Kronos

22

The Titan-Gulf of Maine

If not for the unholy goal of the mission, Atticus might have felt excited. But the footage they were going to retrieve at the bottom of Jeffery’s Ledge filled Atticus with dread. His memory, fragmented and blurred as it was, would be brought into crystal clarity as the 3CCD video camera and its slow-motion capabilities would cause him to relive the violent end of his daughter’s life…again…and again.

Atticus followed Trevor deeper into the belly of the Titan than he had yet been. The air grew cool and moist. The extravagant decor faded, leaving only pale gray metal and a rubber-grip-coated floor. Trevor had explained that he’d been prone to slipping when his feet got wet, and the rubber grips kept him from floundering like a fish.

They approached a large metal hatch labeled: ray’s bay.

“Ray’s Bay?” Atticus asked.

“ Ray is our submersible,” Trevor said proudly. “I realize it’s not the most formidable name. Nonetheless, I believe you’ll find it appropriate.”

Trevor twisted the hatch’s lever and it opened with a dull clunk. It swung open noiselessly, revealing a large docking bay with a hatch, currently closed, that opened to the ocean. But the most startling feature in the room was what hung above the floor, supported by four thick metal cables.

The submersible was jet-black and shaped like a stealth fighter. No, Atticus thought, like a manta ray. “ Ray…”

Atticus walked around the suspended sub and took in the details. The craft was fifteen feet long and twenty at its beam. He slid his finger across the gently sloping tail end-smooth, almost soft to the touch. Two large pump-jet vents protruded from the back, an impressive feature. He moved around to the front. In place of a real ray’s eyes, two glass bubbles, for pilot and copilot, rose out of the smooth surface, providing a 360-degree view from the top of the craft. Each side of the submersible had three small windows. The thing was so aerodynamic it looked like it could fly. “Are there no manipulator arms?”

Trevor met Atticus at the front of the submersible. Suspended above them, they stood at eye level with its underbelly, which like a real manta ray, gleamed white. “The arms are recessed until needed,” Trevor said, pointing out four small hatches, two on each side. “The hatches in the middle house the manipulator arms. The two on the outer extremities hold minitorpedoes.”

Atticus couldn’t hide his surprise. Trevor spoke before he could ask. “You never know what you’ll run into while traversing the deep, wouldn’t you agree? Though I doubt the punch these torpedoes carry would be enough to kill our creature.”

Atticus was impressed. The Navy versions of the submersible were half the size and not nearly as well designed, or armed. What was still in the design and testing phase with the Navy had been perfected by Trevor Manfred for his own personal use.

“What’s the maximum depth?”

“Three thousand feet.” Trevor rocked on his feet, with his hands clutched behind his back. Atticus thought he looked like an excited child showing off a new toy. But he had a right to gloat. Three thousand feet was extremely deep, and with the top of Jeffery’s Ledge ranging between one hundred and two hundred feet, depth would not be an issue.

The captain from the bridge approached Trevor. “ Ray is powered up and ready to go.”

Trevor waved the man away with a swoosh of his hand. “Flood the chamber and open the hatch.”

“Yes, sir.” The captain gave a curt nod and headed for the hatch. As he was leaving, O’Shea squeezed past the man and entered the room.

Trevor’s eyes rose to his forehead. “And what, dear Father, do you want?”

“I was hoping to come with you,” O’Shea explained in a voice that Atticus realized was more relaxed than those of the rest of the crew. “I’ve never been down and thought this might be the perfect opportunity.”

“I never knew you were interested in the depths,” Trevor said.

“It is one of God’s creations I have not yet seen firsthand.”

“Ah yes,” Trevor said with a smile, then gesticulating as though he were reciting Shakespeare, added, “And God said, ‘Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky.’ So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind.” Trevor raised both hands in the air. “And God saw that it was good.”

He bowed, as though taking praise for being able to quote the Bible so fluently. When he stood straight again, his white hair was raised madly, and his eyes were twinkling. Atticus had never met a man so capable of amusing himself.

“And I assure you, Father, it is good. However, this trip is exclusive I’m afraid.” Trevor squinted and scrunched his nose. “Though now I feel I’m forgetting something. Is there another reason for your joining us?”

O’Shea smiled and nodded. “I didn’t want to mention it, but you missed your confession this morning. If something should happen to…go wrong. You will need me to-”

“Yes, yes. Quite right.”

Loud clanks sounded out around the room. Trevor’s orders were always followed and rarely delayed. The grinding of gears and whirring of unseen motors revealed that the hatch would soon be open and the room flooded with water. “Quickly, chop-chop.”

Trevor moved beneath the submersible and pushed a series of buttons. The code was simple, only four buttons. Atticus made a note of them: 2009. It first struck Atticus as a date, the year 2009, but he decided it was coincidence, though it made the number easy to remember. A hatch slid open, and a ladder descended. The three men quickly climbed the ladder and entered the submersible, just as the chamber began flooding with cold ocean water.

The submersible’s interior looked like the bridge of the Starship Enterprise -plush, comfortable, and ultramodern. Like the Titan, Atticus assumed that the sub could pilot itself if need be. Even the manual controls looked ridiculously simple. There was a control stick, like that in a jet fighter, but there were few buttons to worry about and almost no gauges. The screens in front of each chair led him to believe that all the systems were monitored and adjusted by computer. The cabin smelled of leather and warm electronics. The air felt cool and breathable, and, while small, the sub was far from cramped. Trevor directed Atticus to the right-hand chair, which sat beneath one of the glass eyes. Trevor sat beneath the left eye, and O’Shea took one of the two rear seats, which had a view through the side windows.

After Atticus adjusted to the seat, he looked up and found the glass viewing port to be a foot above his head. “Was this thing designed for giants?” he asked.

Trevor smiled and reached his hand over the side. As in a car, each seat had a small control panel. Trevor depressed a button, and his seat rose into the air, bringing his shaggy-haired head within the confines of the glass bubble. Atticus did the same and was happy to see the control stick rise with him.

“I wanted to be able to stand up inside,” Trevor said without offering any other explanation. “If you tire of looking at the ocean from the eye of a manta, there is a concealed front viewing port.”

Atticus twisted from side to side. The mobility and field of view were far beyond those of any submersible he’d ever been in. “No. This is great.” As he spoke, water rose to the lower edge of the window and quickly covered it. He hadn’t even been aware that it was rising.

“When the cables let go,” Trevor said, “don’t touch the controls until we’re in the open ocean. The computer will guide us out.”

A moment later a slight drop signified that they were no longer attached to the support cables. True to Trevor’s word, the submersible came to life and descended through the open floor, into the ocean.

They were immediately greeted by a pair of massive jaws bearing rows of razor-sharp teeth. For a moment, Atticus thought he must be having some kind of hallucination brought on by a subconscious fear of entering the ocean again. But as the bubbles and froth cleared, he could make out the distinct triangular teeth of a shark, a very large great white shark-Laurel.

“Is she a danger to the sub?” Atticus asked.

“Not at all.” Trevor said with a chuckle. “She comes to say hello every time we descend in Ray. I’ll tell you, she’s given many a guest quite the start!”

Laurel circled Ray twice before swimming lazily away. “You see,” Trevor said, “she’s a friendly girl when she wants to be.” Atticus looked at Trevor, whose face was distorted by the two glass bubbles separating them. The way the glass bent and stretched his image made the man look more like a Troll doll than a multibillionaire. When Trevor flashed a wide smile at him, Atticus couldn’t help but laugh.

Trevor’s next words immediately erased his smile. “Take us down, good Ahab! Down, down into the depths to recover the record of the beast that we might glimpse what makes it tick and discover a chink in its armor.”

The jovial tone of Trevor’s theatrics had no effect on Atticus. He was not looking forward to recovering the tape, or seeing the creature again. He would move toward it regardless. Like a meteorite through the galaxy, propelled by forces out of his control, he would not stop until he met an unmovable force and collided with it. Atticus gripped the control stick and thrust it forward, sending Ray into a fast dive through the azure depths.