Chapter 11 - THE GHOST OF THE SOUTH PACIFIC
The C-17 Globemaster cut through the midnight storm over the South Pacific, its engines roaring against forty-knot headwinds. Inside the cargo bay, red tactical lights bathed the military dive gear and sonar arrays in an eerie crimson glow.
Ethan Hale tightened the straps on my rebreather harness. His hand lingered on my shoulder, his dark eyes filled with concern. "Avery, the atmospheric pressure down at Abyss Nine is over four hundred atmospheres. If that facility's hull is breached, you'll have less than ninety seconds before the compartment implodes."
"I've spent my entire life surviving under pressure, Commander," I replied, checking the seal on my underwater tactical suit. "My real father has spent forty years in the dark. I'm not leaving him down there."
Across the bay, Madison adjusted her satellite headset. She had insisted on flying with the tactical support unit. Armed with encrypted military comms, she was monitoring the distress beacon.
"Avery! Ethan!" Madison shouted over the engine noise. "The signal from Abyss Nine is flickering! A deep-sea heavy submersible just entered the sector—it doesn't have Navy transponders!"
"It's the syndicate," I said, my blood running cold. "Gordon's offshore buyers realized the feds seized his land assets. They're moving in to execute Arthur Vance and destroy the evidence before we reach him."
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Ten minutes later, Ethan and I dropped through the belly of the transport plane into the black, churning sea. We boarded a high-speed Navy bathyscaphe and plunged four thousand meters into the abyssal trench.
As our powerful spotlights cut through the liquid void, the massive shadow of Station Abyss Nine emerged—a titanium research dome anchored to the ocean floor, flickering with emergency amber lights. And docked right beside its main airlock was a rogue, unflagged attack submarine.
