“I will make the arrangements,” Volkmann concluded. “We need never meet like this again.”
The New Yorker who’d spoken of Fort Knox said, “Oh, I’m sure we will. In hell.”
7
CABRILLO crossed himself.
The victims were of all ages, though they were predominantly in their twenties, from what he could tell. Some had been dead for quite some time. Their bodies were black with lividity, and several were bloated with internal gas. Others had apparently drowned when the pirates dumped the container over the side of the fishing boat. They appeared sickly pale under the deck lights. It was hard to tell in the jumble of limbs, but it looked as though there were more men than women. The one thing they all had in common, other than their gruesome deaths, was that every one of them was Chinese.
“Snakeheads.” Cabrillo spat with disgust, looking out to where an oil slick still burned on the dark ocean.
Eager to seek work outside China, peasants and even moderately well-to-do workers paid upwards of thirty thousand dollars to be smuggled out of the country. Of course, even a wealthy Chinese couldn’t come up with that kind of cash, so a system was put in place whereby the illegal immigrant would work for the gangs who smuggled them, paying off the debt by toiling in sweat-shops or restaurants in every city from New York to New Delhi. The women were generally prostituted in “massage parlors” that sprang up even in small towns across America and Canada. They labored for years, living in overcrowded apartments owned by the gangs, until the entire debt was repaid. If they tried to run away, their families back in China would be tortured or killed.
In this way more than a million Chinese a year left one bitter, dead-end existence for another, all believing the promise that things would improve if only they worked harder.
The immigrants had a name for their journey to a new life. It was called riding the snake, and those who ran the gangs were called snakeheads.
Cabrillo and his crew had intercepted a shipload of illegals most likely on their way to Japan, or the pirates had hijacked such a boat and were planning on selling the laborers back to the gang or to some third party. Either way, they had stumbled onto a human trafficking ring. Past his horror at what lay on the deck of his ship, beyond the grief that built behind his eyes, Juan Cabrillo felt a spark of anger flare in his chest. He nurtured it, fanning it with hate until it roared and threatened to consume him.
He turned to Linda Ross, his eyes glacial hard. “Get Dr. Huxley up here as soon as she’s able. There’s nothing she can do for these poor people, but autopsies might shed some light on what happened.” He motioned to the deckhands. “As soon as orderlies empty the container, check it for any kind of ID numbers, then heave it over the side.”
“Are you okay, Juan?” Linda asked with concern.
“No. I’m pissed,” he said as he strode away. “And I still have a submarine to deal with.”
He took his seat in the operations center. Word had already spread, and the mood was subdued. Mark Murphy was running systems checks on the shipboard weapons in case they were needed again, while Eric Stone sat quietly at the helm station awaiting orders.
“Mr. Murphy,” Cabrillo called sharply.
Mark turned in his seat, a grave look on his face. It had been his shot that blew up the Kra and ruined any chance of interrogating prisoners. “Yes, sir?”
The chairman’s voice softened. “Don’t blame yourself. I would have plugged her in the same place. We’re in this for the long haul. There’ll be others.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you.”
“Mr. Stone, make your speed thirty knots and put us over that submarine.”
“Aye, sir.”
Linda was still on deck, doubtlessly helping Julia and her medical team. Juan monitored the passive sonar array and called course and speed corrections to Stone until they had the Oregon directly over the mysterious sub. It had settled to seventy-five feet in the half hour since they’d first detected it. He washed the acoustical signal through the computer, filtering out extraneous sounds, until all he heard was the slow escape of air from the craft. He couldn’t tell if the sub was just playing dead or if it was having a problem. But if there were some sort of emergency, surely he’d hear alarm Klaxons and crewmen working within the pressure hull. Even without the sophisticated listening devices, the sound of metal banging on metal would carry right through to the Oregon. Yet all that came through was the burbling hiss of the slowly sinking sub.
Juan pulled up a chart of the region on the computer. There were nearly two miles of water under the keel. It would be days before the sub hit bottom, although by then she would have long since collapsed after passing her crush depth.
He went back to his own seat and called down to the moon pool, “Dive master, this is Cabrillo. Open the hull doors and prepare an ROV for a shallow-water recon. Also have two divers standing by and lay out some gear for me.”
Fifteen minutes later Cabrillo stood behind the ROV’s pilot wearing an orange wet suit. His goggles were strapped around his left arm. There was no need for him to dive on the sub but for his own desire to feel the freshening calm of the ocean’s embrace. His shoulders and neck ached from tension and rage.
The underwater probe was a small, torpedo-shaped craft with three variable-pitch propellers along its axis for propulsion and maneuverability. In its domed nose was a high-resolution video camera, and mounted on its back were enough lights to illuminate a ten-foot swath in even the murkiest water. The craft had just been launched, and two workers made sure its unspooling tether ran free from the ship.
The huge doors that were opened to the sea allowed a chill to creep into the cavernous amidships hold while underwater lights attached to the hull cast a wavering green reflection along the bulkheads. The big Nomad 1000 submersible loomed over the pool like an airship, ready just in case they needed her powerful manipulator arm.
“Passing fifty feet,” the operator announced, his attention fixed on the screen showing a live feed from the ROV’s camera. All it revealed was blackness. His fingers rested on a pair of joysticks that controlled the probe.
“Sixty feet.”
“There.” Cabrillo pointed.
From out of the gloom came the faintest trace of an outline. It was murky and indistinct at first but resolved itself as the ROV approached. The probe had come upon the sub from the stern. It was her bronze propeller that glinted in the powerful lights. Then they could discern her rudder. It looked like no sub Juan had ever seen.
“Bring us up five feet and forward another ten.”
The operator followed his orders, and the prop slid under the camera’s view. They could see steel hull plates, but these weren’t in the cigar shape of a typical submarine. Linda had said the craft was odd when she’d hit it with active sonar to check its shape.
Suddenly they could see the word HAM painted in white against the black hull.
“Back us off,” Cabrillo said.
The little undersea robot eased in reverse, and the word expanded into gibberish. UTHAMPTO.
“What the hell is an Uthampto?” one of the divers asked.
“Not what,” Juan replied. “Where. Southampton, England.”
And as he spoke, the full name of the vessel’s home port came into view as well as her name: Avalon. And she wasn’t a sub at all.
“Do you think this is the ship where the pirates pulled the refugees?”
“I doubt it.” Cabrillo stared at the screen as the probe sailed over the ship’s stern rail and across her aft deck. A few fish swam amid the tangle of gear. “But I’m sure she was one of their victims. I bet she was attacked just before we got into radar range.” He called up to the bridge to have Mark Murphy run a check on the British-flagged ship.
“Wouldn’t we have heard an SOS?” the diver asked.
“Not if the pirates jammed them or boarded using some trick that allowed them to take out her radios before a warning could be sent.”
“Chairman, it’s M
urph. The Avalon belongs to the Royal Geographic Society. Launched in 1982, she’s a hundred and thirty feet long, displaces —”
Cabrillo cut him off. “When was she last heard from?”
“According to a press release from the RGS, all contact was lost with her four days ago. American search and rescue units out of Okinawa didn’t find a thing.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Juan said for his benefit and not for those around him. He puzzled aloud. “If she was boarded and the pirates cut communications, the SAR crews should have spotted her in no time.”
“Not if they sank her right away,” the ROV pilot answered.
“There’s no way she would have sunk only seventy-five feet in four days.” Cabrillo paused. “Unless…unless someone managed to stop her from taking on more water.”
“She’d still keep sinking,” the diver said. “If she’d lost enough buoyancy to sink this far, she’d have lost enough to keep going down.”
Cabrillo regarded the man. “Good point, unless she became trapped in a halocline, a band of highly saline water. Salt water is more dense than fresh, so an equal volume displaces more weight. The ocean is layered like a cake with striations of water with differing salt levels and temperatures. It’s possible the Avalon sank into a layer of superdense water that’s maintaining her equilibrium for the time being.” He was aware that the ship was still taking on water, so eventually she would slip through the band of water, then plunge like a stone.
The men watched in silence as the probe glided over the sunken vessel. There were no outward signs of a struggle, no bullet holes or evidence of explosion. It was as though she’d just slid beneath the waves without a fight. Once the probe reached the Avalon’s bow, Cabrillo had the pilot swing her along the superstructure and see if they could peer into any of the windows.
“Do you think anyone’s still alive on her?” the diver suddenly blurted.
Juan had already considered and discarded the idea. He’d seen firsthand how savage the pirates were and knew they wouldn’t have left behind any witnesses, even on a scuttled ship. Further proof was the derelict’s silence. If he’d been trapped on a sunken vessel, he would have done something to attract attention, no matter how futile. He would have banged on the hull with a wrench until he could no longer move his arms. Then he would have shouted until his dying breath. No, he was certain no one was left alive aboard the Avalon.
The ROV swept back across the Avalon’s deck, heading for the bridge. In the tight cone of light they could see the big windows had all been smashed, either by the pirates or when the research vessel slipped into the sea. The pilot eased the probe through one of the empty window frames, mindful that the armored tether could easily tangle. The ceiling looked like a shimmering wall of liquid mercury. It was an air pocket fed by a string of bubbles leaking up from a small hole in the floor.
There was ample evidence of the attack on the bridge. Stitched lines of bullet holes crisscrossed the room, and brass shells littered the deck. A pile of what looked to be rags or a tarp in one corner revealed itself to be a body. Tiny fish darted at the tendrils of blood still leaking from the numerous wounds. The pilot tried to maneuver so they could see the dead man’s face and maybe make an ID, but the little probe didn’t have the power to roll what had once been a large man.
“See if you can find a way to access the rest of the superstructure,” Cabrillo ordered.
The pilot tried, but they found the door at the rear of the bridge jammed with a metal bar across the latches.
“Never mind. Back us out and check the portholes. Maybe we can see inside her.”
The probe ran first down the Avalon’s port side, pausing at each porthole, but they couldn’t see anything within the hull. Inside was stygian black. The operator swung around her stern and started up the starboard. The light cast a perfect circle along the black hull, and each round window glittered like a jewel. The instant it shone into one of the cabins there came the sharp sound of metal banging against metal. It was a frantic, staccato tattoo. The men monitoring the screen recoiled as a pale face suddenly appeared at the window. It was a woman. Her eyes were huge with fear, and her mouth moved as she shouted a scream they could not hear.
“Dear God! She’s alive.”
Cabrillo had already moved to a bench seat and was snugging the straps of his twin air tanks over his shoulders. Next came the buoyancy compensator that looped around his neck. He struggled to his feet to cinch a weight belt around his waist. The two other divers were quickly following suit. He snatched up a pair of swim fins and a powerful flashlight.
“Alert Huxley,” he said as he waddled to the moon pool, burdened by sixty pounds of gear. He adjusted his mask, checked his airflow, and fell back into the water.
As he dropped through a curtain of bubbles, Cabrillo slid his feet into the fins, then purged some water that had seeped in around his mask. The water wasn’t that cold, and his body heat quickly warmed the thin layer trapped inside his wet suit. He waited just long enough for the two other divers to hit the water before dumping air from his BC and dropping into the darkness, one hand on the probe’s tether as a guide.
How had she survived? he wondered. Judging by the damage fish had done to the corpse on the bridge, the pirates had scuttled the Avalon shortly after taking her. Was there that much air trapped inside her hull? Obviously, the answer was yes. The question was if it would last until they could get her out.
Below him he saw the corona of light from the probe and shadowy details of the research ship. Air spilled from at least a dozen spots around her hull, as though she were bleeding. Juan felt a superstitious chill down his spine. The Avalon had become a ghost ship, but unlike the Flying Dutchman, she’d been cursed to sail through the darkness below the seas, a forlorn wanderer on borrowed time.
When he reached the main deck, Juan checked the depth gauge on his dive computer. He was down to eighty-three feet. The Avalon was sinking faster. Her borrowed time was running out.
He finned down to where the ROV hovered motionless outside the porthole where they’d spied the survivor. When he peered in through the small, round window, the trapped woman jumped back in fright. She quickly came forward again so an inch of water and a thick pane of glass separated their faces. If Juan didn’t come up with something quick, the gulf would remain insurmountable.
She wore two jackets and several sweaters. Her hair was covered in a wool watchman’s cap. The air inside the ship would be the same temperature as the water. A quick check told him fifty-one degrees. Her eyes were bright blue, and now that he’d arrived, they had lost their edge of madness. As desperate as she was, she still retained some semblance of humor, because she tapped her watch as if to say, About time. Juan admired her courage.
Then he took in the subtle details and noticed her lips were blue and her face an unnatural white. Her body quivered with uncontrollable paroxysms. He looked deeper into the cabin. Water completely covered the small room up to the level of the bed frames. One mattress floated free while the woman kept the other anchored with her weight. Yet even her refuge hadn’t remained dry, and neither had her clothes. With her kneeling on the mattress, her weight formed a depression that pooled with seawater. No doubt her feet were soaked as well. Unable to know how long she’d been in this condition, he was certain she’d be hypothermic soon.
Juan removed his regulator and mouthed, “Are you all right?” The seawater against his lips was bitterly salty, confirming his earlier supposition about how the Avalon had delayed her plunge to the bottom.
She gave him a flat stare as if to say he was nuts to ask, given the circumstances, then nodded to tell him she wasn’t injured. He pointed at her and held up a finger, then pointed to other places on the ship, holding up more fingers. It took her a moment to realize he was asking if there were others with her. She shook her head sadly. Then she held up a finger and disappeared for a moment. When she returned she had a pad of paper and a black marker. Her hand shook so m
uch her writing was barely legible. “I’m the only one. Can you get me out?”
Juan nodded that he could, although he had no idea how. They could attach lines from the Oregon’s cranes to the research vessel and try to haul her to the surface, only the cranes had nowhere near the power to deadlift a sinking ship, and if they got the balance wrong, she could tilt and fill even faster than she was now. However, it would be worth getting some lines down to the Avalon so they could at least stabilize her for the time being.
The other divers reached Juan. He wrote out instructions on a slate one of them carried and sent the man back to the Oregon. He turned back to the trapped woman and winked. She wrote something on her pad and held it to the glass. “Who are you?”
He wrote out his name. She flashed him a look of frustration and wrote “Are you with the navy?”
Uh-oh. How could he explain their presence? He wrote back that he headed a private security company hired to bring the pirates to justice. She seemed satisfied. He asked her to describe where water hadn’t yet flooded the Avalon. She wrote that the bridge deck was flooded and the bilge and engine room. Water had been climbing her deck for the past twelve hours. He asked if there were any exterior doors that he could open that would only flood a small room, an antechamber of some sort that could be isolated from the rest of the ship.
She wrote that she wasn’t sure, then fell back onto the bed. Water welled up through the mattress around her backside and shoulders. The woman didn’t seem to notice or no longer had the strength to do anything about it. Juan pounded the butt of his dive light against the hull to rouse her. She opened her eyes but barely registered his presence. She was slipping away. He pounded his light again, and the woman crawled to the porthole once more. Her eyes were glassy, and her jaw chattered like she was holding the business end of a jackhammer. He couldn’t get her out without her help, and she was maybe five minutes away from unconsciousness.
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