The New Yorker who’d spoken of Fort Knox said, “Oh, I’m sure we will. In hell.”
Fifteen minutes later Cabrillo stood behind the ROV’s pilot wearing an orange wet suit. His goggles were strapped around his left arm. There was no need for him to dive on the sub but for his own desire to feel the freshening calm of the ocean’s embrace. His shoulders and neck ached from tension and rage.
The underwater probe was a small, torpedo-shaped craft with three variable-pitch propellers along its axis for propulsion and maneuverability. In its domed nose was a high-resolution video camera, and mounted on its back were enough lights to illuminate a ten-foot swath in even the murkiest water. The craft had just been launched, and two workers made sure its unspooling tether ran free from the ship.
The huge doors that were opened to the sea allowed a chill to creep into the cavernous amidships hold while underwater lights attached to the hull cast a wavering green reflection along the bulkheads. The big Nomad 1000 submersible loomed over the pool like an airship, ready just in case they needed her powerful manipulator arm.
“Passing fifty feet,” the operator announced, his attention fixed on the screen showing a live feed from the ROV’s camera. All it revealed was blackness. His fingers rested on a pair of joysticks that controlled the probe.
“Sixty feet.”
“There.” Cabrillo pointed.
From out of the gloom came the faintest trace of an outline. It was murky and indistinct at first but resolved itself as the ROV approached. The probe had come upon the sub from the stern. It was her bronze propeller that glinted in the powerful lights. Then they could discern her rudder. It looked like no sub Juan had ever seen.
“Bring us up five feet and forward another ten.”
The operator followed his orders, and the prop slid under the camera’s view. They could see steel hull plates, but these weren’t in the cigar shape of a typical submarine. Linda had said the craft was odd when she’d hit it with active sonar to check its shape.
Suddenly they could see the word HAM painted in white against the black hull.
“Back us off,” Cabrillo said.
The little undersea robot eased in reverse, and the word expanded into gibberish. UTHAMPTO.
“What the hell is an Uthampto?” one of the divers asked.
“Not what,” Juan replied. “Where. Southampton, England.”
And as he spoke, the full name of the vessel’s home port came into view as well as her name:
“Not if the pirates jammed them or boarded using some trick that allowed them to take out her radios before a warning could be sent.”
“Chairman, it’s Murph. The
Cabrillo regarded the man. “Good point, unless she became trapped in a halocline, a band of highly saline water. Salt water is more dense than fresh, so an equal volume displaces more weight. The ocean is layered like a cake with striations of water with differing salt levels and temperatures. It’s possible the
Juan had already considered and discarded the idea. He’d seen firsthand how savage the pirates were and knew they wouldn’t have left behind any witnesses, even on a scuttled ship. Further proof was the derelict’s silence. If he’d been trapped on a sunken vessel, he would have done something to attract attention, no matter how futile. He would have banged on the hull with a wrench until he could no longer move his arms. Then he would have shouted until his dying breath. No, he was certain no one was left alive aboard the
“Alert Huxley,” he said as he waddled to the moon pool, burdened by sixty pounds of gear. He adjusted his mask, checked his airflow, and fell back into the water.
As he dropped through a curtain of bubbles, Cabrillo slid his feet into the fins, then purged some water that had seeped in around his mask. The water wasn’t that cold, and his body heat quickly warmed the thin layer trapped inside his wet suit. He waited just long enough for the two other divers to hit the water before dumping air from his BC and dropping into the darkness, one hand on the probe’s tether as a guide.
How had she survived? he wondered. Judging by the damage fish had done to the corpse on the bridge, the pirates had scuttled the
Avalon
She wore two jackets and several sweaters. Her hair was covered in a wool watchman’s cap. The air inside the ship would be the same temperature as the water. A quick check told him fifty-one degrees. Her eyes were bright blue, and now that he’d arrived, they had lost their edge of madness. As desperate as she was, she still retained some semblance of humor, because she tapped her watch as if to say, About time. Juan admired her courage.