Medusa

Phelps was a hard man and seasoned professional. He considered his job as a mercenary a link in a proud profession that stretched back hundreds, probably thousands, of years. Older than prostitution, he often joked. He had his own peculiar sense of honor that would not allow him to harm a woman, especially one as attractive as Lois Mitchell. He pushed the dangerous thoughts aside. There was no room in his business for personal attachments, but he vowed to keep a close eye on Lois.

“They hired me to hijack this nifty little hideaway and to make sure you keep on working. My contract doesn’t say anything about killing you or your friends. They know that when the work is done, I plan to take you from the lab and drop you somewhere close to civilization. We’ll probably run into each other in a bar in Paris or Rome someday and have a big laugh over this thing.”

Lois had no desire to see Phelps ever again. More important, she had no idea whether Phelps was telling the truth or not. The strength seemed to flow out of her body. She felt as if she were being smothered even though her lungs were hyperventilating. She concentrated on her breathing, taking breaths deep into her diaphragm, and after a moment the hammering of her heart began to subside. She became aware that Phelps was watching her reaction closely.

“You okay, Dr. Mitchell?”

Lois stared into space for a moment, reordering her jumbled thoughts, then rose from her chair. “I’d like to go to my quarters now, if you don’t mind.”

He nodded. “I’ll be in the control room if you need me.”

Lois made her way to her room. The floor still swayed, and she had to walk wide-leggedly to keep from losing her footing. Somehow, she made it to her quarters. She crawled into her bunk and pulled the covers over her head, as if she could shut out the world she had found herself in, but to no effect. Thankfully, after a few minutes, she fell into a fitful slumber.

CHAPTER 12

CAPTAIN GANNON FURROWED HIS BROW AS HE GAZED OUT the bridge windows at the restless sea. The weather had changed for the worse in the hours since the B3 had dropped into the depths. Gray slabs had replaced the puffy white clouds of morning. The easy breeze that had greeted the ship’s arrival had freshened, puckering the heaving sea. The water gained a dark, leaden cast as the sun lowered, and foam crested the corrugated wave tops.

The rugged research vessel had been built to take the worst kind of weather imaginable, but retrieving the bathysphere and an exhausted Hardsuit diver would have been delicate operations even without dicey conditions.

Ga

If anyone can survive this ordeal, the captain thought, it would be Austin. Hell, the man’s a perpetual-motion machine!

Having dived a half mile to the bottom of the ocean to free the bathysphere, Austin was keeping in constant touch with the ship, reporting his ascent to the bridge at regular intervals, relaying vivid descriptions of the sea life he observed.

Lookouts lined the railings or were gathered on the bow and fantail. A Zodiac inflatable boat sat on the slanting stern ramp under the A-frame. Two divers in neoprene wetsuits were perched on the pontoons waiting for the signal to push the Zodiac into the water.

The diesels rumbled in the engine room, waves slapped against the hull, and the rising wind thrummed through the rigging. But otherwise, an eerie stillness had descended over the ship.

The quiet was broken by a lookout yelling over the bridge intercom.

“She’s up!”

Keeping his eyes glued to the newly formed patch of foam a hundred yards to port, Ga

The divers pushed the Zodiac down the stern ramp and clambered in. It leaped over the waves as its powerful outboard motor kicked in, curving around to the side of the ship, slip-sliding over the seas, trailing the retrieval line behind it like a prehensile tail.

The Zodiac slowed to a wallowing stop near six wave-slicked orange mounds that had bobbed to the surface. The cabled hook at the end of the line was lowered into the water, and one of the divers slid off the Zodiac and disappeared beneath the waves.

Every eye on the ship watched the drama play out. When the diver popped to the surface and pumped his fist in the air, a loud cheer went up. The B3 was hooked. Winches pulled the bathysphere and its flotation air bags slowly to the surface.

The recovery crew cut the air bags away, and the crane lifted the dripping bathysphere from the sea and onto the deck of the ship. A power wrench burped, the lug nuts were quickly unscrewed, and the hatch cover clanged to the deck.

The ship’s medic stuck her head through the hatch opening and saw a rumpled pile of blankets surrounded by a loose assortment of equipment.

“Hello,” she said in a tentative voice.

Zavala pulled back the corner of the blanket and blinked his eyes against the light. He smiled.

“Hello yourself,” he said.

AUSTIN WAS STILL ON his way to the surface when Ga

“I’ve seen dead eels with more life to them,” the captain said. “But the medic says they’re suffering from the -shuns: dehydrashun, air deprivashun, and exhaustshun.”

Austin let out a groan that the captain could have heard without the need for a fiber-optic co

“Captain, you’re a cruel man.”

“They’ll be fine,” Ga

“Anxious to get out of this tin suit, but feeling good otherwise. One request, though: the classical music you’re piping down here is putting me to sleep. Got anything livelier?”

Minutes later, Austin was listening to Mick Jagger belting out “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.”

He smiled in full agreement with the sentiment of the Rolling Stones song, that if you try some time, you can get what you need . . . especially if you have friends.

THE B3’S PASSENGERS had been rushed into sick bay, laid out on examination tables, stripped of their evil-smelling clothes, treated for bumps and bruises, and given a rubdown to get their circulation going again. Then the medic buried them under piles of blankets and let them sleep.

When Joe Zavala awoke, the first thing he saw was Kurt Austin’s face.

“Guess I’m not in heaven,” Zavala croaked.

Austin held up a round, brown glass bottle with a wooden screw cap.

Tequila!

“Maybe you are,” he said.

Zavala’s lips parted in a cracked smile.

“A sight for sore eyes,” he said. “When did you get back on board?”

“They peeled me out of my suit around a half an hour ago,” Austin said. “Feel like telling me what happened?”

Zavala nodded.

“Let me warm my outside first,” he said, “then I’ll warm my inside.”

It took fifteen minutes under the hottest shower he could stand before warmth finally seeped into Zavala’s bones. Austin handed him a plastic cup of tequila through the shower-stall door, then went to his cabin, showered, and changed.

By the time Austin returned, Zavala had put on some clothes that Austin had left for him and was sitting in a chair sipping tequila. Austin helped him walk to the mess hall and ordered two pastramis on rye.