by Sean Ellis
The open decks of the ship were empty. Nothing of the crew or their belongings remained. The oarlocks held only water, even the rudder oars were gone, and the stump of a mast protruded from the center of the craft, just aft of the enclosure. Likely, the event that had sent the ship to the bottom had also washed overboard anything that wasn't secured. Kismet did not pause to inspect the gilt beams or the benches where the oarsmen had labored centuries before, but continued purposefully toward his goal.
The enclosure had been designed for more than just shelter. A colonnade of ornamental pillars, suggesting that it might have been used for worship, ringed the solid walls. The columns were spaced far enough apart to allow for easy passage, and Kismet could see that something had been erected between the colonnade and the interior structure. He moved closer to get a better look.
As he peered through the pillars, leaning sideways, he immediately recognized the foundation of a small altar. The base, set into the floor of the shrine, was overlaid in glowing metal. Kismet glanced down and saw one of the altar stones resting on a pillar. Behind his glass porthole, his brows drew together in contemplation. The displaced stone was also gilt, whereas the altar stone recovered by Kerns and shown in the photographs Harcourt had displayed was of white marble.
Curious, Kismet reached down and shifted the stone. Where the relic had been in contact with the pillar, idle for millennia, the underlying white marble was visible in a thin stripe. The clean stone seemed dark against the luminescent metal. Likewise on the pillar, a smudge of shadow revealed the resting-place of the stone. He could draw but one impossible conclusion: the gold that covered nearly every inch of the ship had accreted after the wreck, after the craft had rolled over onto the bottom.
Kismet released the stone and returned his attention to the enclosure just behind the base of the altar. A thin seam revealed the presence of a door, sealed for ages by the accumulated coating of shining gold. He traced along the seam with the tip of his knife. The plating was thinner than beaten foil and split apart without resistance. Minute bubbles of trapped gas trickled out of the cut. Kismet sheathed the knife then placed both hands on the featureless portal and pushed.
The door opened a couple inches and released a gasp of bubbles that momentarily obscured his view. Then the tingling in his palms suddenly blossomed into a pulse of pain that jolted up his arms and through his torso. He jerked back in surprise and looked at his hands.
Dark shapes swarmed over his arms; moving shapes that he could not shake loose. Kismet did not know their taxonomic nomenclature—Torpedindae torpedo—but he recognized them easily nevertheless. Electric rays.
More of the flat speckled fish wriggled out of the colonnade to join in the assault. Kismet staggered back, brushing at the creatures, which continued to send surges of pain up his arms.
In an instant, the torpedo rays enveloped him; a cloud of writhing forms blanketed his head and chest. He flailed at them blindly, his muscles seizing every time they released their potent charges.
He knew that the rubber of his diving suit should have insulated him from the shock, but the electricity seemed to pass right through. Gritting his teeth, he took hold of a ray in either hand and started pulling them away from his helmet.
Blinded, he took another step back...and fell into nothingness.
* * *
Irene was in a state of panic.
Her anxiety had begun the moment Kismet disappeared into the still water. It was inconceivable to her that her own father had made repeated forays into the underwater realm, utilizing his antiquated equipment, without her ever knowing. Stranger still that he had used the gains of that enterprise to finance a venture of even greater risk, namely their flight to the United States. But her father's success did not necessarily translate into confidence in Kismet's ability to survive the peril into which he had so willingly plunged.
She had looked to Anatoly for encouragement, but the big Russian had simply shrugged. "He'll make it," he had assured her, in a less than inspirational tone. "You watch the compressor. Make sure it doesn't run out of fuel. I'll radio for a weather report. Storms on the Black—well, you know how quickly they can rise. We might be out here a long time."
The comment, delivered in Russian, was a veritable oration from Anatoly, who was not generally loquacious. He had turned away however, leaving her to watch the chugging compressor, the slow unspooling of the cable and the calm surface of the water.
Her uneasiness did not abate during his long absence. When he returned, some fifteen minutes later, he inquired briefly about Kismet's status. Irene had nothing to report; Kismet could be dead for all she knew.
Ten minutes later, the panic set in.
Irene saw it first, a barely perceptible speck creeping over the western horizon and trailing a plume of white vapor. She knew instantly what it was. "That's the Boyevoy. It's the ship that brought Nick and I here."
Anatoly did not seem concerned. "I'm sure it's a coincidence."
"You don't understand. Captain Severin doesn't trust us. He thinks Nick's a grave robber, trying to steal national treasures."
Anatoly's bushy eyebrows went up. "Is he not?"
"That's not the point. It won't take him long to figure out that Nick is down there. Once he does..." She couldn't put her fears into words that conveyed the panic she felt.
"What should we do?" asked Anatoly.
Irene wanted to scream at the big Russian; to tell him to think of something, but it was evident that he did not share her urgency. She would have to be the one to come up with a solution.
Severin's destroyer was chugging steadily toward them, grinding out its maximum speed of thirty-two knots. “He'll be here in a few minutes," grated Irene. "We've got to do something."
She ran to the edge of the boat and started pulling at the fishing nets, trying to camouflage Kismet's air hose and lifeline beneath the old twine webs. Anatoly helped her complete the illusion, but it was obvious to both of them that, if they were boarded, even a casual search would pierce their veil of deception. One thing they could not hide was the compressor; its motor chugged loudly, exhaling a cloud of blue exhaust smoke. Irene stared at the rickety machine, well aware that Kismet's life depended on its continued operation.
"We could shut it off," suggested Anatoly, as if reading her mind. "He probably has a few minutes of air in his helmet."
She cringed at the thought. "Only if it becomes obvious that we're going to be boarded. And we don't turn it off until we absolutely have to."
Anatoly nodded gravely. "If we are boarded, it may not matter. We cannot hide this."
Irene turned away, unable to answer him. She didn't know what else to do.
All too soon, the Boyevoy grew large with its approach. There could be no questioning its intention to intercept the trawler. The Sovremenny class warship cut a path straight toward them, reversing its screws only when it seemed that a collision with the idle boat was unavoidable, and even as the ship was still coasting forward, the efficient crew lowered the motor launch into the water.
Suddenly, a whirring noise caught Irene's attention. The cable that connected Kismet to the boat was spinning out of control. Thirty yards of twisted wire snaked out in a matter of seconds. Similarly, the rubber air hose was jumping out of its coil on the deck at an alarming rate. While the lifeline had over a hundred yards of reserve, the air hose was about to run out. Panicked, she rushed to the winch and engaged the ratchet. The cable seized instantly and snapped taut. The remainder of the air hose lay in a loop on the deck; a mere six feet in length.
Something disastrous had occurred below; something had happened to him and there was nothing she could do about it. She raised her eyes to the approaching launch and knew that she had one more task to perform; a duty that might well spell the end for Kismet. Gathering her courage, she stepped to the compressor and pulled the choke lever. The engine roared for a moment, then sputtered into silence.
Anatoly placed a protective hand on her s
houlder, offering no assistance to the Russian seamen that swarmed onto the deck of his boat. For Irene, it was like a replay of the events a few days previously, when Severin had accosted them aboard the boat of the Turkish smuggler. The cocky Russian captain addressed her with the overly familiar patronymic.
"Greetings, Petrovna. How pleasant to see you again."
"What do you want?" she croaked, surprised to find her voice thick with fear and anger. She blinked away tears, trying to keep the emotion off her face.
Severin ignored her question as he gazed curiously around the boat. "Where are you hiding the dubious Nick Kismet?"
Irene sensed that he was toying with her. "He stayed behind. He wasn't feeling well."
"Ah! But you thought you would help your father's old friend with his fishing. How kind of you." He swiveled his gaze to face the unbowed fisherman. "I am curious, Anatoly Sergeievich Grishakov. How will your nets catch any fish if you are at anchor? Is this some new technique?"
"Why are you bothering us?" Anatoly snapped. "We aren't doing anything wrong. Go pester someone else."
Severin spat out derisive laugh. "State security has not forgotten you, Sergeievich. Your name is on a list of known troublemakers. You would do yourself a favor by cooperating."
"I am cooperating, fool. I've let you come aboard my boat, even though your warship has driven all the fish away and ruined my catch."
Severin smiled and turned away, walking to the stern gunwale and peering into the water. "Apparently you are the only fisher in your city who believes there are fish to be caught here." He faced Anatoly once more. "There is an FSB informant in the city who overheard your call for a weather report. He thought it curious that you would fish here, where no one ever goes. He also told me how you and Kismet spent the morning loading equipment onto your boat. So you will understand if I tell you that your answers thus far have not impressed me."
He took a step closer, his smile drawing into a menacing sneer. "You will cooperate."
"I have grown weary of threats," sighed Anatoly, unmoved. "If you wish to torture me, do so. I have nothing to say that I have not already said."
"Perhaps I will—torture?—ha! Perhaps Irina Petrovna will be more cooperative. Or perhaps, for her sake, you will leave off your posturing, and tell me where I can find Nick Kismet."
As he spoke, Severin moved closer, increasing his pitch and volume. His last words were shouted, though he was less than a hand's breadth from her face. She tried to shrink deeper into Anatoly's embrace.
"She told you!" the fisherman roared, equally stentorian. "Kismet isn't here."
The Russian captain turned away once more, walking in a slow circle around them. "Indeed. My men have searched your vessel and Kismet quite obviously is not here. But that does not answer the question of why you are here, in these waters where no one ever fishes."
He paused, standing directly behind Irene and Anatoly so that they could not see him. "What is this?" Severin's tone was mockingly inquisitive. "It looks like an engine, but there is hose of some sort that goes into the water. Is this also part of your unusual fishing technique?"
The Russian naval officer did not wait for an answer. He barked an order to one of the seamen, who strode forward and started reeling in the cable with the winch. At least seventy-five yards of the twisted metal line had been played out and it took the burly sailor almost five minutes to wind it in. Severin leaned over the stern, eyeing the cable hungrily, eager to see what he had caught.
Abruptly, without any disturbance of the surface, the end of the cable popped up. A gated carabiner was secured to a loop at its end, but nothing was connected to that hook.
"Nyet!" raged Severin. He pushed the sailor away and snatched the air line off the deck. Furious, he began pulling it in. As the rubber hose piled up around his knees, two of the sailors, acting on a cue from the XO, stepped in and took over for their superior.
Irene gazed at the empty carabiner in mute terror. That cable was Kismet's only lifeline. The hose connection wasn't strong enough to lift Kismet and his heavy suit off the bottom. The rubber tubing might withstand the strain, but the brass fittings of the helmet would surely crack before he could be brought up. Even if they didn't break off altogether, the rupture would certainly fill the protective suit with seawater, drowning him before he could be lifted to the surface. In his rage Severin either failed to conceive this possibility, or simply didn't care.
Then the sailors stopped pulling in the hose, and Irene turned to see why. She couldn't hold back a low cry when she saw the ragged end of the hose in their hands. Severin's face twisted with rage, then slowly relaxed. After a long silence, he began laughing.
* * *
Kismet was in a cold, dark place.
Immediately after his fall, the torpedo rays had relented. Perhaps satisfied with having repelled the intruder, they retreated to their defensive perimeter. It was also possible that the colder water and harsher extreme of pressure at the depth where Kismet now found himself was disagreeable to the electric fish.
He couldn't see anything. The golden illumination from the wreck was gone. Gone also was the ground beneath his feet. He was hanging in the water suspended by the cable leading to the surface. Why that line had suddenly gone taut was a mystery, but he knew that the interruption had probably saved him. He had no idea how far he had descended, but was certain that the atmospheres weighing upon him had more than doubled. He sucked greedily at the air that was being pumped down from the surface, trying to calm his racing heart.
He fumbled in the dark to find the net bag tied to his belt, intent on sending up one of the orange floats. One ball was the signal to begin the gradual ascent, allowing for decompression at certain intervals. Releasing all three of the floats would indicate an extreme emergency, dire enough to supersede the risk of the bends. Terrifying though it had been, he didn't think his encounter with the electric rays or the subsequent tumble into darkness justified such a drastic measure.
It was clear now what had happened. Blinded by the attack, he had wandered off of the submerged shelf that formed a perimeter along the coast of the Black Sea. The Caucasus didn't really stop at the water's edge, but plunged more than a mile below sea level. No diving or exploration, at least not with the antiquated equipment he was using, was possible in that dark beyond where the combined mass of water would crush his diving helmet like an eggshell. That the ancient ship had sunk so close to that shelf without going over was a coincidence that verged on miraculous; had it gone down just fifty yards further to the west, the secret of the Golden Fleece would have been lost forever.
His fingers closed around one of the floats, but before he could withdraw it, he found himself unable to draw breath; the air refused to enter his lungs. Concentrating on his chest, he tried again to inhale. He could feel the resistance, like trying to suck the air out of a bottle and a breath was grudgingly granted. Intuitively, he realized his air supply had been cut off; the compressor was no longer pumping air down to him.
Kismet immediately tried to reassure himself; the mechanism had simply stalled. He envisioned his companions on the boat frantically trying to restart the motor, and was confident that they would succeed and that at any moment precious air would resume flowing into his helmet. But thirty seconds passed, then a minute, and his ability to restrain the growing panic was diminishing with every heartbeat. Every inhalation was an effort. Each strained breath was using up his precious reserve of good air, and each exhalation further poisoned his environment with useless carbon dioxide. He closed his eyes, willing himself calm, and drew another shallow, labored breath. His hands once more sought out the floats in the net bag. He debated sending up all three, but thought better of it. Anatoly and Irene certainly must have recognized that restarting the compressor was an emergency. There was no need to compound his peril by signaling for a hasty extraction from the depths. But why were they taking so long?
Before he could release a float however, he felt a tugging a
cross his back. A tremor vibrated along the length of cable connecting him to the boat and he slowly began to ascend out of the pit. The flow of fresh air, however, did not resume.
Instantly, the panic returned. Had the compressor failed, breaking down beyond Anatoly's ability to repair? If so, was there sufficient air remaining in his helmet to make the ascent? Even without the requisite decompression stops, the upward journey would take several minutes.
He arched his back, tilting his enclosed head to get a look at the surface. Very little illumination could penetrate the thickness of the water, but he was able to pick out the oblong shape of the trawler. He squinted at the keel, trying to estimate the depth to which he had plunged and how long it would take for his friends to draw him up. As he stared at the boat, steeling himself against the inevitable moment when he would feel the painful cramps of the bends, he became aware of a smaller boat, orbiting the trawler like a satellite.
No, he realized. The second shape is the trawler.
There was another vessel right next to Anatoly's boat; a craft much larger than the tiny fishing vessel. With equal parts intuition and dread, Kismet realized that it was not another fishing boat but a ship. It could only be the Boyevoy. The Russian captain and his armed sailors were undoubtedly already aboard the trawler and probably knew that Kismet was in the water. They had likely cut off his air supply, intending to bring his lifeless body up as evidence against Irene and Anatoly. Kismet imagined the delight they would take in watching his agonizing struggle to readjust to topside pressurization, provided he did not suffocate during the ascent.
