Under Water (Anton Modin Book 3)

by Anders Jallai

  He looks around and sees that Jöran is following him. Bergman remains hovering above the deck of the submarine. Modin does not need to turn on his diving light, as it will not be a problem finding his way back. Not so long as Harrison Bolt’s NR-1 is still where it is now.

  A hole in the side of the hull of the M/S Estonia

  Modin finds the hole, a gaping black rectangle in the front part of the ship. The hole leads straight onto Deck 6, as he already knows, where the cabin with the briefcase is located. Suddenly, the mission seems possible.

  Modin stays calm and collected, as he tends to be when given a vital task. He has received orders directly from the President of the United States. Everything depends on his efforts. This dive is worth risking your life: something important, something that means a lot to other people. But it means even more to Modin himself.

  He passes the rectangular hole and swims toward the bow section—about 200 feet. When he reaches the ramp in the forward section, he descends toward the bottom at the same time aiming his diving light on the wreckage.

  He can see a lot of damaged steel in the bow but no hole. Not even a small one. The only hole in the bow section is the split between the ramp leading to the car deck and the ship’s hull.

  He follows the starboard bottom line and checks for damage. Nothing!

  The ship wasn’t sunk by an explosion. At least not an explosion in the bow area, where Adam Alarik and Chris Loklinth claimed the big hole should be.

  “Fucking liars!”

  With tears in his eyes, he manages to come back to the side of the hull, to the rectangle hole where he started the dive. He meets Jöran on his way back.

  Modin signals and shouting: “No hole in the bow area!”

  Jöran nods and proceeds toward the bow.

  Modin glides in through the rectangle hole. Once inside the ship, he switches on his light.

  Now on to the tricky part.

  CHAPTER 141

  The boat made slow headway in the choppy sea. The eight men of the Barbro Team saw spray flying from both sides when the waves hit them diagonally from port. The vessel was doing 30 knots and the whole hull was being battered. The Barbro Team consisted of four divers. They were patiently waiting in their diving suits. They had modern mixed gas rebreathers, an advanced breathing device from the U.S., and they could be in the water as soon as they were ordered to.

  “Tunnis jõuame,” someone yelled from the bridge: there in an hour.

  A man with a crew cut and muscular forearms was fiddling with his MP5N, an automatic weapon used by attack divers. His name was Andres. He pulled the magazine out with a swift movement, lightly tapped its back against the edge of his seat, and then put it back in its slot with a click. He test aimed at the hull. Then Andres put the gun down gently on the deck and tried to relax. This was just another one of the many assignments on his resume over the past few years. Andres had encountered both the Russian and Estonian mafia, and he’d even been on a covert raid on Russian territory. He expected to survive this mission, too.

  He scratched his neck, yawned widely, and leaned his head against the hull. His head rocked with the waves and he was asleep within a minute. Andres dreamed about his girlfriend, far away on the Estonian mainland.

  CHAPTER 142

  “Divers search several cabins on Deck 6. The police are supervising the search, as can be seen from the videotape. […] The police were looking for a briefcase and one was found in cabin 62-30 belonging to (name redacted).”

  (Finanstidningen, February 3, 1999)

  Modin floats gently into a cabin that is located furthest down port side. The cabin is lying almost entirely on its side, as if about to flip over. He figures that the M/S Estonia is lying at about a 110 degree angle, which means she’s turned more upside down than sideways. He decides to assume a ninety degree angle, for simplicity’s sake. Otherwise, it’ll be easy to become disoriented, especially if visibility worsens. The dive is complicated enough as it is.

  The cabin he enters is empty. He tried to prepare himself mentally for seeing many corpses, but he does not know how he will react.

  It is quite a large cabin, one of the more expensive ones with a nice sea view. He can see a chunky TV-set on the floor, its screen pointing upward. It is covered in a thin layer of silt. It used to be fixed up on one of the cabin walls. Now it is mangled with other things lying in a heap.

  It is still easy to get your bearings in the long corridor and visibility is still good. He stays close to the wall while slowly advancing.

  Divers have been here. Modin can see that clearly. Doors have been broken open. Locks are hanging loose in the doorposts. He continues to swim toward the aft, down the corridor. Most of the doors are open or ajar.

  He shines his flashlight further down the corridor, continues swimming toward the aft. He finds a wide stairwell, the one closer to the bow. He descends toward the starboard side, down into the sediment bed of the Baltic Sea. He quickly glances at his diving computer. Depth: 250 feet. Diving time: 8 minutes. Twenty-two minutes left. He continues to sink deeper, shining his flashlight at the cabins on the starboard side.

  When he reads 270 feet, he wonders where Jöran could be. He has no specific task to perform beyond staying outside the wreck and being Modin’s safety diver.

  He’ll be there if I need him, Modin thinks as if to convince himself that he can trust him. Modin swims into the middle corridor with a few easy kicks with his fins.

  He finds more cabins. He decides to stop and look inside one of them. Modin pushes the door, which only gives some light resistance. The first thing he sees are the remains of a human being. He would not have seen this so clearly had the corpse not been wearing a uniform. The buttons and stripes glitter in the light of his flashlight. The clothing is wrapped around a skeleton. A watch is hanging from a piece of bone. Not as dramatic as he had imagined, but in peace. The remains of someone are simply lying there, in a crypt or a mausoleum. The Swedish government had decided that it should be like that. Fuck them!

  He shines his flashlight around the cabin. Then he sees something glimmering in front of him. It is a water surface. It must be. He swims into the cabin and breaks through the surface on the inside. It’s an air pocket.

  He raises his head above the surface but does not dare take off his breathing mask. He is not sure that the air is breathable, whether there is oxygen in it or whether it is old carbon dioxide.

  Someone could have used up the oxygen already. Maybe the person on the floor? At the very least, the air is from September 28, 1994. Stale to say the least, he thinks.

  He sinks back under the surface. It’s like moving between two worlds. One dry and safe, the other wet and dangerous.

  He backs out into the corridor, braces himself against the two doorposts and shoots off. Then he continues toward the aft, toward the broad stairwell. He descends deeper, where a wall of sludge meets him before he gets through to the starboard side of the wreck, right at the bottom. The starboard side is the lowest and deepest point of the wreck.

  He knows that he must stay starboard. He has passed a depth of 285 feet and enters a cloud of dust. This is silt that has been stirred up. At a depth of 295 feet, he can no longer read his diving computer even though he is holding it right up to his diving mask. Zero visibility!

  Modin is beginning to get dizzy and loses his bearings for a moment or two.

  Calm down now, he says to himself. Not a good place for a panic attack. You can do it, come on.

  He continues slowly down below the seabed level, his hands pressed against the walls. He must be under the bed of the Baltic Sea at a depth of 300 feet! He can’t see anything and keeps his bearings by following the left-hand side of the stairwell. He emerges into a corridor and assumes that these are the starboard cabins. He turns left and swims into the corridor without being able to see anything. He feels the depth by the pressure on his diving suit and in his ears.

  He tries to read the number on one of the cabin
doors, his diving mask pressed right up against it he reads: 62-28.

  Bingo! The briefcase must be in the next cabin!

  CHAPTER 143

  Andres and the Barbro Team approached the area where the M/S Estonia had sunk. It was after midnight. There were no ships in the vicinity. The sonar the skipper studied was dangling down at around 320 feet depth.

  He had the exact position of the Estonia wreckage. The results were accurate down to a distance of 30 feet or so.

  The skipper, Kalev, had worked for the Estonian Defense Forces in a previous life, but had been fired for being too nationalist. He hated Russians. This was not politically correct in the new Republic of Estonia.

  “We were far too dependent on our large neighbor in the east. Estonia was too small a country to pick a fight with Putin and the rest,” his boss had said at the time. “Just look what happened when we wanted to move that Russian monument out of central Tallinn. We don’t want the Russian majority in the country to start rioting.”

  “Fucking traitors,” is what Kalev had thought, and then resigned.

  God preserve!

  Kalev saw the radar, turned it up to maximum, and discovered that there were no vessels over the wreck site. The regular ferry traffic between Sweden and Finland had passed by an hour or so ago.

  Where the hell were the divers?

  Andres, who had come up onto the bridge, received the order to have the three other divers ready within half an hour. Andres said he would lead the dive. He and one other diver would go down first and check out the wreck. But first, the skipper wanted to release depth charges. Just in case.

  Kalev nodded and tried to interpret what he saw on the sonar screen as he slowed down. They glided slowly over the spot where the wreck was located. There was something else at the wreck site but he couldn’t make out what it was. There seemed to be some kind of object right alongside the wreck of the Estonia. What the heck could it be?

  He double-checked their position. It was correct. The object remained where it was. He scratched his neck. The object was long, narrow, and almost looked like a small submarine!

  CHAPTER 144

  “The investigator Johan Franson and the government, which had commissioned him, have never officially reported the way the police concentrated on bringing up bags and briefcases, but not people from the M/S Estonia. And in March 1999, someone who had watched all the video footage saw that divers had indeed been on the car deck of the wreck and also noticed earlier attempts to pry open the bow section.”

  (Finanstidningen, February 3, 1999)

  Modin feels his way along the wall of the corridor. It’s like feeling your way forward in a pitch black closet. All he has to keep his bearing is that wall. He occasionally bumps against the ceiling, making everything feel that much more cramped. Poor visibility engulfs him. He might as well keep his eyes closed.

  He edges his way forward along the corridor of cabins, carefully trying not to overshoot his goal; the next cabin door, if only he could find it. That is where the briefcase is, the briefcase with Sweden’s secrets, the briefcase he will be handing over to the President.

  Is this the right thing to do? Should he be betraying Sweden for money and an amnesty for what he did to Loklinth? Was he such a cheapskate?

  His thoughts are starting to drift and he realizes that the depth is affecting his judgment. He is at least 320 feet underwater and all he can see is the light from his flashlight through the yellowish white fog of the disturbed sludge. He is literally at the very bottom and digging.

  • • •

  Outside the wreck, Jöran has found his way to the bow area after inspecting the hull area. He hasn’t found any damage or traces of any explosive devices. He swims back to the bow and car ramp.

  There is one thing he wants to check out, fulfilling an assignment he has received by his old chief at Stay Behind: check whether the car ramp was properly folded and locked in place.

  Jöran remembers that the ramp was the focus of the previous dive in 1994, on a NATO or, more likely, a CIA assignment. On that occasion, they were to find out whether it was possible to get onto the car deck. One of his superior officers wanted to prevent this from happening. Why? What was in the cargo? That time, back in 1994, he did not have clearance to dive down to the car deck. He does today.

  He descends toward the bow, to the opening right above the car deck. He passes a large anchor winch and sees the place where the ship’s bell once had been. It is now gone.

  It gets darker as he sinks over the railing to the deck. The light from the submarine doesn’t shine down here. He lights up the area with his flashlight and blows some more air into his dry suit. He is very close to the bottom. He digs for a short while in one of his leg pockets and pulls out a black instrument. A Geiger counter. That is his other assignment: check radioactivity levels on the ship. He remembers the order as if it was given yesterday. Jöran starts swimming and looks up. There! The ramp. He holds the Geiger counter in front of him in his left hand and kicks gently with his fins.

  • • •

  Modin can feel the cabin door frame through his glove. He hesitates. He can sense the dryness of the breathing gas mixture in his mouth and tries to swallow. Impossible.

  He enters the cabin slowly, sinks down toward the wall, stays lying there with both legs supported by the fuselage. He feels something underneath him, like small branches or twigs, and realizes it must be the remains of a human being. Maybe the Russian with the briefcase?

  He continues to run his gloved hands along the walls, confirming that there is a dead body in the cabin. He feels a cranium, holds it with both hands, notices the shape, and then puts the cranium aside.

  He moves forward cautiously, kneeling all the while. The briefcase must be close to the body, he thinks, and starts to breathe rapidly.

  Images of his children pop up in his mind. His mother is shaking her index finger at him. There is also the quick image of an old teacher of his. Fuck! Claustrophobia rises in the darkness. He can sense it. What the hell is in this cabin? Am I really alone in here?

  • • •

  Jöran Järv shines his flashlight at the folded car ramp. He can see a dent in the middle. As if someone had run into it deliberately. The lock of the ramp is broken. The rusty metal shines brownish red in the light of the flashlight. It looks as if someone has shut the ramp by force—after the accident. Is that what happened, he asks himself. Someone shut the ramp after the Estonia sank? How? With a submarine? With an NR-1? Why?

  Jöran swims to the upper edge of the ramp. Takes hold of it. It is where he should place the Geiger counter. He finds a narrow slit that leads to the car deck. As far as he can see, the deck is empty. The cars must have all slid back inside the vessel. He squeezes his body through the slit. It is a tight fit. The gas cylinders get caught and bang against the hull. He brakes lose and descends on the inside of the car deck holding the Geiger counter in front of him. His dive-light provides enough light for him to see the weak reading.

  No danger. He continues to move further inside, along the right side, downward, and deeper. The pressure in his ears is getting uncomfortable.

  He sees a few open doors and a bicycle! No doubt belonging to the crew. He keeps swimming. There is a sudden flash of light in front of him and he stops. After some deep breaths, he realizes it was only the light from his own flashlight reflected in the windshield of a truck; an older model with a bulging, soft hood.

  Is this where the dangerous cargo is located?

  • • •

  Modin feels a somewhat large square object on the floor under the twigs or the skeleton or whatever. He digs it out. It is heavy and rather thick. He gets hold of a handle and grips it firmly.

  It’s the briefcase; it must be the briefcase. I can’t stay in here any longer. Must be the briefcase, for sure.

  He makes his decision and starts to turn around slowly. It’s difficult to keep his bearings. He tries to figure out where he entered the cabin. He c
an’t see anything. Compact sludge is all around him. His flashlight cannot penetrate it. He creeps forward on all fours, bumps his head against a wall, and fumbles around for the opening with his free hand. He can’t find it.

  Fuck!

  The stress is mounting. He forces himself to breathe slowly. Relax, Modin. The dizziness comes back, along with fast and labored breathing. He decides to change direction. He leaves the wall and crawls in the opposite direction. Worried he is losing his bearings completely.

  Where am I?

  Stay calm, he mumbles like a mantra. Otherwise, you’ll die here. Pull yourself together, man. Don’t leave me in here.

  He is thinking fast, too fast. Thinking about chaos, death, and confusion. Kneels again on a little hard branch. He is back by the corpse. Who the hell is this guy?

  “Aaaagh!” he yells through the respirator mouthpiece. Given the helium in his breathing gas, it sounded like Donald Duck. He is close to a panic. He turns to the right, judging the turn to be some ninety degrees, and shoots forward like a torpedo. He has to get out of the cabin. Away, away, as far as he can get. His shoulder and head bang against the door frame and his diving mask loosens. Takes in water. He doesn’t care, tries to fasten the mask back on, gets air round his legs inside the dry suit and floats up a little, legs first. Succeeds in turning round again.

  Which way now, he asks himself. Which way?

  • • •

  Jöran Järv is swimming around the upside-down truck on the car deck. He arrives at the loading doors of the vehicle. They have been opened by force. He can see the marks on the doors—the marks are fresh. He shines his flashlight around the loading space. It is empty. Nothing whatsoever is left in there. He pokes the Geiger counter into the back of the truck and lights up the display. A reading. The highest so far. He memorizes the reading and pulls back.