Atlantis

Chapter 5

“Muchas gracias! Dios le bendiga!” The sodden woman lay in the bottom of the boat, her body limp, but her eyes were alive with gratitude. She clutched her son, probably no more than five years old, to her chest. The boy stared up with glassy eyes, but he had no visible injuries.

“It’s fine. We just need to get you somewhere safe.” Tam didn’t know if the woman understood her, so she made sure to keep her voice calm and her expression friendly. Not her strong suit under duress, but such was life.

“I see somebody over there.” Matt pointed to woman clinging to a boogie board. “You get these two to safety while I get her.” He didn’t wait for a reply, but kicked off his shoes and dove in.

“You boys expect me to believe you were ever in the military when not a one of you knows how to take orders?” Tam glanced at Willis. “You see anywhere we can take these two?”

“How about that church over there?” Willis indicated a high-steeple white church backed by a two-story brick building. A few faces peered out of second floor windows, gaping at the devastation. Willis guided the boat to the church and pulled up next to one of the open windows. A blocky, middle-aged man stared at them with unfriendly eyes.

The man didn’t give Tam a chance to speak. “We’re full up. No room here.”

“These people need help.” She couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

“Get it somewhere else. I told you, we’ve got no more room.” He set his jaw and fixed her with a flinty gaze. Those eyes held no compassion.

“I don’t know how full the rest of your church is, but I can tell from here that the room you’re standing in is empty, save for you.” Tam pointed to the space behind him. Soft music and the aroma of fresh coffee and cinnamon rolls wafted out into the air. The people inside were having a social while the world outside lay in chaos. “You can take them in.”

“Come on man,” Willis said. “This is a church, and you’re supposed to help strangers in need. Do I need to start quoting scripture to you?”

“I don’t need a Sunday school lesson from an uppity…” The man bit off his retort and swallowed hard. He didn’t need to complete the sentence for everyone to know what he’d been about to say. “Just move along. There’s a Methodist church around the corner. They’ll take anybody.” He screwed up his face to show what he thought of the Methodists.

“I want to talk to the pastor.” Tam had to stop herself from slapping the fool look off the man’s face.

“I am the pastor.” More than anything else he’d said, this news stunned Tam. “And I will go to any length to defend my flock. He opened his jacket to reveal a holstered revolver.

Tam’s fingers twitched and she felt the lack of her Makarov, which she’d left back at headquarters. She vowed she’d never go jogging unarmed again.

“Let’s go before I take that toy away from him and give him an enema.” Hot fury burned in Willis’ words.

Tam nodded. “This is no house of God. We’ll shake the dust off our feet and move along.”

The pastor’s face turned beet red at the insult, but he didn’t reach for his weapon. Apparently, he believed Willis could, and would, follow through on his threat.

“Do you keep office hours, Pastor?” Willis asked.

“Why?”

“Because, when this is over, I just might drop by and teach you some manners. Keep your appointment book open.” Willis gunned the engine, drowning out the man’s sputtered retort.

Tam kept her eye on the pastor as they drifted away. If he wanted to shoot them, there was nothing they could do but duck, and she wanted to be ready. Thankfully, the man settled for staring daggers at them until they were out of sight.

They collected Matt and the woman he’d rescued, a Hooters girl who declared him her hero and offered to give him her number. While Matt searched in vain for pen and paper, they continued on until they came upon a group of survivors gathered on the roof of a local bar.

“Oh man, not Sloppy Joe’s.” Matt raised his hands in dismay. “Best joint in town underwater.”

The survivors atop the building welcomed the newcomers, particularly the Hooters girl, who was already eying one of the men on the roof. Their charges now safe, Tam decided they should continue to look for others who might need help, at least until they ran low on fuel.

They continued their search, finding victims, but few survivors. They passed two more churches, both packed with refugees. They were considering trying to make their way to safety when they caught sight of two men clinging to a child’s inflatable raft and struggling to keep their heads above water. Here, floating debris choked the streets. They had scarcely closed the gap between them and the struggling swimmers when a diver surfaced near the two men.

“Thank God!” one of them cried. “Can you help my partner? He can’t hold on much longer.”

Something glinted in the sunlight and the man fell back, clutching his throat as a curtain of scarlet poured from the gaping wound below his chin. He treaded water for a moment, the disbelief in his eyes evident even at a distance, and then he sank. Still clutching the boogie board, his partner managed only a startled cry before the diver’s knife flashed again and the second man disappeared beneath the water.

“What the hell are you doing?” Tam shouted. The diver jerked his head in her direction, and then disappeared beneath the water. Tam gaped at the empty space where, moments before, two cold-blooded murders had been committed before her eyes. The world had gone mad. “Get after him!” she shouted to Willis.

“He could be anywhere,” Matt said.

“Just go that way.” She pointed to the spot where she’d last seen the diver. After a few minutes of searching, though, they had to give it up as a bad job. The man was nowhere to be found. “Dammit.” She pounded her fist into her palm.

“Sorry,” Matt said. “There are just too many places he could have gone.”

“It’s not just that. He made me cuss, and I had a three day streak going.” She sighed. “Well, another dollar in the jar.”

“You might want to add a few more dollars.” Willis pointed down the submerged street to a boat speeding toward them. A man stood in the bow. At first, Tam thought he was pointing in their direction. Then a bullet smacked the water a foot from their boat, and she heard the report of a rifle.

They were being attacked.

“Something strange is happening up on the surface.” Dane checked the readouts on the display in front of him.

“How so?” Still distracted by the bells and whistles of this new craft, Bones sounded disinterested.

“I’ll skip the details and just say I think Key West has just been hit by a tsunami.”

That got Bones’ attention. “No freaking way! Corey would have let us know about any warnings.” Corey, their crew’s resident techie, was minding the shop back at their temporary headquarters.

“I’ll bet you a bottle of Dos Equis.” Dane wouldn’t mind losing that bet, but he knew better. His heart sank at the thought of his home being struck by such a disaster. And then he thought of Matt, Willis, and Tam. “Say, do you know what Tam and the guys had planned for today?”

“Besides bitching about us getting first crack at the sub? They were going to… Holy crap. They were going for a run somewhere around the pier. She’s been ragging Willis about his conditioning.”

“I’m taking over. See if you can raise Corey on the radio.”

Bones made several attempts to reach their friend, but failed. “He’s got to be okay. He’s minding the radio, so he wouldn’t be down on a bottom floor.”

“He probably lost power,” Dane said as the sub sliced through the water, headed for the dock. As they approached, he gradually brought the sub to the surface.

“Up periscope.” Bones tapped a button and an image of Key West appeared on their monitors.

Dane groaned. The island, or at least this part of it, lay under a good eight feet of water. The topmost portions of buildings rose above the churning surface, and all around, people sat perched on roofs or leaned out of second-story windows to witness the disaster.

“What do we do?” Bones asked.

“Let’s see if we can get closer. Maybe we’ll run into the others.” Dane felt the conspicuous absence of conviction in his voice, and he tried to force down the rising doubt. “They’ve been in worse situations than this. I figure they’re partying on a rooftop somewhere.”

He grew concerned as they made their way into the city and began to navigate the flooded streets. He wasn’t sure how far he dared take Remora. The sub was small and maneuverable, but the streets were choked with debris and submerged vehicles. If they found themselves stranded, at least they’d have a chance to try out some of the special features.

“Hey, check this out. An external mic!” Bones exclaimed. A moment later, a cacophony of noises filled the cabin: rushing water, people shouting… and gunshots. “What the hell? Surely nobody’s looting when the water’s this deep.”

“I don’t know,” Dane said. “Let’s find out.”