Marat turned from the sonar and radar screens toward Thunder Jim. “Take a look at this, chief.”

  Wade leaned down over the screen. He traced a massive circle that pinged into view on the sonar screen. “What is that?”

  “It’s a cave. A massive one. You could fit a great whale in here, no problem. Maybe two. With the right interior structure, it could form a massive air pocket under here. It would make the perfect staging point for our invisible pirates to attack passing ships in the area. Just build a few tubes to the surface to keep the air replenished and they could live down here indefinitely. No one on the surface would ever have to be the wiser.”

  Thunder Jim nodded. “It certainly makes more sense than an as yet unknown form of sentient sea life suddenly deciding to attack passing cargo ships with expensive hauls. Hang back, but let’s follow it in. If we can find an air pocket, maybe we can find out who really is behind these invisible pirates.”

  Red piloted the Thunderbug slowly into the large gap. The radar signal given off by the shark man grew weaker as they continued forward, blocked by the rock that surrounded them. The strange underwater formation appeared to be made of actual sea life, but pressed down more tightly than any coral reef Thunder Jim ever saw.

  He pointed out toward the strange substance. “Red, shine a light on the walls, will you?” When the light came on, he said to Doris, “What do you make of that?”

  The marine biologist studied it intently. The wall showed millions of tiny dots, small depressions in the rocky formation. To Thunder Jim’s eyes, it almost looked like someone took a pencil and poked hundreds of tiny holes into the surface.

  “It’s coral,” Doris said. “But it’s like nothing I’ve ever seen. As perfectly formed as it is, you would think it was cut that way. But old coral decays and eventually falls away from the formation. No, this is still alive. It looks like someone sculpted it into the current form, but it would take hundreds, maybe thousands of years for anyone to make that happen. I—” She shook her head. “I don’t have any explanation for that. It shouldn’t be possible.”

  Wade scratched his chin, but said nothing else.

  “Eyes upfront,” Red said. “Dirk called it. We’ve got an air pocket up there. Looks big enough to fit a half dozen U-boats. What’s our next move, chief?”

  “We can’t risk surfacing here. I’ll have to go up alone and do some reconnaissance. Once I’ve got the lay of the place, we’ll figure out how they’re attacking the boats. Then we can summon the West Virginia and see how well trained Navy frogmen are these days.”

  “You sure you want to go it alone,” Dirk said. “I could—”

  Thunder Jim silenced him with a simple shake of his head. “I need you both ready to hightail it for the West Virginia if anything goes wrong. The military needs to move should I fail.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Doris said.

  “Out of the question.”

  “With all due respect, it’s not your choice to make,” she said. “If these things are a new species, we need to document at least the basics of their biology before we blow them to kingdom come. And if I get a chance to examine one, I might be able to find their weakness.”

  Wade grimaced as he took in her words. He didn’t like it, but she may be right. Her expertise in marine life matched one of his weaknesses in knowledge. And she proved to be capable and level headed on board the Seaspray.

  “All right,” he said. “But if I tell you to hang back, you listen and obey. No arguments.”

  “Aye aye.”

  The Thunderbug rose slowly toward the surface of the water. Thunder Jim didn’t want them to surface completely, but with a limited airlock, they would need to depressurize the ship against the air above. The rise took nearly forty-five minutes, but Wade knew it was better than the alternative. Neither he nor Doris would be very useful suffering from the bends.

  With the oxygen finally stabilized, Thunder Jim and Doris were able to swim the final few feet to the surface. Wade popped his head out of the water first. He found the area deserted, a shadowy hole formed of coral and rock. In the distance though, he could see the familiar glow of electrical light. From his vantage point in the water, it looked like the chamber opened into a massive complex far larger than he would have ever imagined.

  He tapped Doris on the shoulder. She surfaced next to him with a gasp of air. Thunder Jim pointed to the edge of shore where a ramp came up out of the water, perfect for surfacing shark men—or regular humans.

  Wade crept from the water. He drew his knife as he rose up and looked down at the lowered surface in front of him. Hidden from view of the surfacing tank was a second holding area submerged under about twelve feet of water. A narrow three or four foot harbor bridge stretched down the middle of the area, but the room itself was nearly the size of a college football field. Each half held a pair of submarines of a design that Wade would never dream. They were built on rolling treads not unlike those on an American M2 tank. They were small, but were designed in such a way as to allow the submarine to come on the surface. The large cannons mounted to the top of the vehicles would allow the subs even more firing power than the torpedo tubes that lined the front of their hull.

  Each submarine was a perfect water-borne killing machine. But that was not what disturbed Wade the most.

  Each submarine was crafted in a disturbingly familiar metal alloy. He knew it well, for its origins were in a small, cut off valley only a handful of men had ever seen. Thunder Jim counted himself among those few and proud. And up until this very day, he thought he was the only man outside that valley that new the secret of the alloy, a metal as tough as steel but light as aluminum.

  As he studied the four vehicles, he realized he was very, very wrong.

  A raised voice from across the harbor drew Thunder Jim out of his study. This was no shark man. It was a normal man of Southeast Asian descent, dressed in blue dungarees and a loose fitting blouse. He pointed toward Wade as he yelled in his native tongue.

  “Jim, look out!”

  Doris’s voice rose at just the right time. Wade saw two shark men come at him at the last possible second. He fell back and avoided their slicing claws. He crashed hard down on his back, but at least he was alive. As the two shark men loomed over him—and as the third man ran their way—Thunder Jim couldn’t help but wonder how long he’d stay that way.

  Chapter VII

  Shark or Man?

  Thunder Jim waited against the cold mixture of rock and coral. The shark men closed in on him, mouths wide and claws at the ready. From the ground he knew he was at a natural disadvantage, but he hoped he could turn his prone position into an asset. He waited as they moved in closer, their bony feet clicking against the floor.

  When the nearest got within range, he lashed out with a hard kick. His foot slammed into the side of the shark man’s knee. Bone or cartilage, it didn’t matter—the tendon tore and the shark man went down.

  Wade pounced. He landed hard atop the fallen shark man and delivered a pair of lightning fists hard down on its skull. The shark man lay still, unconscious or dead. Thunder Jim didn’t have time to celebrate his victory. He ducked just as the other supposed beast’s clawed fist swiped down.

  Wade leapt to his feet. As he did, he spun a fist hard into the side of the shark man’s head. His hand ached as it collided with the creature’s scaled face. It didn’t feel like simple scales. In fact, it felt more like armor. Thunder Jim felt all his suppositions finally turning toward truth.

  The shark man swung again, but this time Wade didn’t duck away. Instead he turned slightly to the side of the swipe. He flung his hands out at blinding speed. With the skill of a trained combatant, he locked a perfect judo wristlock on his opponent. Without a second thought, Thunder Jim hefted his foe up and over his shoulder. The shark man crashed hard to the ground. Wade moved like he was about to punt a football. Instead, he drove a boot hard into the side of the shark man’s skull.

  “Jim!”

  Doris’s voice caused Wade to look. He saw the man at the other end of the dock turn. He could feel the panic radiate off the sailor. Wade’s hand dropped to the knife on his leg. He yanked it free and immediately flipped it around. Wrapping his fingers gently around the tip of the blade, Thunder Jim took only a second to aim. He hurled the blade toward the running man.

  It struck the man in the calf. The sailor tumbled to the ground. Thunder Jim charged forward. By the time the downed man realized he had a knife in his leg, Wade loomed over him. He rolled the sailor over and drew him up by the hem of his blouse.

  “Who are you? Why are you attacking the ships?”

  The sailor rambled something in his native language. Though Jim spoke a dozen tongues, this man’s words were not one of them. They sounded relatively local to the region; to Wade’s ear it sounded perhaps Indonesian, though he couldn’t be sure.

  Thunder Jim smashed the man hard down against the pier. The sailor fell unconscious. Wade pulled his knife free. He ripped a tourniquet free from the man’s already bloody pants. He tied a quick tourniquet on the sailor’s leg. If the man was lucky, he might live.

  “Indonesian?” Doris said from over his shoulder. “Why would the Indonesians want to attack freight ships? America and England could destroy them.”

  Wade shook his head. “They may be Indonesian, but I don’t think they represent the interest of the local tribes. I think they’ve been hired to do this. We’ll find out more later, but first I want to take a look at these shark men.”

  Doris looked back at the two shark men. Neither moved. They showed no sign they were still breathing. Thunder Jim walked past her and bent down over the bodies. He ran his hands down over the side of the nearest one’s midsection. He found nothing on his first pass. When he ran down the other hand, he found what he wanted under a layer of scales. Wade yanked the zipper down and open.

  His hand went to the head next. The mask was simpler to open. It could just pull up and over the chin and away. Only a bit of spirit gum secured the mask around the open mouth slit. Underneath was the pallid face of a Caucasian man. He looked to be in his mid-thirties. His ears were broken and smashed, crushed down to hide behind the mask. His head was completely bald; in fact his entire face seemed hairless. A ridge sat in his head where the fin rested against his skull.

  “They’re humans?” Doris said. “But how. The teeth—?”

  Wade yanked the shark man’s mouth open. “Look for yourself.”

  Doris leaned in close. She studied the rows of jagged teeth. She immediately caught a foul smell rising off them—the smell of decay.

  “They’re carved shark teeth,” she said. “It looks like their actual teeth were broken out of their mouth, then these have been surgically implanted in their place. The infection risks—”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Thunder Jim said. He was over the other shark man now. He yanked the chest scales off the shark man’s body. With the deathly white flesh below exposed, the red track marks up and down each arm were blatantly obvious.

  “They’ve been drugged,” Doris said.

  “Probably a cocktail of opiates and hallucinogens. A few weeks under the formula and they would believe anything they were told. Their continued use would explain why they can so easily shrug off a gunshot. They probably can’t even feel it until they finally bleed out.”

  “But we watched them swim for over a half an hour. No one can hold their breath that long!”

  Wade held up the loose scaled over shirt. He reached into it and found a simple hose. The end of the nozzle was fit with a mouthguard that could easily be held even in the shark man’s lips.

  “Rather ingenious,” he said. “It’s a miniaturized rebreather. The suit has air packets hidden over the chest and back. The so called ‘shark men’ could probably stay under water three or four hours with these.”

  “Why would someone do this?” Doris said. “What’s the point?”

  “Terror,” Wade said. “And to keep the authorities guessing. If they’re looking for some kind of monstrous creature they’re less likely to pay attention to some normal folks selling stolen goods.”

  He shook his head. “But that’s not all. Whoever did this seems to take pride in turning normal people into monsters. If I was to fathom a guess, I would say these men are the missing sailors. Or what’s left of them. Between the drugs, the physical toll and the brainwashing, I doubt any of them will ever be truly human again.”

  “Why?”

  Thunder Jim studied the bodies. “If I was to guess, I would say some sort of hatred for the Western world. Perhaps an insane, Indonesian zealot of some kind.”

  A slow clap emerged from the other end of the tunnel. “Bravo, Mister Wade. I’ve heard great things about you. I see they were all very, very true.”

  Wade and Doris looked up at two dozen shark men, a handful of Indonesian sailors and what could only be their leader. He wore a suit of black armor that looked heavy against his wizened narrow face. The bulky armor was carved of a matte metal and looked not unlike the clunky early diving suits. A large gleaming red cape framed the armor. Two metal pipes rose up from under the cape to form a jagged V over his shoulders. They hissed white smoke slowly into the air.

  He seemed unbelievably old, perhaps a hundred or more. Wade wondered if the steam-powered suit’s main purpose was to simply keep the aged man alive. To the untrained eye, he might have appeared Indonesian, but Thunder Jim’s travels and studies told him that his origin was far different. Though he possessed the darkened skin of a local beneath his layers of wrinkles, his features were closer to a native of the Indian subcontinent.

  It’s the English then, Thunder Jim thought. He was far from the first villain to challenge English imperialism worldwide and probably far from the last. While Thunder Jim had his own opinions about European global policy, he drew the line well before wholesale murder of innocent sailors.

  “You seem to know me, but I don’t believe I’ve made your acquaintance,” Wade said with a faint smile.

  The old man nodded. He stepped forward with only the slightest clink of metal against the wooden harbor.

  “That is how I quite like it, Mister Wade. It makes my life so much easier. It keeps the normal man from ever locating me. It allows me to lure the unusual man that manages to find his way to me into my trap.”

  “Trap?” Wade smirked. “I’ve seen worse.”

  The old man raised one hand. With a simple flick of his wrist, the sailors moved into action.

  The room suddenly lurched beneath Doris and Wade’s feet. Thunder Jim heard the grind of gears. He turned to see a metal plate slide from a hidden recess in the coral wall. Within seconds the pool they entered from was closed in by a massive metal sheet. The Thunderbug was completely blocked off.

  “In case you think your friends will escape through the other entrance, rest assured another plate has sealed it off quite well. Mister Marat and Mister Argyle are quite trapped. Though perhaps in a better situation than you.”

  The old man slowly lowered his hand. He pointed toward Doris and Wade, and then simply nodded. The sailors, eight in total Wade quickly counted, rushed forward. Each held a strange metal cylinder, about two feet in length, across both hands, almost like a firearm.

  “If you must have my name, Mister Wade, I suppose I will give it to you. You will never leave this base after all. My name is Tidakada.”

  Wade braced himself for a fight, but there was not to be one. Four of the sailors lined up and dropped to their knees. Each held a strange rifle unlike anything Wade ever saw in his many years of adventure. He raised his knife, ready to throw—

  A glowing green energy burst forth from the rifles. The last thing Wade saw was Tidakada’s smiling face as the wave of glowing energy rushed over him before the world faded into green oblivion.

  Chapter VIII

  Tidakada’s Master Plan

  Thunder Jim Wade woke to the drip of water across his brow. His eyes opened on a small, musty cage. He lay on the floor of a massive dangling bird cage, large enough to hold three men. Water dripped steadily down from the massive pipes that the cage dangled from.

  His was not the only cage. He counted a dozen of them in total. All were empty but for the one closest to Wade. Doris still lay unconscious on the floor of her own cell. Below them, Tidakada’s sailors moved to and fro through the cavernous pathways of the base.

  The opening beneath the cages seemed like a storage room for the pirates’ stolen goods. Wade saw dozens of oil barrels, a full palate of gold bricks, and hundreds of boxes filled with various textiles. It seemed the base wasn’t as large as it first appeared if the cells and the storage area shared a common room.

  “Doris, wake up!”

  His words elicited no response from the unconscious woman. Wade’s attention turned to the lock of his birdcage. It was secured with a massive iron padlock. It was easily an inch thick. He tested it with his hands. The iron was new and strong and the lock was well oiled. He wasn’t going to be able to force it.

  A laugh echoed through the chamber from below. Thunder Jim looked down to see Tidakada, flanked as always by four of his sailors. He grimaced as one of the sailors walked to a darkened recess in the wall and pulled a lever set in the wall. The birdcage started to lower.

  “The woman’s as well,” Tidakada said. The sailor complied. Doris’s cage started to lower only moments behind Wade’s own.

  Two sailors moved away from Tidakada and flanked Wade’s birdcage. They both held their strange rifles at the ready, even as a third man moved toward the cage. He unlocked the door as the gunmen focused their aim on Thunder Jim. Wade didn’t move as the cage door opened.

  The man with the keys threw a pair of large wrist irons into the birdcage. They clattered to the floor just in front of Thunder Jim’s feet.

  “Put them on,” he said in heavily accented English.

  “Why?” Wade said. “What reason do I have to comply with anything anyone here says?”