Move, Paul,” the controller urged. “They’re closing fast.” Forgetting Rapunzel, Paul threw the Grouper into reverse, backing away from the wreck and then turning the small sub around.

“I can get her out of there,” Gamay said.

“We don’t have time.”

Paul pushed the throttle to full and blew out some of the ballast. The Grouper began to rise and accelerate, but she was nothing like the Barracuda. Seven knots was her maximum.

Suddenly, the controller’s voice broke in a panic. “The targets are above you, Paul. You’re climbing right into them.” Paul went back to a dive, thinking it would have been nice to have known that a few minutes ago. “Where are they coming from?” “Don’t know,” came the reply. “Head south. Toward the bow. That will take you away from their track. “ Paul put the Grouper in a turn. Unable to see or track the targets, he had to rely on the controller.

“Keep moving,” the voice on the intercom said. “You have ten seconds.” There was no way the Grouper could avoid a torpedo that had locked onto it; their only hope was to confuse it with clutter. Paul decided to pop up, taking the Grouper over the deck, hugging the Kinjara Maru as closely as possible.

A resounding clang told him he’d hit something protruding. The reverberation was loud but inconsequential, and Paul didn’t dare separate from the larger ship.

“Three seconds, two… one…” “Paul?” Gamay called. She was scared, he could hear it. There was nothing he could do about it.

A high-pitched whining sound raced overhead as the first torpedo passed. Another followed moments later, heading off into the distance. The torpedoes had missed. And as Paul listened he couldn’t hear them coming back.

Paul breathed a sigh of relief, but he had to be sure. “Are they turning?” “No,” the controller said. “They’re continuing on. Straight and true.” Paul sighed with relief, his shoulders visibly slumping. And then a pair of reverberating explosions rocked the depths of the Atlantic.

The shock wave slammed the Grouper. Paul hit his head and felt the craft tilt. Gamay slid into him, and the submersible banged into one of the Kinjara Maru’s crane booms.

Another explosion followed, more distant but still strongly felt. The Grouper shuddered and then steadied as the shocks passed on.

“Are we okay?” Gamay shouted, pulling off the visor.

Paul glanced around, he saw no leaks. Time to get to the surface.

“Where on earth did those come from?” Paul shouted.

“Sorry,” the controller said. “The first two masked them. This isn’t exactly a Seawolf-class sonar array we’ve got going here.” Paul understood that the setup was designed to find small objects and map the seafloor, not track fast-moving torpedoes at great depths. Time to upgrade, he thought “Any more of them?” he asked over the comm.

The controller was silent for a moment, as if he were checking and rechecking. “No,” the man said finally. “But we are picking up a vibration. It sounds like…” The controller’s words trailed off, an act that concerned Paul. A vibration. What did he mean?

As Paul waited for clarification he began to feel something. Where his hand rested on the control panel he could feel a tremor of some kind. At first it was subtle, but then the Grouper began to shake and slide to the side as if some force or current was pushing it out of position. In seconds the tremor became a deep rumbling, like a freight train approaching.

“What is that?” he asked.

“We’re reading a massive signal up here. I’ve never seen anything like it. All kinds of movement.” “Where?”

“Everywhere,” the voice said, sounding panicked.

There was a terrible pause as the rumbling increased and then their controller spoke again.

“Good Lord!” the controller shouted. “There’s an avalanche coming your way.”

17

THE RUMBLING IN THE DEPTHS shook the Grouper. Sliding rock and sediment from the slope that the Kinjara Maru sat