Monster: Tale Loch Ness (51 page)

He heard something. He turned, pointing the rifle.

Nothing.

Dr. Rubinstein watched the drama unfold.

He had seen the creature chewing at the wellhead—unsuccessfully.

Now he was a witness to the latest attempt at destruction.

The creature was ascending the marine riser toward the drill ship's moon pool.

Scotty jumped off the staircase through the shifting shadows on to the moon-pool catwalk. In front of him was the marine riser. Below the catwalk was water. There was a small hole in the ceiling where part of the floor had given way. Debris littered the area. The roar of the mud pumps was deafening.

He inspected each of the exits—nothing. He breathed deeply as his body trembled, his guts twisted by the tension. Had Lefebre fled?

A sound—movement.

Scotty turned, looked sideways, then up.

Lefebre was suddenly on him from above, twisting a guide wire around his neck, digging it into his flesh.

"You meet your God!" Lefebre cried. "Your God, monsieur!"

Scotty dropped the rifle, choking. Lefebre forced Scotty face down on the catwalk.

"I will make you suffer slowly," the Frenchman hissed through gritted teeth. "And I will enjoy it, almost as much as I enjoyed the death of the councilwoman!"

Scotty cried out, struggling.

"God has decreed your death, Bruce!" Lefebre's hands were bleeding from the tight grasp on the line. Scotty's throat bled, too. Their blood mixed. "You have never overcome. God has decided you are not worthy of life. God has asked me to execute His wishes!"

Scotty's hand crawled between the wire and his skin. Lefebre tightened his grip. Scotty gasped for air, then twisted.

They dropped off the catwalk into the water.

Dr. Allen Rubinstein and his team watched the holographic images splatter across the screens.

The beast was halfway up the riser.

Whittenfeld opened his eyes and looked across the drilling platform. Groggy, insensate, he rose to his knees, touched his face. He was covered with a ghoulish mixture of grease and blood; he could hardly see.

He heard the mud pumps. He heard screaming, men moving below on the deck. There was no one on the drill floor with him.

He tried to clear his thoughts. Blood flowed over his face. He crawled toward the drillers' controls, shivering. The rotary table wasn't turning. But that was impossible! Nothing ever stopped operations. Ever. No, the vile bitch—Loch Ness—never stopped him. He had to reach his child before the vile bitch destroyed everything.

He tightened himself into a ball, trembled, cried. Tears mixed with the blood. He felt fear and pain.

He rose shakily to his feet. The ship seemed to be listing slightly. Where had everyone gone? The crew of the
Columbus
hadn't deserted their posts! Why had these men?

He studied the panel. No, the rotary table had to turn. Progress! They had to drill ahead.

He hit the rotary engine switch!

Scotty could feel his strength ebbing. He could feel the wire noose tightening. All that remained between life and death were the bleeding fingers between his neck and the line.

Struggling in the water, they were now along the side of the moon pool. Lefebre was on his back.

Scotty smelled the odor of tobacco, the odor of death.

He heard the rotary, felt the incredible vibrations.

Summoning strength, he cried out and pushed backward into the marine riser.

Lefebre's head smashed into the riser's shell. The noose fell away. Scotty turned. Lefebre grabbed him by the throat. Scotty thrust out and clasped Lefebre's neck, too. They went under the inky water.

He could hardly see the Frenchman's face, but he could feel the Frenchman's hands on his neck, feel his own hands on the Frenchman's flesh.

They turned in a water ballet of death, strength against strength, will against will.

They drew themselves to each other—eye to eye, hatred to hatred, face to bulging face—the bursting lack of air in their lungs visible in their sallow expressions.

They rose to the surface. Scotty searched for something to give him strength, visions of Mary MacKenzie, Mrs. Munro, the others.

"God!" he screamed as he stared into the Frenchman's eyes and power surged through his hands, tightening his grip.

Lefebre's arms went limp, his hands floated off Scotty's throat.

Scotty grabbed Lefebre by the hair and, while treading water, brought the Frenchman's face close.

Lefebre was dead.

Crazed, he smashed the Frenchman's head into the riser again and again, until the water was red with blood and all those lives had been avenged.

He released his grasp.

Lefebre's body sank.

Scotty left the moon pool.

"Scotty!"

Scotty looked up at the drill floor. Whittenfeld was standLng near the driller's station, bleeding badly, calling down to him.

"Scotty. Here. Come here. I need help. The vile bitch is trying to stop us. My child is in danger!"

Scotty looked up at the pathetic, delirious man who was covered with blood, crazed out of his mind.

There were several small fires. He had to still the rotary, close the blowout preventer, and stop the ship's mud pumps and electrical. And he had to do it fast!

He climbed on to the drill floor and pushed Whittenfeld away from the controls.

"No!" Whittenfeld cried as if his soul had been ruptured.

Whittenfeld grabbed Scotty by the arms. Scotty pummeled Whittenfeld to the ground, then quickly turned to the controls. He manipulated the drill pipe into the proper position, then activated the blowout preventer's slicing rams, which would simultaneously close the well bore and cut the drill pipe. He watched the lights, praying that the control hoses were intact. The lights flashed; the bore closed; the drill pipe separated below the ship. Quickly, he shut off the mud pumps, then the ship's electrical.

The
Magellan
was dead.

The drill ship shuddered. Something had hit it again. The impact had been directly below him. He heard a roar, then felt movement.

The beast was in the moon pool!

He began to drag Whittenfeld to the steps. Whittenfeld resisted, screaming, totally incoherent. He fought off Whittenfeld's hands, nails, teeth.

He moved on to the steps. Whittenfeld kicked him in the face. He fell backward on to the main deck.

"The pumps!" Whittenfeld screamed. "The rotary. We must drill ahead."

Scotty moved to the steps, prepared to climb up again.

Suddenly, the drill floor erupted. The entire inner section of the ship burst into the air, pushed up by the beast who rose unseen beneath them. Whittenfeld was carried up into the derrick. Scotty watched in horror as the deck crane swung around, its huge arm leveling parallel to the deck, careening into the derrick, crushing Whittenfeld into a mass of disintegrating flesh.

Water rushed up through the ruptures, and a vengeful beast cried out.

Scotty ran toward the bow as the beast smashed into the ship repeatedly from below. All the lifeboats had been cast off. As far as he knew, he was the only one left on board.

He dove into the water.

Dr. Rubinstein watched screens as the creature returned to the bottom of the loch and attacked the blowout preventer once more. Moments later, the blowout preventer tipped off the wellhead, and the creature disappeared.

Aeration again?

Dr. Rubinstein looked out at the loch. It seemed as peaceful as ever.

"Look!" an engineer cried.

The sight stopped their pulses. Their scopes were filled with traces as the hulk of the
Magellan
began a descent to the bottom of Loch Ness, joining her sister ship, the
Columbus
!

The car pitched through the fog along A-9, heading toward Carrbridge.

Scotty sat behind the wheel. One of the demolition men, who had sealed the underground cavern, nervously peered through the window next to him.

Less than an hour before, Scotty had splashed into the cold water of the loch, swimming for his life. A lifeboat had picked him up, taking him to the command barge. Dr. Fiammengo, Bill Nunn, and Mike Grabowski had already reached the barge. Dr. Rubinstein had told him about the aeration. He'd had no time to grieve. Seizing one of the launches, he'd rushed to the Dores base, arriving just after the police. Realizing he couldn't enter the base, he'd located the demolition man at his home.

Scotty stared at the winding road, transfixed. He'd been vindicated. Damn, he wished he hadn't. He wished, in fact, there'd been no beast. That Dr. Rubinstein had been a fraud. That there had been a submersible. That Whittenfeld had not lied to the tribunal. He wished he had gotten himself in trouble, lost his job. He wished he had been kicked back to the States to disappear into oblivion.

If so, many of the dead would not have perished.

Mary MacKenzie would still be alive! Perhaps at his side.

The car broke through the fog and arrived at Carrbridge fifteen minutes later.

"Get the descent jackets," he ordered as he pushed the company manager in the direction of the company shed. "And give the demo man everything he needs!"

"What are you going to do?" the manager asked.

"Free an innocent!" Scotty replied cryptically.

The well site exploded with activity. Equipment was brought to the access hole. The hoist was swung into position. Dynamite and other blasting equipment were lowered into the cavern.

The two men followed, reaching the cavern floor in near darkness, their helmet torches the only light. Walking slowly, their backs bent over from the weight of explosives and equipment, they moved to the tunnel blockade.

The explosives expert rigged his charges and then drew back a line to a blasting mechanism about two hundred feet away.

"Go back up top," Scotty ordered.

"But I have to detonate!" the demo man said.

"I'll do it! If anything goes wrong, I want only one casualty."

The demolition man retreated. Several minutes later, the man was on his way up the bore.

Scotty waited, stared at the wall of rock that blocked the tunnel, then hit the plunger!

A tremendous explosion rocked the cavern. A cyclone of dust blew through the air. He trained the helmet beam. The wall was down, the passage open.

The vibration of the explosions continued to reverberate. He felt a tremor. Rock chips fell off the tunnel wall.

Then the ceiling caved.

He coughed, gasped for breath.

His mouth was filled with dust. His right leg was pinned under a pile of rocks, broken. His helmet was just out of reach. Its torch was still shining under a mound of stone.He tried to clear his head.

It was pitch dark; he could see nothing.

A horrible odor pinched his nostrils—the scent of mildewed flesh and rotted plankton.

He heard a movement in front of him, a heavy shuffle. Something was in the cavern, something alive. And it was staring at him!

He stiffened, terrified, realizing the impossible.

The beast!

He wanted to call out. He didn't dare; he couldn't.

He could hear the puff of ancient lungs, gigantic intakes of air that rustled a wind through the cavern.

He sensed the beast moving closer, watching, waiting.

Frantic, sure he would not survive, he reached for the helmet. He had to see the beast even if this was to be his last sight. He clawed at the rocks, desperately extending himself, then grabbed the helmet and turned the torch upward.

His mouth fell open; his entire body trembled.

The torch beam caught an eye, then part of a mouth. The head have must have been forty feet off the floor. The eye was fixed on him.

The beast roared. The entire cavern shook.

He could smell the beast's breath.

He pointed the beam again. The beast was bleeding heavily from the head and neck.

It moved down closer.

The torch flickered out.

He waited for death.

Minutes passed. The beast stood immobile. And then another hideous skirl ripped Scotty's ears.

The pain from his leg was so intense that he was sure he would pass out, making the beast's revenge unfelt. Suddenly, he heard a thunderous pounding. The beast was moving.

The sensation was unmistakable. The beast was moving past him toward the sea. It was going home.

He heard the rumble recede into the darkness, the sound ruptured periodically by a hideous call. The beast was badly wounded. It was in pain.

It wanted the sea.

He felt nauseous. His head spun.

Several minutes later, he heard a voice.

"Mr. Bruce!" a man called out.

He lost consciousness.

According to Jerry Foster, the chaos at Raigmore Hospital was a microcosm of the tumult occurring in Inverness. In fact, Foster assured him, the commotion far exceeded the commotion that had attended the loss of the
Columbus
.

Another ship and tug had gone down, and twelve more men, including Tony Spinelli, whose body had not been found, had probably died, but there was no question about the cause of the disaster this time or the identity of the perpetrator.

The word was definitive. The ships had been attacked by the legend!

Geminii's role in the caper had already been blazed across the headlines of every newspaper in Great Britain, if not the world. So had his own. In fact, based on information already supplied to the press, he and the two researchers had become the focus of the onslaught.

Damn, he just wanted to get out of the hospital and find some peace and quiet. He'd been there two days already, getting the bone in his leg set and various other bruises assuaged, and he'd virtually been a pincushion for Superintendent MacGregor, who, along with members of the procurator fiscal's office, had been in and out of the room like overanxious interns.

Christ, he was sure this was just the start. According to Foster again, Farquharson had arrived along with the secretary of state for Scotland and the secretary for energy. And once more, an entire contingent of Geminii executives, including John Fallworth, had hustled to the spot.