Numa Files: Ghost Ship Part 14

The shout came from William "Duke" Jennings, one of NUMA's most experienced submersible pilots.

"No thanks," Paul said. "I prefer something with lots of headroom. Or even a convertible, but that's not going to work a thousand feet under."

"Good point," Duke said. His next target was one of the more shapely women on deck. "What about it, Elena? Room for two in there. Can't beat the view."

By that, everyone knew Duke was referring to himself. Duke looked like a surfer: young and muscular, with bronzed skin and a mane of blond hair. Even now, he had his shirt off. He was humorous and c.o.c.ky and pretty good at everything he did to back it up.

"No thanks," Elena responded. "I'd rather be in a phone booth with an amorous octopus."

Duke feigned grave injury. "Where are you going to find a phone booth these days?"

As the crew continued working, the hatch swung open behind Paul. Gamay stepped through, headed for his side.

Five foot ten, with hair the color of red wine, and smooth pale skin, Gamay was an athlete and in fantastic shape. She had a sharp wit that was usually used in jest, though you didn't want to be on her bad side, as she didn't suffer fools lightly.

"I see we're almost ready," she said.

"Just about," Paul said. "Think we're going to find anything down there?"

"I don't know," Gamay said. "But look at this."

She handed him a printout from the multibeam sonar scan. It showed the Ethernet lying on the seafloor eight hundred feet below. They were lucky. The ship had landed on a shelf that stuck out like a submerged peninsula in the deeper waters of the Mozambique Channel. Ten miles in either direction and she'd be sitting under four thousand feet of water.

Paul noticed something more significant almost immediately. "She's in one piece," he said. "Kurt was told the ship had broken up into several sections on the way down. None of us ever questioned it."

"I wonder where he got his information," Gamay replied.

"Or who had sent him the incorrect information," Paul asked.

"I talked with Ms. Ericsson," she said. "If the subconscious part of his mind is running with a fantasy or delusion, it will do everything it can to keep the story alive. Knowing the ship didn't break up would mean the task of confirming the truth was easily done by searching her."

"Then it was easy for him to take the report at face value. The delusion couldn't allow that to happen," Paul guessed.

"I'm told it's fairly common."

Paul felt a knot in his stomach. It was hard to fathom one of the people he admired most could be off his game so badly. It made him all the more determined that they should find the answer.

"Let's get this show on the road," he said.

Gamay nodded and made her way to the stairs. "I'll be in Scarab One."

"I'll monitor you from the control room," Paul said. "Be careful."

He gave her a kiss and let her go. As Gamay made her way down to the aft deck, Paul took a long look around. He saw nothing but the peaceful sea in all directions. Hoping it would stay that way, he stepped inside.

With Scarab One ready to be hoisted, Gamay climbed in and took a seat on the right-hand side. To her left sat Elena Vasquez, the submersible's pilot. Elena was pet.i.te, with short black hair and a mocha-colored complexion. A former Navy diver, she was a recent addition to NUMA.

While Elena drove the sub, Gamay would handle the undersea communications and operate the mechanical arms, which were outfitted with cutting tools, including acetylene torches and a circular saw with a diamond-tipped carbon steel blade. It could cut through two-inch armor plate with ease. Attached to the other arm was a small hydraulic wedge, something like the Jaws of Life that paramedics used to pry open mangled cars on the highway.

The plan was simple: Cut open the side of the hull, send a remote "swimming" camera into the ship, and look for the bodies.

Gamay put on a headset and ran through her checklist. Elena did the same from her command seat.

"My board is green," Elena said.

"Mine too," Gamay replied. She spoke into the headset's microphone. "Scarab One ready to go. Put us in the water."

The hydraulics of the crane went into action and the eightton craft was lifted from the deck and carried over the side of the Condor. With careful precision, it was lowered into the waiting sea.

A loud clanking sound and the feeling of the craft settling told them the submersible had been released.

"Scarab One, you're clear of the boom. Turning you over to control."

With that, Paul's voice came on the radio. "You're clear to dive."

Seconds later, Duke's voice came over the headset with mock indignation. "You're cutting in line, Scarab One. I was supposed to go first."

"You snooze, you lose," Gamay replied. Elena chuckled. "Girls rule, boys drool," she added over the radio. "Deploying communications beacon. See you on the bottom."

With a calm hand, Elena flicked through a series of switches. Air began to vent from the sub's ballast tanks, and the green seawater swirled up around the clear c.o.c.kpit, soon engulfing them.

Elena engaged the thrusters. With incredible smoothness, the orange vehicle began the long dive. It would be nearly thirty minutes before the bottom would be visible.

Gamay switched the exterior lights on as they pa.s.sed two hundred feet. At a depth of almost eight hundred feet, the seafloor came into view.

" Scarab One on the floor," Gamay said. Her radio call was transmitted up a fiber-optic cable no thicker than a monofilament fishing line to a small buoy at the surface. The buoy had an antenna that relayed the signal to the Condor. "Proceeding to the wreck site."

Moments later, the wreck came into view. The Ethernet was sitting on its keel in the silt, almost perfectly upright. There was some crushing damage near the bow as she'd clearly hit nosefirst, but little else seemed damaged.

"We have her in sight," Gamay replied. "Front end looks like an accordion, topside external structures seem fine. Radar mast and antennas are missing. But, other than that, she looks like she's on display at a boat show."

As they circled around the port side of the Ethernet, Gamay caught sight of lights dropping down through the black water on the starboard side. "Duke, is that you? Or are we being visited by UFOs?"

"You can all relax," he replied. "The Duke is on the job." Gamay rolled her eyes. "Glad you could join us. We'll work the port side, you work the starboard. That way, we keep our comm lines from getting tangled."

"Roger that," Duke replied.

Elena turned to Gamay. "Where do you want to start?" "Let's go in up top," Gamay said. "That's where Westgate said his wife and kids were waiting. It's also where Kurt may or may not have seen them."

Elena nodded and rotated the thrusters. The Scarab rose up along the side of the hull, moving slowly toward the shattered windows of the bridge.

"We could put the camera in through the window," Elena suggested.

"I don't like the look of all that gla.s.s," Gamay said. "If it cuts the wire, we'll lose the swimmer. Let's pull the door off."

Elena nodded and operated the control column and thrust lever with the skill of a fighter pilot.

She focused one of the spotlights on the hatch. It was slightly ajar. When Elena brought the Scarab in close enough, Gamay was able to grasp it with one of the sub's claws. A few pulls told her it was stuck.

"We're going to have to cut it loose," she said.

The sub began drifting back.

"We're caught in a crosscurrent swirling over the superstructure," Elena explained.

"Can you compensate?"

"With ease."

As they repositioned, Duke's voice came over the radio. "This side is in fairly good shape. No sign of damage that couldn't be attributed to hitting the bottom. Continuing inspection."

By now Elena had repositioned the sub, and Gamay was ready with the cutting torch.

With a snap and sizzle, the acetylene torch flared to life. A stream of bubbles flowed toward the surface. They cut through the hinges and grasped the door with the gripper handle. With a light pull, Gamay drew the heavy steel door back and it toppled slowly onto the deck with a muted thump.

"Releasing camera," Gamay said.

In a moment the Scarab's little swimming camera was heading inside the sunken yacht. It had its own spotlight and power source but was tethered to the Scarab by a thin fiber-optic line through which the camera feed was relayed.

"The bridge is filled with debris," she noted. She directed the camera to pan and scan and soon they had a three-sixty swath of everything on the bridge. The gla.s.s wall-which Kurt had seen-was still in place, though it was covered with a network of cracks.

"Looks like a Pennsylvania road map," she noted.

Between the damage and the thin film of slime that had grown upon it, they could not see through it.

"Have to go around," Gamay said.

An open hatchway suggested a possible route, and Gamay sent the camera in that direction.

"Weird that all the hatches are open." This came from Paul, who was seeing the same video feed as they were. "Considering that the ship was in distress and going down, all the watertight doors should have been shut."

As Gamay directed the small camera toward the hatch, Duke chimed in.

"Got something over here, Condor. Sea c.o.c.ks for the engine cooling system appear to be open."

"If the ship was taking on water, those should have been closed as well," Gamay replied.

"My thoughts exactly," Duke said. "Heading to the stern."

Gamay guided the camera into the main salon. She couldn't bring herself to hope they'd find a drowned woman and her children. Not even if it meant the end of the mystery.

"Scoping out the salon now," she said.

Like the bridge, the main salon was filled with debris. The heavier items remained on the floor. The buoyant items- cushions, life vests, plastic bottles, and bins-floated around the ceiling. She had to guide the camera beneath them, like flying under a cloud layer.

Fortunately, they were deep enough that little algae could grow, but there was plenty of silt in the water, courtesy of the Mozambique current and the "snow" falling from above. And despite the fact that the camera's thrusters were tiny, they stirred it up with each maneuver.

Duke came on the line again. "Got a gaping hole at the stern end."

"Impact or explosion?" Paul asked from above.

"I'd say neither," Duke replied. "The edges are too sharp. It almost looks like an entire plate is missing from the hull. I'll deploy the camera and send up some pretty pics."

Gamay listened to the chatter but concentrated on the task at hand. Having reached the far corner, she turned the camera around for another run to the front of the salon.

"Going idle for a minute," she said. "The main cabin is getting clouded by silt. I need to let it settle."

As she waited for the water to clear, Duke's voice came back over the radio. "Something odd here. I've put the camera in through the hole on what I'm fairly certain is deck number two. Should be aft staterooms. Instead, it's like some kind of equipment bay."

"Better check the schematics," Elena said. "Knowing Duke, he's cut into the wrong deck."

Gamay tapped the computer screen in front of her and brought up the structural drawings of the ship. NUMA had downloaded them from the manufacturer. It showed a storeroom above the keel, then cabins on deck two, then a lounge at the top.

"There's a cradle in here," Duke said. "It's fairly strong rigging. Clearly designed to support something heavy. I see a watertight door at the far end. There's something written on the door. Trying to get close enough to read it."

Still waiting for the silt in the main cabin to settle, Gamay switched to the video feed from Duke's camera. The lens was facing away as Duke used the thrusters to blast the slime from the watertight door he'd found.

When he spun the camera back around and pointed it toward the door, Gamay could see a gray bulkhead of heavy steel. Yellow chevrons cut across it like warning signs. Beneath the chevrons were two words.

" 'Survival Pod,' " Gamay said, reading aloud. "The ship has been modified since it left the builder."

"I've heard about those," Elena said. "Just like some celebrities have panic rooms where they can hide from stalkers or the zombie apocalypse, some of these bigwigs have outfitted their ships with 'escape pods' and 'panic boats.' The owners climb in, seal the door, and eject from the sinking ship."

"That explains the smooth outline of the hole," Duke said. "Looks like a panel was blown out with explosive bolts."

Gamay nodded. "Once they're free, the pod can either float or submerge up to a hundred feet. Deep enough to keep them out of the reach of pirates or terrorists. Or to ride out the worst storm imaginable. Depending on how many occupants, they might have a week of supplies and at least a day or two of oxygen. They call for help with the same kind of buoy transmitter we're using and either Coast Guard or contracted security companies come in and scoop them up."

Paul broke in. "So if the yacht had one, why didn't Westgate and his family use it?"

"Maybe he couldn't get to it," Duke suggested. "Maybe the lower decks were flooded."

"Someone got to it," Gamay pointed out.

"Maybe some other crew members."

"So where are they?" Elena asked.

Gamay felt a chill on her neck. "Maybe something's going on here after all."

"Hate to be a wet blanket," Paul said, "but any number of things could explain the missing pod, including a malfunction, or some type of auto release. Suppose the ship goes beyond a certain state, like being submerged? Let's not get ourselves all worked up just yet."

"My husband," Gamay said. "The voice of reason. I'll make sure to repeat those words to you next time your Red Sox are blowing a lead in the bottom of the ninth."

"As long as it's not against the Yankees."

Gamay smiled and switched back to the feed from her own camera. The silt had cleared. She made a last lap in the main salon, moving slowly, trying not to miss anything.

She was about to exhale when she caught sight of a hand floating limply beyond some roughly piled furniture. "d.a.m.n."