by Matt Lincoln
“Okay, the processing is complete,” Xavier informed us. “Not enough data here to justify an exploratory dive, so on to the next spot.”
I checked the navigational panel and headed toward the new location.
“The next one is the most promising, though,” Xavier continued. “Even the targeted sweeps picked up something on the ocean floor that shouldn’t be there.”
“Here’s hoping,” I joked.
It took about half an hour to get to the next locale, as I didn’t see any point in pushing Wraith. By the time we got there, we saw a few other boats in the area. While this wasn’t that odd, we hadn’t seen any others on our previous days out. I cataloged their call signs just in case, and we watched them move away from this position.
“Hey, Header!” Xavier called up to us excitedly. “You wouldn’t want to go on a tiny dive, would you?”
I spun around in the chair to face him. “Depends. How tiny are we talking about?”
“Not too deep. But I’m picking up something in the early process that will definitely need a pair of human eyes on it.” He sounded more interested than I’d heard him in any of the other spot locations.
“Give me a few minutes, and I’ll be water ready.” I grinned over at Rosa, who also looked more optimistic than she had recently. I went back to where I kept my diving gear and proceeded to get started. The temperature gauges for the outside and the water beneath us were reading as seasonal averages, so I didn’t get out any of the extra special gear. I did slow down long enough to appreciate the new diving masks, however. Xavier had rigged them to allow us voice communication underwater a while back, and they had come in handy more than once.
Rosa would be staying dry as there had been some unexpected traffic in the area. Xavier, of course, would be doing the monitoring from his station on Wraith. Should this location pan out as a positive confirmation, Rosa would join me on the next dive, and we’d go in with a lot more gear and aids to help us out.
For now, I was only doing a preliminary take to see if more was needed. I was already getting excited about the possibility, though. I could feel my adrenaline pulse as I stepped off into the water and sank to the area I wanted to start off from. The LED lights in my wrists, ankles, and my headlight activated as they should, giving me a pretty good look at where I was going.
We expected the water to be a bit cloudy, but I found it not as bad as I would have imagined. Schools of brightly colored fish swam away to safety as I invaded their home, if only temporarily and without menace. I began to push myself down deeper, listening to Xavier’s voice as it finally crackled in my ear. “You’re still a good fifty feet from where my maps say you should start to see the Hester. You look good from here, though. Steady and straight. Just be careful.”
“Xavier, I’m always careful on dives,” I reminded him. After a few more minutes of looking directly into my descent, I could see my light being reflected back at me. My heart rate increased. What I hoped to be looking at any moment now was about to appear. As I moved steadily downward, though, I saw something I’d hoped I wouldn’t.
As I passed by the beds of seagrass clinging to the ocean surfaces, I caught the sight of a school of barracuda, all working on devouring something much larger than myself. I wasn’t about to disturb them in the feeding, knowing that with a school that large and hungry, I might become the second course.
“Xavier? I’m going to have to make a detour here. I’ve got a cuda feeding ground, so give me a few minutes to get out of their way.” Barracuda weren’t anything to mess with, and as I didn’t have a weapon readily available on me, it just made more sense to give them their room and stay out of their way.
I swam back a bit to give them more space when something bumped up against my leg. I looked down to see one cuda circling back and around me. It was larger than the school I’d been trying to avoid. It looked if I had to guess, just over four feet long and was a dark greenish silver.
“Header? Did you bypass them yet?” I heard Xavier ask me.
Calmly, I replied, “I’m working on it.” This big guy kept moving closer to me and then would dart off to grab up whatever morsel came floating his way. I kept drifting back to give them more room, suddenly very aware that I should have brought a knife with me on this initial dive.
As I was about to put some decent distance between the school and me, that large one dove fearlessly at me and collided with my arm. I immediately checked for damage to the suit or gear, not really expecting anything, but mindful that even the smallest tear or dent could end this dive or, worse, end me.
I moved on, hoping that the cuda had made his point and driven me away far enough to leave me alone now.
“Xavier, next time, don’t let me jump back into any body of water without a knife. You got that?”
“Aye, aye,” he replied.
As I continued down, I caught the sight of painted wood, splintered and only recently resting here. I reached out and touched the hull of a downed boat, still unsure if this was the Hester or another unlucky vessel. “Does this look about right for the boat, Xavier?” My gloved fingers grazed the wood, and the LEDs gave me enough light to see that I was too close to the middle of the hull.
“I’d say so,” he replied in my ear. “Hard to say until I see the actual ID numbers, but it looks right.”
So, I moved to my right, swimming back to where the call numbers should be if this was the boat we were looking for. A few fish moved in and out of the wreckage, looking for food and probably finding it. I caught a reflection of shiny glass and metal, most likely viewing windows, which meant that I was getting closer to where I needed to be.
“Header,” Xavier’s voice broke into my concentration, “you’re right on it. Can you signal back to me, not just talk? I want to make sure that the new equipment works.”
I’d almost forgotten about that new device he’d installed. It was something like a whistle clicker that an embedded sensor could pick up and relay back from the earpiece. It was another safety measure just in case the mics broke down or stopped functioning. Xavier liked to have back-ups for the back-ups. I reached up and tapped my neck, right beneath my left ear. Twice for no, three times for yes. He’d figured that a one-tap might be accidental.
“Okay, good. Glad to read you,” he cheerfully replied to my taps. “Now you can switch back to speech if you want.”
“Understood.” I swam a little further in until I found what I had been looking for. The numbers painted on the side of the hull looked like they’d been scraped a bit, but they were still readable. I had memorized the Hester’s call numbers, and now, sure enough, here they were in front of my eyes. I felt a hard pit in my stomach, knowing for sure that we’d finally found the wreckage.
“I have confirmation that this is the boat,” I said flatly.
I read out the numbers and waited for Xavier to respond in my ear. “Yeah, that’s them. Please feel free to proceed.”
I didn’t really need his permission, but I knew that he was just trying to keep up with some kind of protocol he’d designated for us. The thing was, he’d obviously forgotten to let Rosa and I in on it.
And then, I tried to see the only point of good news in this mess. We had found the wreckage. The team and I could bring up the lost bodies of Declan Speirs and the crew and give their families some peace and closure. That was about the only thing I could manage to think about as an upside to what I was doing down here. At least we had that, I told myself.
As we’d planned, I placed a small tracing sensor right at the numbers. It had enough battery time for a three-day beacon. This would allow us to find and dive right to where we needed to for the next trip out.
“Going forward.” I moved on to look for a safe opening to get inside the boat.
It looked to me that there wasn’t too much overall damage to the boat, other than it being cracked open when it hit the ocean floor. As I inspected the area, I got to see why it had broken.
I moved extra
carefully around the broken and busted up parts of the boat, keeping my distance from anything that could snag or snare my suit and apparatus. And while I was anxious to find out more about this site, I had to always keep the dangerous side of diving in the front of my mind. This first dive would be the worst, with so many unknown factors.
The ship could not be finished settling and could fall or lurch at any time. That would make me have to face split-second decisions that might leave me stranded, injured, or unresponsive at any given moment. There was just too much at stake to get careless or move too fast.
Xavier was quiet on his end, as there just wasn't much to say. I was seeing this for the first time, and sometimes, silence was the best way to proceed. Right where the breach split the wood, there was a large set of rocks jettisoning out of the silt and bed, directly into the boat. It was just bad luck that it landed in such a way. Claude’s notes led me to believe that once we got inside, we’d find the bodies scattered about. “Claude said that his brother spent most of his time in his cabin, isn’t that right?”
“That is,” Xavier replied. “But as for the other four members of the crew, it might be a search for them. Claude didn’t have any information about that.”
I had decided that we’d locate Declan’s body and the cases that we were being paid to retrieve first. With such a specific target, we could get it and get out quickly if everything inside was in normal condition. Then we could spend the time that we needed to locate and bring up the rest of the crew. That was the plan, and I wanted to stick to it as closely as possible.
Xavier’s voice sounded calmly in my ear all of a sudden. Down here in the dark and private silence, I could forget that I had people waiting above for me. “Header? Have you found a way into the wreckage yet?”
I tapped back at my left ear three times to signal “yes,” and I also spoke. “Yeah, sorry. I just got caught up in my own head for a minute there. I’ll try to be more vocal.”
“Really? Oh, that’s great!” Xavier sounded thrilled, and I subconsciously smiled at this. “And it’s no problem. It’s only that since we can’t see everything, it’s getting a little tense up here. I should have fitted you with a camera today. Sorry about that.”
“Don’t worry about it. We’ll get it next time.” I waited for what would have to be his next question.
I had found the opening that I wanted us to use on the next dive. It was really very wide, with little to no damaged debris to cause problems. It would be a good spot to enter the boat.
“Hey,” I announced when I didn’t hear a follow-up question from Xavier. “I have a good place to reach the inside. It looks stable and sturdy.” I really wanted to head in now, but we simply weren’t prepared for that today. We needed to plan, get another diver, and get cameras on for the next dive. Today had just been about finding the boat, nothing more.
“Sounds good,” Xavier stated. “Hey, just so that you know, we’re receiving the beacon signal, so I think that’s enough for today.” I knew that was his subtle way to get me to start my ascent. I wasn’t too far down, and I’d only planned a few depth checkpoints going back up. Now that I knew where we’d be headed, I went as straight up as I could manage.
Xavier checked in with me a few more times, just to make sure that I was alright. I responded to all the prompts, anxious to get back to Wraith and share what I’d found.
7
Jake
Once I reached the surface, I found both Rosa and Xavier on the deck of Wraith, waiting to help me up and out. I gratefully accepted their hands and help, hitting the deck in a less than graceful manner. After maneuvering to get my gear off and gulping in some of that fine, salty air, I sighed contentedly, so pleased to have finally made some progress on the mission.
Xavier just couldn’t help himself as he dove on with his questions. “How does it look? Are there going to be any major difficulties in retrieving the bodies for Speirs? How quickly do we need to move on this?”
Rosa slapped his arm and signed at him. Give him a minute, Xavier. Let the man breathe.
“Sorry, I’m just so thrilled that we found it!” He grinned, and even Rosa looked satisfied with this turn of events. I felt the same.
“It doesn’t look too bad,” I relayed. “It hit some rocks on the floor, and it cracked open, but I don’t think it will be too much of an issue. As long as nothing is shattered or collapsed inside, we should be able to move in and out pretty easily.” That was my honest assessment. Yeah, and I was a little excited about moving forward as much as they were.
“Great, so when do we start?” Xavier asked, trying to keep his enthusiasm down to a minimum. He was failing badly.
“Tomorrow, if we can swing it,” I suggested. “I want to get a fresh start as early as we can. Rosa, I’ll need you to come down with me, but that will leave you up here alone, Xavier. That’s not going to be a problem, is it?” We’d already discussed it tentatively, and now I just wanted to double-check that he hadn’t changed his mind over it.
His voice was less sure than I’d hoped it would be when he answered me. “Yeah, yes, I’ll be fine.” Even Rosa noticed this, and she glanced between the two of us quickly.
I looked at him right in the face. “Xavier, if you’re not positive that you can handle it, I need to know. I know we’re a team member shy, but we’re just going to have to compromise and step up until Doc gets back. We talked about this.” I didn’t like the way he was looking back at the water now instead of meeting my eyes.
“It’s just that, what if something happens with those boats like we saw today? I keep wondering if they’re looking for what we’re looking for, and what if they, you know, make contact or something?” This wasn’t a frivolous concern of his. We all knew the dangers of being out here with the tech we had and the work that we did. We were never an easy target, but we did sometimes stick out.
I looked up at Rosa as I stopped pulling off my gear for a moment. I sighed profoundly. “Okay, I can set back up, get all the goods I need this time, and head back down.” I wasn’t planning on going on a full retrieval mission, but I also knew that we had to be flexible and work with what we had. “I can go down now, get the pictures, set lines up, and let Rosa stay up top.”
She shook her head vehemently. No, you have to have a second down there. We don’t know what we’ll find. Especially if the boat has had damage and is split, it’s too hazardous for a single diver. We all know the rules.
Rosa wasn’t wrong, but this put us in a tough situation. “I can do the setup as a single. We’ve done it under worse circumstances, Rosa. Besides, we don’t have a lot of choices here.”
She had to concede the point, and she did, although reluctantly. So, for the next hour and a half, we got the full gear that I would need to do the correct set up for the retrievals. Rosa would be responsible for the tracing buoy that I was to tie off down below. It wasn’t a guaranteed warranty that no one else would mess with this site, but it was at least something to mark our claim.
On the second dive, I moved a lot quicker. I tied the buoy line to a steel rigging bar for my first action. I checked in with Xavier, letting him know what I was doing each time. I also now carried a camera with both a live feed going directly to Wraith and my team and a capture function for in-depth shots and verification purposes. My LEDs had been added to, and I felt lit up like a Christmas tree down there. But it was a safety measure and easier for the above team to see what I had going on around me.
I entered the opening that I had chosen for the recovery portal. It looked about how I figured it would, including bent metal beams and rock shards thrust through the wood and fiberglass construction. There was nothing out of the ordinary here, not so far, anyway. As I moved deeper in, I made my first major communication with the surface. “Okay, I’m inside, as you can all see. Anything you want me to check out?”
“No,” Xavier replied quietly, “It all looks normal. Where are you heading to first?”
“I’m going to
try for the quarters. That’s what the priority is, so that’s my goal. I’m not sure which way to go, though, Xavier. Do you have the diagram of the Hester ready for directions?” I was kind of joking around, as we could only be moderately sure that the blueprints were usable.
With the boat broken up and us still unsure of what had taken her down, we could be using a worthless map to guide us. The cause of the Hester going down might have been weather-related, and I’d seen some ships lying twisted at the bottom of the ocean because of it. The rock damage could be worse the further in I went, and there might be blockages to hinder me. It was just going to be a crapshoot until we saw it for ourselves.
“I do, but by the looks of what I’m already seeing, Header, they’re just about useless. Sorry,” Xavier offered.
“Not a big deal. I knew that would be a possibility.” I passed through what was a passageway with a ladderwell leading up. That was when I saw our first victim. I heard Xavier’s nervous intake of air in my ear. I knew how he was feeling.
“As you can see, I have contact,” I pointed out unhelpfully.
I swam, or rather drifted, closer, using the bulkheads, deck, and overhead to glide in and position myself well enough to look at the body. I needed to give my team above the footage they would need as evidence, not only for our client but for our own proof and learning.
The body was clad in a dark suit. It appeared to be a stocky male, floating or positioned on his stomach. I would have to move over and around to get a better look at his head and face. I did so carefully.
I swam above his body, not wanting to disturb it. I could see a balding head and some white hair. An older man in a suit probably didn’t make this guy one of the crew. I had to take a guess that this was Declan. The age was right, and the clothing wasn’t something that a member of the crew would have been wearing. That, and we had been told that there weren’t any other passengers onboard the Hester. With the process of elimination, I just assumed this was Declan Speirs that I was looking at. “Xavier, didn’t Claude say that his brother spent most of his time in his cabin? I wonder what would have brought him out here unless they were trying to abandon the vessel.”
