Rogue Wave

by Christopher Cartwright

  “Look. I get it. You think I’m crazy, but run the tests. I’m telling you there’s something different about this stuff.” The man was sweating. He looked nervous near the bilge water. Constantly fidgeting, and when Sam asked him to help with the water, he took a step back. “No thank you, sir. If it’s all the same to you, I’ll just wait here.”

  “Go on, as you said, we already think you’re crazy. So no reason to stop where you are now. May as well go all the way with your story.”

  “All right.” He fidgeted with some paper notes. “Just remember, I’m just telling you the facts. We have a large Mexican workforce here, and as you know, they can be prone to superstition. Frankly, we’d all be happy once this ship has been scrapped.”

  Sam reassured him it would be all right. “Go on.”

  “A few days ago one of my welders, Juan Gonzales fell into that bilge.” Donald pointed at the dark, lifeless water. “A few hours later he developed a terrible rash all over his body and by that afternoon had an intense headache, followed by a rapid deterioration of his ability to stay awake. An ambulance was called and by the time they arrived, they had to stick a tube in his mouth so that he could breathe. By 6p.m. he’s in hospital and they take him for an MRI – you know one of those imaging machines?”

  Sam nodded his head. “Go on.”

  “Five minutes into the test, he began having seizures, and the Doctors had to stop it. Then all his symptoms seemed to disappear and by the next morning it was like nothing had ever happened.”

  “Did they complete the MRI?”

  “Sure did. Waited until the morning and sent him through the same machine with some drugs on board to keep him from fitting again.”

  Sam was eager for the man to get to the point. “What did the MRI show?”

  Donald shook his head sympathetically. “He has a grade IV brain tumor. Probably won’t live until the end of the month. Never had any symptoms before. Some shitty luck, huh?”

  Chapter Thirty Nine

  Tom dived to a hundred and thirty feet. Next to him, Genevieve reserved her energy and air supply by lying perfectly still. The two of them looked out over the large sandbar on the seafloor. There were at least a dozen vessels there and maybe another dozen in the surrounding areas.

  “It’s like looking at a candy shop and being told to take photos and mark the location of each type of lolly. Then being told that if you’re a good kid, you can taste them in a few days’ time,” Tom complained.

  Gen took a photo of the shipwreck graveyard. Probably the largest collection of 17th century shipwrecks ever found together. “They say vision is the food for the soul. I’d say this is quite a feast we have here.”

  “Good point.” Tom showed her a dive slate. A single triangle marked the Bonaventure which he and Sam had explored. Tom ticked it. “Okay, that’s one down – Sam wants us to document the rest of them. We’ll start on the western side and slowly progress inwards towards the east.”

  “Got it.”

  She swam ahead of him, eagerly kicking her fins. Tom followed. They documented a total of sixteen shipwrecks before it was time to ascend to the surface again. Tom followed Genevieve’s lithe figure, as she swam to the top of a sandbar like a water nymph.

  Genevieve stopped at the top of the sandbar and stared at the wooden structure below. “Is that what I think it is?”

  Tom smiled. “I believe that’s the trimaran from Sam’s stupid oil painting.”

  Chapter Fourty

  Sam ran his hand along the inside of the cylindrical bulkhead at the bow of the gigantic cargo ship. The thing must have been nearly a foot in diameter. Once perfectly straight, it now had a single bend around halfway down. Then at its base, where it was fixed to the ship’s hull with sixteen giant bolts, it had been pushed with such forced that it now popped out through the bottom of the hull, leaving a gaping hole for seawater to flow.

  Along the hull a distinct line formed where the sea water had reached. Now drained, everything below that line appeared to have been melted, while everything above looked normal.

  “What do you make of that?” Sam asked.

  Veyron looked down at the markings on the wall. “Beats me, but it’s hard to refute the evidence – I might have been wrong before.”

  “Wrong about what?”

  “I thought this must have come from inside the ship. A leak of strong acids stored as cargo, but now this looks like it’s going to disprove that theory.”

  Sam glanced between the gash along the bow where the bulkhead broke through and back down towards the main bilge. The markings clearly showed that something had entered at one end and flowed through towards the other. Whatever that was, it caused the damage. “It came from the outside, didn’t it?”

  Veyron sighed. “It would appear so.”

  “Are you starting to give some credence to this whole plankton was behind everything theory?”

  “No.”

  “But you said this was caused by whatever came through that gap in the bulkhead?”

  Veyron grinned. “Yes, but I never said it was seawater that flowed through there.”

  “Of course it was bloody seawater. What else do you get when you make a hole in a ship’s hull out in the open sea?”

  “I’ve been thinking about that.” Veyron climbed down the ladder and squatted over the now empty bilge compartment. “Do you remember when we flew in, how I said that the damage looked like the Global Star was struck by a solid wall, not a rogue wave which the ship would have at least tried to ride over?”

  “Yes, but a rogue wave can move like a solid wall of water.”

  Veyron put his hands up to tell Sam to give him a second to finish. “What if the Global Star did collide with another ship?”

  “She’s one of the largest cargo ships on the planet. She must have hit some pretty big ship for it to this sort of damage.” Sam looked at him. The theory of evil plankton was beginning to look more palatable.

  “Think about it. The Law of the Sea states that while underway a watch must be on deck at all times. But we all know with the invention of GPS and Automated Identification Systems, which track the directions of large vessels, most modern cargo ships are entirely automated. Their crew are rarely on deck, let alone at the helm. How many times have you heard of a cargo ship turning up to dock and being advised that a small yacht or motorboat is crumpled in its bow?”

  Sam frowned. He’d seen it once himself. It had been a 42 foot Catalina yacht. The captain of the cargo vessel hadn’t even realized he’d struck the vessel and had continued underway, unaware that the crew was drowning beneath his monstrous bow. “Okay, so why would Captain Miller weave such a different story?”

  “Because such an event would never be deemed an accident by the Maritime Safety Board. It would be an act of gross negligence and both ship captains would lose their registrations.”

  “Okay, so what happened to the other ship?”

  “I don’t know. Perhaps it sank. Or it was able to limp away?”

  “Okay, let’s say we entertain this fanciful concept,” Sam said. “How then would any of this explain why we have this ridiculously damaged metal?”

  “Because whatever that other ship was carrying, it was sure as shit highly corrosive.” Veyron pulled on a piece of the hull next to where he stood to demonstrate. An entire section roughly three feet wide by two feet high broke off. The tiny grooves and broken sections of the metal wove deep into the sheet like termites had eaten away at it. “Is it just me, or does this look like the entire ship has been eaten by termites?”

  Sam picked the metal up and then squeezed it. His hands broke through the metal. Crushing it like a piece of honeycomb. “Beats me. You’re the engineer – you tell me.”

  “You don’t need an engineer. You need a metallurgist. I’m a lot of things, but that I am not.”

  “Then find me one.”

  Chapter Forty One

  Sam broke the hollowed metal into smaller pieces until he could
carry one without too much trouble. He and Veyron continued making their way aft of the cargo ship through the bowels of its internal hull.

  It involved climbing and descending several series of internal stairs in order to reach over the watertight barriers. Sam noted that at the base of the barriers, where the seawater should have been stopped by the large metal compartments, a hole nearly ten feet wide by half a foot high had been melted through the bottom – as though the seawater had been eating its way to reach the lowest point within the bilge.

  The strangest thing, he thought, was why the acid hadn’t simply melted through the outer hull altogether. The hull certainly wasn’t any stronger.

  Sam climbed the latest set of stairs to overcome the third watertight compartment. Just as he was about to begin his descent into the next one he noticed four laborers casually removing any wiring from the gangway.

  “Hello gentlemen,” Sam said.

  He watched as the men scrutinized him. Their eyes displayed respect and also fear. Donald had told them Sam and Veyron earlier that all staff would be willing to help with anything that they required. The men nodded their heads in response and then continued working. Making an obvious show that they were not slacking in their duties.

  “Do you have a metallurgist here?” Sam asked.

  “Yes Senior,” the shortest of the four men replied.

  “Good.” Sam lifted the honeycombed metal he’d pulled off the hull. “I need you to take this to him and have him run an analysis of what caused these holes. Can you do that?”

  The man looked frightened.

  Sam tried to hand it to him. “It’s very important.”

  “Yes, of course Senor.” The Mexican laborer held the metal with the very tips of his fingers and out from his body, as though it might hurt him if he allowed any skin contact.

  Sam watched him turn and start running up the steel stairs and through an open hatchway. Sam turned to Veyron as they continued to descend the stairs approximately mid ship. “Is it just me Veyron, or did that man look frightened?”

  “That’s an understatement.” Veyron whistled. “Did you see the pupils in his eyes? They were like dinner plates they were so large. The man looked positively terrified of the hollowed metal. It was as though the entire thing was going to come alive and kill him and his family.”

  “I thought for a moment he was just going to turn around and walk out on his job, but obviously he thought better of the American dollars that it earns him.”

  There was very little new to be learned by examining the rest of the ship. It was very clear that whatever entered the ship at the bow, slowly made its way aft by melting its way through each of the watertight compartments.

  Sam and Veyron reached the main bilge by a quarter to five in the afternoon. It was the same one Donald had shown them that had contained the spooky green plankton. A Mexican worker strung a large woven band in the shape of an eye, on to the side of the main viewing platform. There were already another three just like it hung around the massive room. At the same time another person poured something from a large bag into the bilge water.

  Sam turned to the foreman who appeared to be planning out the work for tomorrow. “How’s it going?”

  “It’s a big job, but it’s what we do here.” The man smiled. He was American, and shorter than average with a wiry frame presumably from years of hard work. He offered his hand and said, “Adrian Sanders. You must be Sam Reilly?”

  Sam took it. “Yes, and this is Veyron my chief engineer.”

  “Pleased to meet you sir,” he replied turning to shake Veyron’s hand.

  “What do you think happened here?” Sam enquired casually.

  Adrian shook his head. “Not paid to work that out. I just strip the poor ship of anything valuable.”

  “Even so, you must have some ideas,” Sam persisted.

  “I’ve seen a lot of fine ships end up in this shipping yard. Each being dismantled for scrap, piece by piece. For the most part, we find the most likely event is often the case.”

  “Occam’s Razor,” Veyron noted.

  Adrian made another note in his folder. “What?”

  “It means that given two hypothesis, the simpler one is most often the correct one.”

  Adrian smiled. “Exactly.”

  “You don’t buy all this superstition about the plankton being evil?” Sam asked.

  “No, this ship was struck by an almighty wave. Her size should have allowed her to ride it out, but it didn’t. That simple.”

  Sam pointed to the Mexican who’d now finished tying his woven image of an eye onto the viewing platform. “What’s that man doing?”

  “It’s called an Evil Eye. They’re Mexican good luck charms. They believe it will keep them safe.”

  “And the other guy – the one slowly pouring those chemicals into the bilge?”

  “He’s called a ‘Curandero.’ A traditional Mexican folk healer.” Adrian smiled. It was clearly intended to be condescending. “The bag contains a concoction of natural potions and herbs purported to keep evil away.”

  Sam grinned. “It smells like chlorine to me?”

  Adrian laughed. “Yes, well nothing quite like a little bit of science to help boost an ancient healer’s abilities!”

  “He was here yesterday, wasn’t he?”

  “Yes, how did you know?”

  “Because Donald told us the bioluminescent plankton that has everyone so worried about, was alive yesterday.”

  “They’re all pretty spooked about this thing. They’re saying there’s evil here. And this is purifying it!”

  Sam laughed. “Donald doesn’t mind letting the healers into his shipyard?”

  “Mind? Are you kidding me? He pays for them.”

  “Really?”

  Adrian looked serious for a moment. “Of course. The sooner these healers declare the evil spirits dead, the sooner our workers focus on the task at hand.”

  Chapter Forty Two

  That night, Sam stayed at a room in a local motel. It was pretty cheap, but would serve the purpose and allow him and Veyron to get some rest before tomorrow.

  His head had just reached the pillow. It was soft, and after the day he’d just had, Sam was quick to fall asleep. He’d barely reached that deep state of sleep before his cell phone began ringing. He wanted to ignore it – but his work ethic told him to answer the damn call.

  A glance at the phone as he accepted the call showed that it was Ryan, the biologist and lab technician to who he’d sent the seawater sample from the bilge. “Did you get the sample that I sent you?”

  “Yeah, but it appears to have been contaminated.”

  “Contaminated – let me guess, chlorine?”

  “Yeah, but there was something else too.”

  “What?”

  “Silicon.”

  Sam sat up on the side of the bed. “What the hell would that be doing in there?”

  “It’s normally used in computer chips for microprocessors. Among other things. Maybe the ship was carrying it in its hold?” the biologist suggested.

  “I know what silicon’s used for, but I can’t think of any reason the seawater was contaminated by it. What about the dead plankton? Can you tell me anything?”

  “It’s definitely been genetically modified, but how and why I don’t know. We’ll need a live sample to find out more. Get me that, and I’ll find you some answers.”

  Chapter Forty Three

  Tom breathed easily as he began his descent towards the shipwreck graveyard. It was 6:30 a.m. exactly. He would have dived earlier if Matthew had let him. Instead of sleeping he’d spent the night mentally preparing for the dive. Somehow, there was a deep sense of anticipation that he was about to find answers to one of the longest questions that plagued Sam Reilly. It’s not every day he got to show his friend the answer.

  Next to him Genevieve confidently watched her dive gauge as they descended. She’d been diving for less than a year, but she was naturally good at
everything she ever did. With an analytical mind, she could grasp the complex formulas and science behind deep sea diving. In the two years since Sam had brought her aboard the Maria Helena she had probably logged more dives than most are given the opportunity to in a lifetime. Even so, a 400-year-old wreck dive at 160 feet is not something to take lightly.

  Tom checked his pressure gauge.

  They’d just reached eighty feet. He looked over at Genevieve. The whites of her teeth stood out behind her clear full face dive mask and her dilated pupils nearly swallowed her blue eyes whole, with anticipation. “How you feeling?”

  “I’m good.”

  He shined his flashlight downwards. As the beam of light shot towards the bottom of the sea, Tom could just make out the image of the first bow of a shipwreck. He couldn’t yet tell if it was the one he was after.

  Tom continued to descend until he came to a stop at a hundred and twenty feet when the ancient trimaran came into view. “Wow, what a sight, hey?”

  “Everything about Sam’s oil color painting was wrong, wasn’t it?” Genevieve said.

  “It would appear so.”

  The oil painting did little in the way of justice for the gallant old warship. The artist had captured the fact that it was built with three large tree trunks – used as dug outs, like oversized canoes. But that was where the accuracy of the depiction ceased.

  Her massive tri-hulls were at least half buried by the centuries of sand, but even so it wasn’t hard to grasp the sheer size of the vessel. Unlike the simplistic tribal rig that Tom had expected, the Antique Antiqui Nautae trimaran appeared to have been built by expert carpenters on a monumental scale. The three hulls were made from monstrous tree trunks. Most likely Sequoias. A startling discovery, given that the shipwreck was now lying on the east coast while Sequoia trees had only ever been found in the Californian west coast. This meant the Antiqui Nautae had either sailed from the west coast, which would involve passing the southern tip of South America – or transferred the giant tree trunks over land. A feat, just as impossible given their pre-westernized tools.