Splashdown

Chapter 4

Dane and Bones ran to the trawler’s pilothouse where Dane picked up the radio and keyed the transmitter.

“Attention R/V Ocean Explorer, this is fishing trawler Atlantic Pride acknowledging your transmission.” Dane repeated his message one more time before they received a reply.

“Atlantic Pride, you are advised to fish away from this area, which is now the site of a deep water salvage operation. Fishing gear in the water may interfere with salvage operations. Do you copy?”

Bones glanced through his binoculars at the salvage ship in the distance. “They worried we might snag their ROV cables with our lines from a mile away?”

Dane held the transmitter at the ready without keying it while he weighed the question. “More than likely they just don’t want anyone around. But let’s have a little fun.” He spoke into the microphone.

“We copy. We’ll stay clear.” He kept his tone casual. “Mind if we ask what you’re salvaging?”

Bones raised his eyebrows. Would they be truthful? But the reply was easygoing.

“Space capsule on the bottom. We’re filming for a Science Channel cable special.”

Dane grinned at Bones as he replied. “Cool! I wouldn’t mind getting a look at that. When do you plan to bring it up?”

Bones’ eyes bugged out at the directness of the questions. But once again, the television crew’s representative seemed unfazed by the line of inquiry. Why shouldn’t they be open when they had no reason to believe anyone would want the capsule more than they did?

“We’re in the middle of some last minute prep work now, but weather permitting we’re looking at starting the actual salvage tomorrow morning. I’d advise you give us a wide berth. Never know what might go wrong.”

Dane and Bones exchanged a concerned glance, and Dane said off air, “I was hoping we’d have a day or two to get a feel for the situation, but if they’re going to try and raise the Liberty Bell tomorrow then we’ve got to do something tonight.”

Bones gave a heavy sigh. The people backing their orders had acted just in time. He nodded.

Dane resumed his radio exchange. “Good luck and thanks for the heads up. We’ll stay out of your way. Oh, one more question if you have a second?”

Bones gave a silent laugh. Dane was really pushing the intel gathering, but they were short on time, so why not?

“Go ahead.”

“Is that other ship about a mile to your southeast part of your operation also?”

“Negative. They’re part of a separate salvage operation diving on a shipwreck. You’d have to ask them exactly what they’re up to. Back to work here, good luck fishing. Catch a couple for me.”

Dane gave a pleasant sign-off and hung up the radio transmitter. “They didn’t say what kind of shipwreck they were diving or make any mention of treasure,” Dane noted.

“Probably figured they’d told us enough. More than I would have guessed.”

Dane agreed. “Here are our options the way I see them: One, we make a dive on the capsule tonight. Hopefully the TV crew takes a break at night, but we can’t count on that since it doesn’t get any darker three miles underwater.”

Bones squinted through the binoculars’ optics. “They don’t show any signs of slowing down from this distance. I see cranes moving, work lights on…”

“Two, we see if we can stealth-board the ship, then steal the nuke when and if they bring it aboard. Let them do the work, we steal the spoils.”

Bones made a face. “Sketchy, bro.”

Dane nodded. “Or three, we check out what’s going on over at the shipwreck salvage operation.”

“What for?”

Dane shrugged. “Something to do while we decided which of the first two to do. Test out the gear on something not quite as critical.”

“But the TV guys could see us doing that and then our cover’s blown right out of the water.”

“True. Just thinking through our options.”

“The easiest thing would be if we dove on the capsule ourselves and plucked the nuke from it on the first dive.”

“That does sound pretty easy. Night launch a submersible, dive three miles down, pick up a nuclear bomb inside a lost space capsule. Bring it back to the boat undetected.” Dane rolled his eyes.

“Relatively easy. Would you rather scuba dive at night a half mile or so from our boat to theirs, climb aboard undetected, hide out until they raise the capsule. Somehow get what’s inside it without them knowing and bring it back to our ship?” Bones returned Dane’s eye roll with interest. “And checking out the shipwreck. That’s probably the easiest, but it doesn’t really help us achieve our objective.”

“Right, so take a look.” Dane pointed to a GPS display in the console. “We motor another quarter mile closer to the Ocean Explorer and then we go for it.

Bones nodded. “I’ll head down and get things set up.”

A quarter-mile from the Science Channel ship, Dane engaged the auto-pilot to keep the vessel in a fixed position. So far he still saw only the same two vessels, and no one had made any contact with him since the initial radio call from the Ocean Explorer. He stepped out of the wheelhouse and into the cool evening air. Looking out over the water, he was pleased to note that the sea was relatively calm.

He descended the short flight of stairs down to the work deck where he pushed open a door that led to a seafood processing area. Retracing the route Captain Epson had show him in port, Dane then opened what looked like the door to a walk-in freezer. Behind its doors, however, lay not an ice encrusted fish box, but a tightly wound spiral staircase leading down. He descended the ladder-like structure, clutching the rail for support against the motion of the boat until he came out on a flat area belowdecks.

Well lit by ceiling mounted fluorescents, the space offered no view to the world above — no portholes, skylights, or doors. It did offer a different kind of view, however, and that portal dominated the center of the veiled space.

Known as a “moon pool,” the unique vessel design featured a circular hole cut directly in the boat’s hull, through which the ocean was directly accessible. The bottom of the pool could be sealed with a door while underway, and the sides of the pool protruded into the vessel in an extended lip. Dane heard the lapping of water against steel as he strode toward the watery aperture.

Bones was already here, fussing over the centerpiece of the room: a two-person submersible suspended from a crane a few feet above the water that swayed slightly within the moon pool’s perimeter. The words Deep Black were stenciled inconspicuously on the black metal undercarriage that supported the cabin.

“Check out our sweet new ride,” Bones said.

“The name fits. What do you think of her?” Dane asked as he walked over to the moon pool.

“It’s a lot like the one we trained on.” Bones rapped his knuckles on the underwater vehicle’s clear dome. “It does have something a little extra, though.” He pointed underneath the sub’s belly. The feature was out of sight from Dane’s vantage point, but because of Epson’s tour, he had a pretty good idea of what it was.

“Weapons package?”

Bones grinned broadly. “We’ve got a six-pack of short-range, underwater-to-underwater missiles.”

“How about the manipulator arms?” Dane asked, wanting to deflect discussion of possibly having to use the craft’s lethal weapons against a ship full of clueless science and history buffs.

“Both grab-arms checked out perfectly. I could lift a girl’s skirt like that.” He snapped his fingers.

“Please don’t.”

Dane circled the sub, appraising the craft that would take them three miles below the ocean, the machine upon which their life and mission success would depend. They went through a thorough checklist of safety related items, checking battery charge states, oxygen tank levels, carbon dioxide scrubbers, fire extinguishers and so forth. Once these checks were satisfactorily completed, Dane climbed into the pilot’s seat.

“Ready?”

“Let’s take her for a spin.” Bones moved to the crane that would lower the sub into the moon pool. He operated the crane’s controls to slowly lower the sub to the surface of the water. “Would be nice to have more crew at a time like this. It’s not like we’re getting paid by the hour.”

Bones released the sub from the crane. Normal operating procedures called for both of them to be inside the sub when it was dropped from the crane, with the hatch closed. But the high degree of secrecy surrounding their mission meant that they would have no support personnel, necessitating a riskier launch.

“Well, it’s just us. Don’t rock the boat too much when you drag your big butt onboard, or we’ll have to phone the Admiral that we sank the nifty little spy sub he gave us.”

Bones grimaced at the thought. He went to the edge of the moon pool and pulled the craft to him with a rope. He gingerly stepped aboard, wasting no time settling into his co-pilot seat where his weight would be properly distributed. Then he reached up and drew the acrylic dome hatch down over them, taking comfort in the familiar pressure against his eardrums as the bubble was sealed.

Dane immediately vented the buoyancy tanks and brought the sub straight down to avoid banging into the edge of the moon pool before they were below the boat’s hull. He looked up once from a depth of one hundred feet and saw the warm glow of the boat’s open underside. Below them lay only darkness.

Dane poised his hands on the controls. To conserve battery power on the three mile trip to the seafloor they would simply sink under force of gravity, with most of the sub’s systems powered off. “About to shut off all non-critical systems. You good?”

“Always. You got the radio patch set up?”

If anyone hailed the Atlantic Pride on the marine radio while they were in the sub, it would seem strange not to respond, and could draw increased scrutiny. Dane tapped the sub’s radio.

“If we get a radio call topside, we’ll be able to respond from down here without anyone being the wiser.”

“Kind of reminds me of forwarding work calls to a home number without telling the boss you won’t be coming in that day.”

Dane grinned as he consulted his sonar display and the two SEALs plummeted toward the bottom of the ocean.