The Deep

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

If a bubble helicopter married a submarine, their offspring might look very much like the DSV Deep Scout. A gleaming sphere made of clear acrylic sprouted from a titanium hull that was pockmarked with lights, cameras, and other instruments. Six folded manipulator arms gave the submersible an almost insectlike appearance.

“Isn’t she beautiful?” crowed Captain Vanover.

“No,” said Dante with conviction.

“I guess not,” the captain conceded. “But she’ll take us where we need to go. Besides, this boat is usually booked six months in advance. You kids have no idea how many favors I had to call in and people I had to lie to in order to get us on the schedule on such short notice.”

Deep Scout sat on the launch deck of its support vessel. Scoutmaster was a much larger ship than the Hernando Cortés or the Ponce de León. It had to be to house the crane mechanism required to place the deep-sea vehicle in the water, and to pluck it out again when the mission was done.

Kaz’s head was spinning by the end of the handshakes and introductions. “It takes this many guys to run one little submersible?” he whispered.

“Most of these are Scoutmaster’s crew,” Vanover replied. “But there’s always a tech on board monitoring the sub’s every move. Remember, Deep Scout was built to explore the ocean floor at depths of up to two miles.” Seeing Dante turn gray, he added quickly, “We won’t be going that far down.”

Vanover left them and climbed the metal ladder to the big ship’s towering bridge. It was his job to direct Scoutmaster’s captain to the correct coordinates where Dr. Ocasek’s camera array had spotted the second debris field.

Dante leaned against the rail, observing the beehive of activity. “You think we’re going to have to split the money with all these people?”

Adriana was disgusted. “Is that all this is to you? Money?”

“Yeah, well, maybe those of us who don’t already have one-point-two billion dollars are kind of looking forward to seeing how the other half lives,” Dante shot back.

Her eyes narrowed in anger. “You have no way of knowing how much my family has or doesn’t have.”

“You don’t have to apologize for being rich,” Dante insisted. “But don’t act all superior because you’re in this for pure archaeology. It’s easy to be high-minded when you don’t need the money. I do.”

“I don’t care about the money,” Star put in grimly. “I just want to see the look on Cutter’s face when we show up with that treasure. Us — the losers he picked because we wouldn’t be a threat… the cripple who couldn’t possibly dive….” Her voice trailed off, but her eyes were blazing. “I just want to see that.”

Money. Science. Revenge. Kaz marveled at the different reasons his fellow interns had for coveting this treasure. His mind was on something else entirely — the skull they had unearthed at Cutter’s excavation. More than three hundred years ago, people had perished in this shipwreck.

And we’re going to take their stuff because they’re in no shape to protect it anymore.

The logic was ridiculous. All the gold in the world wouldn’t help those poor sailors, three centuries dead, their descendants scattered across dozens of generations.

Besides, if we don’t get that treasure, Cutter will.

His reverie was interrupted by Vanover’s call from the bridge. “Show time, folks!”

If Scoutmaster’s deck was busy and frenetic, the cabin of the submersible was an incredibly lonely place. When the hatch was sealed, the five-inch-thick acrylic bubble blotted out all sound. It was like being shut inside a glass tomb. They were immersed in Deep Scout’s titanium hull up to chest level. Above that, the sphere created a greenhouse effect. Brilliant sunlight baked the cramped interior.

“It cools off when you dive,” the captain promised. He was flipping toggle switches and adjusting dials on a control panel that wrapped around the pilot’s chair.

That was the only official seat. The four interns pressed into the rest of the cabin, an area of deck space about four feet wide and six feet long. It reminded Kaz of the famous college prank to see how many students would fit into a Volkswagen.

At last, all was in readiness. “Topside, this is Scout,” Vanover said into the microphone. “Ready to rock.”

It was an eerie feeling — motion, but no sound — as the huge A-frame crane hoisted the vehicle over the side and placed it almost gently in the water. The interns felt rather than heard the waves smacking against the hull. There was a grating sensation as the drop-lock disengaged. And then Deep Scout sank into the deep of the Caribbean.

Clear water changed from pale turquoise to blue, and finally to blue-black. Vanover activated the outside floodlights, and the dark sea around them came alive. Curious fish circled this strange titanium wanderer, drawn by the rhythmic pings and pops of the submersible’s acoustic tracking system. Others, bioluminescent jellyfish and octopuses, gave the newcomer a wide berth.

“Awesome,” breathed Star, bathed in the reddish glow of the control panels.

“You never get used to it,” the captain told her, his eyes darting back and forth from the undersea panorama to the data screen over his shoulder.

Deep Scout was designed to operate miles below the surface, so it reached the slope at the edge of the Hidden Shoals very quickly. Captain Vanover manipulated the thrusters, and they began to track back and forth across the incline, searching for the debris field they had only glimpsed through Dr. Ocasek’s cameras.

An hour later, they had still found nothing.

Star was growing edgy. “I don’t get it. We have to be in the right place. GPS coordinates don’t lie.”

“We’re going by the coordinates of the Cortés,” the captain reminded her. “Remember, the camera array was at the end of a four-hundred-foot tether, blowing around in a storm. We can’t know exactly where it was when it detected the debris.” He was trying to sound confident, but the strain was evident in his voice. He had gone out on a limb to book Deep Scout. If they came up empty-handed, it could cost him his career.

All at once, Dante lurched forward, bonking his head on the thick acrylic of the sphere. “There!”

“Where?” cried the other four in unison.

“Down there!”

Vanover dumped air from the ballast tanks, and the submersible descended. The Fathometer gave their depth as 344 feet. And suddenly, there it was in the lights — the long bronze cannon.

“Look!” Adriana pointed. “The ballast stones!”

They were scattered along the slanting seafloor below the corroded barrel, disappearing into the inky depths.

“Wow,” Kaz said, nearly overwhelmed. “How far do they go?”

“Only one way to find out.” The captain operated the thrusters. Deep Scout’s nose dipped, and the submersible followed the slope down.

The ballast stones were still there at four hundred feet. And at five hundred. In fact, the spread of debris seemed to be thickening. As they passed through six hundred, they could make out other signs of the shipwreck — plates, bottles, muskets, helmets. Intermingled with these items was something the interns had not seen before.

“Are those timbers?” Dante asked incredulously, his face pressed up against the acrylic of the sphere.

Vanover nodded. “Wood can’t survive up on the reef, where the worms eat it. But the deeper you go, the sea life is less dense, and the old ships last longer — especially the parts that are buried in sand.”

“That’s an awful lot of stuff for one ship,” observed Star. “Remember, half of it’s up on the reef. This debris has to stop somewhere.”

Dante saw it first, but a moment later, Deep Scout’s lights illuminated it for the others. About thirty feet below them, the slope suddenly flattened out before dropping off again. This tilted plateau, seven hundred feet beneath the waves, was the final resting place of the old ship.

Kaz stared. It was uncanny how sure of it he felt. Naturally, there was no abandoned galleon listing there on the shelf. Yet the mound of debris half buried in the ancient sand was shaped exactly like an old boat, bloated by slow collapse over the centuries. As the vehicle drew closer, they could make out anchors and cannons — even some of the wooden spine of a once-proud sailing vessel.

There was only one thing that didn’t make sense. “That’s a whole ship,” Kaz mused with a frown. “Or most of it, anyway. How did a piece end up all the way over on the reef where Cutter’s digging?”

“There’s no way this is the same boat,” the captain decided. “Crazy as it seems, you kids found two shipwrecks, not just one.”

Adriana’s eyes shone with excitement. “Two shipwrecks!”

“No!” Dante was alarmed. “Nuestra Señora was the ship with the money! That’s what we need, not some old garbage scow that happened to sink next door!”

“Besides,” put in Star, “what about the gold dust test? That said the treasure was here, not up on the reef.”

The acoustic tracker pinged as the five thought it over.

Captain Vanover spoke at last. “Let’s give these manipulators a workout. If we come up with a gold ingot, it won’t make any difference what ship we’re pulling it out of.” Skillfully, he dumped air and worked the thrusters until Deep Scout hovered directly over the remains of the old ship. Then he reached for the controls that operated the submersible’s mechanical arms.

The shape that exploded out of the darkness was longer than the submersible itself, a living missile of pure speed and energy. Kaz saw the eye first, blank and staring, a shiny black button the size of a clenched fist. He recognized the creature instantly, even before the enormous mouth gaped open, revealing row upon lethal row of crushing, ripping teeth.

Although he was safe behind five inches of solid acrylic, Kaz felt the terror course through his body. For such an array of weaponry could only belong to one fish in these waters.

It was Clarence, the monster tiger shark that had nearly taken his life three weeks earlier.

And before Kaz had time to scream, the two-ton body hurtled into the side of Deep Scout.