Retribution Road by Jon Coon (e reader comics .TXT) 📕

and then make a run for the Flower Gardens tonight. There are deep-water platforms near there. Maybe there’s one we can use.”

While they rested in the shelter and shade of the oil platform, a P-8A Poseidon made passes over the Gulf. On its first pass over the Baytown field, the tired radar operator was distracted by a conversation about fantasy football in which he had an abiding interest. He looked away from his Raytheon monitor only long enough to miss the ghost of a pencil-shaped shadow beside one of the twenty platforms. The next pass wouldn’t be for several hours.

They buried Eduardo wrapped in a sheet, with shackles they found on the platform as weights. It was a short ceremony. They lugged him up the conning tower ladder with a rope tied around his feet and dropped him over the side. Sebastian saluted, said, “Adios,” and they were done.

Rested and with the sub full of clean, ocean air, when the sun was well set and the first stars shone in the heavens, they were ready. Sebastian had studied his charts, debating the best route. In the end he concluded it really didn’t matter. They would be a sitting duck regardless. He and Cristóbal agreed on a course, set the waypoint in the GPS, and they left the shelter of the oil platform for the six-hour run to the deepwater platforms on the edge of the shipping lanes that ran past the Flower Gardens National Marine Sanctuary.

In fact, before the submerged mountain tops—salt domes that 15,000 years ago had pushed their way toward the surface from depths of 700 feet—were declared a sanctuary, passing ships would drop 5,000-pound anchors on hundreds of feet of chain into the thriving coral, which had done acres of damage. The establishment of the sanctuary in 1992 made that illegal, and in following years a series of buoys was placed to provide legal and safe mooring for visiting research and dive charter boats.

But that wasn’t Sebastian’s concern. Unless they could find major shipping headed south to shadow, those platforms would be their last shelter until crossing the Gulf.

Dawn was breaking over calm seas and gin-clear water when Sebastian caught the flash of sunlight off the plane’s wings several miles behind them. He dropped down the hatchway, slammed the hatch, and dogged it tight as he yelled, “Dive! Dive!” to Cristóbal.

Sebastian moved to the helm and helped open the ballast valves as Cristóbal shoved the joystick forward into a power dive.

Inside the P-8A Boeing Poseidon rapidly approaching, the co-pilot saw the dark hull slide beneath the surface. “There,” he said and pointed. “We’ve got them. Radar, talk to me.”

“Contact, bearing one-eight-five degrees. But we’re losing it.”

“Sonar, what have you got?”

“Contact and bearing affirmed, depth sixty feet and dropping.”

“We’re not letting those tangos get away again. Let’s see if we can scare him back to the surface. Ready the torpedo, set the depth at a hundred feet. Let’s rattle his can.”

“Torpedo, aye. Ready for launch,” came the response.

“Fire.”

The MK 54 lightweight torpedo dropped from the sky, and they could track it through the clear water as it dove beneath the sub and exploded. The concussion hammered the hundred-foot hull and opened a seam. The gash was fifteen-feet long. Water poured into the sub, and as the air pressure increased, it pushed the temporary plugs they’d made in the overhead through the hull and the trapped air rushed out. They were sinking fast.

“Grab the SCUBA and let’s get out of here!” Sebastian yelled. He grabbed a rig, but before he could get to the hatchway, his crew were fighting to get to the hatch and the crewman at the top was unable to open it. “Easy money,” Sebastian said, as the water level rose, quickly moving up his body. He looked at the scuba rig in his hand and at the tangle of struggling bodies blocking the hatch. He realized the situation was hopeless, dropped the scuba rig, and took a last look around his coffin. There would be no easy money today. The water was already up to his chest. There was no hope of escape.

“They’re sinking fast,” the sonarman reported. “They just passed two hundred feet.”

“Get a fix on their position. The Navy’s going to want a permanent address.”

“Aye, we could drop a sonobuoy.”

“Get it ready, and we’ll make another pass and look for survivors.”

“Yes, sir. We’ll be ready.”

The pilot made a turn and came straight back in on course. There was a boil of bubbles at the surface but no survivors. The captain radioed in the kill, the location, and the lack of survivors. His call was immediately passed to command, Senator Benson, then Tom and Gabe.

“How deep?” Gabe asked.

“They think about two-sixty. Too deep?” Tom said.

“For air yes, but I can do it on gas. It will take some planning, but it shouldn’t be a problem.”

“We could just wait for the Navy to salvage her.”

“Then we lose the chance to interview them. If there’s any possibility of finding that nav chip or getting anything out of the crew, I need to make that dive.”

“All right, just tell me what you need.”

To be half his age again would be a good start, Gabe thought. He hadn’t been that deep in years.

Senator Benson offered to fly Gabe and Tom back to the ranch. After wrapping up the search of the captured sub, they climbed aboard the Learjet and headed north.

“It’s going to take the Navy about two weeks to get everything organized to salvage the second sub,” the senator told Tom. “They’ve got some fancy new dive gear for deep diving they want to use, but they’re going to test everything a dozen times before they actually use it. That’s the Navy.”

Gabe was half asleep in the cabin, but the cockpit door was open, and he caught that part of the conversation. He got up, shook off the fog, and walked to the door. “Do