Hot Zone (3 page)

He looked around to see the other divers trying to kick their way towards the surface. At this depth you were required to decompress at intervals to avoid nitrogen bubbles forming in your blood, an affliction known as the bends and lethal at it's worst. From where Montoya was he realized there was something terribly wrong going on, the divers were frantically kicking toward the surface, and then he saw them.

Large eel-like creatures began appearing from the abyss, over six feet long, the eels were as wide as one of Montoya's thighs, they had a long snout with rows of gnashing teeth and frightening bright green eyes.

One eel turned into two turned into four turned into eight. Before anyone knew what hit them there were thirteen eels making beelines for the divers. Montoya eased himself down his ledge and out of sight from the monsters of the deep. He watched from behind the formation as, one after the other the Greenpeace divers were torn limb from limb. They were in a feeding frenzy like Great Whites were famous for, but Montoya had never seen an eel of this size and fierceness. He wondered if their existence had even been known.

The water in the immediate area had taken on a bright red tinge. Montoya knew this would attract the sharks in the area and soon there would be nowhere for him to hide. All the divers were apparently dead and two had disappeared into the abyss. Montoya assumed Jansen and the other divers had been taken by the monsters on their way down.

Peering below him, half expecting another eel to charge upward towards him, Montoya saw a glimmering object in the abyss. He decided to sink lower to get a closer look, All of the eels were above him, still feasting on his fallen friends.

Deeper and deeper he sank and more and more objects began to come into focus. Ruins of what looked to be buildings, rock formations that appeared to house ancient aquatic secrets stretched for as far as Montoya could see. Montoya's mind raced with thoughts of the fantastic. Had he been staring at what was left of Atlantis?

But wasn't Atlantis believed to be under the Atlantic Ocean?

Montoya could not contain his excitement. He still had the problem of making it to the surface without the eels tearing him to chum. Then there was the problem with his depth, his gauge read two hundred and forty feet. At this depth the oxygen in Montoya's tanks were not sufficient to sustain him for long, the pressure of the depth began squeezing his lungs and head. Montoya was going to have a serious case of the bends if he didn't ascend slowly, but if he did, he was fish food for sure.

A moment's contemplation left Montoya with one choice.

Swim.

Montoya kicked hard, dropped his weight belt and all his samples. Anything that weighed him down was cut loose. The way Montoya figured even a serious case of the bends could be cured by a few days in a decompression chamber. Sure, there was a chance the nitrogen build up would cause a brain hemorrhage but that was better than the alternative.

Montoya spotted the anchor of the Rainbow Warrior Jr, grabbed hold of the line and guided himself up towards the boat. He looked at his depth gauge: One-seventy feet.

A strange feeling started in Montoya's toes and began to spread up his legs; he thought it was the adrenaline of the situation getting the better of him. He dared not look down; he could only imagine how close the school of killer eels were to him, snapping at his heels. This made him kick harder and faster, speeding his ascent.

One-hundred-feet.

The strange feeling began to take hold of Montoya's body. He could feel his blood beginning to bubble; he wasn't so much kicking now as pulling himself up the rope. The hull of the boat was becoming clear, he was almost there.

Thirty feet.

Montoya faded in and out of consciousness. Still driving himself up he could see the slight ripple the bow made on the surface, he was going to make it! Thoughts of his daughter and her life started to cloud his mind. Something was wrong. His eyes felt like they were going to pop out of their sockets. His nose began to bleed into his face mask.

Montoya burst through the surface, tearing his diving equipment off his face and back, clutching for air and fighting to stay conscious as he swam for the ladder at the stern of the boat. His head felt like a swelling balloon, almost at its limit and about to explode!

Montoya had one hand on the first wrung of the ladder when he felt it. It was like he'd smashed his leg on the boat, perhaps the propeller?

He felt down to where his right leg used to be and then saw the pool of blood spreading out around him. He saw the slick shadow of an eel speed toward him. Montoya heaved himself out of the water just as the eel's teeth snapped at his remaining fin. Montoya screamed in agony as he crawled along the deck of the boat. He fought the urge to pass out, using all his determination to make it to the bridge and send out a distress signal.

Montoya reached the radio, grabbed the mike and began screaming into it. "Mayday, Mayday. Greenpeace, Warrior jr.-- needs emergency med assistance. Help. Found something, not sure what—city. God help me--Jordan Pryde.

Montoya collapsed on the floor on the bridge of the Rainbow Warrior Jr., blood spewing from his leg wound, a nitrogen bubble in his brain caused a major aneurysm, Art Montoya was dead. But not before he had a chance to inscribe a name on the floor in his own blood.

Jordan Pryde.

2

"Ghost, you have the target—roger?"

“
Copy that, Ghost is all over the target."

James "Ghost" Hird lowered the sighting mechanism on his M14 sniper rifle bringing into focus the captured soldier; tied to a rickety wooden chair, behind him, an island militant holding a machete to his captive's throat. This was what Ghost lived for. This was his specialty. He lived his life from fifty feet above on the rooftops of the world looking through the scope of his sniper rifle. And he never missed. His team leader gave him the call sign "Ghost" for his ability to make things move and never be seen. He'd actually wanted the call sign "God", but that was taken.

"Ghost confirms lock on target, clear for go on Ice's mark."

"Ice on, clear for mark: Fire."

The adrenaline rushed through Ghost's heart, surging through the arteries in his arm and into his fingers. The slightest pause on the trigger before a gentle squeeze. A moment later a small rose bloomed on the militant's shoulder; he fell to the ground, dropping the machete. Ghost barked orders. "Hostile is down, hostile is down, friendly awaiting extraction, proceed with caution."

On the ground below, five soldiers burst through the doors of the dilapidated building. The first to enter was the leader for this mission and the most experienced: Matthew "Ice" Riley.

Ice had been in the U.S. Navy SEALs for five years after serving ten as a Navy diver. At six-six, two-fifty pounds he was a mountain of a man who commanded respect from his peers and lead by example. The name "Ice" had come from his coolness under pressure in some extremely hostile and deadly situations.

Ice moved through the entrance and crossed to cover the right of the room.

Directly behind him stepped SAS soldier Andrew "Skip" McLeod, a short, stocky frame of a soldier who specialized in hand to hand combat. New to the SAS he had been a tank driver in the Australian Army before excelling in the rigorous SAS entrance examinations. Chosen to be on Ice Riley's crack special force team for his ability to fight in confined spaces, and yet to be beaten in a hand to hand confrontation.

Skip moved to the left of the room, his weapon leading his sight in large sweeping moves. With the two men covering the entrance, three other soldiers entered the building on each other’s heals, weapons raised they made a bee-line for the other side of the room where a door that lead to the captured soldier was closed.

Two of the soldiers took up positions on opposite sides of the door. On the right side was Storm Smith; call sign "Storm" another Australian SAS soldier with ten years as an Air force navigator, his expertise was in computers and communication. A slightly built soldier of average height Storm was distinguishable by his fiery red buzz cut which he was always grooming.

On the left was Jay "Shooter" Hawkins, a Navy SEAL fresh from b.u.d.s training he was famous for his ability to shoot down a moving target both from close quarters and great distances along with his incredible skills in the water. Bald with a small goatee it gave him the appearance of a much older man than his twenty-six years.

And finally, the point man for the mission, and by far the best suited was Mark "Roo" Bickley. Roo was the warrior on the team, coming through the ranks in the ditches of Kuwait and then East Timor. He loved getting his hands dirty and loved kicking down doors, something his two-forty-five pound frame had no problem doing.

With his Sig Sauer 9226 hand gun in his right hand, a smoke grenade in his left he nodded to the man on each side of him then with one swift kick, blew the door from its hinges, immediately throwing in the smoke grenade.

Roo ducked to the left of the door, waiting for fire from unknown militants out of Ghost's line of sight. The three soldiers waited a full ten seconds, by which time the smoke had died down to a haze.

Roo took point, charging through the door, looking both to the left and right, finding it clear as he ran for the tied-up soldier in the middle of the room. Shooter and Skip followed, Shooter making a dash for the downed militant, Skip taking up cover near the window, signaling to Ghost and ensuring his partners wouldn't come under enemy sniper fire.

With that the lights clicked on.

Ice Riley came walking into the room holding his stopwatch. "Thirty-eight seconds gentlemen. We need to make that entrance into the room a quicker. Roo, you waited too long to bust down the door, our dummy soldier buddy is dead because you paused. This is a game of seconds, men. One second too early, or too late and you fail your objective. And get each other killed.

The shot island militant stood up, wiping the red paint from his clothes, he left the room with the blow up soldier over his shoulder. "See you guys tomorrow." He said.

Ice looked irritated. "We have to get this right guys. These are simple insertion-extraction exercises. I know it's a little harder when we're training in paradise but one day it's going to save your lives."

Ghost entered the room. "What took so long? I was falling to sleep up there."

"Knock it off mate." Roo snapped. "Ice, next time I'll move quicker, you won't have to worry about me, I guarantee it."

Ice, nodding his head: "I know Roo, we're all a little sluggish right now, we've been working twenty hours a day for the last month and need some time off."

"Amen" noted Skip.

"Sign me up." Said Shooter.

"Let's go clean up, get into our Hawaiian shirts and we'll go sit by the pool the rest of he day. Storm, you can complete the report of today's exercises tonight."

Just then, Ice Riley's beeper went off. He read the message. "Oh shit." He said.

* * *

In a large patch of desert just outside Albuquerque a group of ten university students crouched over the dirt, digging with the precision of surgeons as the fireball above beat down on them with unrelenting fury. They were searching for remnants of an old Navajo Indian reservation believed to be in the area over three hundred years ago. Walking amongst the students was their lecturer.

Jordan Pryde was Pima Indian by birth and as such held all the characteristics of a larger than life individual.

At six feet tall she often loomed over many of her male counterparts in the field. Her black hair was straight and long, and came to rest on the small of her back.

She wore thin, wire-framed glasses that added sophistication to her stunning good looks. Years in the desert along with her genetic disposition had left her complexion dark olive. Jordan was born in a small Indian community twenty three miles south-west of Phoenix, Arizona. An Indian community called Ak-Chin which was populated by two tribes of native Americans.