He was no longer able to be cautious. If he didn’t catch the diver, he’d never know what happened to the canisters. He forgot the pain in his back and the burning in his lungs as he consumed the remaining oxygen stored in the exosuit. All of the safety protocols didn’t mean squat once the computer shut down.
Gunner swam toward the fading light, using his feet to thrust off any surface and his arms to guide him as well as pull him along. He focused on the diver’s position by following the light, which seemed to flicker at times, perhaps due to parts of the wreckage obscuring his view.
Then the exosuit’s computer system came to life. The monitor built into his screen was a hot mess of numbers and words that made no sense. But that didn’t matter to Gunner. He had air again, and that meant he’d regained his propulsion system. He throttled down as if he wanted to break the SR-71 Blackbird’s air speed record of Mach 3 plus.
He was closing on the other diver. Without his lights, Gunner raced through the skeletal remains of U-1226 until he was within twenty feet of his prey. He reached out with his left arm and squeezed the handle of his vise-grip flippers.
Ten feet.
Let there be light.
Gunner activated his headgear’s light kit. The first thing that caught his eye was a solitary shiny canister tucked under the diver’s arm like a football. The diver turned, startled by the sudden light and Gunner appearing behind him. That was when Gunner first saw the man’s surprised look just as the two divers collided.
The force of the impact knocked the canister from the diver’s grip. It slowly floated away from them before dropping into the dark waters inside the bow of the submarine. The diver was pushed into a jagged piece of steel behind him. For several seconds, he didn’t move.
Then using his own propulsion system, he came at Gunner. The two bounced off one another like sumo wrestlers. The battle that ensued between them would appear to be comical if not for the deadly consequences of their exosuits failing. Arms were slowly taking swings. Bodies were contorted in an unsuccessful effort to gain an advantage. Kicks were attempted although the leg movement was restricted as if the diver’s ankle were tied to a tree.
The physical battle between the two men was a wasted exercise, and the unknown diver was the first to realize it. He shoved himself away from Gunner, turned his body toward a hole created in the bow by years of corrosion, and fired his feet thrusters. His ascent was much faster than what Gunner had been able to muster, and seconds later, the man had shot through into the blackness of the ocean depths.
Gunner caught his breath and began to look around for the titanium canister. He surmised it was the last one. These thieves were clearly hell-bent on taking every last container from the submarine. All this did was elevate the canister’s importance in Gunner’s eyes.
His task was complicated by the fact that his exosuit’s onboard computer had malfunctioned. He had no idea how much air he had left before the emergency backup kicked in. He also didn’t know if his suit was still pinging to Bear and Cam so they could locate him.
He pushed all of those things out of his mind and focused on finding the canister. After searching the remains of the upper level of the bow, he searched for openings leading into the lower levels directly below where the struggle took place.
The search for the last canister was underway.
Chapter Forty-Five
Outside the Wreckage of German U-boat 1226
The Puerto Rico Trench
Depth: 27,840 feet
Fathoms: 4,640
The Deepsea Challenger 6
North Atlantic Ocean
Bear turned on the external lights as soon as the other submersible disappeared from their sonar. He navigated directly for the center of the submarine. Cam pointed across the console through Bear’s side of the window. “Look. On your ten o’clock.”
“I see him. He’s moving toward us.”
“Gotta be Gunner,” said Cam.
Bear changed course and approached the diver. That was when he saw the yellow suit illuminated in the external lights.
“Nope. He’s one of theirs,” said Bear. “Should we scoop him up? We might be able to get some intel out of him.”
“Hell no,” said Cam. She pointed to the timer. “It’ll take too long, for one thing, and we can’t compromise our safety or Gunner’s. Leave him.”
“Dude’s screwed,” muttered Bear.
“He’ll have a little while to thank his buddies for that.”
Bear accelerated. The diver turned momentarily and watched the DSC-6 motor past him. Bear set a course for the stern of the ship.
“I’ve got his beacon on the sonar. He’s out. Moving slowly toward the extraction point.”
Bear made a wide swing around Gunner as if he were flying a helicopter into the middle of a tight landing zone. As the submersible hovered fifty feet above the ocean floor, the external lights washed over Gunner and the shiny canister safely secured under his arm. Fifteen minutes later, Gunner was safely on board the DSC-6 and extracting himself from the exosuit.
Gunner cleared the brief decompression period in the submersible’s dive compartment, and when the submersible’s computer determined the time was up, the door opened for him. Bear’s and Cam’s smiling faces were awaiting him.
“Glad to see you guys,” he said as he handed the titanium canister to Bear. Bear held it like a newborn infant, careful not to squeeze the life out of it or drop it to the floor. “See if you can find a safe place for that. It’s the last one.”
Bear had already turned away toward a footlocker containing a padded compartment when he stopped in his tracks. Puzzled, he glanced at Cam, who looked equally perplexed.
“Come on in and sit down,” she offered. She had a bottle of
