The Ocean Dark

88

On the bridge of the USS Hillstrom, Ed Turcotte watched the sun slide into the Caribbean with a horrid fascination. His every muscle taut, he glanced back and forth between Captain Siebalt and the communications officer. A terrible weight bore down on every man and woman there as the last of the golden daylight faded.

“Sir?” the communications officer said, glancing at the captain. “Mr. Keck’s awaiting the detonation order.”

Siebalt glared at him, and Turcotte knew that look. Don’t tell me my business, it said. He had given the look enough times himself.

Every cave and vent the sweep teams could find out on the island had been mined with charges as the afternoon wore on, even as others explored tunnels and tried radio and phone signals to get some update on the people they had lost below and those who had gone down after them. All of the ships had moved in closer to the island after the Antoinette had been scuttled — but not too close, the captains far too wary of sharing the freighter’s fate. The choppers had evacuated all personnel just before dusk, but now kept doing flyovers, searching for some sign of the Boudreaus, Voss, and Hart, and the others who were inside the warren of tunnels in the island’s womb.

Bud Rouleau, the Kodiak’s captain, had kept his Coast Guard ships close, but he deferred to Siebalt, just as Turcotte had to. In the wake of the clusterfuck on the Kodiak’s deck, with the Tyree woman’s death and the destruction of the creature they’d retrieved from the Antoinette—their one test subject — the civilian chopper had been grounded. Nobody would be allowed to leave the area until someone took control of this mess, and right now the person in control was either dead, or they were about to kill her.

Siebalt took a deep breath, glanced at the sliver of the sun still visible out on the ocean, the horizon striated with color, and turned as though to give the order.

“Don’t!” Turcotte snapped.

Captain Siebalt shot him a dark look. “Dr. Boudreau left us with an order—”

“Yeah, David Boudreau. He’s a kid, for Christ’s sake. You can’t detonate with all of those people still unaccounted for! We both have people still out there.”

“We did,” Siebalt said, his gray eyes hard. “In a minute, it will be full-on dark. Anyone left in those tunnels is dead. And anyone on the island will be. My orders are to blow the place and kill as many as we can.”

“You won’t get them all now anyway,” Turcotte snapped.

Siebalt turned away, looking to the communications officer. The whole bridge was silent. “We’ll start cleanup at dawn. For now, we follow our orders. Lieutenant Chang, the order is given. Detonate.”

“Yes, sir,” the communications officer replied. He tapped a key on his console. “The order is given—”

But Lieutenant Chang didn’t finish. He raised a hand to the earpiece of his headset and turned in his seat. “Captain, message coming through from Chopper Three. They’re out. Lieutenant Commander Sykes is radioing for evac.”

Turcotte whispered the first grateful prayer he’d said in years.