A new action/adventure suspense thriller from bestselling author Nick Thacker!

From the bestselling author of The Golden Crystal, The Depths is an exciting, fast-paced mystery/thriller that blends aspects of tech, genetic engineering, ocean/deep sea exploration, and government conspiracy.

If you’re into the thought-provoking science-fiction stories by authors like Jeremy Robinson, James Rollins, and Andy McDermott, you’ll be a fan of The Depths

For fans of James Rollins, A.G. Riddle, Dan Brown, Clive Cussler, and more…

Jen Adams, a research assistant, finds that her son has been kidnapped and her boss is brutally murdered, she and her computer programmer husband are thrown into a hunt to find out why.

The mystery takes her and a team of British Marines and other scientists deep beneath the Atlantic Ocean — to a forgotten research station buried under five miles of water in one of the deepest oceanic trenches on the planet. The station has been abandoned for over thirty years, and no one knows what to expect when they get there.

As they learn more about the station, however, they find out there’s something the base is trying to hide — something that could prove devastating for the rest of the world.

And here, for your reading pleasure, is our free excerpt:

“Hello?” Jen answered the phone in an agitated, yet confused tone. Who was calling at this hour? It was past ten o’clock on a Wednesday night, and Jen normally would have been pouring herself a glass of red wine before bed.

No response.

Again, she spoke into the cellphone. Louder and more direct this time. “Hello?” She heard shuffling on the other end; fumbling. Then a breathy sound.

It sounded like breathing, but no words were spoken. She frowned, taking her phone from her ear and pressing “End.” The number flashed once—an unknown caller—and then was replaced by the home screen.

Weird, she thought. It must have been a wrong number or an accidental dial. Her son, twelve-year-old Reese, would have called it a “butt dial” or something like that. She laughed to herself, placing the phone back into her coat pocket.

A gust of brisk February air forced Jen to walk faster. Her car was on the other end of the commuter lot, a five-minute walk from the campus. After tonight’s lecture, she’d stayed late answering questions and grading some papers before leaving the darkened halls of the Massachusetts Maritime Academy.

Mark Adams, her husband, hadn’t called, meaning everything with Reese was going well. She expected Mark to be dropping their son off at her place tomorrow after work, though she knew he’d be about an hour late, as usual.

The lot was dark. Only a few dim streetlights bathed the black asphalt in a drab yellow glow. She could hear her heels—an unfortunate necessity for tonight’s formal lecture—clicking on the hard pavement, but no other sounds interrupted her thoughts.

She was tired.

She’d been awake for almost thirty-six hours researching, planning, teaching, and finally delivering the lecture she’d spent months on. It had been received well, to thundering applause from scientists, professors, and a few higher-level graduate students. She was proud of herself, but it was time to sleep.

The small Honda Accord appeared out of the darkness as she approached. Man, how long have I been here? she thought, noticing the water streaks of a long-gone mist dried on her windshield. The top of the silver sedan was covered in a shining glitter of frozen specks, remnants of the brief snowfall they’d had earlier that day.

She reached into her other coat pocket, looking for her keys. Her cellphone chirped again and began vibrating.

Again? Who is it this time? she thought as she saw another unknown number flash on the screen.

“Hello?” she called into the phone, this time her annoyance coming through in her voice.

“Jen? Hey. It’s Mark.”

She reached her car door and frowned. A shadow danced behind her, and its reflection on the window caused her to jump. She whipped around, not knowing what to expect.

The lights were playing tricks on her. A cat, bounding across the parking lot chasing some unknown prey, disappeared behind an SUV. She let out a sigh and spoke again into the phone.

“Mark? Hi — sorry… it came up as an unknown number. What’s up? Everything okay?”

“Well, no, Jen. You need to come over here. Hurry. It’s Reese.”

Her heart immediately began to rise in her throat. Of all the calls she hoped she’d never get… She grabbed at her keys, hands shaking, this time clicking the unlock button before they were even out of her pocket.

The car clicked as it unlocked, and the headlights flashed twice in sequence. She reached for the door, preoccupied with the phone call, her mind racing in terror. “Mark, what happened?” She tried not to panic, telling herself that his asthma must just be flaring up again, or that he had a bad scrape.

But her motherly instincts knew better.

“I—I came home, after I went to grab ice cream. He just wanted ice cream.” Mark’s voice was shaky, almost in a panic. “I mean, I was only gone for ten minutes. I should have made him come with me,” he stammered.

Jen listened intently as she pulled the handle. The creak of the door was accompanied by the dome light flicking on as the door opened.

The interior of the car was immediately illuminated, and her eyes had to adjust to the sudden change in light. As they did, they noticed something that caused her to stumble backwards, tripping in her heels.

On the other end of the phone, Mark continued talking. “Jen, I’m so sorry. Reese’s gone. I came home, and he wasn’t here.”

But the words didn’t register in her mind, at least not yet. Jen was staring, horrified, at the man in the driver’s seat of her car.

A man she worked with: Dr. Elias Storm.

He was motionless; not breathing. Jen began to hyperventilate, a tightening scream working its way up her throat. She dropped the phone and let it bounce away.

Then she noticed the blood. Deep crimson covered his body and the rest of the seat as well as most of the dashboard and windows. It also covered his face, dripping from his eyes.

His eyes. 

Protruding from Dr. Storm’s eyes, partially embedded in the man’s skull, were two long metal rods. The kind of support rods they often used in the lab to prop up fossilized test subjects. They glistened in the dim lamplight, and the horrific scene finally took its toll on Jennifer.

She collapsed onto the pavement, blacking out on the hard ground.

“Jen. Jen? Are you okay?”

The voice was melodic, floating somewhere in front of her eyelids.

“Jen, wake up. They need to ask you some more questions,” the voice said.

She nudged her eyes open. Blinking, she saw Mark standing in front of her with a cup of coffee.

He handed her the cup. “Hey, there you are. Sorry to wake you. I know you need to rest, but Officer Rodriguez needs to verify a few things with us. Is that okay?” They were separated, but she and Mark were still legally married.

She nodded in response to the question, sipping from the coffee. Its acidic burn as it slid down her throat didn’t phase her. How did I fall asleep? she wondered. After the events of that night, it was amazing she had calmed down at all.

She was curled up on the couch in Mark’s apartment. A blanket had appeared over her feet, and now Mark and the two police officers—Rodriguez and Sanderson, she remembered—were seated across from her on kitchen chairs.

“Thanks, Ms. Adams. I understand it’s been a rough night for you both. I just need to make sure we haven’t forgotten anything.”

Again, she nodded. Breathing deeply, she forced herself to recollect the events that had transpired four hours ago.

The parking lot. First, the strange unknown caller.

Then Mark’s frantic call.

Walking to her car.

Dropping the phone as she saw her colleague.

And Reese was gone.

It didn’t make any sense; any of it. Who would take our son? And why? Did it have anything to do with Dr. Storm’s death? These were questions for the police, to be sure, but they had not left her mind since she woke up during the car ride to Mark’s apartment.

“Ms. Adams,” the Officer Rodriguez said. “About that unknown caller — you said you answered the phone, correct? And that no one was on the other end?”

She thought for a moment before responding. “Right, I guess. I mean, I thought I could hear breathing.”

“And when Mark called, that number, too, came up as ‘unknown?’”

“Yes.”

He jotted down some notes, the other cop just staring straight ahead.

She knew they were doing their job, trying to help, but it was still uncanny how calm and collected they seemed. Though there were no mirrors in sight, she could sense how frazzled she must look. Her dark brown hair, normally trained and collected conservatively into a bun or single ponytail, was sticking out in every direction, even drooping down into her eyes.

The officers asked a few more questions, ones she knew she’d answered at least twice before. They checked their notes, comparing them, and then stood to leave. Mark stood up as well and walked the cops to the front door.

“Mr. Adams, Ms. Adams—” Officer Rodriguez looked at each of them individually, “we’re going to maintain surveillance on your block, just to be safe. As you know, there’s already at least three patrol units out searching for your son.

“I know it’s extremely difficult for you right now, but with the possible connection to the murder, we can’t allow either of you to search on your own.”

The pair nodded in unison at the officer’s masked order. Where would they look, anyway?

“Also, we feel it would be safer for you both if you were in one place. Is—is that going to be a problem?”

Jen glanced at her husband. “It should be fine. Thank you, officers. For everything.”

“Very good. You have our number. If you need us, don’t hesitate to call.”

The door clicked closed behind them, and Mark returned to the small living room. Without saying a word, he fell into the old couch next to Jen.

Both of them silently stared down for a moment, and Jen could sense her tears beginning to well up again.

Before they fell, Mark wrapped his long arms around her. Their past was their past, and now she needed him; needed anything. She let herself be consoled for the first time in years. Never in her life had she felt so vulnerable.

She heard Mark draw a quick breath in, about to speak. “Jen—”

He paused.

“There’s something else. Something I didn’t show the police.”

Detective Craig Larson clenched his teeth in frustration at the unbelievable amount of people that had converged on the downtown department store. He was in one of the many toy aisles at the back of the store, searching for that perfect gift for his only grandson’s birthday.

Unfortunately, it seemed everyone else in the Georgetown area was as well.

This is ridiculous. It’s not even close to Christmas.

He should have stayed home and done the shopping online, like he did for most things. At 57, an age his colleagues claimed was “esteemed,” he sometimes had a hard time with the idea of online shopping. It felt impersonal, or at least too easy.

He was part of a generation that still believed in the value of personal relationships, communication, and taking the time to truly get to know a friend. Online shopping—as well as a slew of other similar activities like texting, online dating, and social media—felt like a violation of that belief system. It felt wrong somehow.

Yet Larson was slowly getting indoctrinated into the culture of an interconnected world. At his daughter’s prodding, he’d finally set up a Facebook account and was soon hooked. He’d even sprung for an iPhone when his contract upgrade had come up for renewal.

Still, he had promised himself that today he would actually get up, get in his car, and go out and shop for his grandson. He was turning six, and as his only grandchild, he was also his favorite.

He dodged a younger couple standing smack-dab in the middle of the aisle, apparently oblivious to his presence. Two screaming kids playing tag nearly collided with him as they raced around the next corner.

He felt his phone start to vibrate before he heard his ringtone—a throwback rotary-style sounding ring—and reached into his pocket to grab it.

“Larson.”

It took him a second to place the voice on the other end of the phone—familiar enough for the speaker to not introduce himself, yet the man’s name didn’t come immediately to mind.

Finally Larson recognized the accent and realized who it was. Gregory Durand from London.

“Shit, Greg, how are you?”

“Fine. Listen, Craig—I’ve got something for you. A kidnapping case.”

Detective Larson frowned. “Kidnapping?”

“Right. A child; twelve-year-old from somewhere outside of New Bedford, Massachusetts. I have a friend of a friend who’s a cop there, and he called it up.”

“And it got all the way to you?” Larson asked.

“It did, but not because of the kidnapping. He was taken, but the mother found out about it at the same time she found a dead guy in her car.”

“What do you mean, a dead guy? And who was this kid?”

As he listened, Larson snapped his head up and peered out through a store window.

“Yeah, a homicide. And it was the kid who was taken,” Gregory Durand said on the other end of the line. “Not by force, we don’t think, and we have no reason to suspect that the kid’s in any real immediate danger. The guy who was killed was her boss, some old professor at the university where she worked. But he had a brother, another scientist who fell off the grid years ago. We think he might have had something to do with it, and so by extension she might as well. Don’t worry about the mom or husband, though. I was hoping you could help with this kid; see if you can dig anything up about the people who took him.”

“Right, but do you know who took him?”

“Not yet, but it’s a bit odd. The whole thing was orchestrated well, and aside from the brutality of the murder, it’s very much like they targeted this lady, Jennifer Adams. My boss isn’t taking any chances, and he wants to make sure it stays out of the media.”

“Of course.”

“Of course. So I’m asking for your help.”

“I see. Why me?” He sighed. He’d been a member of the Washington police force for almost forty years, and his political connections had stacked up nicely in his favor over the course of his distinguished career.

It seemed, though, that the older he got, the more inane the requests became. Kidnappings, car thefts, mall heists—things that in his field, at least, were considered to be the private inspector’s version of “rescuing a cat from a tree”—worthless.

What had happened to his golden years? Car bombings, tracking terrorist infiltrations, hijacked airplanes? He was the best at what he did, and age had nothing to do with it.

“Look, Larson, I know you’re the guy we need. Like I said, my boss told me to call you. He said this was something that fell within your ‘jurisdiction.’ It didn’t seem like he meant just your geographic area, either.”

Detective Larson knew he didn’t. He was usually told things were in his ‘jurisdiction’ when they were political favors. Situations that required more thinking on his feet, problem-solving, and espionage activities that were not exactly considered kosher in the law-enforcement business.

He frowned, then responded. “Okay, right. A kidnapping.” He hung on the word a bit longer. “A kidnapping that falls into my jurisdiction. Gotcha.”

“Good. I’m glad you’re on board. I’ll email the details to you as soon as I can. I’m on my way back to London now.”

“They what? They left a ransom note?” Jen’s voice was shaky, strained from the stresses of the previous few hours.

“I know. I panicked. I didn’t know what to do, and I thought the cops would put Reese in more danger. The note says—”

“Of course the note says no cops, Mark. They always do!” Jen was standing in the kitchen, pacing in nervous anxiety as Mark sat at the kitchen table. The kidnappers’ ransom note rested in front of him, the only clue to their son’s whereabouts.

Mark was characteristically calm, even under the present circumstances. “Jen, calm down—”

“I’m not going to calm down!” she almost yelled, turning to face him. “Reese is gone, and you didn’t think it was important to mention that whoever took him left a ransom note?”

He sighed, trying to explain. “No, I just thought that we should try to talk to someone else, maybe someone they won’t be able to track.”

“We don’t even know who they are! Who are we going to talk to? Even if we went back to the police now, they’d bring us both in for not telling them about the note sooner,” Jen said.

“I know, I know,” Mark said. “Look, let’s just see if there’s anything we can piece together. They’re obviously looking for something. Was there anything at work you were doing, something—”

“No, I already told you it was routine stuff.” Jen couldn’t help but interrupt. Her nerves were starting to get the best of her. It was hard enough to try to forget the brutal murder that had taken place earlier that night; now it seemed possible—likely even—that her son could somehow be caught up in all of it too.

She walked back over to the table, sliding the ransom note around in front of her and read the chilling words aloud.

“We have your son. No police.

Find Dr. Storm’s answer. You have four days.”

There was no byline.

Unlike most ransom notes she’d seen on television, this was simple copy paper that had been through a typewriter. Other than its message, it was almost indistinguishable from a normal office memo printout.

But the importance of the note was not lost on Jen and Mark. They knew it was real. Their son had been taken almost precisely when Dr. Storm had been murdered.

They had searched on both sides of the paper for a mark of some sort, any type of anomaly that might lead them toward an identity, but there was nothing to be found. Even the typed words were without fault, a difficult feat for even the best typewriters still in existence.

“We need to go to my office,” Jen said, abruptly glancing up from the paper.

“What? Jen, we can’t,” Mark said.

“We need to. There’s obviously something that I’m missing; something that Dr. Storm was working on.” She frowned, brainstorming out loud. “Maybe it has something to do with our last project, the studies we were running out of Pennsylvania.”

“Jen, they’re going to be watching. Even if they aren’t keeping an eye on the university, the police will be searching Dr. Storm’s office. And the cops…” Mark’s voice still sounded steady, but Jen could hear the hidden pangs of distress. He was certainly struggling as well.

“No. Don’t you see? They want me to find it, whatever it is,” she said. “They gave me four days, Mark. Four days to figure out what the hell Elias was working on. They need me to get it for them, and if that’s the only way to get Reese back—”

Before she could finish the sentence, her voice cracked, and she began to choke up. Mark reached out his hand to comfort her, but she pulled away.

“I’m going to the lab, Mark. I’m going to figure out what they’re looking for, and I’m going to get Reese back. We can get in from the back of the lobby. The police aren’t going to be watching that side of the building.”

Mark knew he couldn’t stop her. She was as stubborn as he was.

Larson’s laptop dinged as soon as he walked in the door.

The email was from Durand, sent through a secure address from his office in London. It was a forward of a short thread between Durand and his boss.

>>Subject: Fwd: Re: Larson

>>From: . Vertrund, Investigative Head, NETA

>>Get him on it. I’ve heard of him, and he’s probably got the connections through to the top that we need on this one, but keep it quiet. We need in, if it’s going to fall the way I think it is.

>>I looked at the file Diane sent over. If it’s related, it’s probably going to blow up. Make sure Larson stays out of the way.

He scrolled down through the remainder of the thread.

>Subject: Larson

>From: G. Durand, Assistant to the Investigative Head, NETA

>I need your approval on this one, boss. Craig Larson’s an old friend of mine, and I’d like to have him look into something for us. Last night a kidnapping coincided with the murder of a professor in Massachusetts.

>Diane got a flag on a name related to the case: Dr. Elias Storm, who’s got a brother in the system. The kidnapping victim is the son of a woman who worked for Dr. Storm, and I just want to cover all our bases here.

>Obviously we can’t make much noise, as it’s a little out of our area, and we don’t want to get the cops over there riled up. Larson moves under the radar, and he’s the ear we’ve got for this.

So the Brits wanted information too. Whatever this thing was, they wanted someone with connections helping them out.

Political connections.

Larson knew that could mean anything, but at the very least he understood that if the British intelligence community was interested in something that had happened on American soil, the Americans surely would be interested.

But Durand trusted him, and he had no reason to betray that trust.

He had no political enemies in England, and he didn’t have any loyalties to the current governing administration of his home country. He’d do exactly what Durand and Vertrund asked; he’d snoop around a bit and see what was going on. If there was anything interesting to find, he’d figure out what to do with it then.

Detective Craig Larson turned on the small 4-cup coffee pot in his kitchen. It was going to be a long night.

The car was silent. Neither of the pair had spoken a word since they’d left the apartment.

Mark Adams knew better than to break the silence with his wife, too. Jen was on edge, terrified, and hadn’t slept in more than a day, and besides, he didn’t have anything useful to say.

It’s my fault Reese’s gone, he thought. He knew it wasn’t really true; if he had been home, he might have been injured—or worse—and Reese would have been taken anyway.

He rubbed his eyes. He had taken a nap for a couple hours after work, before Reese had gotten home from school, but the events of the evening seemed to have erased any sleep he’d had and replaced it with anxiety and fatigue.

The car, Mark’s beat-up ’97 Ford pickup, sailed off of Main Street and onto Academy Drive, the main road leading through and around the Massachusetts Maritime Academy. He circled the lot once, trying to find a secluded spot to park. Jen looked through the window out onto the well-manicured grounds, still smelling the faint scent of lawn clippings and light dew from the evening’s humidity.

The school, established in 1891, rested on a small peninsula on Cape Cod that jutted out into the bay, about an hour south of Boston and just under an hour east of Providence. Specializing in Marine Transportation and Marine Engineering, Mass Marine had been established to serve the merchant marine transportation industry as well as the United States Navy. To this day, the Academy worked closely with the Navy for the commissioning of officers for the nation’s marine vessels.

Jennifer Adams was brought on as an associate professor for the new Energy Systems Engineering program the school launched two years ago. Her job included teaching undergraduate and graduate courses and assisting the tenured professors in her department.

Mainly, however, her time was usually spent assisting Dr. Elias Storm in researching submarine geothermal energy production. During her own graduate years, Jen had been recognized—and recruited—by Dr. Storm for her breakthrough work designing a structurally sound prototype for energy extraction in high-pressure environments. A week after she had her diploma in hand, she found herself side-by-side with one of the world’s renowned and leading experts on underwater energy production. The two years at Mass Marine working in the labs with Dr. Storm were some of the most challenging, rewarding, and exciting years she’d ever spent, and she loved it.

Until now.

It felt unbelievable, knowing someone close to her had died, but she didn’t quite realize it yet. Walking into the building with Mark, she felt like Dr. Storm would be bustling about, hurrying through the halls like a doctor in an emergency room. He would stop, as if deep in thought, quirk his head sideways, and grin when he caught sight of his younger research assistant. “Jen! Hello, I’m glad you’re here—” he would say, and before she could hear the rest of his sentence, he’d be off to another corner of the building.

But not tonight.

Tonight, they were alone. The walls seemed to loom over them, the darkness pressing down. She felt smaller. Are we even in the right building? she thought. She’d never been in here this late at night, before even the cleaning crews arrived.

Rounding the first corner, they came to a long hallway. Storm’s office was on the right, the fourth door down. Before they reached it, Mark and Jen could see that this section of the hallway had been roped off with police tape.

“Someone’s already been here,” Mark said.

“The cops, I’d guess,” Jen said. “Maybe they just checked it out for evidence. They wouldn’t know to look for anything else, would they?”

“Probably not. But still, I don’t want to get caught with my pants down. If they come back—”

“They’re not coming back, Mark. At least not tonight. There’s no reason for the police to watch an empty office, especially since the murder’s already happened. Come on.”

She started away from the intersection of the two halls and continued toward the professor’s office. Reaching the police tape, she hesitated for a moment, then ducked underneath the line of plastic caution ribbon. Storm’s office door had been left open, and she could already see as she entered that the police had rummaged through the file cabinets, desk drawers, and shelving units lining one side of the large room.

“Looks like they didn’t clean up after themselves very well,” Mark said as he appeared by his wife’s side. “I wonder if we should have brought gloves or something. I don’t know if they’ll send forensics or not, but I definitely don’t want to be associated with this.”

Jen frowned, then dismissed the idea. It was so like Mark, she thought. Always afraid to get his hands dirty. He was more anxious of getting involved with things than he was in finding a solution to a problem. Maybe that was part of why his career had never really taken off.

Mark Adams was a good security expert. Great, even. He’d been in charge of a few projects for his current company that had brought them to the forefront of the computer security and intelligence world, and he’d been the man behind most of the research and development. His boss, however, had taken most of the credit, while Mark received a small bonus and a pat on the back from management.

It had seriously pissed Jen off. They had just finalized the separation, and tensions were high as they balanced their now-single lifestyles with their parenting duties. Jen remembered screaming at Mark—the frustratingly well-tempered man that he was—and accusing him of being a pushover. He’d argued, albeit weakly, that it “wasn’t his place,” and “he just wanted to be a good employee.”

And he’ll always remain just a “good employee,” Jen thought to herself that night. He was the same gentle, helpful man she’d fallen in love with thirteen years ago, but what she quickly discovered that what she’d originally labeled as carefree resolve was really a lack of willingness to make important decisions.

Jen had basically run the entire relationship, and the effect was a broken family.

Snapping her focus back into their current world, she took another few steps into the office and glanced around. For the most part, aside from a few empty styrofoam coffee cups and the caution tape left by the police, everything was as she remembered. Books lined the shelves to her right—chemistry, physics, and a few geology numbers. On the man’s desk, which was usually kept spotlessly clean and free from clutter, sat an amethyst geode and a trilobite fossil. Papers were strewn about. They were documents and reports that Jen recognized from her work with the man.

“I don’t see anything out of the ordinary,” Jen said. She wasn’t sure what they’d find, or if they’d find anything at all.

“What kind of project were you working on?” Mark asked. Since they’d been separated for over a year, he hadn’t kept tabs on her career. “There has to be something important; something they’d do anything to find out,” he said.

“No. Nothing. I mean, we were just doing standard research. Underwater geologic mapping of thermal activities, that kind of stuff. We were working long hours, though, since it’s getting to be the end of the semester, and his course load was getting hectic.”

She reached toward a stack of papers on Dr. Storm’s desk. Storm was characteristically organized—unlike Jen—and the shuffled stack of loose documents was obviously left by a careless police officer from earlier that night. The top few pages were student assignments, ungraded, followed by a few internal office memos. She almost laughed at the sight of them. Storm was old-fashioned in every way. He would print out almost every email and memorandum and file it away in the long row of filing cabinets on the left side of the room.

Mark was rummaging through the top-left file cabinet now, being sure to use a pen he’d grabbed to slide through each document. “Mark, don’t. There’s nothing there. It’s all old stuff. Graded assignments, letters, stuff like that. I can’t imagine there’d be anything of value—”

She stopped short as her eyes stared down at the pile of papers she was shifting through.

“What’s up?” Mark looked up from his cabinet to see what Jen had found.

“It—it’s a letter. At least an envelope. It’s empty, but it’s addressed to Dr. Storm.”

“So? Who’s it from?” Mark asked.

“It’s also from Dr. Storm,” Jen said.

“You mean, like he sent a letter to himself?”

“I think so.” Jen opened the empty envelope further to take a peek inside. It was empty, but she ran a few fingers through the inside, just to be sure. “The return address, though, is from some town in Pennsylvania. It says ‘Dr. Storm, Aberdeen, Pennsylvania.’ That’s not where Dr. Storm lives—lived—though. He’s got a house just off the coast here.”

“Hmm, interesting. Well keep it, now that you’ve got your prints all over it. Let’s keep looking.”

Mark went back to rifling through the file cabinets, but stopped a few seconds later. “You hear that?”

“What?” Jen wiped her balmy hands on her jeans—she didn’t even remember changing into jeans—and looked up. “I didn’t hear anyth—”

“Shh! Listen!” Mark crouched, and Jen copied the movement.

The sound of footsteps, light but quick, echoed down the hall and into the room. One set of footsteps or two? Jen found herself thinking.

The pair turned to face the door, and Mark reached out to shut off the office light.

“Don’t,” she whispered. “If someone’s coming, they’ll know we’re in here. Get behind the desk. It’s solid wood, and you can’t see underneath it,” she added.

Mark followed the order, and Jen tiptoed around to the backside of the shelving unit. It was a floor-to-ceiling model, no doubt from Ikea or another large big-box store. Storm wasn’t the vain kind of man who cared much for fancy furniture or expensive adornments. The shelving unit stood about a foot away from the back wall, and there was just enough room to wriggle her small frame into the space between the wall and the side of the shelf.

It’s not going to hide me for long, especially if they come into the room. Jen held her breath as the footsteps got louder.

The footfalls stopped just outside the office door, and she thought she could hear whispers. She couldn’t make out the words, nor place exactly where they came from.

She looked down at Mark. His head was poking out from under the massive desk. He’d pushed the rolling office chair back a bit and crouched into the space beneath the desk top. He wasn’t a large man—thin and just at six feet tall—but she was surprised at the amount of space left over under the desk. She wondered if it may have been a better idea to share his hiding spot.

Too late now.

The voice outside the door whispered again, and Jen heard someone stretching the police tape away from the door.

Again, the whispers.

“—night vision,” was the only word she could make out.

The lights in the office, as well as throughout the hallway, immediately flicked off.

Jen panicked. As the initial shock of darkness wore off, Jen noticed a light glow spilling into the office window from some outside source. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to maneuver through the room.

They’d cut the power to the building, and they were coming in! She dove forward, trying to get behind the sturdy desk. There wouldn’t be time to crawl underneath, but at least she’d be offered more protection.

Shouts, now. “Stop! Come on out. I know you’re in there!” she heard a man’s voice say. British? She couldn’t tell.

Mark grabbed her hand. Squeezing, he shook his head. “Don’t,” he whispered.

Jen ripped her hand out of his. What the hell am I supposed to do? she thought as her eyes caught his.

“Again—Ms. Adams, I need you to step out from behind the desk. I’m not here to harm you, but I need your full cooperation.”

A panicked expression came over Jen’s face as she mouthed silently to Mark. “The police?” He shrugged, and his eyes widened as Jen stretched an arm above her head.

“Jen, stop! Get down!” Mark whispered aloud.

She ignored him and raised another arm over her head and above the top of the desk. Slowly, she stood, her back to the door.

“That’s it, Ms. Adams. Turn around slowly and walk over here. We need to have a little chat,” the man behind her said. Definitely British, she thought again. Too refined to be Australian.

Jen turned around. Standing in front of her was no policeman. The man, dark-skinned, was dressed head-to-toe in black body armor, complete with an assault rifle pointed directly at her. His face was emotionless, though his eyes were covered by wraparound black goggles. Without speaking, he jerked his head and gun simultaneously, motioning for her to walk toward him.

She did. A second body appeared in the narrow doorway, this one leaner, like a woman’s. Sure enough, as Jen approached them, she could see that the second military officer was female. Her face was fair-skinned and smooth, with full lips, but that was all Jen could see of her. Like the first man, this woman’s face was mostly covered by a large set of night-vision goggles.

“Come outside with us. We need to discuss something. You came alone?”

Jen thought for a second. They didn’t know Mark was here. Or did they? She didn’t have time to ponder the question.

“Y—yes. I’m alone.” She hoped Mark could hear her. She didn’t want him overreacting and getting them hurt. Whatever this was about, they obviously wanted to speak to her, not kill her. If Mark was his usual self, he’d stay under the desk until everyone had left, and then he’d sneak out and try to phone for help.

The woman spoke this time. “Good. Let’s go.” Her voice was as cold and hardened as a war criminal’s, and her grip around Jen’s arm matched. She yanked Jen through the door and began walking down the hall. The large black man followed behind them.

“Who are you? How did you find me here?” Jen asked.

The woman didn’t respond. She didn’t even glance in Jen’s direction.

“We didn’t want to get the police involved, Ms. Adams,” the man said. “Unfortunately, we believe there’s more to your son’s kidnapping than what you’re currently aware of.”

So they knew, she thought.

“You’re going to come with us. We have a secure facility just outside of town where we can debrief.”

As he finished his sentence, Jen heard a scuffle and a muffled shout from behind them. She whirled around to see a third soldier, this one a young man, blond, running toward Dr. Storm’s open office door from the other side of the hallway. Mark was also running—directly toward Jen.

“Jen! Let’s go!” he shouted, almost caught up to them. They were about twenty feet away from the intersection with the other hallway, and therefore about 100 feet from the exit.

There was no way they could outrun them.

Mark was going to get them killed. She struggled to free herself from the death-grip of her captor, the iron lady. It was no use; the woman was unbelievably strong.

Mark was getting closer.

What is he going to do? She thought to herself as the large man turned and prepared for a fight. He’ll kill him. The man outweighed Mark by at least fifty pounds, and he was certainly better prepared for a skirmish.

It didn’t matter.

Before Mark could get any closer, a loud gunshot reverberated through the hall of the dark school. Mark’s body was flung forward with a jerking motion, dropping to his hands and knees onto the marble floor. Behind him, Jen could see the third soldier still aiming down the sight of his smoking assault rifle.

Mark looked up at Jen quickly, teeth clenched in defiance, then collapsed all the way onto the cold tile.

Continued….

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The Depths