Splashdown

Chapter 17

Bones kept his voice at a low level. “What the hell is that?”

Dane turned back around to look into the hole. He recoiled at the sight of a large animal of some kind emerging from the hole. He scrambled back up toward Bones, but the creature was faster. It dragged itself out of the hole. Dane saw flashes of its jointed legs, five-foot long antennae, and a massive pincer claw that looked as though it would be at home on the business end of a piece of heavy machinery.

“It's a crab!” Dane fell to the ground. Bones reached down to pull him up but it was too late. The humongous arthropod was on Dane in a flash, kicking Bones aside with a sweep of one of its legs. Dane looked up from the ground in time to see a plethora of moving parts he forgot the names of long ago in biology class — mandibles and various other feeding appendages — all moving independently like precision parts of a powerful machine. Something fell from the crab's mouth and landed on Dane's chest — a knobby rock like those in the nearby pile, but dripping with slime.

Dane felt a piece of metal against his wrist and remembered the fork. He pulled it out and jammed the tines deep into the one of the creature's eye stalks. It had little effect. The crab used its legs to pin Dane to the ground. He rocked back and jammed both of his feet into the crab's underside. The animal was jolted just high enough for Dane to roll out from under it…

…only to see another crab scamper out of the tunnel.

“Giant land crab nest!” Bones walked up to the monster nearest Dane and stabbed it with his metal shank. It pierced the creature's hard exoskeleton but sank into nothing.

Bones wrenched the tool out from the creature's natural armor. “It's like punching through drywall. There’s nothing on the other side,” he shouted. Somewhere in the back of his mind Dane registered that they were being too loud, but he preferred being captured by the Russians if they would save him from these hellish beasts.

Or would Ivkin allow them to be consumed? Maybe that's why the room wasn't so heavily guarded?

But he had no time to dwell on such matters. Bones was staving off the first crab with repeated shankings, searching for a vulnerable spot, but the second announced its arrival by crushing Dane's calf in a vice grip with its main pincer. Dane gritted his teeth in pain as he felt warm liquid ooze onto the leg of his Russian jumpsuit. He clutched a fistful of sand and pebbles and flung it into the crab's mouth and eye area. The pincer relaxed its grip ever so slightly and Dane ripped his leg free. He rolled off to one side and stood, not caring if the Russians spotted him.

What he saw terrified him: perhaps a dozen, maybe more, of the land crabs scuttled across the path and through the underbrush, converging on their location.

“Bones, there's more! A whole herd coming.”

Bones had picked up a plastic cooler the Russians were carrying and was using it as a shield against the first crab. “Open to suggestions!”

Dane scanned the route they would need to take from here to the sub if they were to remain unseen by the Russians. It was crawling with oversized arthropods, some of them basking on the mound of radioactive rocks, others rampaging across the scrubby undergrowth. The largest ones were taller than Bones. He'd never seen anything like it, but had no time to ponder the miracles of nature. He glanced at the dumped contents of Bones' cooler but it was only a few sacks of flour and some butter. Out of the corner of one eye he spotted the second food box from the Russian he had taken down. He sprinted to it and kicked it over, spilling its contents.

Yes! Food. Even better, it appeared to be partially frozen fish as well as some uneaten clams. He dumped out the box and started hurling chunks of seafood off to the other side of the path, away from their needed course. First one crab veered to the offering, then another, then more. It was working. With the exception of the two crabs already battling them, the ginormous crustaceans made for the decoy meal.

Dane glanced over at Bones, who looked like he was at a tipping point in his contest with his ten-legged opponent. “Things are so damn strong,” he grunted, struggling to move one of its spindly limbs off his chest with both hands. Dane put his head down and barreled into the meaty decapod. It tumbled onto its back down the incline to the tunnel, where it collided with the other crab, their legs entangling.

“Over here!” Dane pointed through the foliage toward the pier. He threw the last piece of fish out onto the path, baiting three more crabs, then took off at a sprint. Bones was close behind. They passed clusters of land crabs, all either gorging on or fighting over pieces of meat.

They emerged out of the scrub into a patch of sandy soil that soon gave way to a stand of mangroves. The two SEALs flung themselves headlong into the trees, grateful for the cover of the aquatic canopy. Behind them a wayward crab attempted to follow but was too sizable to fit through the tangled, woody growth.

“Keep going.” Dane brushed branches out of the way, slogging through wet muck. He worried about losing a shoe. Bare feet were not permitted aboard a naval sub and would make them stand out. He had to slow himself in order to extract his foot with shoe attached on several occasions.

They crashed through the muggy mangrove jungle, wiping spider webs from their faces and slicing their hands on the sharp oysters that clung to the low hanging branches. Bones in particular had a rough time due to his height, but the dogged Cherokee willed himself through the green-and-brown maze until they reached the beach on the other side.

Bones stole a glance over his shoulder. “It’s a shame, really.”

“What is?”

“I’m just thinking of all the crab claws and deviled crab we missed out on by not bringing a couple of those things with us.”

“Tell you what. We get out of this alive, maybe we’ll come back one day and do some crabbing.”

Dane and Bones lay at the edge of the sand and surveyed the beach. They watched for the presence of roving guards or patrols, which would indicate that their escape had been noticed. Thankfully, they saw only the orderly, and thinning, procession of Russian sailors boarding their vessel.

“We've got to get on the sub soon, before they notice we're missing.” Dane did his best to dry the ends of his pants in the warm sand and soak up some of the blood from his crab wound. Bones was already scratching at the numerous mosquito bites he received in the mangroves. He tied his long hair in a tight ponytail which he tucked down the back of his shirt.

They stood and walked diagonally across the beach, toward the pier, taking a casual approach. If they were being observed from a distance, they wanted to appear like a couple of Russian sailors taking a smoke break, perhaps, or taking a leak before having to re-board the sub.

By the time they reached the pier, they counted only four sailors outside the sub, and these were busy wrangling crates into a cargo net to be lifted to the sub's conning tower.

Dane and Bones kept their heads down and walked to the gangplank that led to the sub's boarding ladder. Dane climbed up first, not too quickly but like he had every right in the world to be there. Bones went next and then they stood on the deck below the conning tower that led into the bowels of the submarine. One sailor was here, preoccupied with using a wrench on some fixture. He gave the two imposters a casual wave without looking up from his work, and Dane and Bones climbed the conning tower.

Reaching the top, Dane took a last look at the island. From up here he could see the house. Suddenly the front door burst open and a Russian ran out with his machine gun at the ready. He looked rapidly right, left, then right again, before shouting a command.

“Now, Bones!”

Dane and Bones dropped down the chute-like conning tower ladder back into the submarine.