Ghost Ship (NUMA Files 12)

Elena added some power and the interior display lit up to show the thruster levels. She eased them away from the yacht and was rotating the thrusters when a set of blinding lights came on, aimed right into the cockpit. The four lights surged toward them like the eyes of some undersea monster. A hideous scraping sound assaulted their ears as the grappling arms of Duke’s Scarab clamped onto them like great claws.

Gamay grabbed her own controls and tried to use the arms of their submersible in defense.

But before she could do much, Duke had grasped one of the arms and attacked it with the rotary saw. It snapped off in seconds, and Gamay was left fighting with only one arm. “Use the torch,” Elena shouted.

Gamay ignited their acetylene torch and brought it down on Duke’s cockpit, planning to burn a hole in the bubblelike canopy. To her surprise, she saw Duke’s face in the light and he looked terrified. He held up his hands even as his machine continued to shove the older Scarab backward.

“It’s not him,” Gamay shouted. “He’s not in control.”

Instead of torching a hole in the cockpit and killing Duke, she moved the arm to the side and tried to cut off one of his thrusters. At almost the same instant, they were pushed into the wreck and their own port thruster was bent and rendered inoperative.

Duke’s sub now had at least twice their power.

“He’s pinning us down,” Elena shouted.

“I’m telling you, it’s not him,” Gamay replied.

She extended the torch and began burning off one of Duke’s thrusters, but the circular saw from Duke’s sub shot forward. It skipped up the cockpit glass, leaving an ugly scar, and began grinding on their back.

The hoses to their acetylene torch were sliced through and the sub was instantly surrounded by a whirlwind of bubbles that ignited. Fire engulfed both Scarabs as they battled in the deep.

In the garish illumination, Gamay saw Duke get up from his seat with a black crescent wrench in his hand. He was slamming it against the computer console, smashing the control unit. After a third or fourth hit, the lights on his sub went out and the turbulence of the battle ceased.

The subs, locked together and enveloped in bubbles and flame, fell slowly to the seafloor. They hit the silt and were still. A moment later, the acetylene tanks were fully vented and the fire burned out.

The world became utterly dark. Gamay flicked a few switches.

“He cut our power lines,” Elena said. “Or his sub did,” she added, correcting herself.

Gamay found a flashlight and switched it on. Amazingly, there were no leaks in the cabin yet. She narrowed the beam and held it to the window. It cast just enough light to see the yellow nose of Scarab Two.

Using the flashlight like a semaphore, she tapped out a message to Duke. Are you all right?

A few seconds later, a response came. Sorry, ladies, I don’t know what happened.

Gamay realized what Paul had also discerned up on the surface. They’d been hacked. Duke’s newer sub was the target. Its touchscreen control system made it vulnerable, unlike the older Scarab with its manual hydraulic systems.

It seems you’ve been hacked, Gamay replied with the light.

As Duke’s reply came in, Gamay read it aloud. “ ‘Nothing left to hack now. I’ve smashed everything in sight and ripped out all the wires . . . Don’t suppose they’ll take this out of my paycheck, do you?’ ”

Gamay smiled. And Elena shook her head as she grinned.

“Can we surface?” Gamay asked Elena.

“We have no power, but we can blow out the ballast tanks,” she said. “Duke should be able to do the same.”

Gamay nodded and tapped out the thought.

There was a delay in responding, and they could see Duke moving around in the cockpit, using his flashlight to check readings on the few analog gauges still present in the new Scarab. He seemed to spend a lot of time at the aft wall.

“What’s he checking?”

“The emergency air valve,” Elena said, pointing to a gauge and valve in the same spot on their sub.

Afraid I won’t be making the trip, Duke signaled. Seems you’ve cut into my compressed air tank. Not enough left to gain positive buoyancy. You gals will have to go up first and then come back and get me.

How much air do you have?