Pandemic Page 56

“Roger that, Chief,” Tom said. “Diver turning left.”

The image on the screen slewed left again.

“Look down,” Clarence said.

The diver did. The image of a black shoe appeared.

“Just a shoe,” Tom said. “It’s stuck in some kind of brown stuff, looks like sediment has leaked in through a crack somewhere.”

Clarence remembered when Murray had come to his house, remembered the picture drawn by Candice Walker.

“Move closer,” Clarence said. “Pan up a little bit.”

“Diver moving closer,” Tom said. “I don’t … wait, I think there’s a foot in that shoe, and the leg is buried in the … oh my G.o.d. Are you guys seeing this?”

“Uh … roger that,” the dive master said. “Stand by.”

Clarence leaned closer to the monitor. Wedged between a pair of equipment racks was a body. Unlike the sitting-down-and-napping body in the torpedo room, however, this one was encased in something, something attached to the hull, the deck, even crusted up over the equipment racks. Tom’s light played off of a brown, b.u.mpy surface that covered the unknown sailor’s torso and half of his face while leaving the mouth and nose un.o.bstructed. The right eye stared, wide and forever frozen open. A left hand stuck out from the brown ma.s.s, fingers curled in a talon of death, just a bit of blue shirtsleeve still visible. Clarence saw a second left hand — there were two people in there. At least. Just as in the drawing made by Candice Walker.

“Diver One to Topside, what the h.e.l.l is this?”

Tom’s voice sounded ragged, like he was becoming overwhelmed.

“Ignore it, Diver One,” the dive master said. “Proceed to your objective. Tom, stay cool.”

Clarence could barely blink, barely breathe. Tom again turned right, toward the room’s main storage locker. It looked like a horizontal, flat-topped freezer, the kind usually kept in a bas.e.m.e.nt, only this one was military gray instead of the white. Inside, Clarence knew, was the soda-can-sized object the Los Angeles crew had collected days earlier.

Tom moved slowly toward it.

On the locker, a tiny keypad glowed green — it had its own power supply, which was obviously still functioning.

“Topside to Diver One, great work, we’re almost home. Prepare to enter access codes.” The dive master read off the sixteen-digit code. Tom read it back. Clarence saw Tom extend his suit’s pincer hand. The pincer ended with a stiff rubber stud, small enough to press the keypad digits.

The last b.u.t.ton drew a beep from the crate, audible over the speakers. The keypad’s glow shifted from green to orange.

The crate’s lid slowly rose on a rear hinge, pushed up by steel pistons on either end. The diver’s lights shone on a small, black, cylindrical container. It wasn’t much bigger than a travel mug.

Hidden inside of that, a piece of an alien s.p.a.cecraft.

“Topside, Diver One, I see the objective.”

“Visual confirmed, Diver One. Retrieve the objective and then exit the vessel.”

The hard blue spheres — inside of which were Tom’s hands — reached into the crate, toward the objective. The black pincers opened wide, ready to grab the black tube, then paused.

“Diver One to Topside, I know I was briefed that this is safe, but … well, are you sure?”

“Diver One, retrieve the object,” the dive master said. “It’s safe, Tom, just don’t pretend you’re making a James Bond martini, okay?”

Tom actually laughed, a sound thinned by the electronics but still full of a grateful relief.

“Yeah, shaken not stirred, you got it.”

The diver’s pincers closed on the container, rubber grips locking down on the curved, black surface. He lifted it free of the storage locker.

“Topside, Diver One — objective acquired.”

Something black darted across the screen, a split-second flash that made Clarence think of snakes, worms, eels.

The image on the screen shifted, blurred, the diver turning as fast as he could.

“What the f.u.c.k was that?” Tom’s voiced peaked his microphone, making his words crackle with static.

“Diver One, calm down,” the dive master said, his tone cool and collected — of course it was, he wasn’t the one in a dark tomb nine hundred feet below the surface, surrounded by dead bodies.

Clarence’s hands clenched into involuntary fists. He wanted to reach down and somehow grab Tom, drag the diver to safety.

The image skewed as Tom turned, looking for the source of that unknown movement. His lights lit up the same empty shelves and slightly bobbing boxes, the same motionless dead men covered in crusty brown.

“Topside, Diver One — I think I saw something moving in here, maybe a fish. Moving to exit the … it’s on my suit! G.o.ddamit, there’s not supposed to be—”

The screen turned to white noise.

“Diver One, status?”

No answer.

Clarence closed his eyes, tried to stay calm. So close … what had happened?

He heard the dive master’s disembodied voice in the control room’s speakers. “Diver One, status? Talk to me, Tom.”

There was no response.

“Diver Two, we’ve lost contact with Diver One,” the dive master said, his voice still supremely composed, infuriatingly so. “Proceed inside immediately to Diver One’s location. Move forward with caution — it’s possible Diver One tripped a b.o.o.by trap.”