Depth Charge by Jason Heaton (carter reed .txt) 📗

they were breathing. She looked worn out, more tired than he’d ever seen her. There was a cut on her forehead and an egg-sized lump matted with blood at her hairline.

“I guess absence does make the heart grow fonder,” Tusker said, managing a weak smile. They embraced. Tusker was still in his wetsuit and shivered in the chilled air. Sam felt warm and soft. He closed his eyes and tried not to think of their impending fate.

“I need to tell you something,” Tusker said as he pulled away from Sam. “It’s important.” She searched his face. Just then, a familiar voice interrupted. Rausing. He was at the chamber hatch, his face filling the window. His large pale eyes bored into Tusker.

“Mr. Tusk,” he said, ignoring Sam. Speaking through an intercom made his voice sound even more disembodied. “You’ve done me a great service, retrieving my cargo and disposing of my overpriced hired help. Thank you.” A thin smile.

“You should know that the Sri Lankan Navy is on its way out here right now,” Tusker bluffed. “If you drop the bomb back in the sea and no harm comes to us, no one needs to know any of this happened.” He was trying to seem reasonable but also firm.

Rausing looked down and chuckled. “Mr, Tusk, do you honestly think I could have gotten this far without thinking of every contingency? The navy, the police, they won’t cause any problems for me. Your friend, Mr. Karuna, and his friends were but a mere inconvenience. Just as you have been.”

Tusker stepped close to the thick glass and gritted his teeth. “You son of a bitch,” he said, spitting the words out at Rausing.

Rausing ignored him. “We’ve not had a single accident onboard the Depth Charge,” he continued, then twitched his head, recalling McElroy’s misfortune. He cleared his throat. “So I’ve never been able to satisfy my curiosity about the effects of rapid decompression.”

Here we go, thought Tusker. He reached over and gripped Sam’s hand and stepped back into the chamber a few paces. “If you are going to kill us, get it over with, you sick bastard.” Sam inhaled sharply and gripped Tusker’s hand tightly.

Rausing smiled. “You seem worried, Mr. Tusk, but I thought we’d experiment with someone a little more… expendable, as a test, just to make sure we do it right.” He nodded to someone down the corridor, out of sight of Tusker.

With that, there was a hiss from the adjoining chamber, one that would normally be used to insert new divers or medical staff in case treatment was needed. This chamber was separated from the main one, where Tusker and Sam were, by a thick pressure hatch. Through a porthole, Tusker saw a familiar face. Roland. He had a bandage over one eye and looked rough. He had been pushed in against his will by a muscular man with a shaved head and mustache.

“As you might guess, my little project here in Sri Lanka is like the chamber you find yourselves in. Even a tiny leak would be disastrous to it.” He nodded in the direction of Roland in the adjoining chamber. “I’ve decided Mr. Van der Schyff may one day be a leak.”

Tusker looked over at Roland, who was banging on the outer hatch of his chamber, shouting in Dutch. He paced around the chamber, squeezing his nose and crying in agony. Tusker knew what was going to happen. Rausing stepped back from the porthole and nodded to his left. There was a hiss. Tusker grabbed Sam and held his hand over her eyes. “Don’t watch!” he whispered to her loudly. But Tusker couldn’t look away.

There was a piercing scream, unlike anything human or animal that Tusker had ever heard. Then a loud pop. Then silence. Pink-tinged pulp covered the porthole to the adjoining chamber. Tusker closed his eyes before he could see it drip.

“Mercifully fast, wouldn’t you say, Mr. Tusk?” Rausing was back on the intercom, peering in. His face was almost expressionless but there was something there—satisfaction? Pleasure? “Now, I regret to say, I fear that you and Ms. de Silva here may know too much as well. Like I said about leaks… Now which one of you will pop first?” He smiled.

Tusker felt his resolve and his energy drain away, sad that Rausing’s face might be the last thing he would see, sad that he’d gotten Sam into this mess. Where was that limpet mine? He instinctively glanced at his wrist, then remembered his watch was gone. Had he set the mine incorrectly? It had to have been 30 minutes by now!

Rausing saw Tusker’s gesture. An odd moment to check the time… Something dawned on him and he cocked his head. At that moment, a technician ran up behind Rausing.

“What is it?” Rausing hissed, visibly annoyed. The man whispered something in his ear. Rausing pulled back, confused, then looked in at Tusker. His eyes blazed. Behind him, a siren started to blare. Technicians were running past in the corridor. Rausing scowled and vanished from the porthole.

Tusker turned to Sam. “The limpet mine. I set it for 30 minutes and attached it to the bomb.” Sam’s eyes got big.

“But how do we…” she started. Tusker was already running across the chamber.

“Over here, quick!” he called to Sam. “It’s a long shot, but our only one.”

There was a small hatch at the top of a ladder in the corner of the chamber. A series of switches, lights and gauges glowed below it on the bulkhead, with a plaque that read, SPHLB. Tusker surveyed the bank of switches, then flipped on the one labeled Equalize. He watched the gauge’s needle rise. When it neared ten atmospheres, it slowed and then stopped. A green light flashed on. He turned to Sam.

“Time to go,” he said, and scampered up the ladder, spun a locking wheel on the hatch, and pushed the heavy door upward. Sam followed him and they emerged into a long horizontal cylinder with what looked like airplane seats