Extinction

Chapter 2 Primal Waters

Our pilot had informed us that we were due to approach our destination in ten minutes. By then we were all kitted up and ready for action. The bad news came when the pilot told us that a tropical storm was blowing and that there was no chance he could land the plane near the beach, not with the sea being as rough as it was.

We had no other choice but to push out an inflated dingy with a fast propeller motar, and then free fall out into the rough sea and swim to locate the dingy. It was just what I needed, a stinging headache and now the fact that I was going to get wet. I had done it before, as had the rest of my team. We were trained for all scenarios, but jumping out of a plane into a rough sea with a heavy gun and a backpack full of supplies and ammunition is no easy task. We had wet suits on, our combat fatigues and boots packed neatly away in our bags. They now weighed a ton, but carrying something that was twice your bodyweight was no different to me as I had been trained for this as have the rest of my team.

We unstrapped our back packs, wrapped our guns in a watertight polythene and then secured them to our back packs, holding them closely to our chests once we were ready. Our backpacks were waterproof and made from a material that enabled them to float above water. They also helped to keep us above the water. With choppy seas out there, swimming to the island would be not easy task even though the pilot said he would drop us about a mile from the shore. But we were trained to swim in even the roughest of seas. The only thing was the fact that I was getting too damm old for this job.

My retirement was only a few years away, but it was a few years too far in my view. I was not getting any younger and was approaching the time in my life when doing this kind of work was proving rather risky. I was not as fast or as accurrate as I use to be. I was not as fit as the other members of my team. Old father time was clearly catching up with me.

As we all stood by the bay doors at the back of the plane, my heart began racing. I looked back at all my members of the team. All of them looked focused, like the trained soldiers that they were. Dietriech was getting quite hyper with excitement. His sheer arrogance about himself also made him a thrill seeker and this kind of thing was what he lived for.

"God, I hate water," said Drieber, clutching his supplies tightly. "It's not that I can't swim, its just that I hate getting wet".

"What harm can a little water do?" joked Putrov. "I've done this three times before. This is my fourth time".

"It's not the water you should be worried about, it's sharks," said Lana. "I did some checking on the co-ordinates we were heading for. These waters are popular feeding grounds for different types of sharks".

"What kind of sharks are we talkin here?" enquired Dietriech.

"Great Whites," came Lana. "The big ones that grow to over twenty foot".

"Aww cool man!" shouted Dietriech excitedly. "We get to swim with the sharks".

"And you think that is a good thing?" said Drieber to Dietriech. "I for one don't fancy being fish food".

"Then make sure you swim fast home boy?" came back Dietriech. "What's up man? Getting a little nervous I see".

"Give it a rest Dietriech," I said. I turned to the rest of my team, giving out diving masks to each of them. They were attached to a small pony bottle, a metallic cyclinder that held about fifteen minutes of air.

Dietriech and Dreiber pushed the inflated rubber dingy in front of us. It was over fifteen feet long and five feet wide, enough to fit us all on with our supplies and the motor propeller was strong enough to get us to the island. We strapped two paddles to the dingy and waited.