Devil's Sea

CHAPTER SIX

Dane was more concerned with rubbing his dog Chelsea’s ears than what the secretary of defense was saying. He’d missed Chelsea, an old golden retriever, whom he’d been forced to leave behind when traveling to the Caribbean. Her tail thumped against his chair as he scratched, to the annoyance of the chairman of the Joint chiefs to Staff, who was seated to his right. Ariana Michelet was seated to his left.

They were deep under the Pentagon in the War Room, and the mood was grim. Dane didn’t need his special ability to pick that up. Situation displays along the wall of the conference room showed the devastation in Iceland, Puerto Rico, and Connecticut wreaked by the Shadow. And they were no closer to knowing what the Shadow was.

Dane shifted his attention from Chelsea to the podium when Foreman took the secretary of defense’s place. He had first met Foreman over thirty years ago at a secret CIA base camp in Cambodia, just before he had unknowingly gone with his team into the Angkor gate. He hadn’t trusted Foreman then, and didn’t’ trust him now, but he did acknowledge that the CIA man was the foremost expert on the planet on what little was known about the gates.

“We stopped this assault through the Bermuda Triangle gate.” Foreman didn’t waste time on preliminaries. “And we stopped the first attack before that, through the Angkor gate. I don’t think we’re going to be able to stop a third attack.”

“Hell,” the chairman of the Joint Chiefs said, “let’s just throw some nukes through one of these things.”

“And most likely get them thrown back at us,” Foreman said. “Gentlemen, let us remember that the Shadow has shown itself to be quite adept at using our own weapons against us.”

Dane stirred. “The Shadow will come at us in a new way. We were lucky the first two times. They used our satellites against us the first time and our own nuclear weapons off the Wyoming the second. I think it’s obvious the Shadow learns from its mistakes.”

Ariana Michelet leaned forward. “The Shadow knows how to cause mass destruction. The loss of Iceland proves that. It used the juncture of two tectonic plates in the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and gave the forces there a nudge, and look what happened.”

“I just checked, and Professor Nagoya in Japan has picked up muonic transmissions indicating the Shadow is probing out the Devil’s Sea gate off the coast of his country and measuring the Ring of Fire that surrounds the Pacific Rim. If they can do there what they did in Iceland, then half the world could be destroyed. I think Iceland was just a test.”

“The Shadow destroyed Atlantis over ten thousand years ago,” Dane said, “So we know they have the capability to do more than they did in Iceland.”

“We don’t even know what these gates are,” Ariana noted.

“Foreman answered, “They could be a door to another dimension in our own world; one that we have not been able to access yet but that coexists with the world we know. Or they could be a gateway to an alternate universe. Or they could be an attempt by an alien culture to open an interstellar gateway from their planet to ours.”

“The Russians had a theory,” Foreman continues. “In 1964 three of their scientist with backgrounds in electronic, history, and engineering published a paper in Khimiyai Zhizn; the journal of the old Soviet Academy of Sciences, titled “Is the Earth a Large Crystal?” Their theory was that a matrix of cosmic energy was built into our planet when it was formed, and these gates are at key junctures of this matrix. They divided the world into twelve pentagonal slabs. On top of those slabs they drew twenty equilateral triangles. Using this overlay, they pointed out that these lines along the edges of the triangles have had a great influence on the world in many ways: fault lines for earthquakes lie along them: magnetic anomalies exist; ancient civilizations tended to be clustered along some of them.

“The places where the triangles met they labeled Vile Vortices, which also happen to be where most of our gates are located, so they were onto something, even if some of their logic was off. They put together a mathematical formula to explain the fluctuation of the Vile Vortices based on a crystalline structure.

“I initially dismissed that theory,” Ariana said, “because the lithosphere, the upper level of our planet, has been moving for millions of years. Thus a crystal formation would not be consistent in location, but perhaps this formation is deeper than the lithosphere.

“Maybe they weren’t so far off,” Ariana continued. She turned to Dane. “When Sin Fen transformed, her head changed into a crystal to channel the energy of the pyramid?”

Dane nodded. The memory of what happened to Sin Fen on top of the underwater pyramid near the Bermuda Triangle gate was something he would never forget.

“I also did some research and found out that this isn’t the first time crystal skulls have been seen. Apparently it is quite a popular subject among New Age enthusiasts and several skulls have been found in different places.”

“Where?” Dane asked.

“South America, Russia, other places. It’s hard to pin down because most of the skulls are in private hands, and there is also quite a variety of skulls out there.”

Dane considered that. “Were they found near pyramids?”

“I don’t know,” Ariana said.

“The only thing that has worked against the gates is this ancient weapon, combining a person like Sin Fen with the pyramid and Naga staff, “Dane said. “ I think we need to track down these crystal skulls. Try to find where they came from.”

“That’s a good idea,” Ariana agreed.

“The ancient people had help fighting the Shadow,” Dane said. “We saw that by what just happened in the Bermuda Triangle gate. Whatever that temple was, I don’t think it was human technology that designed it. We should send someone to check the pyramid where Sin Fen and I were. And we need to get in contact with these Ones Before. I believe that the enemy of our enemy is our friend. My teammate Sergeant Flaherty told me that also.”

“Your teammate who disappeared over thirty years ago,” the chairman of the Joint Chiefs noted, “and who reappeared to you not looking any older in Cambodia. Right.”

“I can’t explain it,” Dane said. “All I can do is tell you what happened. You saw the Scorpion and its crew. The same thing. Disappeared for decades and reappeared with everyone looking exactly the same as the day they were lost.”

“And then destroying the sub pens at Croton,” the Chairman noted. “so why should we believe your friend Flaherty?”

Dane spread his hands. “Then believe what you want. It doesn’t get us any closer to solving our problem.”

“How do we get in contact with the Ones Before?” the secretary of defense asked.

“We go into a gate,” Dane said.

“That hasn’t been very healthy,” Ariana noted.

“That’s because we only entered gates when the Shadow opened them,” Foreman noted. “And we’ve only been able to go to the part of the gate that’s on our planet, where the Shadow has extended its influence. What we have to do is go through the gate into the Shadow’s world.”

“How do you propose to do that?” Dane asked.

“Professor Nagoya is working on that. It appears that there are two phases to a gate. The fog and blackness that comes into our planet is sort of the foyer they project into our world. But somewhere inside that gate is a smaller area, which is the actual doorway to the Shadow’s side, which Nagoya calls a portal.” Foreman checked his watch. “In fact, the first phase of Nagoya’s operation is about to commence. Dr. Nagoya has discovered some muonic traces that indicate there may be another ‘graveyard’ like one you found in the Caribbean. He’s detected a larger chamber in the deepest part of the ocean — the Challenger Deep. We’ve sent a specially rigged submersible to check it out.”

“What’s that got to do with the next phase?” Dane asked.

“We want to see if there is any reaction to the submersible from the Devil’s Sea gate, which isn’t far from there,” Foreman said. “If we get activity, Nagoya can use the data he picks up to check this theory and try to pin-point in the Devil’s Sea gate.

Mount Everest could be dropped in the Challenger Deep with six thousand feet of water still between its peak and the surface. It was the deepest point on the surface of the planet, the lowest spot in the Marianas Trench, which swept in a fifteen-hundred-mile arc from just below Iwo Jima to south of Guam. It was due south of the Devil’s Sea gate, an area off the coast of Japan where mysterious disappearances of planes and boats had been recorded throughout history.

For the two members of the crew of Deepflight III, the opportunity to dive into the Challenger Deep was the equivalent of a climber given the opportunity to go up Everest. The major difference was the somber tone to the preparations as the craft was lowered over the side of its tender ship the USS Roger Reveille.

Deepflight III was a radical departure from previous submersibles. It looked more like an airplane than a submarine. The crew compartment was a titanium sphere in the center. Wings with controllable flaps extended from each side. Forward of the sphere was a specially designed beak that reduced drag when the submersible was moving forward. In the rear were two vertical fins right behind the dual propeller system.

The sphere was solid with just two holes in it; one a section that screwed out to allow ingress, egress, and the second, smaller one that accessed control and command cables. To see outside, the crew used various cameras and radar. Powerful spotlights were bolted all around the craft, allowing the crew to illuminate the area immediately around it. It was forty feet long, and the wingspan was fifteen feet. The submersible had been hastily rigged with a pod, the purpose of which had not been explained to the crew.

Inside Deepflight, Captain Gann insured that all checklists for the dive were completed, and then turned to his partner, Lieutenant Murphy. “Ready, Murphy?”

“Ready.”

“Release umbilicals.”

“Released.”

“We’re going down.”

“The submersible is at ten thousand meters’ depth,” Ahana reported. “The pod is working. “ She looked up from her computer monitor. “Sir, do those men in Deepflight know what exactly their mission is?”

“Reconnaissance,” Nagoya replied shortly.

“Their real mission,” Ahana amended.

“That is Foreman’s responsibility,” Nagoya said.

“Sir. .” she began, but stopped.

“It is dangerous,” Nagoya agreed. “But the pod is designed to be jettisoned. We don’t know what the reaction from the Shadow will be or if there will even be a reaction.”

“And if there isn’t?”

“Then we send the submersible into the gate itself. We’re hoping by just approaching the graveyard and using the pod to send out the frequency we’ve determined that we will draw some sort of reaction, but the crew will have a chance to escape. The odds are much lower if they have to go into the gate.”

“ And Russia?”

“Kolkov says he is working on a plan to insert their pod. That is phase two.”

Deepflight III passed through nine thousand meters. It was descending into the center of the Marianas Trench, radar making sure they were clear of walls on either side. Gann and Murphy were focused on navigation, insuring that everything was functioning correctly. With the outside pressure at seven tons per square inch, the slightest malfunction could be fatal.

“Depth to bottom?” Gann asked.

“Two thousand, one hundred thirty-three meters,” Murphy replied.

“Right on target.”

“There,” Ahana was pointing at her computer screen. The solid black triangle marking the Devil’s Triangle gate was changing shape, the southernmost side stretching as if giving birth.

“Everyone ready!” Nagoya yelled. His assistants bustled; making sure their gear was tracking correctly. They all watch as a circle separated from the triangle and began moving southward picking up speed.

“Just like the sphere from the Bermuda gate.” Ahana finally said.

In the War Room, Dane looked up as Foreman activated a screen that relayed what was being picked up by Nagoya’s people in Japan.

“We have activity from the Devil’s Sea gate,” The CIA man announced.

They could all clearly see the sphere of muonic activity moving southward.

“What’s it going for?” Dane asked.

“Our probe,” Foreman said.

The secretary of defense and chairman of the Joint Chiefs rushed out to the main operations center, leaving Foreman alone in the conference room.

“Do they know they’re bait?” Dane asked.

“They know enough to do the mission,” Foreman said.

On Deepflight, Gann and Murphy were completely unaware of the sphere coming toward them. The bottom of the Challenger Deep was thirteen hundred meters below when Murphy noticed an anomaly on the radar screen.

“Captain, check the side-looking radar.”

Gann looked at the screen and saw what had grabbed his partner’s attention. The bounce back from the north wall had suddenly become totally smooth. Gann immediately stopped their descent.

“Distance to bottom?” Gann asked.

“Twelve hundred meters.”

“Let’s take a look.” Gann goosed the propellers, guiding them toward the north face. “External lights on.”

Murphy flipped on the switch activating the powerful searchlights mounted on the top and bottom of the submersible.

“Cameras on,” Gann ordered.

The video monitors flickered, and then came alive, showing the glow of lights but nothing else.

“Range to the north wall?” Gann asked.

“Four hundred meters.”

“What do you think it is?”

‘Either the most perfect underwater geological formation that ever occurred or somebody built something down here,” Murphy answered.

“At eleven thousand meters?”

‘I’m just telling you what the data indicates.”

“Range to wall?”

‘Three hundred meters.”

The largest man-made underwater craft is the Russian Typhoon class submarine, which is one hundred seventy-one meters long, just shy of two football fields in length, and which displaces twenty-six thousand, five hundred tons. The back sphere that was heading toward the Challenger Deep dwarfed even a Typhoon, being almost seven hundred meters in diameter. It was not only larger than any man-made moving object; it was larger than most man-made stationary objects, including the Great Pyramid.

It also moved faster than any man-made submersible, punching through the ocean at eighty knots.

“Fifty meters,” Murphy warned, and Gann slowed Deepflight to a crawl.

As Murphy watched the radar screens, Gann shifted his attention to the video monitors.

“Forty. Thirty. Twenty.”

Gann bought them to a dead halt. “Look,” he said to Murphy.

Directly in front of them the rock wall on the North Side of the Deep gave way to a smooth, gray surface. The edge of the gray curved slightly downward.

“Do a down scan along the wall,” Gann ordered.

Murphy did so and whistled. “We’ve got a perfectly round, flat wall in front of us, over a half mile in diameter.”

“So what is it?”

In the War Room, Dane saw the image relayed from Deepflight’s camera and could have answered Captain Gann’s question. What was on screen was exactly like the doorway they had discovered in the Milwaukee Deep off the coast of Puerto Rico, which led to a large chamber where all the craft lost in the Bermuda Triangle had been stored. His gaze shifted from the image to the display showing the large sphere that had left the Devil’s Sea gate, closing on the Challenger Deep. He got up and walked up to Foreman.

“Are you going to warn them?” Dane asked him.

“What good would it do?” Foreman replied.

“You sent them there deliberately.”

“It’s war. Even you must accept that now.”

‘It’s easy to send other men to their deaths, isn’t it?”

Foreman turned. “No, it isn’t easy, and I’m getting sick of you trying to take the moral high ground. I’m worried about the survival of our species, and you give me grief over every single individual involved.”

“Our species is made up of individuals,” Dane said. “Why didn’t you let the Deepflight crew know what their mission was?”

“Would it have made a difference?”

“What exactly is their mission? Did you send them to find the door or draw something out of the gate?”

“Both.”

Dane picked up something from Foreman’s guarded mind. “What were they transmitting?”

“The pod they took with them was transmitting muons on a frequency that Dr. Nagoya felt would draw attention from the Shadow.”

“Mission accomplished,” Dane said. “Now get them out of there.”

“There isn’t enough time for them to get to the surface,” Foreman said. “And even if they did, what makes you think the surface is going to be safe? Remember what happened to the crew of the Glomar. It’s called sunk cost, and there’s no way around. We knew there was a good chance that anything we set there was going to draw a reaction and that if it did, there was nothing we could do about it.”

“They can hide inside the graveyard,” Dane said. “We went through a smaller door in the center of the door we found in the Atlantic. Have them search for it.”

‘How do you think those craft in the graveyard you visited got there?” Foreman asked.

“Most likely the sphere,” Dane said, “but it’s worth a chance.” He looked at the display. “They don’t have much time. They might be safe in there.”

“All right,” Foreman agreed. He picked up a handset and called to the submersible via the Reveille.

Gann and Murphy were mesmerized by the massive door they had uncovered when Foreman’s voice came over the radio.

“Deepflight, this is Angel Six. Over.”

Gann picked up the mike. “This is Deepflight. Over.”

“Do exactly what I tell you to,” Foreman said. “Go to the center of the circle. Look for a smaller black circle there. Go into it. Jettison the attached pod before you go in.”

“What is this?” Gann demanded.

“You don’t have time to argue or ask questions,” Foreman said. “You’ve got an enemy bogey heading your way.”

“Enemy bogey?” Gann repeated glancing at Murphy.

A new voice cut in. “This is Reveille. Roger that, Deepflight! Roger that! Something very big is coming this way. Range ten kilometers and closing at eighty knots. It’s freaking huge, and it is not responding to hails!”

Gann shoved the controls, turning the nose of Deepflight toward the ocean bottom. He increased the throttle, and they headed down.

“Reveille, this is Angel Six. Recommend you head away at Flank speed.”

“Roger that.”

Dane watched the sphere closing on the Challenger Deep as relayed from Nagoya’s computers and integrated with the Department of Defense positioning information on both Deepflight and the Reveille. It was going to be very close. He felt impotent, unable to influence what was about to happen.

“Geez, look at that,” Murphy whispered. “Whatever’s coming in is filling the entire screen in the north.”

Gann didn’t have time to look at the radar. He was navigating by visual, staying oriented on the gray wall just above the top of Deepflight.

“There,” Gann said as the gray changed to black. He had the submersible do a roll, and then the nose was pointing at a small black circle.

“Looks solid to me,” Murphy said.

Gann finally spared a glance at the radar. He saw what had shocked Murphy. A curved edge had filled the entire top half of the screen, and it was coming closer. The only thing he’d ever seen that big moving was an iceberg, but this thing was coming under its own power.

“I’m going in,” Gann said as he edged forward on the controls.

“Don’t forget we need to jettison the pod,” Gann said. “Do it.”

On board the Reveille, the engines were maxed out as the ship made to the south. On the bridge, the captain was watching the approaching sphere on radar also. Unfortunately, the ship was built for research, not speed or combat, so even at full throttle they could only make eighteen knots. And they had no weapons on board, although the captain doubted that any weapons they might have would be effective against whatever was coming.

Deepflight blinked out of existence on the status board, the image of the sphere completely filling the canyon deep inside the Challenger Deep, the video feed from the submersible going blank.

Dane sat down at the conference table and shook his head. “How many on board?”

“Two,” Foreman said. His attention still on the board. “Damn,” Foreman muttered.

Dane looked up. The sphere was moving, ascending. “It’s going after the Reveille.”

Foreman picked up the microphone. “Reveille, this is Angel Six. Over.”

“We’ve got it on radar, range five thousand meters horizontal, nine thousand meters vertical and closing. Any suggestion would be helpful. Over.”

Foreman looked at Dane, who simply shook his head.

“Five us a video feed,” Foreman ordered.

A screen on the wall flickered, and then they could see the Pacific Ocean from the bridge of the Reveille. The water was perfectly calm, the sun shining. The only thing marring the tranquility of the scene were the increasingly anxious reports from the Reveille’s radar man coming out of the speakers.

“Range four thousand meters horizontal, seven thousand meters vertical, and closing at high speed.”

“We’re still waiting on any suggestions,” the captain of the Reveille said. “Over.”

“It might be bluffing,” Foreman suggested.

“What the hell is it, anyway?” the captain demanded.

“We don’t know,” Foreman admitted.

“Great.”

‘Range three thousand meters horizontal, five thousand meters vertical, and closing at high speed.”

Gann felt the air around him changing, the pressure increasing. His head pounded, and the video screen was dark.

“What the hell is going on?” Murphy demanded.

The nose of the submersible had hit the dark circle just moments ago, and then slowly they’d gone into it, as if being absorbed. Alarms began going off. Gann ran through emergency procedures but could find nothing seriously wrong until he glanced at the outside pressure-reading gauge.

“That can’t be,” he murmured.

“What?”

“Outside pressure is one atmosphere.”

“The gauge is broken,” was Murphy’s immediate assessment.

Both men blinked as the light inside increased dramatically as the three screens showing the outside view suddenly brightened far beyond what the searchlights could do.

“Where the hell are we?” Murphy whispered. His training took hold, and he checked his instruments. He didn’t believe what he was seeing, but he reported it anyway. “I’ve got a reading of the surface ten meters above us.”

“That would explain the atmospheric reading,” Gann observed. He checked the radio, trying to reach the Reveille and Angel Six, but only static came back. “Let’s see where we are,” he finally said.

The sphere was solid black and perfectly round. There was no external sign of a form of propulsion; nevertheless, it was pushing through the water at high speed, closing on the Reveille.

It was also picking up anything in its path via a hole that had irises open on the very front, about fifty meters wide. It had swallowed the transmitting pod before halting in front of the large door, then reversing direction and heading for the surface.

“Range zero meters horizontal, one thousand meters vertical, and rising at high speed. Closing on us, sir,” the radar man added, a quaver in his voice.

The captain of the Reveille nodded. He opened the door that led to the bridge wing on the right side and stepped out onto it, a crewman following him with a video camera that was connected by satellite to the War Room. The captain leaned over and looked down at the smooth ocean, waiting.

On the top portion of the sphere, the opening grew as the metal irises moved back. As the sphere got closer to the surface and the Reveille, the opening grew larger until it encompassed a quarter of the surface.

“Oh God,” those in the War Room heard the captain of the Reveille exclaim. Then they saw what had caused the reaction as the video camera was pointed downward.

Rising out of the water all around the Reveille was the edge of the opening in the sphere, water pouring down the side of the massive object until the edge was a hundred meters above the mast of the ship. Then the opening began to iris shut, daylight disappearing rapidly as it closed.

The screen went blank.

Captain Gann threw the hatch open and blinked in the bright light, trying to get his bearings. The air was stale, with a texture to it that Gann couldn’t identify. He was in a huge, semicircular space. The submersible was floating in the center of a body of water that extended a mile and half in all directions. Above, a bright, glowing orb illuminated everything. Beyond the water, a black beach two miles in width ran up to the wall that curved around overhead to the light.

What caught Gann’s attention, though, were the planes and boats that littered the black beach. Thousands of them. He saw an ancient Polynesian raft beached next to a modern oil tanker; a jet fighter with Russian markings next to a biplane. It was overwhelming, a veritable mechanical graveyard of the ages.

“It’s moving again,” Dane noted. He watched the progress of the sphere on the screen for several seconds, then realized what he was seeing. “It’s heading back to the Deep.”

There was no sign of the Reveille in the live spy satellite feed they had of the area. The ship had disappeared, swallowed up by the sphere.

“Look at that!” Murphy exclaimed, pointing.

Gann shifted the binoculars in that direction. A silver-skinned plane with two engines, one on each wing, was on the black beach. Among all the other craft here, he found nothing particularly spectacular about that particular plane.

“A Lockheed Electra,” Murphy said. He twisted the knob on his binoculars. “A Lockheed Electra 10E!”

“And?” Gann was trying to absorb the variety of ships and planes he was seeing. Some he didn’t’ recognize at all.

“Do you know what the E in the 10E stands for?” Murphy didn’t wait for an answer. “Earhart. That’s Amelia Earhart’s plane!”

Both men staggered as a large bubble of air broke the surface just in front of the submersible, rocking the craft. Gann felt a spike of pain in both ears and realized there had been a sudden change of pressure. He leaned over and looked down, just in time to see the top edge of the opening in the sphere break the surface all around the submersible.

“The sphere is heading back for the gate,” Ahana reported, even though Nagoya could clearly see that on the screen.

“What about the probe?” he asked.

Ahana flipped a switch, and a red dot appeared inside the sphere. “Working.”

“Excellent.”

They watched as the dot entered the black triangle marking the boundaries of the Devil’s Sea gate.”

“Do you have a lock on that position?” Nagoya asked anxiously.

“Locked and all data recorded,” Ahana confirmed.

In the War Room, Dane saw the red dot appear. “What’s that?”

“The sphere must have sucked in the pod,” Foreman said.

“What about Deepflight?” Ariana asked.

“No sign,” Foreman said.

“How does this probe open the gate?” Dane asked.

“You’ll have to ask Nagoya that,” Foreman said. “We aren’t even certain it will work. But it’s a good sign that we can track it. Pack your gear; we’re heading to Japan. By the time we get there Nagoya should have been able to analyze the data the probe is sending.”

Ariana had been on her laptop while all this was occurring. “I’ve located someone who claims to be an expert on crystal skulls in New York City. Also, the Museum of Natural History has one in its collection. I’ve arranged to meet with a museum representative and the expert this evening.

Dane stood. “Keep in touch.”

“I will.” She spun the globe once more. “We’re missing something.”

Dane paused. “What do you mean?” Foreman was already out of the room, heading for the elevator.

“Nagoya is coming up with theories, Foreman has been studying these gates almost all of his life, and yet we still know almost nothing about them or the Shadow, or the Ones Before.” She spread her long fingers, covering several of the gates marked on the globe. “I don’t’ know what it is, but we’re missing something very important.”

“I know we are,” Dane agreed. He smiled. “If you find out what it is, let me know, OK?”

“Be careful,” Ariana warned.

“I will.”

“Don’t trust Foreman.”

“That’s a given.”