They were approaching a depth of 100 feet.
Below them there was only complete darkness.
“In a tunnel this narrow, at least we’ll find our answer at the bottom,” he heard Tom say. “If her remains are at the bottom of this tunnel, there’s no way we could possibly miss seeing her.”
“That’s what I was thinking,” Sam concurred.
The water temperature was becoming noticeably colder, too.
He was startled when a large fish swept past his leg.
It was the first sign of underwater life he’d seen, just as he was beginning to believe that the lake was utterly devoid of life.
At first, there was a total scarcity of underwater life, but as they descended deeper, the presence of large eels, crustaceans, and other fish became apparent.
“What do you think that thing is?” It was Tom who first spotted it approach.
It was a large fish, with a strange, bioluminescent organ hanging from a rod which protruded from its forehead and dangled in front of its face. The creature looked made up, or more like the type of creature you might have expected to have evolved at the bottom of the ocean, certainly not in a lake more than ten thousand feet above sea level.
“A night-light fish?” Sam guessed, flippantly.
“Yeah, I wouldn’t have thought that a fish would need a light in this lake. Even at 180 feet, some light should be able to penetrate to its bottom. I wonder if things change in the winter when the lake freezes over.”
“Maybe… or perhaps there is a more substantial system of caves and tunnels elsewhere around here, which has created a unique environment for such a species of fish,” Tom said.
“Okay, we’re at 150 feet. If the Magdalena’s here, we should be able to see her on the lake bottom soon.”
Sam flicked on his powerful LED and pointed it towards the floor of the lake.
What looked back at him scared him more than any creature of the sea ever could.
Below him lay the wrecked remains of a B26 bomber, in almost pristine condition. A single crack in its fuselage, just large enough for a man to swim through, could be seen at its rear, but otherwise, the cold environment had preserved her in the same condition as the day she crashed.
Sam angled his torch toward the front of the aircraft until its light reached the cockpit window. He paused just long enough to see the eyes of its long dead pilot staring back at him.
Only, it wasn’t a corpse.
It was alive.
And a second later, a light in the cockpit came on, followed by a second one.
Whatever they’d found, Sam knew that someone else had just beaten them to it.
Chapter Fourteen
John Wolfgang didn’t believe it when he received the report that Sam Reilly was still alive, and that now he and Tom Bower, of all people, were preparing to dive Lake Solitude. He was bewildered that the man had survived, not that he knew much about him. On the other hand, he had known almost immediately when he’d first met Tom Bower that he would be a hard man to deceive.
What were they trying to achieve?
John had understood, simply enough, that Sam had made the connection between the threat on his life, and his friend, Kevin Reed’s discovery of the gold, followed by the subsequent unexplained death of Kevin and his wife, Sally, and that he had then come searching for the Magdalena. What puzzled John was what could have possibly made Sam start searching on the southern side of the Alps? Surely, he knew as well as anyone else, that an airship could never have cleared such high mountains.
Whatever their purpose, he was certain that they were on the wrong track. But even so, what could he do about it?
The solution presented itself to him.
But, was he over playing his new friendship?
John decided that the risk was worth it, and made the phone call.
“What do you have for us?” It was the same cold voice of the woman who had spoken to him previously.
“I know exactly where they will be by tomorrow morning,” he said.
“Good.” The woman’s voice maintained its air of superiority and hostility.
“But you will need to hurry to get a team in place,” he continued.
Serendipity, so it would seem, had provided him with the perfect trap.
Of course he’d checked out Lake Solitude years ago. It was one of perhaps a dozen early choices years ago, back when he’d first started looking for the Magdalena in earnest.
That was where he’d discovered the downed B26 Bomber.
And, at that depth, Sam Reilly would be an easy target.
At first, Sam thought he was simply seeing the remains of the pilot.
Then, he saw the light turn on behind the remains…
Followed by a number of others.
“Where the hell did they come from?” He wondered, aloud. Something instinctively told him to switch off his LED.
“Beats the hell out of me,” Tom said, following suit.
One after the other, he saw the divers emerge from the crack in the bomber’s fuselage, and swim towards them.
There was nothing obviously menacing about them, but he knew for certain that something wasn’t right.
“I don’t think they’re recreational divers on a holiday,” Sam noted.
“Neither do I — let’s get the hell out of here!”
The dark figures started swimming rapidly towards them.
Sam didn’t wait to count them, but at a glance, he could tell there were at least eight of them. And there was something familiar about them, too.
Sam couldn’t quite put his hand on it to begin with. But there was something about the way they moved in such perfect unison.
Had he seen their dry suits before?
Then he realized that he had indeed.
They’re Navy SEALs.
“They’re Navy SEALs, Tom. We’re in worse trouble than I thought. These guys mean business,” Sam said.
“I think you’re right, Sam, and I’m not sure if these guys are still on our side.”
Sam and Tom both started to kick their fins, and ascend.
Below them, their assailants were gaining on them.
The first one fired his harpoon — much larger and more deadly than a spear gun, capable of traveling the thirty or more feet that separated them.
Sam watched as it shot past him. The clear water making it difficult for the shooter to accurately judge the distance, he missed by several feet.
Next time, the man wouldn’t be quite so careless taking aim.
A second SEAL then took aim, and his harpoon sliced rapidly through the clear water. This time, it just barely clipped the neoprene of Sam’s dry suit near his elbow.
Narrowly missing the flesh of his arm.
The freezing cold water poured into the small opening, and it stung him almost as painfully as if he had been shot.
“Shit,” Sam swore.
“You okay, Sam?”
“Yeah, it’s just a scratch, but we won’t be so lucky a third time. We’re going to have to make a rapid no-decompression ascent. What do you think?”
“I think at 150 feet, we’re very likely to get ourselves killed. But, if we stay here, we’re going to end up dead anyway, so why not?”
“Good luck, Tom,” Sam said as he pulled the emergency release on his weight belt.
Instantly, they started to rise toward the surface.
Sam just hoped that the minimal amount of time that they had spent making their descent would allow them to resurface without too much of a nitrogen build-up in their blood.
They were about to lose 5 atmospheres worth of pressure in under a minute.