“Any speculation as to the source?” Pitt asked.
Biazon shook his head. “We initially suspected industrial pollutants, which, regrettably, are an all too common source of environmental damage in my country. But my field team and I have scoured the impacted coastal region and failed to locate any heavy industrial businesses operating in the area. We also examined the coastline for obvious spillways or illegal dump sites but came up empty. It is my belief that the source of the kill originates at sea.”
“Perhaps a red tide?” Giordino said.
“We do experience toxic phytoplankton outbreaks in the Philippines,” Biazon said, “though they are typically seen during the warmer late summer months.”
“It might also be some covert offshore industrial dumping,” Pitt replied. “Where exactly is the impacted area, Dr. Biazon?”
Biazon glanced at the map, which showed Mindanao and the southern Philippine island groupings. “Off the province of Bohol,” he said, pointing to a large round island north of Mindanao. “Panglao is a small resort island located here, adjacent to the southwest coast. Its about fifty kilometers from our present position.”
“I can have us there in under two hours,” Stenseth said, eyeing the distance.
Pitt nodded toward the map. “We've got a ship full of scientists who can help find the answers. Bill, lay a course in to Panglao Island and we'll take a look.”
“Thank you,” a visibly relieved Biazon said.
“Doctor, perhaps you'd like a tour of the ship while we get under way?” Pitt offered.
“I'd like that very much.”
“Al, you care to join us?”
Giordino looked at his watch pensively. “No, thanks. Two hours will be just enough time for me to finish my project,” he replied, easing himself back down on the bench seat and drifting rapidly back to sleep.
The Mariana Explorer cruised easily through a flat sea and arrived at Panglao Island in just over ninety minutes. Pitt studied an electronic navigational map of the area that was displayed on a color monitor as Biazon denoted a rectangular area where the fish kill was occurring.
“Bill, the current runs east to west through here, which would suggest that the hot zone is located at the eastern end of Dr. Biazon's box. Why don't we start to the west and work our way east into the current, taking water samples at quarter-mile increments.”
Stenseth nodded. “I'll run a zigzag course, to see if we can gauge how far from shore the toxin is concentrated.”
“And let's deploy the side-scan sonar. Might as well see if there's any obvious man-made objects involved.”
Dr. Biazon watched with interest as a towed sonar fish was deployed off the stern, then the Mariana Explorer began following a dot-to-dot path laid out on the navigation screen. At periodic intervals, a team of marine biologists collected seawater samples from varying depths. As the ship moved to the next position, the collected samples were sent down to the shipboard laboratory for immediate analysis.
On the bridge, Giordino tracked the signals from the side-scan sonar. The electronic image of the shallow seafloor revealed an interweaving mix of flat sand bottom and craggy coral mounts as the ship sailed over the fringes of a coral reef. In a short time, his trained eyes had already discerned a ship's anchor and an outboard motor | lying beneath the well-traveled waters. As the monitor revealed each object, Giordino reached over and punched a mark button on the con| sole, which flagged the location for later assessment.
Pitt and Biazon stood nearby, admiring the tropical beaches of Panglao Island less than a half mile away. Pitt glanced down at the water alongside the ship, where he spotted a sea turtle and scores of dead fish floating belly-up.
“We've entered the toxic zone,” Pitt said. “We should know the results shortly.”
As the research vessel plowed west, the concentration of dead fish in the water increased, then gradually fell away until the blue sea around them grew empty again.
“We're a half mile beyond Dr. Biazon's grid,” Stenseth reported. “Judging by the water, it looks like we're well clear of the toxic zone.” “Agreed,” Pitt replied. “Let's stand by here until we see what kind of results the lab has found.”
As the ship ground to a halt and the sonar tow fish was retrieved, Pitt led Biazon down a level into a teak-paneled conference room, followed by Giordino and Stenseth. Biazon studied the portraits of several famous underwater explorers which lined one wall, recognizing the images of William Beebe, Sylvia Earle, and Don Walsh. As they were seated, a pair of marine biologists clad in the requisite white lab coats entered the conference room. A short, attractive female, her brunet hair tied back in a ponytail, walked to a suspended viewing screen at the front of the room, while her male assistant began typing commands into the computer-driven projection system.
“We have completed an assessment of forty-four discrete water samples collected, which were analyzed using molecular separation of existing toxic molecules,” she said in a clear voice. As she spoke, an image appeared on the screen behind her, similar to the navigation screen Biazon had noticed the ship tracking to earlier. A zigzag line line punctuated by forty-four large dots ran parallel to an outline of the pang lao Island shoreline. Each dot was color-coded, though Biazon noted that most of them glowed green.
“The samples were measured for toxic content in parts per billion, with positive results occurring in fifteen of the samples,” the biologist stated, pointing to a row of yellow dots. “As you can see from the chart, the concentration increases as the samples moved east, with the highest reading registered here,” she said, tracing past a few orange-colored dots to a lone red dot near the top of the map.
“So the source is from an isolated location,” Pitt said.
“The samples tested negative beyond the red point, indicating that it is likely of a concentrated origin spreading east with the current.”
“That would seem to dispel the red tide theory. Al, do the results mesh with anything we picked up on the sonar?”
Giordino walked over to the console and leaned over the operator's shoulder, typing in a quick series of commands. A dozen As suddenly appeared on the projection screen, overlaid at random points along the zigzag tracking line. Each AT was lettered, beginning with A at the bottom, proceeding to L near the top.
“Al's ”Dirty Dozen' hit list,“ he smiled, retaking his seat. ”We ran over twelve objects that appeared man-made. Mostly chunks of pipe, rusty anchors, and the like. Three items appeared that could be suspected culprits,“ he said, eyeing a sheet of handwritten notes. ”Mark Cwas a trio of fifty-five-gallon drums lying in the sand."
Every eye in the room jumped to the A'marked Con the overhead. The water samples on either side of the mark were all illuminated with green dots, which signified a negative test result.
“No toxins registered in the vicinity,” Pitt said. “Next.”
“Mark F looks to be a wooden sailboat, perhaps a local fishing boat. She's sitting upright on the bottom with her mast still standing.”
This AT was located adjacent to the first yellow dot. Pitt commented that it was still down current of the toxic readings.
“Strike two. But you're getting warmer.”
“My last mark is a little odd, as the image was just at the range of ij the sonar,” Giordino said, pausing with uncertainty.
“Well, what did it look like?” Stenseth asked.
“A ship's propeller. Looked like it was protruding from the reef. I couldn't make out any sign of the ship that went with it, though. Might just be a lone propeller that got bashed off against the reef. I tagged it at mark K”
Every voice in the room fell silent as their eyes found the A'marked Kon the overhead screen. It was positioned right above the red dot..;
“It would appear there's something more to it than just a propeller,” Pitt said finally. “Leaking fuel from a submerged ship, or perhaps its cargo?”
“We did not detect abnormally high readings of petroleum compounds in the water samples,” the NUMA biologist stated.
“You never did tell us what you found,” Giordino said, raising a dark eyebrow at the biologist.
“Yes, you said you did identify toxins in the water, didn't you?” Biazon asked anxiously. “What was it that you found?”
“Something I've never encountered in salt water before,” she replied, shaking her head slowly. “Arsenic.”
The coral reef exploded with a rainbow of colors arranged in a serene beauty that put a Monet landscape to shame. Bright red sea anemones waved their tentacles lazily in the current amid a carpet of magenta-colored sea sponges. Delicate green sea fans climbed gracefully toward the surface beside round masses of violet-hued brain coral. Brilliant blue starfish glowed from the reef like bright neon signs, while dozens of sea urchins blanketed the seafloor in a carpet of pink pincushions.
Few things in nature rivaled the beauty of a healthy coral reef, Pitt reflected as his eyes drank in the assortment of colors. Floating just off the bottom, he peered out his faceplate in amusement as a pair of small clown fish darted into a crevice as a spotted ray cruised by searching for a snack. Of all the world's great dive spots, he always felt it was the warm waters of the western Pacific that held the most breathtaking coral reefs.
“The wreck should be slightly ahead and to the north of us,”
Giordino's voice crackled through his ears, breaking the tranquility. After mooring the Mariana Explorer over the site of the maximum toxin readings, Pitt and Giordino donned rubberized dry suits with full faceplates to protect them from potential chemical or biological contamination Dropping over the side, they splashed into the clear warm water that dropped 120 feet to the bottom. \
The readings of arsenic in the water had been startling to everyone. Dr. Biazon reported that arsenic seepage had been known to occur in mining operations around the country and that several manganese mines operated on Bohol Island, but added that none were located near Panglao. Arsenic was also utilized in insecticides, the NUMA biologist countered. Perhaps an insecticide container was lost off a vessel, or intentionally dumped? There was only one way to find out, Pitt declared, and that was to go down and have a look.
With Giordino at his side, Pitt checked his compass, then thrust his fins together, kicking himself at an angle across the invisible current. The visibility was nearly seventy-five feet and Pitt could observe the reef gradually rising to shallower depths as he glided just above the bottom. His skin quickly began to sweat under the thick dry suit, its protective layer providing more insulation than was required in the warm tropical waters.
“Somebody turn on the air-conditioning,” he heard Giordino mutter, verbalizing his own sentiments.
With eyes aimed forward, he still saw no signs of a shipwreck, but noted that the coral bottom rose up sharply ahead. To his right, a large underwater sand dune boiled up against the reef, its rippled surface stretching beyond Pitt's field of vision. Reaching the coral uplift, he tilted his upper body toward the surface and thrust with a large scissors kick to propel himself up and over its jagged edge. He was surprised to find that the reef dropped vertically away on the other side, creating a large crevasse. More surprising was what he saw at the bottom of the ravine. It was the bow half of a ship.
“What the heck?” Giordino uttered, spotting the partial wreckage of the ship.
Pitt studied the partial remains of the ship for a moment, then laughed through the underwater communication system. “Got me, too. It's an optical illusion. The rest of the ship is there, it's just buried under the sand dune.”
Giordino studied the wreck and saw that Pitt was right. The large sand dune that affronted the reef had built up partway into the crevasse and neatly covered the stern half of the ship. The current swirling through the crevasse had halted the onslaught of the sand at a point amidships of the wreck in a nearly perfect line, which gave the impression that only half a ship existed.
Pitt turned away from the exposed portion of the ship, swimming over the empty sand dune for several yards before it dropped sharply beneath him.
“Here's your propeller, Al,” he said, pointing down.
Beneath his fins, a small section of the ship's stern was exposed. The brown-encrusted skin curved down to a large brass propeller, which protruded from the sand dune like a windmill. Giordino kicked over and inspected the propeller, than swam up the sternpost several feet and began brushing away a layer of sand. From the curvature of the stern, he could tell that the ship was listing sharply to its port side, which was also apparent from the exposed bow section. Pitt floated over and watched as Giordino was able to expose the last few letters of the ship's name beaded onto the stern.
“Something maru is the most I can get,” he said, struggling to trench into a refilling hole of sand.
“She's Japanese,” Pitt said, “and, by the looks of the corrosion, she's been here awhile. If she's leaking toxins, it would have to be from the bow section.”
Giordino stopped digging in the sand and followed Pitt as he swam toward the exposed front of the ship. The vessel eerily emerged again from the sand dune at its main funnel, which jutted nearly horizontally, its top edged meshed into the coral wall. From its small bridge' section and long forward deck, Pitt could see that the vessel was a common oceangoing cargo ship. He judged her length at slightly more than two hundred feet. As they swam over the angled topside, he could see that the main deck had vanished, its wooden planking disintegrated long ago in the warm Philippine waters.
“Those are some ancient-looking hoists,” Giordino remarked, eyeing a small pair of rusty derricks that reached across the deck like outstretched arms.
“If I had to guess, I'd say she was probably built in the twenties,” Pitt replied, kicking past a deck rail that appeared to be made of brass. Pitt made his way along the deck until he reached a pair of large square hatch covers, the capstones to the ship's forward cargo holds. With the freighter's heavy list, Pitt had expected to find the hatch covers pitched off the storage compartments, but that wasn't the case. Together, the two men swam around the circumference of each hatch, searching for damage or signs of leakage.
“Locked down and sealed tight as a drum,” Giordino said after they returned to their starting point.
“There must be a breach somewhere else.”
Silently finishing his thought, Pitt slowly ascended until he could look down the curving starboard side and exposed hull. Surrounding the ship, the coral reef rose sharply on either side. Following his instincts, he swam down the starboard hull all the way to the partially exposed keel line, then moved slowly toward the bow. Kicking just a short distance, he suddenly halted. Before him, a jagged four-foot-wide gash stretched nearly twenty feet down the starboard hull to the very tip of the bow. The sound of whistling burst through his ears as Giordino swam up and surveyed the gaping wound.
“Just like the Titanic” he marveled. “Only she scraped herself to the bottom on a coral head instead of a chunk of ice.”
“She must have been trying to run aground on purpose,” Pitt surmised.
“Outrunning a typhoon, probably.”
“Or maybe a Navy Corsair. Leyte Gulf is just around the corner, where the Japanese fleet was decimated in 1944.”
The Philippine Islands were a hotly contested piece of real estate in World War II, Pitt recalled. More than sixty thousand Americans lost their lives in the failed defense and later recapture of the islands, a forgotten toll that exceeded the losses in Vietnam. On the heels of the surprise attack at Pearl Harbor, Japanese forces had landed near Manila and quickly overrun the U.S. and Philippine forces garrisoned at Luzon, Bataan, and Corregidor. General MacArthur's hasty retreat was followed by three years of Japanese oppressive rule, until American advances across the Pacific led to the invasion of the southern island of Leyte in October 1944.