There, he finally grasped the second-to-last opening in the net only to have the rotted line snap off in his hand. He clutched at the last bit of rope and prayed, because he could swim no more. The net would either support the extra drag of his body clinging to it or it wouldn’t and he’d be lost.
He stopped kicking, and the old fishing net held his weight. He pulled himself up so he could grip it with both arms and willed his breathing to slow, and the adrenaline began to filter out of his bloodstream. He clung there, panting, knowing he was still in a precarious position but unable to find the strength to move. The net was floating, gently undulating, in the current, so when he felt a sudden jolt he knew something was wrong. He grabbed his more powerful handheld light and flashed it up the net. The lamp revealed it was tearing. His weight was too much for the rotten old sisal lines.
He started climbing up the net against the current, his head down and his shoulders and arms doing all the work.
The net lurched again as more of it parted. He was scrambling now. He recalled climbing cargo nets at the CIA’s training facility as part of an obstacle course, but it was nothing like this. The press of the current against his body and bulky gear dwarfed the gravity he’d fought back then. And unlike those training sessions, he couldn’t use his feet because his flippers would get in the way and he couldn’t afford the seconds it would take to slip them off.
The net tore completely free just as he reached a still-stable section. The current sucked the detached piece out from under him. It snagged against his weight belt, and for a moment it pulled on him with the strength and tenacity of a pit bull. His grip was just about to slip when the net unsnagged and vanished behind him.
Not allowing himself time to recover, he continued climbing up the net, scrambling in a mad dash to the safety of the wreck’s shattered remains. It was a two-hundred-foot climb. Once he felt the net was safe enough, he removed his flippers and clipped them to his dive harness and took a few moments to let his feet take the strain off his arms.
He gave himself just three minutes’ rest before continuing on, though now it was his legs providing most of the heavy lifting and he made good time.
The mine tender was unrecognizable as a ship. The glow from his headlamp and his dive light revealed the ship had been blown into scrap by the first Russian torpedo, and a lot of its remains had been buried under a blanket of sand kicked up by the second. Chunks of hull plating lay strewn across the seafloor. He identified part of the ship’s funnel only because of its distinct stovepipe shape. He saw no sign of the cage Tesla had enshrouded the ship with or the strange machine he’d discovered in the vessel’s hold.
It was a miracle that the net had remained snagged on what little of the superstructure survived the explosion. He found a spot in the lee of a ruined boiler and settled to the bottom, finally able to take a proper rest.
Because the submersible acted as a relay for their communications, he knew it was pointless to try to raise the Oregon. The distance to the surface was just too great for his gear, but the main problem was that the mini-sub’s hull section became deaf and mute once it detached from the propulsion sled.
He powered down his helmet light to conserve the battery. He was trapped on the bottom of the sea, as unable to change his predicament as an astronaut who becomes separated from his space capsule. Juan could do nothing but rely on his crew to save him. His faith in them was boundless, but rescues take time. They would need to recover the submersible first, and only then would Max discover that he was still down here. Next they would need to organize recovery gear and send down either Little Geek or the Discovery 1000, the second, smaller mini-sub the Oregon carried. It all took time.
The vast ocean crushed down on him from above, a lone man sitting on the seafloor among the rusted ruins of a dead man’s dream, a lonely pinprick of light in a stygian darkness as vast as the cosmos. Juan, feeling the cold start to seep into his skin, finally looked at his remaining trimix supply, nodded grimly, and put out his dive light so that the black crushed up against his dry suit.
He had ten minutes to live.
Max Hanley continued to issue orders while Eric adjusted their heading once again.
“Mark, I want you and MacD down in the boat garage ready to launch a RHIB at a moment’s notice. That means I want the outer door open and the engines warmed.” He keyed in the intercom to reach the techs in the sub bay. “This is Max. Prep the Disco for SAR, and make sure Little Geek’s ready as well.”
The Oregon tore across the sea at a near-racing-boat’s pace, driven as much by her engines as by Hanley’s determination to rescue his people.
Mark Murphy was swinging out of his chair when he spotted something on his console.
“Max, I’m picking up the automated beacon from the Nomad. She’s surfaced.”
“Over the wreck?”
“Negative. They’ve drifted almost two miles north.”
Eric Stone asked, “Should I alter course?”
“Negative,” Max replied after a thoughtful pause. “Keep us headed for the wreck site. Mark, get moving. Tell me when you and Lawless are ready to go. We’ll slow the ship and you guys head out for the mini-sub.”
“We’re on it.” He raced from the bridge while Max put out a shipwide bulletin for MacD Lawless to report to the boat garage.
A mile from their destination, Murph reported they were ready to go. Max gave the order to back off on their speed, and when he deemed it safe, he told them to go.
Powered by a pair of massive outboards, the RHIB was an open-cockpit rocket ship for the water. Its sleek black hull and ring of inflated pontoons allowed it to survive in virtually any sea, and it could be configured for any number of missions.
The RHIB sliced through waves, bouncing and hammering over the taller swells while a white rooster tail erupted from her stern. It wasn’t built for comfort—the two men stood behind the main controls on flexed knees, their bodies absorbing the shock of the rough ride.
Where Mark was nerdy and a bit doughy when he didn’t focus on fitness, MacD Lawless looked like an underwear model, with a chiseled physique and a movie star’s face. He was the newest member of the Corporation, having been rescued by them from Taliban kidnappers in northern Pakistan. He’d more than proved his worth in the ensuing months, and with his easygoing New Orleans charm and melodious Southern accent, he’d ingratiated himself with the crew.
Like a stone across the surface of a pond, they skipped their way across the Atlantic, pushing the RHIB past fifty knots. Behind them, the Oregon was just a dot as she raced to her own rendezvous. MacD steered the boat while Mark navigated using a tablet computer displaying a satellite relay of the Nomad’s location.
It took them just a few minutes to reach the drifting hull, which to both men looked like a railroad tank car far, far from home. MacD sidled up to the mini-sub, and Mark leapt over with a painter in hand to tie them off. Lawless didn’t wait for Mark to finish before he grabbed a swim mask, kicked off his Nikes, and dove into the water. Mark watched him go over with a slow shake of his head, not understanding why Lawless would do that when they could access the sub through the rear-mounted air lock.
Lawless had been hit by enough spray on their mad dash here to know the water was shockingly cold, yet he still gave an involuntary gasp as it leached through his clothes. He sucked in a deep breath and dove down and swam toward the front of the submersible. He pressed his mask to one of the three small portholes. The interior of the sub was pitch-black. Not a good sign.