Up From The Deep Vaughn Jackson (book club suggestions TXT) 📖

circle at the center of the room. “We broke into a prison cell.”

“I feel like you’re doing this on purpose,” Devonte said.

“Doing what?”

“Acting stupid. Are you still testing me?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Brannigan said, but his smile most definitely knew what Devonte was talking about. “But I will say, it's strange that most everything in here is covered in dust, except for the phone.”

Devonte picked it up off the hook. “Yeah that is—”

He fell silent as a deep rumble filled the room. The stone wall at the back of the cell rose slowly. Bits of dust and chips of stone and paint fell to the floor as it worked its way open.

Brannigan dropped his humor and drew his gun. “Out here was playtime. Now we get serious. Lock, load, and stay behind me.”

“And no more playing dumb,” Devonte added, drawing his own weapon. He flipped the safety off and aimed at the ground as he and Brannigan made their way into the sterile, fluorescent glow of the underground complex.

A suffocating silence filled the halls, making each echoing step feel like it might alert any and every person in the place. If there were any people. Most of the rooms they checked were empty, completely devoid of anything save the white green light from the overhead bulbs. Brannigan looked almost disappointed.

They turned a corner and heard voices. Brannigan yanked Devonte back around the corner and mimed for him to keep quiet. They peered around the corner.

A door opened and a woman stepped out. Her heels clicked on the ground as she stopped to answer her phone, turning away from them in the process. She answered in Chinese but switched to English shortly after. Her body went rigid.

“Mr. Martin, it’s an honor to hear from you,” she said. Her voice was a thinly veiled mixture of irritation and fear. “How can I help you?”

They were too far away to make out the voice coming from the other end of the cellphone.

“The scientists are already beginning work on the— when will it be done? Well that’s hard to be sure— What? Hawaii? No, we last tracked it in the Sea of Japan.”

A tense silence broke the conversation.

“It’s gone? Destroyed? No, I can’t imagine how much that cost you, sir. Yes, as fast as possible, sir.” She paused. “Is there anything—”

The woman looked at her phone. “Bastard,” she spat. “And how the hell did the beast get from Japan to Hawaii that quickly?” She stomped her foot and cursed, then brushed her long brown hair from her face and strode down the hall away from Devonte and Brannigan’s vantage point. They waited for her to turn the corner and followed silently. She opened a door and shouted at someone in the room as the door slid shut behind her.

Brannigan held out an arm to stop Devonte. “You should stay here.”

“Excuse me?”

“We don’t know who or what is behind that door,” Brannigan said, taking off his pack. He pulled out two bricks of C4. “And you’ve never done a breach. You could kill someone you don’t mean to. Like your friend.”

Devonte stared warily at the explosive. “But—”

“Nope. No buts. This is where I do my job, and you stay out of the way.” He handed Devonte a cylindrical device topped with a small red button. The detonator. “All you have to do is hit the button and watch my back. Can you?”

Devonte wanted to protest, but he knew Brannigan was right. “Try not to die.”

“Haven’t yet. By that logic, I’m probably invincible,” came the marine’s terse reply.

Devonte snorted at the supposed logic.

Brannigan crept over to the door and attached the C4, placing both bricks side by side in the center. Devonte watched as he connected the wires that dangled from the detonator to a device on the side of one of the lumps of grey material.

When everything was set up, Brannigan pulled a darkened visor down over his eyes and pulled the scarf he wore around his neck up over his mouth. He completed the outfit with a pair of soundproof earpieces. “When I give the signal, hit the button. Then cover your ears and close your eyes.”

Devonte nodded.

Brannigan positioned himself to the side of the door, out of the range of the explosion. He looked at Devonte and gave a questioning thumbs up.

Devonte hit the button, closed his eyes, and covered his ears.

#

Fuck, Brannigan thought, that was not the signal.

He recovered from his initial shock and fell into the breach routine. The smoke provided him some cover as he charged the room. To his immediate left, a man in a lab coat pulled out a gun. Cade shot him before he could even aim. Two people ran in front of him and ducked underneath a lab bench. Not a threat for now. He saw the woman from before, she looked stunned, but she had a radio in her hands. His shot missed, and he saw her duck for cover, speaking into the radio. Shit, he thought. Backup inbound.

“If you don’t want lead implants,” he shouted, “get on your fucking knees.”

About half of the room complied. The rest got over the initial shock of the explosion and drew their weapons. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six.And a giant tooth. Cade counted. He dove behind the nearest lab bench, overturning it and taking shelter next to the first scientist’s dead body. Shots rang out inside the room and tiny bits of debris sprayed over him as the bullets pierced holes in his makeshift shelter. The guns died down and he hid in silence, holding his breath.

He heard Devonte’s voice from the hall. “Cade. Is it over?”

Dammit, Rhodes!

The woman said something in Chinese, and he heard footsteps head to the door. Then he heard the clicking of her heels. A door opened in the back corner of the room. One he hadn’t noticed. It slid closed behind her and vanished seamlessly into the wall.

“Now or never,” Cade whispered to himself. He popped over