The Steel Shark

Chapter 20

It was still early when Vivian walked from one end of the floating dock to the other. The dock was in a giant cave hollowed out of Manhattan schist. A long time ago, hopefully a really long time ago, sewage had flowed into this cave from various pipes. Once enough was gathered together, the sewage was pumped out into the ocean via a single giant pipe. Now seawater filled that pipe and one end was open to the ocean. It was possible to drive a personal submarine through it.

Tesla swore he’d had the stone cleaned and the long-unused sewage pipes behind her closed up, but she gave them a suspicious look anyway. Just her luck something would break and she would drown in a river of sewage. No glory there.

Still, she had to admit it was pretty nice in here. Golden LEDs placed strategically throughout the room illuminated a rounded ceiling, like a huge egg, with a metal hatch that looked like it belonged on a ship. The egg was half full of brackish water and smelled like a hot day at the seashore. Tesla had told her something about how it circulated so it didn’t stagnate, but she hadn’t paid attention.

A round bubble surfaced in the middle of the room. Wright’s sub, bright and early and only an hour later than he’d scheduled. For someone like Wright, that was practically on time.

His sub was identical to Tesla’s — same bubble cockpit, same science skids — except this one was green instead of yellow. Even the sight of it spiked her blood pressure. And she’d thought she’d hated submarines before the crash.

Wright’s sub had its name stenciled across one side. It was called, appropriately, The Green Meanie. Wright wasn’t her first choice as a submarine pilot. She’d never trusted him. But she’d come to accompany him because Tesla was confined to his house until they figured out who had hired an assassin to kill him. If he’d been the original target of the submarine ramming, he couldn’t go out in the ocean.

Wright had made it clear it was a one-time offer. Since she and Tesla worried something, or someone, would disturb crucial evidence that supported their version of events before they documented it, someone had to go now. And that someone was her.

Wright waved. “Ahoy, traveler!”

Nautical nonsense. She waved back and walked out onto the floating dock Tesla had installed in this large brick room. The dock had fat yellow fenders tied to it. No chance of scratching The Green Meanie. Too bad.

Her phone rang. Mr. Rossi.

“I have to take this,” she said. “It’ll just take a second.”

Unless it was terrible news and she needed to go. Not that she wanted terrible news, but she wouldn’t mind not getting on that sub. Maybe Mr. Rossi would send a replacement.

“Vivian?” Mr. Rossi asked. “Is this a bad time?”

“I’m about to climb aboard The Green Meanie,” she said.

“Someone posted the video online of you getting Tesla out of the line of fire last night.”

Hopefully, they hadn’t captured her conking that old guy on the head with the tray. “Am I in trouble?”

“Trouble? No.”

Wright looked ostentatiously at his wrist. He wasn’t even wearing a wristwatch.

She held up one finger.

“It’s gone viral. A hundred thousand views already.”

Lucy would be furious her big sister had become an Internet sensation, and in that stupid suit, too. “Oh.”

“I’ve been receiving calls requesting your services all morning. I’m quoting twice your usual rate.”

“Sweet,” she said. “I’ll check in when I get back.”

Mr. Rossi wished her a pleasant voyage and ended the connection. She hurried back to the sub.

“Is your employer, the brave Mr. Tesla, joining us?” Wright asked.

“Just me,” she said. “And my camera.”

“I can understand how the sub ride might be stressful for him.”

Everything was about points with this guy. She wanted to stick up for Tesla, but couldn’t come up with anything that didn’t give Wright more information than he should have, so she settled for, “He’s busy.”

“Did his hot girlfriend make it?”

“Yes.” This had long day written all over it.

Wright changed the subject. “Loved coming up that tunnel. Shameful to think it was once full of sewage being dumped straight into the ocean. Some amazing organisms are growing on the inside. Has your boss ever had a marine biologist down there?”

“I don’t know.”

“Tell him those are the kinds of things he needs to make a priority. It’s too easy to ignore the natural world.”

Wright might care about the natural world, but he was always quite happy to let the human world go, having abandoned his own wife and child. Vivian didn’t say anything. Wright taking her out was a favor to Tesla, and Tesla needed all the favors he could get.

Instead, she climbed in through the open bubble and buckled in. Her body remembered what had happened the last time she got into a submarine. Her legs trembled, and she hoped Wright didn’t notice. Tesla had suggested Parker get on the sub with Wright instead of Vivian, but she’d insisted. She wanted to get right back up on the horse, not give in to her anxiety and let it grow. That had seemed like a good idea when she was on dry land. Now she wasn’t so sure.

Wright closed the bubble and dove. Green water closed over the cockpit. She shut her eyes and took a couple of deep breaths, trying to get her heart rate down. She wiped clammy palms against her pants and tried to think calming thoughts. She had no calming thoughts.

“Are you sure you can do this?” Wright sounded more curious than concerned.

“The last one flooded and almost killed me. Give me a minute.” And also, shut up.

“Better to freak out now, before we’re a hundred feet deep and you can’t get out.”

The perfect way to calm someone down, go straight to the worst-case scenario. Wright’s wife was probably better off without him.

She took a third deep breath, blew it out, and opened her eyes. Outside, all was black, so they must be in the tunnel. Two navigation lights lit the way forward, but not as well as she’d like. This must be how Tesla felt whenever he tried to go outside. Panicked. It sucked. She had to get it under control, because she wasn’t going down Tesla’s path.

“You doin’ OK, sport?” Wright asked.

“Fine, thanks,” she said. “Sport.”

He made a snorting sound she thought might be a laugh.

She ignored him and got to work. Keeping busy with things inside the sub might distract her from the crushing weight of millions of gallons of water outside. She unzipped the camera case. Tesla had given it to her this morning, along with detailed instructions on how to use it.

Waterproof, he’d told her, down to sixty meters. Which made it a lot more durable than she was.

She shook that off. Tesla wanted unbroken footage from the time they left the dock to when they returned. If she turned up any evidence, he wanted to make sure it was well documented, especially if the Harbor Patrol didn’t ever bother to do a more thorough investigation.

She set the camera up and aimed it through the cockpit window, turned it on and checked the picture on the little box. Recording perfectly — clear picture and a time-and-date stamp along the bottom. That was it, her whole job. She could have done it without leaving the dock.

Not really. She had to watch it to make sure nothing glitched and Wright didn’t mess with it. He wasn’t the most trustworthy character.

Also boring. Wright was a lot less fun to travel with than Tesla. After his initial jibes, he fell silent. He didn’t dawdle or swing the lights around to see things either. Wright drove single-mindedly forward, eyes flicking to the GPS to make sure they were taking the most direct route to the scene of the crash.

Today, she liked that. She wanted this to be over with.

She recognized the sunken sailboat she and Tesla had passed before they got hit, the Aronnax. Next up, the transatlantic cable on the muddy ocean floor. No shark this time. Finally, they reached the cracked-up submarine where she’d almost died.

Water filled the cockpit where she’d sat, and a brown fish with big lips swam inside. The back of the sub was flattened. A few feet closer to the cockpit, and they would have had to take her remains out with a teaspoon.

“Damn expensive fishbowl,” muttered Wright.

He held the sub steady while she panned the camera across the wreckage. A black scrape straight down the side showed where the larger sub had hit Tesla’s sub, and a trench marked where the sub had been dragged before coming to rest against a rocky outcropping. Her heart skipped all over the place, but she held it together, trying not to think about the sub’s final journey.

“Looks like you got stomped by Satan’s boot,” Wright said.

“Exactly. Do you see the scoring on the metal? The sub was hit with tremendous force — way more than the prince’s sub could have generated. And those black streaks? They’re wider than the prince’s sub.”

“Let’s go look for the prince’s sub,” Wright said.

“First, can we circle this one?” she asked. “I want to document everything.”

Obligingly, Wright turned the sub in a slow spiral. She aimed the camera downward. She didn’t want even the slightest movement to make anyone question the validity of her footage.

After the circle, Wright headed over to the prince’s sub. Its cockpit had cracked into pieces, like an egg, and the pieces were scattered along the mud in the direction the black sub had traveled — a long arrow pointing toward Tesla’s submarine. She swallowed.

“Looks to me like Prince Timgad’s sub was hit first and dragged, and then whatever it was hit you,” said Wright.

“That’s exactly how it happened.” It surprised her Baxter hadn’t done more investigation, but maybe he had and had been lying to provoke a reaction at the party. Or maybe someone was trying to cover up what had happened.

“Open and shut.” Wright dove toward the wreck.

Her stomach lurched. “Be careful! That’s evidence.”

“You filmed the evidence,” Wright said. “Which is kind of a bonus for you. It’s not why I’m here.”

She considered bonking him on the head and taking command of The Green Meanie, but she didn’t want that on tape. “I’m not comfortable with this course of action.”

“Noted,” he said. “And I’ll take responsibility.”

Like that had helped her out during the Tesla crash.

Clearly searching for something, he pivoted his navigation lights in a straight line, moved them a few inches, and did it again.

“What’re you looking for?” she asked.

“The batteries.” His spotlight stopped on a black box. “Gotcha.”

“If you pick that up, you’re disturbing a crime scene,” she said.

“I don’t see any yellow tape.”

“The scene needs to stay intact,” she said.

“Not as much as the ocean needs to not have toxins leaking all over the place.”

She couldn’t argue. “What do you need me to do?”

“Take the controls. I’ll use the grappling arm to bring the battery on board.”

She followed his instructions. Her hands shook for a few seconds, but then she was all right. Her jaw ached from clenching it, but she’d get through this.

Wright had the first battery inside when she spotted something that looked like a black pipe.

“That’s not part of the sub.” She maneuvered closer. The camera was still rolling, and Wright was distracted bringing the battery into his collection box.

“I’ll take the controls back.” Wright snatched them away. He was the snatching type.

“We need to pick that up, too.” She pointed to it.

He squinted through the cockpit window. “Why?”

“Because it’s an assault rifle.”