Kraken Rising: Alex Hunter 6 Read online

  ABOUT KRAKEN RISING: ALEX HUNTER 6

  The Arcadian returns to the dark ice in a reprisal of one of his first and most deadly missions. But this time the stakes couldn’t be higher.

  In 2008, a top secret US submarine went missing on its test voyage off the coast of Antarctica. After years silent, its emergency beacon is suddenly activated, but strangely, the beacon is emanating from a point miles below the ice sheets of the frozen continent.

  The race is on. The Chinese government, alerted at the same time as the Americans, is after the submarine’s secrets. And the Americans need to retrieve their technology, quickly and quietly, from a place now marked as an international forbidden zone.

  With the reluctant assistance of petrobiologist Aimee Weir, Alex Hunter and his team of HAWCs return to the location of their first mission together.

  But only a few members of the team know the truth. A treacherous horror lies in wait for them, deep beneath the Antarctic ice.

  Perfect for fans of Matthew Reilly, Steve Alten, Myke Cole, Graham Masterton, James Rollins, and Michael Crichton.

  CONTENTS

  ABOUT KRAKEN RISING: ALEX HUNTER 6

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 45

  CHAPTER 46

  CHAPTER 47

  CHAPTER 48

  CHAPTER 49

  CHAPTER 50

  CHAPTER 51

  CHAPTER 52

  CHAPTER 53

  CHAPTER 54

  CHAPTER 55

  CHAPTER 56

  CHAPTER 57

  CHAPTER 58

  CHAPTER 59

  CHAPTER 60

  CHAPTER 61

  CHAPTER 62

  CHAPTER 63

  CHAPTER 64

  CHAPTER 65

  EPILOGUE

  AUTHOR’S NOTES

  ABOUT GREIG BECK

  ALSO BY GREIG BECK

  COPYRIGHT

  To my big, beautiful Jess, my silent shadow, who was always there. Gone now, but I’ll never forget you.

  When I look down into the abyss,

  Down into the merciless blackness,

  Colder and deeper than Hades itself,

  There I see the Kraken rising.

  Kraken Rising, Greig Beck, 2015

  PROLOGUE

  Southern Ocean – Edge of the South Sandwich Trench – October 12, 2008

  Five hundred feet down, the silent leviathan glided through the water. At that depth there was just the faintest trace of sunlight penetrating down to create wave-like ripples on its surface, but below it, there was nothing but utter darkness.

  The USS Sea Shadow was an experimental design submarine. Based on a miniaturized Ohio Class design, the 188-foot craft had an electric drive and high-energy reactor plant that allowed it to navigate the seas in total stealth. In addition, nano-paint on echo-free tiles reduced the chance of detection from active sonar – it was effectively an ocean ghost.

  For now, Shadow, as the crew affectionately knew it, carried only conventional impact torpedoes, simply to add test displacement weight. The rest of its armament stores were empty, but when the craft was fully operational, it would be crammed with enough weaponry to obliterate anything on or below the water. The new design submarine was fast and invisible, and as far as the navy was concerned, was a high seas game changer.

  The test run was watched from naval command with a mix of pride and trepidation. Shadow was in international waters, which would have made it diplomatically awkward should it have been detected. Even though the closest high-tech power, Australia, should not have possessed the technical capabilities to see or hear it, training runs in this part of the Southern Ocean were necessary and extremely useful as the environmental conditions were as hostile as they could get. And if the Aussies could find them, then the project would be determined a fail.

  Today’s exercises were to be carried out on the edge of the deepest trench in the region – the Southern Sandwich Trench, just off the Antarctic’s coast. Muddy plains, abyssal mountain ranges and crevices that fell away to 26,000 feet into the Earth’s crust, dominated the ocean floor here.

  Captain Clint O’Kane stood on the command deck, shorter than the rest of his crew, but his authoritative presence made him seem like he towered over every one of them. His dark eyes were unreadable, as they reflected the green glow of the instrument panels.

  O’Kane was relatively young, but had been a mariner for two decades. Still, he felt his heart rate lift as he passed over any of these deeper zones. It was the trenches that worried all submariners. These cold black voids were worlds of crushing depths, permanent blackness, and were most often shielded from them as the deep water made the liquid compress enough to repel most of their sonar pulses. And every now and then, when something did bounce back, more often than not it could never be identified. In that mysterious darkness, there were temperature fluctuations and flow variations that defied explanation, and every mariner felt there were things down there that saw them, without ever being seen themselves.

  This trench had an additional reputation – it was the Southern Sea’s Devil’s Triangle. Dozens of ships had disappeared down in these stretches of water. And aircraft had also vanished, like the 1920 disappearance of Amelia J – a low flying spotter plane that gave a single fear-filled message: “It’s coming up”, before disappearing from radar, never to be seen again.

  O’Kane would sail into the teeth of any battle that he was commanded to, against any odds, and never even blink. But he always slept better when they were well away from this particular deep-water stretch.

  “Contact.”

  The single word was like a small electric jolt to his gut. He casually approached his sonar officer, standing just behind him, and outwardly radiated his usual calm.

  “Distance?”

  The officer calibrated his sonar, and concentrated. “Five miles, coming up out of the abyssal zone.”

  “That deep?” O’Kane grunted. “Biological?” He knew that sperm whales could get down to nearly 7,000 feet to hunt in the total darkness for the giant squid.

  He waited. The officer’s face was creased in concentration. Beside him, O’Kane could see his screen, the winding sonar line passing over the long darker stain on the sensor. The man leaned even closer to his console and also pressed fingertips over one of his microphone’s ear cups. He shook his head and shrugged.

  “Nonmagnetic signature, but unknown.”

  O’Kane groaned. They had an online identification library of blips, pulses, and pings for every deep-water biological creature and geolo
gical movement. Their library also stored the propeller sounds of the world’s entire naval fleets – they should have been able to isolate, and then identify, anything and everything below the water.

  He remembered Fuller’s Law – nature provides exceptions to every rule. O’Kane ground his teeth. Meaning, he was back to relying on experience and his gut.

  “Give me bearing and speed.”

  “Sir, relative bearing is sixty degrees, three miles out over the trench and speed is at twenty knots, variable. Rising, and moving into a parallel course.”

  O’Kane grunted his approval. Parallel was good, he thought. At least it wasn’t moving any closer. “Too fast for a whale,” he said.

  The sonar officer half turned and pulled one of the cups away. “I don’t think it’s a whale, sir. It’s not making a sound … and it’s big, very big.” He frowned and swung back. “Doesn’t make sense.” The officer rotated dials and leaned forward for a moment, his face a sickly green from the monitors. “Whoa.”

  O’Kane didn’t want to hear that word from his sonar man. He began to feel a sudden slickness as beads of perspiration popped out over his face and body.

  The officer spun. “It just turned towards us, and speed increased to fifty knots.”

  “Fifty knots? Not possible.” O’Kane’s jaw set. “Sound red-alert. Come to twenty degrees port bearing, increase speed to maximum.” He exhaled through clenched teeth. Anywhere else he would have immediately surfaced, but doing so here would mean exposure to the unfriendly satellites he knew were always watching. He could not risk breaking cover over a damn sonar shadow.

  “Object now at 1.1 miles and closing. Collision course confirmed. Not responding to hailing, sir.”

  O’Kane had only one option left – to fight.

  “Ready all torpedo tubes. Come about eighty degrees starboard, and then all stop.” The huge steel fish yawed in the water as it moved to face its pursuer. O’Kane grabbed the back of the operator’s chair, as incredible centrifugal forces acted on the huge armor-plated body.

  “On my order.” O’Kane planted his legs and stood straight, waiting.

  “Five hundred feet, collision imminent. Closing to 480 feet, 430, 400 …”

  It was too fast, and O’Kane knew it was probably already too close. “Fire tubes one and two. Brace.” He gritted his teeth.

  “Firing one and two – brace, brace, brace …” The echo sounded as his order was relayed to the torpedo room.

  The order was drowned out by klaxon horns. O’Kane felt the slight pulse that went through the superstructure as the torpedoes were expelled from the nose of the submarine. He held his breath, his eyes half closed as he waited for the sensation of the impact detonations, and the destructive shock wave that would follow.

  Seconds stretched … nothing came.

  O’Kane opened his eyes. “Status update.”

  “Negative on impact, sir. Bogey seems to have, uh, vanished.” The sonar operator spun dials, and hit keys, his face dripping sweat now. “It just … ” He shook his head. “Something’s wrong.”

  “Impossible. It must have dived.” O’Kane felt his heart racing. “Let’s give it some space. Full speed astern.” He felt the thrum of the engines kick in and looked to the inside wall of the submarine, as if seeing through the inches of steel plating. His gut told him it was still there.

  “Come about, ahead full.” The USS Sea Shadow jumped forward as the high-energy reactor gave the drives immediate power.

  Go, go, go, O’Kane silently prayed.

  The operator suddenly jammed one hand over his ear cup again. “It’s back – a hundred feet, fifty …” He balled his fists and spun, his face contorted.

  “Where …” O’Kane almost yelled the words. “… where the hell is it?”

  “It’s … on us.”

  The crew and Captain Clint O’Kane were thrown forward as the submarine stopped dead in the water. He held on to an instrument panel and then started to slide, as unbelievably, the huge craft was tilted. The sound of metal under pressure immediately silenced the yells of the crew. There was nothing more terrifying to submariners than the sound of the ocean threatening to force its way in to the men living in the small steel-encased bubble of air below the surface.

  O’Kane looked at the faces of his men, now all turned to him. There was confusion and fear, but no panic. They were the best men he had ever served with. For the first time in his long career he decided to break protocol.

  “Blow all tanks, immediate surface.”

  The order was given, and the sound of air rushing from a compressed state to normal atmosphere, as it filled the ballast tanks, was like a long sigh of relief throughout the underwater craft. O’Kane’s fingers dug into one of the seat backs as he waited for the sensation of lift. It never came.

  “Negative on rise. We’re still going down.” The operator’s voice now sounded higher than usual.

  The command deck tilted again – nose down, now leaning at an angle of 45 degrees.

  “Full reverse thrust!” O’Kane yelled the command, and he immediately felt the engines kick up as the screws turned at maximum rotations. He leaned over the operator again and looked at his screen. He knew the result without having to see the numbers.

  “Descending.” The officer now calmly read them out. “800 feet, 825, 850, 880 …”

  The USS Sea Shadow had been tested to a thousand feet, and could probably withstand another few hundred. But beyond that …

  O’Kane exhaled as the sound of hardened steel compressing rose above the thrum of the engines.

  “Something has us,” he said softly. It was every mariner’s nightmare – the unknown thing from the depths, reaching out and taking hold. He knew how deep the water was here, but it didn’t concern him. They would all be dead and pulverized long before they ever reached the bottom.

  Anger suddenly burned in his gut. But not yet, he thought. O’Kane spun. “Get a Cyclops out there, now.”

  Hands worked furiously to load and shoot the miniature wireless submersible that was a torpedo with a single large eye for a nose-cone. Inside the fast moving craft was a high resolution streaming video camera with remote operational capabilities.

  “Cyc-1 away, sir; bringing her back around.” The seaman worked a small joystick, turning the six-foot camera craft back towards them.

  O’Kane leaned closer to the small screen, waiting.

  “Sea Shadow coming up on screen, should be … oh god.” The seaman’s mouth hung open.

  O’Kane stared, feeling his stomach lurch. Nothing could ever prepare any man or woman of the sea for what confronted him on that tiny screen. O’Kane pushed himself upright, and slowly looked down at his right hand, spreading his fingers, then closing them into a fist. In the hand of a god, he thought.

  Into his head jumped a few lines of a 200-year-old poem by Tennyson, and much as he wanted to cast it out, it sang loud in his mind: Below the thunders of the upper deep; Far, far beneath in the abysmal sea; His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep; The Kraken sleepeth.

  No, not sleeping, thought O’Kane, now awake.

  He raised his eyes back to the screen and continued to stare at the thing that engulfed his entire submarine. Rivets popped in the skin of the vessel, and then the super-hardened hull started to compress. The 33-foot diameter submarine began to buckle, and he saw that the automated distress beacon had been activated.

  “We’re gonna breach.”

  The shout came from behind him, and he spun, roaring his commands. “Sound general quarters, increase internal pressure, close all watertight doors, shut down everything nonessential, and watch for goddamn fires.”

  The hull groaned again as they continued to descend into the darkness.

  “What do we do?” The seaman at the screen looked up at him with a face the color of wax.

  O’Kane could feel the crew’s eyes on him; he could feel the fear coming off them in waves. His hand went to the key around his neck. The high tech,
prototype submarine had self-destruct capability. He alone could trigger it.

  “What do we do, sir?” The man gulped dryly, his face twisted.

  If there was one thing O’Kane was sure of; while there was life, there was hope. His hand fell away from the key.

  “We pray.”

  CHAPTER 1

  The Kremlin, Moscow – Basement Level 9

  The interrogation rooms deep beneath the Kremlin were reserved for the most important and high value type of guests. The rooms were a brilliant, surgical white, and insulated to contain the screams that frequently emanated from within. The shiny tiles also it made the individual rooms easy to hose out.

  The man strapped to the gurney in Ward-5, Level-9, had a metal spike extending from one of his nostrils, with wires leading from it to a box that sent a mild electrical current into the area of his brain between the hippocampus and amygdala. Captain Robert Graham, former head of the US Military’s Alpha Soldier Research Unit of Fort Detrick’s Medical Command twitched and babbled nonstop. His lips were flaking, split, and parchment-dry.

  Doctor Dimitry Liminov rolled back one of Graham’s eyelids to examine the bloodshot orb. Captain Graham showed no physical response to the touch. The prone man babbled on, a zombie husk, more dead than alive, disgorging secrets like a recording machine set on eternal playback as his life drained away.

  Liminov wrote some more on a chart, threw it onto the nearby steel table, and then pushed out of the reinforced double doors. As they hissed closed, the single glass porthole in one of them showed two huge guards stationed outside. The final click sounded, leaving nothing but the soft fevered whispers of the man on the table.

  Set into the concrete floor, behind the few items of furniture, there was a six-inch grate over a drain, and if anyone had looked closely they would have seen the tiny red electronic eye that extended on the end of a questing worm that rose up and then turned slowly to further investigate the room. After another second, it snapped back down and disappeared.

  Just below the sound of the babbling man, there came another noise – a low grinding accompanied by a gentle vibration. It continued for another twenty minutes, before a circle appeared around the outside of the drain, this one nearly two feet wide. A wisp of smoke lifted from it as searing heat was exposed to the air for a moment and the noise was shut off. Once again the questing worm poked its head up to examine the white-tiled room, and judging all was in order, snapped back.