The Steel Shark Read online

  THE STEEL SHARK

  Rebecca Cantrell

  Praise for Rebecca Cantrell

  A TRACE OF SMOKE

  “The playful, but also despairing, decadence...captured vividly by Cantrell.” — Wall Street Journal

  “[A] bold narrator and chilling historical setting... unusually vivid.” — New York Times Book Review

  "There’s so much to love about this novel: the setting, the characters, the sexual tension." — USA Today

  "Magnetic and seductive."—examiner.com

  THE BLOOD GOSPEL

  “A thriller of dark subterranean complexity, rather like a rare, vintage redwine.” — New York Journal of Books

  “This work is all thriller fans would expect from a combination of Rollins and Cantrell: cutting-edge science, ancient history, and a solid gothic mystery plot. Fans of the authors will not be disappointed, and those who lapped up The Da Vinci Code will be clamoring for more in this series.”” — Library Journal (starred review)

  “Rollins, noted for his fast-paced thriller-adventure novels, often decorated with religious iconography, and Cantrell, a writer of historical mysteries with Nazi Germany as the backdrop, combine their talents for this mash-up of thriller and paranormal... the pacing is heart-pounding and the conceit irresistible...The Da Vinci Code meets vampires.” — Booklist

  THE WORLD BENEATH

  "Cantrell has ventured into deep, dark places...a taut and dangerous struggle." — The Edge

  "The Tesla series is an excellent, original, and addictive series...Cantrell is firmly ensconced as one of my go to Thriller writers now." — Parmenion Books

  "Cantrell's THE WORLD BENEATH simply blew me away: exciting, visceral, inventive, illuminating...a shocking thriller that shines a light on the beauty and horror hidden just out of sight beneath the world's greatest city."—James Rollins, New York Times bestselling author of The Sixth Extinction

  Dedication

  For my husband, my son,

  and the underwater heroes

  Table of Contents

  Praise for Rebecca Cantrell

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Acknowledgments

  Author’s Notes

  About the Author

  Also by Rebecca Cantrell

  Copyright Information

  Prologue

  Munchon naval base, North Korea

  February 8

  They boarded the plane as women, but they left it as men. In full naval uniform, they trooped single file down the stairs onto the frozen runway. The business jet’s door closed, and the plane taxied toward a turnaround to take off again. Within two hours, the plane would be sinking to the bottom of the Sea of Japan, and they would be presumed dead.

  Or actually be dead.

  Laila led the newly minted men to their destiny. To do this, she had to become her brother, and she concentrated on aping his bowlegged, rolling gait. The words of a royal cousin echoed in her ears: Always the hips are foremost, as if the cock is pulling him onward like a dog on a leash. Toes pointed out at ten degrees, and a roll of those eager hips when he lands each foot. Your brother doesn’t so much walk as he fucks the air.

  She swaggered to a battered staff car parked in front of an empty bus. Cold wind snapped at a blue and red North Korean flag mounted by the car’s right front tire. Next to the open door, a driver stood at attention. He was a small man, no taller than the disguised women, his dress uniform too long. He touched his old-fashioned peaked cap and started to bow, then caught himself as if unsure about the protocol.

  “We are honored to welcome you to our country, General Dakkar.” A North Korean accent wove through his Chinese words.

  “The honor rests with me,” Laila answered. Theoretically, her brother had learned Mandarin in his private schools, although in reality only she’d taken the time to study the language.

  Satisfied with her answer, the driver opened the door for her and her companion while the others filed aboard the bus. When the driver drove onto a gravel road, his dim headlights illuminated only a meter ahead. Beyond lay darkness like she’d never seen.

  Old leather creaked as she shifted, and her cold gun dug into her ribs. Icy clouds of breath condensed in front of her recently applied mustache. Nahal surreptitiously squeezed Laila’s hand with fingers cold as ice splinters. They could do this, the pressure against her hand said.

  They had been on this road together for months, after all, ever since Nahal had hacked into Laila’s brother’s laptop. They had discovered evidence of a wide-ranging conspiracy that ended with an email detailing a top-secret submarine transaction. That submarine might give them freedom to escape the strictures of their lives and perhaps even to prevent future injustices.

  More research had revealed their government had ordered a stealth submarine from China at twice the usual price to guarantee absolute confidentiality. In trade for badly needed Western currency, a North Korean intermediary had agreed to perform the handover to further obscure the vessel’s provenance and keep Chinese hands clean. So far, as the wider world was concerned, the new submarine didn’t exist.

  That was why she and Nahal were jolting through a deserted forest in the middle of a cold winter night.

  They were going to steal that submarine.

  Like something out of a film. Only a princess who had watched a thousand movies and a hacker who had hacked a thousand computers could ever have pulled it off. It had taken months of careful planning, audacious hacking, and a great deal of money, but they had come this far, and they couldn’t turn back.

  She stared into the cones of light, wishing she could see farther. Beyond the frost-rimed window, snow churned against a backdrop of black pines. Not a single soul to be seen.

  The driver’s nervous eyes met hers in the rearview mirror. She adjusted her military hat to shadow the top of her face, splayed her legs as her brother would have done, and scowled, an expression that must have been familiar to the driver because he looked away.

  Several minutes later, the car rolled to a stop in a gravel parking lot. The darkness on the horizon became absolute, and she realized it must be the sea. If she reached that horizon, she would be free.

  Cold night air scraped her cheeks when the driver opened the door. The smells of engine oil, steel, and fish permeated the piney darkness. Goose bumps ro
se on the nape of her neck. Her newly bare skin felt vulnerable without hair to cover it.

  She and Nahal left the car and accepted another salute from the pair of armed men. Being a man wasn’t so hard. Salutes and respect.

  “Show me the vessel.” The Chinese words came out rough and deep, as she’d practiced, and men scurried to follow her order. This was how her brother lived every day—men obeyed him without question.

  A man barked out a word she didn’t recognize, and the submarine’s lights came on. She stifled a smile as she gazed upon her prize resting by the dock. The long hull was black and sinister. Gray camouflaged masts and stubby fins adorned the rounded sail fastened to the top deck. She identified communication masts, a periscope, a radar antenna, and the air induction mast. All accounted for.

  Soon, she’d be standing inside that sail as captain and watching her friends go inside the submarine itself. She sank deeper into the role of her brother, pushing her hips forward against the air as she acknowledged a flurry of salutes from sailors of lesser rank on her way to her counterpart, the Chinese commander. No one else merited her brother’s time.

  Unlike the North Korean soldiers, the Chinese leader’s uniform was stark white, and his men wore white shirts with blue-striped collars and white caps with a red star in front. Ready for the handoff, they stood in even rows on the dock next to the submarine.

  “Good evening, Commander Wang,” she said in Mandarin, matching her words with a salute.

  A sour expression crossed the face of the young man next to the commander. He must be the now-unnecessary interpreter. Inside, she pitied him, but her brother wouldn’t have, so she ignored him, enjoying having the unfamiliar power to ignore a man.

  The commander returned the salute. “You speak my language well, Prince Dakkar.”

  “You do me a great honor,” she said, aware her brother wouldn’t be so humble, but suspecting the commander would respond to respect better than contempt.

  He gestured to the submarine.

  She walked across the dock and stepped onto the dark hull. She’d rehearsed this moment so many times it felt like a scene from a movie.

  Behind her, her crew filed onto the dock. Each carried a duffel bag with the possessions she’d brought from home. Even with padded uniforms and shoes with lifts, the women looked small and slight. But their Chinese counterparts weren’t much bigger. After all, submarines were said to employ small men to crew them.

  Nahal stood farther back on the dock, holding a clipboard, talking to her Chinese colleague, and signing forms. So far, everything was going according to plan.

  Laila climbed atop the sail and looked across the nearly deserted dock. The North Korean sailors kept a respectful distance, as they’d been ordered to do in Nahal’s spoofed email. The Chinese sailors faced away from her in silent rows. She turned her gaze to the black water.

  “The view is sublime when one is at sea,” said Commander Wang. “Such a creature as this was not meant to be tethered in a dock.”

  “It is a beautiful vessel,” she answered, remembering the Chinese didn’t refer to ships as female, as the English did. “Sleek as a seal.”

  The commander smiled. Even though this wasn’t his submarine and he’d only been tasked with delivering it, his pride shone through.

  She climbed down into the warm control room, relieved to recognize the dials and screens. “Your simulation software was precise.”

  The commander inclined his head. “Your government wished you and your crew to take control of the vessel with little hands-on training.”

  “Indeed.” Technically, that had been her wish. She and her crewmates might fool the Chinese sailors for the length of the handoff, but a longer training period would reveal them as women, and also reveal none had ever set foot in a real submarine.

  He led her on a tour of their new home—radio room, a space for electronics, living quarters, a fully stocked mess and galley, and the captain’s cabin. More cramped than she was used to, but all the more free. The lower level contained torpedoes and sea mines, sleek and deadly, reminding her that this vessel could do more than hide them from a world that treated them no better than beasts. It could fight back.

  She followed her counterpart aft, struggling to understand the words as he discussed the propulsion system, generators, and batteries in rapid-fire Mandarin.

  “We have built you a shadow,” he said. “This is the most sophisticated diesel electric submarine in the world. No other vessel can hide under the waves so well as this. It is truly a marvel of Chinese engineering.”

  “It is as silent as a steel shark.”

  “And just as deadly,” he responded.

  Thus she remains free to roam the seas, Laila thought.

  Her crew had boarded during her tour and stood at attention at their posts. They seemed no more nervous than any crew about to take a new and unfamiliar ship out of the harbor. The women had been through much in their lives, and they knew how to present a calm face to the world no matter the situation.

  Commander Wang saluted one final time and spoke with his first officer.

  Her heart pounded so hard she feared everyone in the control room could hear. Nahal had ordered the transfer of funds to complete payment on the submarine. Laila stood, back ramrod straight, and waited for the money to go through. Nahal had hacked into dozens of naval accounts to acquire the funds for this transaction, careful to create a trail back to Laila’s brother. Now they waited to see if her hard work would bear fruit. Months of planning came down to the next few seconds.

  A crisp nod from the Chinese soldier to his commander, and a bolt of joy shot through Laila’s breast for the first time since she’d learned of her sister’s death. Months of despair fell away.

  “All leave,” the Chinese commander ordered.

  His remaining men filed out and up the sail, rubber shoes whispering across steel rungs, feet thumping on the dock.

  She exhaled. The sub was almost theirs.

  The commander gestured for her to precede him up the ladder, and she did. Still holding the clipboard, Nahal followed.

  The three stood together atop the sail in the cold wind. She looked at the dock, the pine trees, and the rocks lining the beach. Fast-falling snow shrouded it all. By morning, they would be far away, leaving no trace of themselves behind.

  “You do not wish to take a trial run with us?” The commander sounded incredulous, in spite of the orders he’d received in Nahal’s email.

  A foolhardy act to go out without a trial run, she conceded privately. Aloud, she said, “My men are ready. Do you not trust their skills?”

  His impassive face gave nothing away. “The vessel is yours now, to use as you see fit.”

  “My government is most grateful to you.” The money had been transferred, which was all he need be concerned about.

  “As is mine,” he answered.

  The sound of an engine cut across the wind. Approaching headlights lanced the darkness. Perhaps their jet had been intercepted before it could crash. Perhaps the car came to arrest them. Or perhaps a North Korean delegation came to see them off, but there had been no mention of a delegation coming to see them off in the emails Nahal had intercepted.

  The Chinese commander looked at her sharply as if he, too, was unprepared for the forces barreling toward them.

  “We leave now,” she said.

  The commander wavered.

  “The vessel is ours,” she said. “You have received payment.”

  Flinging gravel, the vehicle braked to stop. A bus identical to the one parked at the end of the dock. The dark outline of twenty figures visible inside. A man with a too-familiar rolling walk burst out the front door.

  Her brother had arrived.

  He froze at the sight of someone standing atop the submarine in his uniform. Men in dark clothing flowed around him like oil and headed toward her. Someone had pierced Nahal’s layers of protection and discovered the new meeting point. But she knew Nahal had been
careful to make sure no messages could be traced back to them. Hopefully, she’d been clever enough.

  The Chinese commander reached for his shoulder, but she drew her gun and clubbed him on the side of his head. Blood flowed from a wound near his temple, and he crumpled. She hoped she hadn’t killed him. He wasn’t part of her war.

  Chinese sailors scrambled across the dock. She ducked next to the fallen commander and tried to think. She hadn’t come so far to lose the women’s freedom now. A bullet pinged off a mast behind her head, and Nahal pointed toward the entrance to the sub.

  Laila whispered a prayer and peeked over the side. She doubted any of the men would have recognized her in her disguise, on the top of the submarine and at night. But her brother might have. He was close now, and his gun was pointed at her. He fired, but missed her. As she’d practiced, she sighted her pistol on her brother’s thin chest. With a slow tug, she pulled the trigger.

  His bowlegged stride faltered, and he staggered to the side. Again, she sighted, and again, she fired. He fell to the dock and lay still. Wild glee flashed through her, and she stifled a laugh.

  No matter what else happened tonight, she’d won.

  With a moan, Nahal collapsed against her. Red blossomed on Nahal’s shoulder. She’d taken the shot meant for Laila. Laila dragged her friend to the hatch in the top of the sail. A snail trail of red gleamed on the hull behind them. Meters away, the commander lay still, white uniform bright against the dark deck.

  “Hold on to me, Nahal.”

  Nahal’s arms tightened around her neck. She half climbed and half fell down the rungs and into the control room. She eased Nahal to the floor.

  “Back full!” Laila shouted.

  Ambra must have been getting everyone ready, because the sub jerked as soon as she spoke. Bullets slammed the hull, but they wouldn’t hurt them in here.

  “Get Meri!” she called and heard her order relayed through the ship.

  She left Nahal and scrambled up the rungs to secure the hatch. By the time she came down, Meri crouched next to Nahal’s motionless form, a medical kit by her knee.

  Laila raced into the control room. Delicate hands flew over controls. For months, her crew had practiced for this moment in their simulators, but no one had been shooting at them then. Still, they moved as well as a more seasoned crew. They were brave, every one.