Grave Descend

by Michael Crichton

  It was only a few minutes before he saw the gaping hole, somewhat forward from the stern. It was a large, neat hole which looked as if it had been punched out from within; the metal was torn outward. McGregor ran his fingers lightly over the jagged edge, knowing that human skin in water was fragile; he did not want a cut.

  The hole was four feet across. He was easily able to wriggle in, his metal tanks clanging once against the edge. It was dark inside; he flicked on his underwater flashlight and swung the yellow beam around.

  The engine room. To the left and right, large twin diesels faced him. He turned the light to the walls of the room, looking for damage, pitting, blacking, the signs of an explosion …

  There were none, of course. This explosion had been carefully prepared. Its force was directed almost entirely outward, through the hull.

  Yeoman appeared at his side, and gestured to indicate that the propellers were all right. McGregor signaled that they should begin looking further; Yeoman nodded. From the engine room, they swam forward and squeezed through a door, going down a carpeted hallway. The rooms opening off the hall were simple; plain metal bunk-beds, lightweight metal dressers. These were the crew’s quarters. At the end of the hall there was a narrow stairs. They kicked up, gliding past the rungs, and came onto the deck. The staterooms were here, and the guest quarters. The walls and doors were polished mahogany.

  McGregor, remembering the plan of the ship, moved forward to the main stateroom, opened the door, and went inside. His air burbled up, struck the ceiling, and ran trickling along the roof to the open window, where it climbed to the surface.

  He swung the torch around the room. It was elegant, a fitting room for the rest of the yacht. He looked for the sculpture.

  He didn’t see it.

  He looked again, the torch beam sweeping across the floor, in case it had fallen.

  There was no chrome sculpture.

  Peculiar.

  He kicked over to the aft wall, opened a cabinet, and found the safe. It was not large, but firmly bolted down. He gave a tug, then felt beneath the cabinet to the large bolts.

  Yeoman came over, and signaled he was going up to the bridge. McGregor nodded and followed. They moved down the deck passage, Yeoman floating above the carpeted floor as he kicked smoothly ahead.

  They came out on the stern deck, and clicked off their torches, then swam up to the bridge. They examined the charts and maps which remained on the shelf.

  It was then that McGregor heard it.

  For a moment, he could not be sure. He signaled to Yeoman to stop breathing for a moment. The two men hung silent in the water, and listened.

  There was a low but distinct humming sound.

  Yeoman gestured with his hands to indicate he thought it was a surface boat far off. McGregor shook his head: outboards didn’t sound that way. They were sharper, more a buzzing sound. This was a hum, and it was coming from below.

  From the boat.

  He kicked down, reentered the deck passage, and slipped forward. Every so often he paused, holding his breath, and waited until the trickling of his bubbles on the roof had died.

  Then he would hear the humming sound, fix it, and move toward it.

  Yeoman, understanding, had remained on the aft deck. The fewer people inside, where their air would make noise, the better.

  McGregor found himself moving to the narrow galley, and still further toward the bow, into a forward storage room of some sort. It was very dark; the flashlight cut a narrow pale beam in the water.

  The humming was loud in this room, very loud. He swung the beam around. There were life preservers, floating up against the ceiling; there were oars, canned food, tarps, supplies in a jumble in the room.

  And the humming.

  He frowned as he moved the beam. He saw something reflect back, and swam closer.

  It was a metal box, elaborately sealed and waterproofed, attached to the deck, humming softly. From it, two wires ran off. He followed them forward and came to an amorphous packet, wrapped in several layers of plastic.

  McGregor stared. He knew what it was: tetralon, the latest underwater explosive. There were at least fifty pounds of it here. And the small humming box was a radio-controlled detonator.

  His first thought was that it was originally intended to explode with the stern charges, thus sinking the ship. But then he had another thought about its purpose. He swam back to Yeoman, and signaled him to surface.

  Lunch was simple, just sandwiches and soda, but Wayne appeared in a particularly festive mood. At least he did until McGregor said the sculpture wasn’t on board.

  “What?” Wayne snapped.

  “That’s right. Not in the stateroom.”

  “But it must have been.”

  McGregor shrugged. “You want to go down there and find it yourself?”

  “No. I’ve hired you for that. And I expect you to do what I’ve hired you for. I want that sculpture.”

  “It isn’t there,” McGregor said again.

  “It must be. Go back and find it. Search everywhere in the boat. Perhaps the explosion knocked it free; perhaps it’s in another stateroom. Find it.”

  McGregor said, “What’s so special about that sculpture?”

  Wayne said, “Find it.”

  McGregor waited for the conversation to turn to other topics. He expected to be asked about what had happened to the boat, what kind of shape it was in, how easily it could be raised. But he was not asked. It appeared Wayne was no longer bothering with the pretense of interest in raising the ship.

  McGregor began to wonder if the ship had been sunk specifically so he could be hired to bring up the sculpture. That sounded crazy, but so did everything else.

  Finally, Wayne said, “What about the safe?”

  “It’s there. Bolted down.”

  Wayne said, “How big?”

  “In the water it won’t be bad. Roger and I can get it up without lines. But when it hits the surface …”

  “The crew can take it from there,” Wayne said. “We can rig something up. Get the safe up this afternoon.”

  “It’ll take time.”

  “Just get it up,” Wayne said.

  So the safe was important, too.

  Shortly before the next dive, he managed to go forward with Yeoman and Sylvie, ostensibly to check the anchor line.

  Yeoman said, “What was that hum?”

  “There’s fifty pounds of tetralon forward, primed to go.”

  Yeoman whistled.

  McGregor turned to Sylvie. “It’d be an easy way to finish us off,” he said. “The shock wave would crush us, and blow the bow apart. Nobody’d ever put together the pieces.” He smiled grimly. “Especially after the hammerheads got through.”

  Sylvie said, “Don’t go.”

  McGregor shook his head. “It’ll be all right. The thing is radio-controlled. We’ll unplug it while we’re down.”

  “And what do you expect me to do, while I wait for you up here?”

  “Smile at the nice people,” McGregor said, “and be charming.”

  Working together, it took McGregor and Yeoman the better part of forty minutes to unbolt the safe. They also searched the staterooms for the sculpture, but could not find it. Before surfacing, McGregor reconnected the explosive. Then he helped Yeoman carry the safe to the surface, where the others caught it up in a makeshift reinforced net.

  Wayne was irritable over the sculpture, but he was clearly excited about the safe. Once it was on the deck, he wiped it dry with a towel and twirled the mechanism. For a moment, McGregor thought he was going to open it right there in front of them all, but he did not. Instead, he straightened and said, “Mechanism is clear,” and walked off.

  The boat started back for Ocho. Monica came over to McGregor and said, “Did you see any sharks?”

  “No. Lucky.” They would almost certainly see some tomorrow.

  At that moment, there was a rumbling and the water boiled off the stern. Looking back, McGregor sa
w a churning on the surface which was unmistakable—the explosive had been set off.

  He looked over at Silverstone. He could just barely discern a man walking back into the house.

  Wayne came running back to the stern. “What was that?”

  “Something happened on the wreck,” McGregor said. “The boat may have shifted …”

  “Go back. We must look. We must.”

  Wayne directed them back. At his insistence, McGregor slipped on mask and snorkel and checked the wreck. Visibility was down to five or six feet now; the sandy bottom had been stirred up by the explosion.

  And the boat, he saw, had been very badly damaged, almost beyond recognition.

  He surfaced and looked up at Wayne. “Some kind of explosion,” he said.

  “How is the boat? Is it all right?”

  “Can’t be sure, the visibility’s so bad. But it doesn’t look good.”

  “What do we do?”

  “Check in the morning. Things will settle out by then.”

  McGregor wondered how many other things would settle out by morning.

  Wayne made no further mention of the sculpture, and when they reached the dock he loaded the safe onto the back of McGregor’s pickup. Then he and McGregor drove the truck back to the hotel; the others went on ahead.

  McGregor relaxed, drinking a beer as he drove. It was late afternoon, the sun was warm and yellow; he felt the dried salt on his skin and the kind of deep, peaceful exhaustion that always followed a dive.

  He was not paying much attention as they approached the vegetable truck, creeping along, pulled way over to the left. McGregor started to pass it.

  What happened next was very fast, very smooth, and very professional. A black sedan pulled out from a side road and blocked their path. McGregor slammed on the brakes as the first of four men, faces distorted by nylon stockings pulled over their heads, jumped out of the sedan, each with a black submachine gun.

  McGregor checked the rearview mirror as he slammed the truck into reverse, but he was too slow. A second sedan had already blocked the road from behind.

  One man came around to the side of the truck and waggled his gun at McGregor. “Out,” he said.

  McGregor got out. Wayne followed, with a horrified look on his face. He whispered to McGregor, “We can’t let this happen.”

  “Shut up,” McGregor said, staring at the machine gun.

  The man with the gun smiled slightly. “Go lie over there by the side of the road. Face down, hands on top of your head.”

  Two other men had already dropped the tailgate of McGregor’s truck, and were wrestling the safe out.

  “On your faces,” the man said. “Move.”

  McGregor and Wayne lay down. They heard the men grunting as they lifted the safe, and transferred it to the sedan.

  Wayne was silent. McGregor found himself astonished at the complexity of the game being played. From a ship that was sunk a day after it supposedly went down, to scares and maneuvers, and now a planned robbery of the safe. Obviously Wayne was part of the group; obviously it was all arranged from the beginning.

  It was a show for McGregor’s benefit. But what was he supposed to make of it?

  Glancing to one side, he saw the men slamming the doors to the sedan as they got in. The first sedan drove off. The other men were piling into the second sedan.

  At that moment, Wayne jumped up and ran toward the other sedan. He shouted “Stop!” and then something else before one of the men coolly swung the machine gun, catching him in the stomach, then the head, with the barrel. Wayne slumped; the car drove off.

  When it was gone, McGregor went over to Wayne. If it had been a show, it was a good one: Wayne had a huge gash along his left ear, and he was unconscious.

  A very good show. Too good, he thought, as he picked Wayne up and gently eased him into the truck.

  Arthur Wayne regained consciousness in the clinic, while the doctors were sewing up his skull laceration. His first words were: “Did they get it? Did they get away?”

  “Don’t talk now,” the doctor said. “Wait.”

  “Did they get it?”

  “Yes,” McGregor said. “They got it.”

  Wayne groaned. “That ruins everything.”

  “Don’t move,” the doctor said. “We’re trying to help you.”

  “Ruined, everything ruined,” Wayne said. Then they gave him a shot, and he was quiet.

  McGregor went outside. In the deepening dusk, Yeoman was there, with Sylvie.

  “What happened?”

  “Somebody collected the safe. Very efficient. At least eight men, with machine guns.”

  Yeoman shook his head. “Professional.”

  “Extremely. Wayne tried to stop them; he’s getting his stitches now.”

  Yeoman frowned. “Not professional,” he said.

  “How do you mean?”

  “Professionals would have shot him.”

  “But it wasn’t a setup,” McGregor said. “It couldn’t have been. You could see bare bone where they hit him.”

  “Maybe it was a mistake.”

  “You mean they hit him too hard? If that’s so, it was a big mistake. Because now it has to be reported.”

  “We can check,” Yeoman said. “Eight submachine guns will be easy. Which reminds me: I got word on the customs transit for the Grave Descend.”

  “Yes?”

  “It never passed customs. Not anywhere. Not in Montego, not in Ocho. The customs people were waiting. They knew about the ship, but they gave the captains forty-eight hours offshore before they have to register.”

  “What do the customs people say now?”

  Yeoman shook his head. “You’re going to be in trouble. You dove on a ship that hadn’t—”

  At that moment, light flashing, a police sedan came up. A light-skinned, brisk man got out. “Mr. James McGregor?”

  “Yes,” McGregor said.

  “I am Inspector Burnham. We’d like to talk to you.”

  “What about?”

  Burnham held open the door to the sedan. “If you please.”

  McGregor said, “I’m not sure—”

  “We are,” Burnham said. “Inside. Please.”

  McGregor got into the car, and they drove off into the soft Jamaican night.

  PART II Dark Swamp

  Being in a ship is being in jail, with the chance of being drowned.

  SAMUEL JOHNSON

  9

  INSPECTOR BURNHAM HAD A SMALL office decorated by a cheap desk, a rickety chair, a small desk lamp, and a noisy fly which buzzed around the room as they talked.

  Inspector Burnham was newly trained at the police academy in Kingston. He was very thorough and conscientious. There was a half-hour spent with forms before he began with his questions. He asked McGregor to begin at the beginning, and McGregor did, relating his meeting with Wayne at the Plantation Inn. Occasionally, Burnham would interrupt with a question.

  “Who is the owner of the Grave Descend?”

  “A man named Robert Wayne. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.”

  “We can check on that,” Burnham said, writing it down. “Go on.”

  Some time later Burnham again interrupted.

  “What exactly was the nature of this sculpture?”

  “I don’t know, except that it was put aboard in Naples. And it was modern and heavy.”

  “Naples?”

  “That was the last port of call before West Palm.”

  “Then the sculpture is Italian?”

  “I assume so, but I don’t know.”

  “How large is it?”

  “You’d have to ask Wayne. I never saw it.”

  “You didn’t find it when you dove?”

  “No.”

  “That’s difficult to believe.”

  McGregor shrugged. “Go look for yourself.”

  Burnham smiled thinly. “I think not” He paused to light a cigarette. “How is your Italian history?”

  “I’ve heard of Garib
aldi.”

  “More recently than that,” Burnham said.

  “Mussolini? I’ve heard of him, too.”

  “What have you heard?”

  “He ran a police state,” McGregor said.

  Burnham made a clucking sound. “Don’t be nasty.”

  “Ask your question.”

  “I am curious to know if you have heard of Trevo.”

  “No.”

  “It is a town in Sicily.”

  McGregor shook his head. “No bells.”

  “A battle was fought there. During the Second World War. A rather large German detachment was wiped out by Italian partisans. The reprisals were fierce.”

  “And?”

  Burnham shrugged. “Just wondered if you might have heard of it.”

  “No,” McGregor said. “And if you’re through with your questions—”

  “Not entirely,” Burnham said. “You see, you are a difficult man for us. You have broken section 423 of the Jamaican Maritime Code relating to salvage of vessels not having passed customs. The Code has never been broken before; the police have always been sufficiently alert to prevent what you have, in fact, done—boarded a sunken vessel and removed ship’s articles in unauthorized fashion.”

  “Embarrassing,” McGregor said. “What are you going to do about it?”

  “Nothing,” Burnham said. “For the moment. Later, we may …”

  “Think of something?”

  “Yes. Think of something.”

  “I’ll look forward to it,” McGregor said. “But meantime you may want a statement from Wayne, who was bashed over the head while the safe was being lifted. That might be a nice place for you to begin—”

  The telephone rang. Burnham spoke briefly, his face darkening. When he hung up, he said, “It appears Mr. Wayne has no statement for us. The officer interviewing him says he denies any knowledge of a robbery. He says his cut was an accident. He says he stumbled while climbing into your truck.”