by Matt Lincoln
I couldn’t help but laugh at that part. Even Rosa snickered in her way. Xavier decided that now was the right time to push past us all and get onto the boat.
“We’re burning daylight, people,” he called after himself. “If we’re going to dive today, we need to get out there soon.” He was going for the bridge before anyone thought to argue the point with him.
Rosa shrugged and followed him while Doc held his grandson’s hand firmly and led him into Wraith for the very first time in the young boy’s life. I stood back, watching this, and at the time, I didn’t have a good reason for letting it happen. But I did remember little Zaid’s first step onto my boat and the smile that crept across his tiny face. It was a childlike version of mine, every time I boarded her. That should have been the first warning sign for Doc.
In no time at all, Wraith and my team were speeding out to the debris site that Xavier had tagged and where we’d found the floating arm days ago. With the weather calm, there wasn’t going to be much chance of junk and trash getting churned up for us to get a look at. That’s why we would be diving.
The ride out was quiet because I think all of us, except for Doc that was, were worried about saying something unsuitable around Zaid. For his part, the kid was lying on the floor of the boat and coloring a picture, as content as you could imagine. He neither looked nor seemed in the least bit concerned about this boat ride or about anything that we were doing around him.
I was still unsure and uncomfortable about the whole situation, but I had bigger matters to fuss over now.
I turned to my team. “When I talked to Verity, she was convinced that the break-in at her dad’s house was because of the 3-D art pieces that her company was copying and selling illegally. She thought that her co-workers had told the thieves that she was hiding the items. But I think some of her contacts are more deeply involved with our side of the case. The real artifacts that the Speirs brothers were inheriting? I think that’s what they were really looking for that night.”
“Maybe the Hester’s crew getting murdered was an attempt to get to the goods before Weir’s firm did?” Doc asked drily.
“Yeah, I think that’s a strong possibility,” I answered. “Maybe they had been contracted to move the items, and they got anxious? They weren’t getting a big enough cut of the profit, or simply wanted to cut out the middleman, which was the Weir company?”
Rosa turned to me. That’s a leap, but I guess that anything could be motivation. Larceny and forgery are one thing, but the murder of an entire ship’s crew? That’s a whole new level, Header. Do you think that it goes that far and that seriously?
I nodded. “Which is why we’re going diving at that specific location today, Rosa. Now, Xavier’s theory of a downed refugee boat has a lot of merit, but we always need to keep our minds open to something more heinous.” I stopped myself, as I’d forgotten about the kid being present.
I would have to speak very carefully about this. “So, let’s say these people, the ones responsible for the Hester’s crew, have done this kind of thing before. Maybe they board and take items from other ships with similar cargo as the Hester. What would happen to those crews and those boats?”
Xavier was already shaking his head at the notion. “I checked into all of that, remember? There weren’t any records or lists of missing ships in this area that we’d be searching.” He sighed and then nodded as if he was now working on something else. “Of course, if they were illegal goods like you say, then the ships might not be listed for reference in the first place. Okay, Header. Keep going.”
Winning Xavier over to my possible idea was more than enough to make me smile in gratitude. “I think there’s a good chance that when we get down there, we’ll find something to tie the Hester to Weir and then hopefully, to the, um… culprits that you know, did the stuff.”
“That created the corpses, you mean.” Doc finished my statement for me. He glanced at Zaid, who wasn’t even paying attention to anything we were doing or saying.
“Yeah. In so many words,” I commented to make my point further.
That is a lot of things that we’ll have to accept and take for granted without clear evidence, Rosa reminded me. But we’ve done more with less, so I guess that we’re about par for the course. For us, anyway.
“That’s the spirit, Rosa. Thanks.” I glared in her direction. I could appreciate her pragmatism, but sometimes it was overkill. “With that said, I want me and Doc to dive first. He’s got the medical training to spot any more problems,” I raised my eyebrow at Zaid, “like the first one we came across, and I want my own eyes on this before we get too deep into it. Is that understood?”
Rosa nodded and put Wraith into position for the dive. Xavier was working at his station, doing what he did best, something technological to help us all out.
“You know what would come in handy if we get caught today, out here, diving in international waters and doing our own criminal investigation?” He stopped talking, but it wasn’t long enough for me to warn him not to finish his comment. “A lawyer. One that we all knew and could trust when we get in over our heads with cases and missions and that sort of stuff that we do on a daily basis.”
The boat went silent.
“I’m missing something, aren’t I?” Doc asked as he was getting his suit on and gearing up to dive.
“No. Just ignore him and let’s get this over with,” I answered, shooting a hard, unwavering look of warning advice at Xavier.
32
Jake
Soon, with the mic checks done and all the necessary gear working properly, Doc and I were in the water and swimming to the bottom of an unexplored trench. I saw wisps of brightly colored cord suspended in the water surrounding us, so I stopped to get a good view of it for Rosa and Xavier up top. The colors looked just like the cord we’d all seen from the debris site that other day.
Even now, there was proof that these waters here were filled with the kinds of garbage we’d all seen on that trip prior. The body parts had been claimed by the sea life, no doubt, but the non-edible pieces of random trash would be found if we just looked hard enough. It was going to take some time, we all knew, but we’d gotten lucky before, and we hoped to again.
“Header!” Doc’s voice called out to all of us. “I found the buoy rope. Look!”
I moved to look at him and at what he was holding, and there it was. The exact type of rope we used for all of our tracking and tracing buoys. Cut, just like the Speirs site buoy had been.
“That’s got to be a sign, people,” I mentioned to the team. I swam over to get a better look, and that was when our LED lights fell on a trove of ruin. I was momentarily speechless. “Rosa? Xavier? Do you see this?”
“We are,” Xavier replied, his voice fully focused.
I glided to the bottom of the floor, letting my wet cam and the other devices pick up what words could not describe. All along the seafloor were remnants and fragments of junk, weapons, and gnarled and twisted objects that I couldn’t even begin to identify.
Some looked to be metal, and we could all easily see the silhouettes of guns, knives, and other lethal implements of a dangerous nature. Ripped and tattered patches of cloth hovered about, chunks of treated leather cases lay buried in silt, and then, there were the bones.
Doc made his way straight to a few to pick them up and examine them. I knew what he was going to say about them. It didn’t take a lot of imagination to realize what this place really was now.
“Human femur,” Doc told us to no one’s surprise. “All of these,” as he picked up more and looked them over, one after another, “all human.”
“I guess that my refugee theory might still be in play, but those weapons don’t make a lot of sense for that now, do they?” Xavier asked wryly.
“No, they do not.” Doc turned to look at me but was careful not to blind me with his LEDs. “This is a dumpsite, folks. Plain and simple.”
“That’s what I’d call it, too,” I reaffirmed.
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I moved to get down closer, looking for something that would tie it back to Weir’s company. We needed broken up pieces of fake art, or even real art, to have a leg to stand on with my theory. I just felt like it had to be here. Doc and I both searched until we came to a cache of broken and mutilated resin chunks. I held it up for Xavier to judge for himself. The object looked like it had been exposed to some kind of melting or wearing agent.
“Hey? Does this resemble the elements of a 3-D printed item?” I didn’t know, and if anyone on the team would, Xavier was our best bet.
“Maybe,” he replied quickly. “Bring me up a piece, and I’ll examine it. Oh, hey, can you pan back a little to your left? There was something there that caught my eye.” There was a long pause from Xavier as I slowly moved back to give him a better view of whatever it was that he needed to see. “Yeah, stop right there.”
I knew what he was going for. There in the silt and sand, covered by even more debris, was a flat, circular device sticking just up enough for Xavier’s eagle eyes to catch it. I brushed back the silt to reveal the unexpected item.
“Holy…” I couldn’t finish the words. “Doc! Get out of here, back to the top, now!” I was still holding onto the fragment of possible resin copy as I forced myself back and away from that circular object.
“What? What is it, Header?” Doc called to me, but he was already headed for the surface and to his first depth check stop.
“There’s a bomb down here,” I warned the team as I followed closely after Doc. “Fresh looking one, too.”
There was a second of silent comprehension that flooded over the team as a whole. I could only imagine that Rosa was prepping things on Wraith, getting ready to go at a moment’s notice as soon as Doc and I were safely on board. Doc and I had one set of jobs to do now. Complete our depth checks and get to the surface as rapidly as we could.
Xavier was already letting us know what we were up against. “If there’s one, there could be more. I’m looking up the specification or trying to, with what little information the image gave me. The size tells me that’s for more shallow water than we’re currently in, but that doesn’t mean it can’t or won’t do damage if it goes off.”
I ran scenarios over in my mind during the swim and also at the safety check. I stopped only to check in with Doc.
“You doing okay there so far?” I could see that his eyes were maybe wider and more alert than usual, but that was all.
“I’m fine, thank you,” he answered flatly. “Was it a remote or sensor? Could you tell?”
Xavier answered for me. “I’d say remote, but with an area detonator. I didn’t get a full image to go off of. I have to search a database visually. That takes a while, gentlemen.”
“Well, I’m not going back down for a better look, so…” I thought that might ease the tension, but it might have been too much, too soon. Doc, for one, wasn’t amused by the look on his face. His lips were set in a straight line, and his eyes were laser-focused on me. “Okay, too soon. Got it.”
Doc shook his head at me as he thrust himself upward, done with his first check. I was a bit behind him, most likely less than a minute. Xavier's voice came through at that point. “Um, Header, Rosa wants me to let you know that there’s a boat coming into range of where we are.” I could hear the worry and nervousness in his speech. Things were ramping up into something we’d not planned for, and there was nothing we could do about it now. Only one thing made sense. This had been a trap.
I wanted to remain calm and firmly stable, but this news kind of had the opposite effect. We had to move fast. “Okay… how far out? And is there a guess at the size?”
Maybe, if we were very lucky, it was just a fishing boat, or the Coast Guard, or a lost pleasure ship with a quirky crew and passengers like on the “Pacific Princess” or the “USS Minnow.” A guy could dream.
“Not too far out now. Speeding toward us, heedless of all danger, heh.” Now even Xavier was getting in on the jokes. Anything to break the tension, I supposed.
“Yeah, um, guys, you know that boat that attacked us before?” He asked, and we already knew where this was headed.
“Rosa, you get the hell out of here if you have to and come back for us. Don’t take any chances.” I pulled into my next check as the monitor practically blared at me to stop my movement. Doc was poised to dart upward, which was a sight to see, us being in deep water with no propulsion to jump from.
Xavier could be heard chuckling slightly in our ears. “Rosa said, um, no. Let’s go with that one.”
“Rosa, I’m serious,” I argued. “You have a kid on board, and we have video evidence of something illegal going on down here. Take that to the authorities immediately. Doc and I can float around, and you know, hope someone picks up our beacons.” I looked down at the forty-eight-hour signal secured at my waist. I knew Doc had his own, as well. “We’ll be fine. Just stay safe and be smart.”
“Wow.” Xavier’s hushed comment could barely be made out, but he wasn’t talking or answering to us down here. “Um, so, Rosa’s response doesn’t really translate, so, yeah, I’m going to skip it.” There was a brief pause from his end. “Header? Doc? Is there any way that you can angle your upward trajectory? Start swimming to, let’s say, the west a bit?”
“Line of fire precautions?” Doc asked. I got what they were saying.
“Yeah, we’ll start swimming to the west, no problem.” I looked down at the compass next to the monitors on my gear. Doc was already on the move, and I could assume that Rosa was positioning Wraith further away, just on the off-chance that a bomb detonated beneath us. There was no way that we could avoid a blast entirely, but we could at least try to mitigate the disaster.
I thought of all the ways Doc and I would be affected by an underwater explosion. The density of the water at this depth was going to work in our favor, but it was still a hazardous prospect. The initial shock wave could blast us out and up, and then possibly back and down if we were too close to the epicenter.
The Wraith and her three passengers were in the most danger, though. The first shock wave would most likely propel the boat forward in a huge, heavy blast, and a lot of that would depend on their range and Rosa’s capability to helm the waves. Then, when the next round of shock waves hit, that was at the mercy of the previous actions and recovery. Suffice it to say that there was a lot at stake for all of us. Doc and I needed to get back on Wraith as soon as we could.
That was when I felt the beginnings of a tremor in the water behind me. I was a minute and seconds away from finishing my current depth check. Doc was calming himself and was also about to start swimming again, heading west. This alteration in the angle added time to our dive that we really didn’t have, but it had to be done. So, when that first thrust pushed me forward, I had no choice but to swim for my life.
Doc must have felt it as well because we both maneuvered quickly to give us as much room as possible between our bodies and the shock wave that was coming for us all. There was no way to control our forward movement at the onset. I could only try to keep myself as small and compact as possible. I tried to ball my form up tightly, and it worked for a while. I wondered if I looked like a human cannonball, flying through the water, flailing a bit, and just trying not to lose any of my gear.
“Header!” That had to be Xavier’s voice, but I couldn’t be sure. The noise and the rushing and speed overwhelmed me completely, and I had no idea of which way was up, down, or anything anymore. I hit something that might have been Doc, but I wasn’t sure of anything at this juncture. I managed to feel the water slow around me, and I pushed myself to swim in the stillest direction. That was kind of relative at this point, though, as everything was still in its wild and feral motion.
The water was too cloudy and dismal to see more than a few inches around me. The LEDs were always at full strength, but that wasn’t even helping at this moment.
“Doc? Are you there?” I called out, but I got a weird crackling in my headset inst
ead of a reply. “Xavier, Rosa? Can you read me at all?” Still, just the crackling sound.
I cussed up a storm as a wave of force dragged me back down into the murky depths. It felt like I was a cloth doll, being tumbled about in a dryer, only this was all water and silt surrounding me. My back collided against something, and there was a sharp pain on my right side. For a second, I was terrified that my suit might have been compromised, but none of those gauges were going off. Plenty of others were going haywire, but not those.
I had to swim up. I knew that I had to get to the surface, even if it meant I would have to suffer through decompression sickness during and afterward. I had to locate Doc and make sure that he was okay, too. I was having a hard time breathing now, and I’d encountered this kind of pain before. I must have broken some ribs when I hit whatever that was.
“Doc?” I called out again, and I needed to hear something from him. “If you can hear me, get up top. I’m swimming for Wraith and hoping for the best.” There were several more static crackles, so maybe someone had received that message. The murkiness of the water was impossible to navigate through with any certainty, so I just had to try my best to reach for the surface.
Another wave forced me forward, and I let it carry me. There wasn’t anything I could do at this point, anyway. I was helpless to save myself or anyone else until the rushing allowed me to gain control over my own movement. The only thing I could do was try to stay in contact with my team, so that’s what I was going to do.
“Doc? Can you give me an old one, two on your mic? Give me something to go on.” I got nothing back from him, not even static. “Marco?” I called out, louder than I needed to. Like raising my voice would actually help any of them hear me better. “Marco!” I screamed. But still, not a sound in return.
I kept moving forward, pushing to find light in this darkness of the water, debris, sand, and silt. My LEDs were lighting up masses of bits and pieces of rubble and bone, and somewhere in all of this, I’d actually lost the chunk of resin I’d been taking up to Xavier. I cussed myself out, getting more and more frustrated by all of this.
