Easing the boat ever closer, Sinclair’s expression suggested he might be thinking Erich was playing games with him. “Captain, I am a patient man. But you don’t want to piss me off, okay?”
Erich opened his mouth to reply, but the red-haired man interrupted him. “Hell-lo! What’s that?”
He pointed to a dark smudge against the tan clay and stone of the shoreline. Erich found it, allowed it to resolve into something familiar. It could be the upper half of his deadly cargo, but… there was something not right about it. There was a layer of water-hugging mist that kept all details along the beach indistinct. They would have to be very close to know for certain what they were looking at.
Guiding the submersible safely past the obscured object to ensure against any chance of collision, Sinclair eased it aground on the soft bottom.
“Let’s get out and have a look around,” he said, reaching his hand out to Erich.
Erich would have loved to tell him he didn’t need the assistance but decided a feigned weakness might serve him later. Straightening out and moving through the small egress was a challenge, but Erich was fit and strong beyond his years. His captors didn’t need to know that.
As he emerged from the hatch, he looked up to feel, as much as see, the curved vault of the gigantic enclosure. In the incandescence of the distant towered sphere, the mist hanging over the water seemed to carry a subtle glow.
Everyone except the pilot clambered free of the submersible, mucking through soft sandy clay to drier, firmer ground. One of the armed men hustled Tommy, still cuffed, from the hatch. The other two crewman, Sinclair, the red-haired man, and the studious-looking man in the angler’s vest and flannel shirt followed. They all paused to take in their bizarre surroundings — each man trying to reconcile the impossibility of what they witnessed with its reality.
“Sweet mother…” That was one of the armed crewman whispering a soft exclamation as he took in the total strangeness of the place. He was wearing a remote cam on his helmet, relaying a feed back to somewhere unknown.
Sinclair looked around with a slack expression. Erich could not tell if he was in total awe or merely bored.
East of their position, far away, the suggestion of the scarp of ancient buildings lay in fog. Seeing it brought Erich back through time, reaffirming the exact position from so many years ago.
Sinclair pointed through the annoying mist at the odd collection of struts and what appeared to be an oblong dome rising from the mud.
“Is that it?” he said.
“We beached the boat at the foot of a small cove. Just like that one.” Erich pointed at the object that could be the bomb.
“Get closer,” said the red-haired man. “That bleedin’ fog’s too dodgy.”
“Slowly, easy,” said the man with the horn-rimmed glasses and the flannel shirt. “We do not wish to disturb anything until I have a chance to fully inspect the mechanism.”
“Right-o, Doc.” The red-haired man slowed his pace, motioned to the armed escort, one of whom had been assisting Erich along the soft shore, holding him by the arm.
As they approached the object with great caution, Erich kept watching the man they’d called “Doc.” With each step closer to the object, the man appeared to be trying to look as casual as possible. His face was a blank slate, his eyes distorted behind thick lenses.
The closer they grew, the mist appeared thinner, less of a problem. When they were within several meters, Erich could see clearly enough to know they’d found it.
“Is that it?” said Sinclair.
Erich nodded. “Yes. But it is not as we left it.”
“What’s that? ‘Left it’—like how?” The tone of the red-haired man revealed his growing anxiety.
Erich on the other hand, felt a curious calm descending upon him. His initial sensation of dread and panic at returning to the site had dissipated. It was as if this place had been patiently waiting for him, and he for it. An unexpected comfort grew in him, and with it, confidence.
Doc, apparently a scientist, felt differently. “Oh, man, this does not look good.”
“What the hell happened here?” said Sinclair as he touched his wireless mic, activating it. “Topside, we have located the objective, but we may have a problem. Maybe a big problem…”
Chapter Forty-Seven
When the V-22 touched down on the Cape Cod’s flight deck, Dex looked across the passenger bay at Dr. Robert M. Schaller, the nuclear guy from MIT, and smiled. The scientist didn’t reciprocate. He looked like a candidate for a firing squad as he struggled to unhitch his safety straps.
Dex had talked to him sporadically during the long flight, partially to add some detail and color to his briefing notes. Schaller had seemed grateful to gain a fuller understanding of why he’d been “selected” for the job. He was a soft-spoken, no-nonsense kind of guy sliding into his fifties with a full head of graying hair, a stylish goatee, and an athletic build. Dex figured him for a squash or tennis player.
A latch clicked and the belly door was thrown open by a seaman wearing a heavy, hooded parka. A bitter slap of super-cooled air rushed in from behind him, threatening to stand Dex up like an uppercut. Apparently the Cape Cod had been in a good position to effect a very northern rendezvous point.
“Doctor Schaller. Mister McCauley,” said the young sailor. “Welcome aboard!”
He guided them across the windswept deck to the storm door, a short corridor, and a stairway up to the bridge. Once inside, despite the absence of the wind, Dex could still feel the intense cold leeching the heat from his bones. How did these guys stand it?
After being escorted onto the command deck, Dex and Schaller saw a man wearing a crisp, tan service uniform look up from a display console, then approach them. “I’m Captain Danvers,” he said. “Good to see you fellows could make it.”
Everyone shook hands. Dex looked around at the clean, Spartan control area. The digital age had wrought huge changes in the last twenty years. “Nice boat you have here.”
Danvers grinned. “Thanks, Chief. The Admiral has a meeting scheduled for Dr. Schaller, but you’re welcome to stay and check things out, if you’d like.”
“Sounds good to me.”
The Captain motioned to an ensign who was manning a navigational station. The young officer moved quickly to escort Schaller off the bridge. Dex looked around.
“How far from the target area?” he said.
“Several hundred miles southeast of the coastline coordinates.” Danvers spoke with a slight western accent, probably Texas.
Dex glanced through the glass at the gray sky and matching ocean. “Is that good?”
The Captain shrugged. “Not sure yet. We’re within range of the CH-53 to airlift a Dragonfish in good time. But… we’ve picked up a vessel on radar at the target coordinates.”
“What kind of boat?”
“We have a SeaDrone on recon to get a visual right now. Looks fairly large, though. Could be something like the Cod, or maybe a merchant class. Also trying to get a spy-sat to catch some images on the next go-round. We should have data from either source any minute now.”
“Hmmm, what’re the odds some freighter’s parked right where we want to be?” Dex shook his head.
“Yeah, looks like we’re on tit number two, and the Admiral’s not happy about it.”
“Any idea who the interlopers might be?” Dex appreciated the Captain speaking so freely to him, and wondered if Admiral Whitehurst had given explicit orders to do so. Whatever the reason, Dex wasn’t going to bring it up. Being left out of the mission was bad enough, but being kept off the information list would have been more than he could swallow.