“When did we start hiring teenagers?” I asked Q.
“He’s the same age as your girlfriend,” he pointed out.
“Oh, that hurts.”
“Is that our prize?” Amber asked, accepting the box with the Burja’s GPS from Q.
“That’s it,” I confirmed.
“Do I want to know how you got it?”
“No.”
“Fair enough. I’ll take it down to the guys in the lab. Fred’s on the bridge,” she said over her shoulder.
The lab was part of the machine shop where the engineers could produce electrical circuits, connectors and components for almost any system on the ship. They would access the memory of the GPS unit and backup the data before they tried to power it up and read the display. The lab staff were specialists at retrieving data electronic devices that had been in the water so a dry one would be a walk in the park. We’d know the secrets of the instrument by the end of the day.
We took the stairs up to the bridge and Fred was on the phone with Deek. He put him on speakerphone so we could listen in. It bothered me that Deek didn’t have our earpieces working in Miami yet...some shit about the carrier frequencies I didn’t understand. What was clearer was it would be another two weeks to get it straightened out and I didn’t want to wait.
“We’re going on the assumption that whatever Mr. Valle brought up was associated with one of the wrecks in this area,” Fred pointed to the map display which was a specially modified touch screen table. A blob of an area south of Miami and north of Key Largo stretched along the nearshore part of the map.
“Anything out here,” he continued, pointing to the Straits of Florida, “is going to be too deep for the rig he had to work with.”
“We think he was using this to strengthen a bottom dredge,” I said, handing over the piece of flat steel to Fred.
Fred looked at a minute and made some adjustments to the map. The search area shrank even further. “That helps,” he said looking at the new search area. “A six foot dredge with this much weight added would cut down the amount of cable he could spin out.”
The map was dotted with shipwreck symbols and it really brought home how dangerous the waters around south Florida really were. Fred went on.
“Okay, let’s assume he wasn’t trying to drag pieces of a small boat up,” Fred suggested. “He’d use a hook for that.” Fred punched some more buttons on the display and most of the wreck symbols disappeared, including all of them in our search area.
“That leaves us with zippo,” he said unnecessarily.
“What’s this one?” I asked, pointing at a large wreck symbol just to the north and east of the search area.
Fred tapped the wreck symbol and an old black and white photo of a freighter appeared next to it on the table. Amber joined us at the map and Fred explained what we were looking at on the map.
“That is the Titus B. Williams, an old tramp steamer that was torpedoed by a German U boat operating off the shores of Miami in 1942,” Fred began. “It was claimed but never salvaged; the manifest said it was hauling scrap metal up the coast. Apparently the sinking could be seen from the shore in Miami.”
In World War II America was, in some ways, ill-prepared for the war we were involved in during those days. One of the favorite tricks of U boat captains was drifting along with the strong Gulfstream current just below the surface and using the lights of the city to silhouette targets.
“I asked the Maritime Museum to send me digital copies of the U boat logs,” Deek informed us over the phone. The document images started popping up in the corner of the display. “I’m still working on getting them translated,” he confessed.
Amber went over and sorted the documents out into page order, moving them around until they lined up then dragging one to expand the text. It always amazed me how good kids were with new technologies.
“One’s the ship’s log,” she said, pulling two pages off over by themselves, “and the other is the captain’s log,” she said, reordering the four that were left.
“That’s right,” Deek said over the speakerphone. “How did you…”
“Du hast einen kleinen penis,” Amber said in surprisingly fluent German. We all stopped and stared.
“I caught the last word,” Q admitted.
“What? My home life sucked so I’d spend summers with my grandma when I was a kid,” she explained. “She grew up in Germany. I loved my nana and she would try to teach me German when I was there. Got okay at it after a while.”
“And you didn’t ever think to mention it?” I asked.
“I never even think about it,” she said with a shrug. “I don’t get to use it much and it fades after a while.”
“Please,” Fred gestured toward the logs.
“According to this they started their patrol just after sunset,” she said after expanding part of the captain’s log. “Some of this shit I can’t make out...there’s something about drifting to the north.”
“That actually makes sense,” Fred agreed. “The Gulfstream averages between 5 and 6 knots. They could run south,” he said tracing a line on the map, “then the current would carry them back north toward the city completely silent.”
“They picked up sounds on...some instrument,” she went on. “I don’t know what that is.”
“Probably hydrophones,” I observed. “They picked up the ship’s propellers.”
“Yeah,” she agreed. “There’s an alarm and they moved to these coordinates to intercept,” she said pointing at the ship’s log. “They sighted a small freighter and fired two torpedoes...the first missed and the second struck the freighter...something...I think it means in the middle. There’s something weird though.”
We all waited while her finger traced over the text. “He said it didn’t sink right away. Then there’s another alarm because of an airplane.”
“Okay, so they put a fish into her and had to crash dive to get away from a patrol plane,” Fred puzzled. “So far that makes sense.”
“Okay, an hour later they came up to...periskop--”
“Periscope,” Fred and I said simultaneously.
“And were surprised to see the little ship still floating...that’s not all...he said it was actually higher in the water. They had to fire another torpedo from the rear tube to sink it.”
“That makes no sense,” Q puzzled, “she would have had to be taking on water, right?”
“There’s something else that’s weird,” Amber pointed out. “The coordinates in the log, don’t match the ones on the map.”
“Maybe they were less accurate back then?” I asked.
Fred shook his head. “Not the Germans,” he said flatly. “If they said it was there, it was there.”
“Pass me the map control,” Amber asked Fred. The map control wasn’t a physical object, but a legend object on the screen. Fred slid it over to her side of the table. Goddamn technology is absolutely freaking amazing sometimes.
Amber played around with the control a minute, messed up the entry and had to ask Fred how to wipe it out and start over. “There!” she said after a minute, a red target appearing on the north end of our search area.
“I know exactly what happened and what we’re looking for,” Fred said with a grin. We had to wait while Fred called up the digitized manifest of the Titus B. and the document was handwritten.
“Here!” Fred exclaimed, grabbing the corner of the document and blowing it up so we could all see. “Right here.”
“That looks like ‘500 barrels of scrap lead’,” Q said after a minute.
I got it before the rest of them. “You get it,” Fred said to me, registering the look.
“What kind of scrap lead comes in barrels?” I asked rhetorically.
Fred called down to the salon and asked one of the crew to go down to the shop and to ask Don for a stick of old Tatham and bring it up to the bridge.
Q and Amber were clueless. “Really old lead,” Fred explained. “The last time lead wa
s packed in barrels was the mid to late 1800s.”
Fred hit a button and scaled the map to entire Gulf of Mexico. “The Titus B. was hauling scrap metal from New Orleans,” he began excitedly. “The U.S. was paying a premium for all kinds of scrap metal to support the war effort. Steel to make ships, aluminum to make airplanes and lead to make bullets. People were digging scrap metal out of old barns and warehouses and loading it all on ships for the trip to the factories on the east coast.”
“Someone found those old casks of lead in a warehouse somewhere and figured that was a great way to get rid of them,” I finished for him. “Probably was getting shuffled around from place to place since the Civil War.”
“Exactly!” Fred got really animated when he was on to something. “So, here’s what happened. The Titus B. takes a torpedo amidships here,” he pointed at Amber’s red dot. “That puts a hole in the cargo hold and out spills tons of scrap metal and those barrels of that heavy ass lead. But she doesn’t sink right away because--”
“Because the metal falling out weighs more than the water coming in,” Q caught on. “So the Titus B. starts floating higher in the water.”
“Exact-a-mundo,” Fred agreed. “During wartime they might have been running with the watertight doors sealed. So she’s actually getting lighter.”
“And the Gulf Stream carries her out to deeper water while the submarine is dodging that patrol plane,” I finished for him.
“Add some winds from the west and that,” he said pointing at the original blue target “is right where she ends up.”
We were interrupted by the arrival of the crewman who passed Fred a piece of flat, grey metal just under six inches long. Fred placed it on the table, the name TATHAM still legible.
“I’ll be goddamn,” I breathed. “You are a genius,” I said to Amber.
“I hate to burst your bubble, but I don’t have a clue why you two are excited about some old lead bars,” Amber confessed.
“I’m kinda wondering that, too,” Q added.
“Lead manufactured before the mid-1940s has some special characteristics,” Fred explained.
“It’s called ‘low alpha’ lead,” I continued. “And, because of its radioactive properties, it’s hugely valuable to the electronics and chip making industries.”
“How valuable?” Amber asked, shifting her gaze back and forth between us.
“About $13,” Fred answered.
“A pound?”
“$13 an ounce,” I corrected. “Feel this,” I put the Tatham ingot in her hand. “$13 dollars a fucking ounce.”
“Higher if it’s really pure,” Fred grinned. “And lead this old is a goddamn goldmine.”
“Holy shit,” Q breathed.
“Does this mean I get a raise?” Amber asked hopefully, feeling the weight of the bar.
“No!” Fred and I said in unison.
“But I could kiss you,” I said with a smile.
“Not on board,” Fred reminded me.
“I’d rather have a raise,” Amber grinned, even though she didn’t even spend the money she made now it was never enough. In some ways she was still the kid fucking her dad’s friends for money.
“Deek, can you call the lab and see if they ran metals on that sample?”
“On it,” he said over the speakerphone. He had the Star’s display cloned on his screen back in West Palm.
“Take a guess,” Deek challenged when he came back on the line.
“Positive for lead,” I guessed.
“Off the scale,” he confirmed.
Fred picked up the phone and flipped it over to the ship wide intercom. “Attention! Attention!” he began his voice echoing around the ship. “Rig the fish and the ROV for operations and make ready for departure.” The announcement kicked off a flurry of activity as the ship rang with the sound of sudden, frantic action.
“I gotta go,” Amber informed me, “that means me, too.” She was the Star’s medic during operations and would have to get the infirmary ready for operations. She crossed-trained with the survey crew and Fred said she was a quick study on the ROV stick and she held her own on the dive teams. She hadn’t graduated to the exotic gasses for deep dives yet but it was only a matter of time. Again I felt the pang of being an outsider in my own organization.
Even though it was a minor violation of the rules, Amber reached up and kissed me on the cheek, just enough for me to catch a whiff of her shampoo. It smelled fresh and clean, reminding me of what it was like when she came out of the shower all soapy girl fresh and wrapped in a towel. She handed the Tatham brick to Q and headed below to get the Star ready for operations. I immediately missed her and simultaneously felt like an old fool for being so sappy.
“We’ll just do a quick survey,” Fred informed me. “See what we can see and I’ll bring your girl back to you,” he said with a wink.
“In the meantime we need to find out who Rafe might have talked to about low alpha lead,” I said, dragging myself back from twitterpating over Amber and getting back to business. “And we owe Anita Guerrero an update.”
“Alright then,” Fred said, which was his way of signaling he had work to do and didn’t need a couple landlubbers underfoot.
We made our way back to the gangway, stepping aside more than once to allow crewman to sprint past us. Fred’s crew didn’t walk to their assigned posts, they ran. Any navy in the world would have been satisfied with the flurry of activity Fred’s crew put out when they were on the hunt. By the time we got on deck the Operations Supervisor was already handing out reflective life vests and hard hats, at the stern the dive team that would be in the water for launch and recovery of Ziggy and towed side-scan radar, called The Fish, were already getting into their wet suits.
We had to step back for three crew members trotting down the gangway, one them saying, “Excuse us, sir,” on the way past. One of the oldest rules aboard ship is people coming down the steps have the right of way over those going up. We made it back to the dock and a crewman was already using the buttons on the electric lift to move the gangway into the stowed position for departure.
“Makes you feel kinda useless doesn’t it?” Q grinned.
“I used to think the greatest testimony to leadership is when your people are so good they no longer need you.”
“Yeah, that kinda sucks,” Q argued.
“Yeah, it does,” I agreed with a smile. All the same an organization doesn’t necessarily work better with more management. I was in charge of some things but salvage was a highly technical field and a decidedly dangerous occupation. In that arena, I had to give way to Fred.
The Star’s big diesels belched smoke as they came to life and Fred let out a blast on the horn that was the last call for anyone still ashore.
“Fuck it, let’s go,” I said, getting tired of watching the near frantic activity on the deck of the Star.
Chapter 7
At least in the car we could communicate directly with Deek but it was still damn inconvenient without our earpieces.
“Any word from V?” I asked, already suspecting the answer.
“Nada,” Deek confirmed.
“Goddamn it,” I swore. Between V being gone and our comm issues I was annoyed.
“It’s been less than 36 hours and she lives in the middle of the jungle,” Deek reminded me. “You want me to send her a 911?”
An emergency broadcast would activate her sat phone wherever she was and make her acknowledge the message. It would also cause her phone to ping back her location. It was a bit aggressive.
“No,” I said wearily. “Vs not a dog and I’m not going to start jerking her leash. She’s not blowing us off; she’ll get here when she can. Amber can fill in until she gets back.” That was pushing Amber harder than her experience level would dictate but she could either handle it or not.
“Let’s bring Anita up to speed and see if she has anything new,” I suggested as a way of getting our focus back.
“Dialing the marshal,” De
ek said with a twang.
“Guerrero,” she said answering her phone.
“We know what Raphael was hauling out of the water,” I said by way of greeting.
“Oh, just a minute.” She muted her phone and after a moment came back on the line.
“That fast?” she said, slightly out of breath.
“We think he was hauling up lead bars from a 40s vintage wreck just off the coast.”
The Blue Tango Salvage: Book 2 in the Recovery and Marine Salvage, Inc. Series Page 7
