Electra

Chapter 6

The next morning, soon after sunrise, Maddock and Bones rode in the Zodiac with Bruce Watanabe, this time his only passengers. The two SEALs each sat on one of the inflatable boat’s pontoons, riding out to the marker buoy in silence. They would have the first dive of the day on the plane to themselves. They knew this would be a huge opportunity to further their mission agenda before they were working in close contact with Spinney’s men.

Once anchored on the site Maddock and Bones strapped their gear on and splashed into the water. “Comm check, you hear me?” Watanabe’s voice in their facemask headsets was a reminder that although they were alone, what they said to each other was being monitored.

Maddock responded, “Loud and clear,” and then he and Bones dropped down along the buoy line. They followed the same path they’d swum with Bugsy and within a few minutes were staring once again at the sunken plane.

Maddock spoke inside his face mask. “Topside, we are on the plane, going to have a look around, over.”

Watanabe’s reply was instant. “Copy that.”

Maddock and Bones had already discussed their plans for the dive in secret last night after the campfire, and the two of them headed straight for the opening Maddock had seen in the ledge. The water was clear and it was easy to see where they were going. They flicked their dive lights on, rounded the plane’s tail and swam under the wing. Maddock pointed up into the opening in the ceiling. Bones nodded.

“Topside, we’ve located a possible opening in the coral wall. We’re going to see if it might lead anywhere.”

Watanabe’s voice came back immediately. “Topside here: copy that. Be advised that we may lose communication if you get deep into a tunnel, over.”

“Copy.”

Maddock finned upward to the ceiling of the cavern where the cockpit of the plane disappeared into the coral wall. Bones was right behind him. They swam up over the lip of the entrance and into an irregular chamber. They were greeted with a solid wall only a few feet in front of them, but rough passages led off to the right and left. Colorful sponges and tubeworms covered the walls and ceiling. Maddock played his light around the confined area for a few seconds before pointing left.

“Plane’s that way, so let’s check this tunnel first.”

“Right behind you.”

Although it was fairly high — a tall man could stand inside with headroom to spare — the tunnel wasn’t wide enough for both divers to swim side-by-side. Maddock moved slowly into the passage, shining his light in a slow arc as he went. Ahead the tunnel curved to the left and they followed it, only to have it jog back right. It also became a little lower and more narrow.

“Good thing I’m not claustrophobic, Bones said. “Right about now I wish I was your puny size. If this thing gets any smaller I’m gonna be like a cork in a bottle.”

It was a thought that gave him pause. One negative about diving this deep and in a confined space without the rest of the team meant that if anything went wrong they were on their own. Sure, Watanabe would know what happened, but it wouldn’t do them any good. By the time anyone from the team got all the way down here, they’d have run out of air.

“Up here it forks,” Maddock said. “The passage we’re in leads down while another one goes off to the right. Let’s take the low road.”

“I usually do. Low road, copy that.”

Maddock continued along the tunnel down until it flared out and ended abruptly — opening into a large space below.

“Dropping into a room….” Maddock wanted Bones to have a heads up. They could not afford to get separated. Another thing he found alarming was that without their lights it would be pitch black in the tunnels. Besides their main flashlights, they each carried a small backup light clipped to their vests, but still, being lost in a pitch black maze two-hundred feet underwater wasn’t something he liked to contemplate.

Maddock allowed himself to drift to the floor of the cave. He stood there with his fins flat on the bottom. A medium-sized fish gave him a start as it came face-to-mask with him and then darted off. As soon as he saw Bones’ light beam sweep the chamber, he took off again, swimming slowly and cautiously around a large coral protuberance.

There, occupying almost the entire enclosed space, was the cockpit of the old airplane. Maddock stared up at it in wonder. When they were first told they were looking for Amelia Earhart’s airplane he’d pictured a small craft, perhaps a rickety old wooden plane befitting the 1930s. However, from the briefing he learned it was, of course, metal — a Lockheed Electra. And he’d been given the approximate dimensions, too, but seeing it down here right in front of him gave him a whole new perspective. It was a big aircraft, towering above him. In his mind’s eye he envisioned skinny Amelia climbing up into the cockpit from the ladder steps, giving a last wave to the crowd gathered on the runway.

The main body of the plane was on the other side of the coral wall. He could see now that much of the wall above had crumbled and broken in on the craft, trapping it here. It would not be easy to extricate, if possible at all.

But that was Spinney’s problem. He and Bones just need to see what was in it and get it out. Presently the large Indian swam up beside him, illuminating the aircraft.

“Nice! You see that?”

He held his beam in one place — the cockpit window.

Maddock nodded. “All the glass has been busted out.” They watched as a fish swam out through the broken windscreen.

He consulted his pressure gauge. This was not the place to run out of air.

“Let’s hurry up and get it done.”

Maddock pressed the button on his BCD to add air to his vest, creating a soft pfft, and then he pushed gently off the bottom, rising to the level of the windscreen.

“Looks like it popped out completely.” Maddock positioned himself to swim through the opening. He played his light into the plane, getting the first look inside the cockpit at what might very well be the most sought-after missing aircraft in the world.

Bones echoed his thoughts as he leveled out next him in front of the windscreen. “No bodies that I can see.”

“Right. Shall we?” Maddock extended a hand into the cockpit.

“Ladies first.”

It was a tight squeeze, but Maddock floated through the opening into the Electra’s cockpit, descending between the two steering wheels, one in front of each of the two cockpit seats. Looking down as he passed over, he saw that the instrument console was encrusted with growth, although mostly still readable. Looking aft, toward the tail of the plane, he found he could see all the way to the end of it as it passed through the coral wall on the outside. Jumbles of gear and debris littered the interior of the fuselage. He could see right away that it would take some time to sort out.

“Man, they weren’t much for legroom back in the day, were they?” Bones settled in between the pilot and co-pilots’ seats on the floor of the plane, right behind Maddock.

“Amelia was quite a bit shorter than you. Better looking, too.”

“You got me there. Plus the navigator guy, Noonan — he sat in back with all his equipment, so this front seat was unoccupied.” He tapped the rim of the seat, sending a puff of silt wafting into the water.

“Hey, somebody read up on their history. I’m impressed!” Maddock was careful not to reference their briefing documents. “Now let’s get to work. Serial number. Should be a small brass plate up here. Pilot’s side under the console.”

Bones turned around and positioned himself so that he could look underneath the instrument cluster. “Looking…” He directed his beam along the growth-covered surfaces. There was only room for one of them in that area of the plane so Maddock played his light around the rear cargo area while he waited. He saw two globe-shaped objects on either side of the floor. He kicked off and floated gently over to them like an astronaut inside a space station.

“Think I’ve got it.” Bones lay sideways in the cockpit, his head wedged beneath the pilot seat, facing forward. One hand held him in position while the other held his light.

“Think I’ve got something back here, too.” Maddock settled onto his knees next to one of the globular objects. He fanned a gloved hand over it, clearing some of the silt that had accumulated there. Near the base of the object was an opening. He slipped his fingers inside it and lifted. At first nothing happened but he sure it was supposed to be a sliding dome cover, so he pulled again, more forcefully this time, and he was rewarded with a snapping sound as the dome’s cover slid open. Beneath it was the other half of the spherical shape — containing a large camera. He could see that, although now nearly opaque with marine growth, the dome was some sort of plastic that was set through the plane’s body, enabling pictures to be taken looking straight down.

Odd that if this is Earhart’s plane, she would have had it modified to accommodate these kinds of cameras. The extra weight and expense, compromising the integrity of the fuselage…

“Metal plate!” Bones’ excited tone shook him from his thoughts.

“Can you read it?”

“Hold on. Let me see if I can scrub it off. Cross your fingers.”

Maddock turned around to see Bones in the cockpit. His light was held steady on one spot.

“Yes! Serial number. I can read it. NR—”

“Wait. Hold on, let me write it down.” Maddock picked up the writing slate and pencil clipped to his vest. “Go.”

“NR 16020.”

Maddock wrote down the numbers with mounting excitement until the string was complete. He recognized the serial number from their briefing materials.

They were inside Amelia Earhart’s lost airplane!

A flash of light going off up front indicated that Bones took a photo of the plate.

“How’s it going back there?” Bones extricated himself from beneath the instrument console and turned around to look at Maddock.

“Found some—” Maddock cut himself off, aware that Watanabe would probably be able to hear him. “Found some stuff back here, not sure what it all is,” he settled on. Visually, he made an exaggerated pointing motion toward the dome camera he sat next to. Bones nodded his understanding and swam over. He looked at the camera, then frowned, wagging a hand back and forth as if to say, it was iffy that it was worth anything. The dome port was completely flooded and although it was clear that the object inside had been a camera, it was now little more than a rusted mass of parts fused together. Maddock went to the camera on the other side and examined it. Same thing. When he looked up from it, Bones was pointing at something in the rear of the plane.

A couple of boxes, taking up a fair amount of space. That’s what they looked like to Maddock from his position at the ruined dome camera. He and Bones swam through the plane to the rear-most cargo area, passing over what was obviously navigation equipment — brass devices that looked like sextants, a small telescope, a chronometer and a ruler of some type. They ignored them, heading for the boxes. Maddock went to one and Bones the other. Constructed of metal, they were each about two feet on a side. They had stout buckles and looked like they might still have watertight seals. Maddock cleared some twisted metal off his until he could heft its weight. He set it back down after realizing that it would not be easy to move.

He motioned to Bones to get his attention and held a finger over his lips outside his mask, warning him not to mention the boxes over the comm line. Bones nodded and looked at his air gauge, reminding Maddock to do the same. In their excitement of finding a way inside the plane, both had forgotten to check their air for a while.

The numbers were not encouraging.

“Time to go.” Maddock immediately dropped his crate and wrote on his slate, showing it to Bones: NEXT TIME.

Bones nodded.

Maddock quickly took some digital snapshots of the plane’s cabin — without showing the boxes — and then he and Bones swam out through the Electra’s windshield.