Then he saw it.
Such a hideous creature. Terrifying and all consuming.
It charged at him—
“Benny!”
King spun around in surprise and looked at Raine, trying to hide his startled expression. Raine’s eyes narrowed in concern.
“You sure you’re okay to do this?”
King took a deep breath and forced a smile. “Sure. Why wouldn’t I be?”
He and Sid had decided to keep their break up concealed from the team for the time being. Now wasn’t the time to confuse matters. Nevertheless, Raine eyed him sceptically and King knew what he was thinking. It was what all of them were thinking. That he should still been in that hospital bed back in Germany being watched over by doctors, having his brain invaded by neurologists with nothing better to do. And, sure enough, there was a part of him that thought that too.
“I was just thinking,” he lied and glanced back over the side of the fishing boat. Everything stank of rotten fish — the bulkheads, the handrails, the piles of discarded nets, and now even his own body. Nevertheless, he had relished the feel of the fresh sea air pounding against his face as the boat had made its long journey south from Okinawa to Yonaguni, until his encounter with Sid below deck. “Nine thousand years ago, this was all above water. The whole island chain was one long peninsula linked to mainland China.” He sighed. “Yet, nine thousand years ago, no civilisation was supposed to have existed with the technological sophistication to build what lies beneath us.”
“So maybe your father was right,” Raine suggested. “Maybe history got it wrong.”
“Maybe,” King sighed. The afternoon sun beat down on them both as they stood looking out at the gentle waves off the coast of the island. King wore a pirate bandana over his now hairless scalp. Where Raine had got it from on a military base was anyone’s guess, but he’d been touched by the gesture. It had been a bit of a shock waking up following his experience to find that a bunch of military doctors had shaved him smooth. The white skull-and-cross bone image against the black background, Raine had said, seemed apt given they had just followed a pirate’s treasure map half way around the world.
“Okay, listen up,” Gibbs’ voice suddenly echoed over the deck. All eyes turned to him. He carried a whiteboard on a tripod and was trailed by one of the marines they had picked up in Okinawa. Lieutenant Eugene ‘Tank’ Tanaka was an easy-going man in his late twenties. Born to a US Marine stationed on Okinawa and a local woman, he had grown up among the island chain before joining the corps. His CO had told Gibbs that he couldn’t ask for a better guide to the islands. He was also an experienced diver, used to the powerful currents in the area. Before joining the corps, he had led tourists on dives to the Monument.
With the entire team gathered around, Gibbs set up the white board. On it was a crude felt-tip drawing of the massive underwater structure, the surrounding area and the position of the boat.
“We’ll be buddying up into five teams of two. I’ll go down with Tank; O’Rourke, you’ll be with Aiko.” Aiko was one of the other two marines, also a local to the area. “Lake, you’ll be with Siddiqa, Garcia with Yashina; Raine and King, you’ll obviously be a team so that you can extract the package once we have confirmation. Murray, you’ll stay on board and keep an eye out for any problems. Noriko,” the final marine, “you’ll stay on board to keep up the pretence of being a local fishing boat. Any questions?” Upon the team’s silence, he continued. “Tanaka will talk you through your designated search coordinates.”
Tank stepped up and indicated the whiteboard. “I’ve dived this site dozens of times,” he began. His English was perfect but King could detect a hint of a local accent. “I’ve never seen any opening into the structure, but if Doctor King’s assumption is correct, then there must be a way in.” None of the marines had been apprised of the Moon Mask, nor the less than regulation-specific intelligence that had led them here. “So we split up. Each team has been designated with a specific area to search. I tried to base this on experience levels to make it as safe as possible, but remember the currents in this area are extremely strong. We’ve timed our arrival reasonably well and it is now low tide, when the current is at its weakest but you’ll still experience a strong pull. If you get into difficulties, surface, inflate your vest and wait for the boat to come pick you up.”
“Remember, if you find an opening, you call it in and wait for Raine and King to arrive,” Gibbs added. “You’ll all have radiation detectors affixed to your gear, but diving gear isn’t a hazmat suit. It will not offer you any protection against the radiation. You wait at the entry zone so we don’t lose it again, then Raine and King will go in. Any questions?” Again, the response was negative.
“And don’t forget,” Tank added. “This whole area is a feeding zone for hammer-heads. Generally, leave them alone and they’ll leave you alone, but remember they are attracted to blood. You so much as nick yourself on a piece of coral, you get the hell out of the water, got it?”
“Don’t have to tell me twice,” Raine grumbled.
“Right, let’s kit up.”
The deck became a hive of activity then as the SOG team issued out the diving gear they had picked up in Okinawa. Even though the three civilians all had some experience with scuba diving, O’Rourke took it upon himself to assist them along with Raine.
He held up a full-face mask, connected via a series of tubes which were fastened securely in-place to a black rubber vest, not dissimilar to the Buoyancy Control Device, or BCD, that King was used to using when diving. His father had insisted on him learning to dive at an early age, insisting that if they were going to find a lost race then most of that evidence would likely lie submerged underwater. He had dived numerous wrecks as well as underwater archaeological sites, mostly off the coast of Alexandria in Egypt, and considered himself fairly experienced. Sid and Nadia, on the other hand, he knew, had only limited experience diving which was why they had been assigned the shallower search areas.
“This is a LAR V Draeger Closed-Circuit Rebreather,” the soldier explained in his usual, mild mannered voice. “It’s different to the standard Open-Circuit systems you would have used while scuba diving, in that it minimises noise and doesn’t emit any bubbles.”
“Don’t want the bad guys to spot your bubbles when you’re sneaking up on them,” Raine explained light-heartedly as he peeled himself into a thick neoprene wetsuit. His movements were swift and easy, checking all of his gear in a matter of seconds. A professional diver. A professional soldier.
“You know how you got creeped out on your first ever dive,” O’Rourke said, “thinking that Darth Vadar was coming to get you?”
Raine made a deep breathing sound, imitating the sci-fi villain which every diver sounded like when breathing through the stages of a scuba regulator. The three civilians, even Nadia, laughed lightly.
“Well, now you’re going to get creeped out because of the silence,” O’Rourke finished. “They’re full-face masks and are fitted with MSHR submersible radios. That means that we’ll all be able to talk to each other down there, so there’s nothing to worry about. The soldier in each pair — Doc, you’re stuck with Raine I’m afraid,” he added jokingly. Again they all laughed, thankful for the soldier’s good nature. Whatever dark history there was between him and Raine, King realised that O’Rourke was trying to put it in the past. Raine had proven himself again and again in the last few days.
“Each soldier,” he said again, “will be issued with an APS underwater assault rifle and an SPP-1 underwater pistol. You don’t need to know the ins-and-outs of it, but basically they fire specially designed hydrodynamic bullets, so if the ‘bad-guys’ do show up and we get into a fire fight, we’re not going to be defenceless down there. Each of you will have diving knives as well. Comprende?”