Monster: Tale Loch Ness

by Jeffrey Konvitz

  "I'm not very thirsty," she said, sitting.

  He sat across from her. "I don't suppose it will surprise you to know you've surprised me!"

  "No. But it was not easy for me to come here. I've broken official procedure, something I don't think I've ever done before. There were a lot of conflicting thoughts and emotions. In fact, I feel most embarrassed right now."

  "Why'd you come?"

  "To apologize."

  "For what?"

  "Have you forgotten our last meeting?"

  He shook his head. "Well, to tell you the truth, I tried. But I guess I didn't do a good job of it because I still have your voice ringing in my ears."

  "I was a little excited, overly so."

  "To say the least."

  "I'm sorry."

  "I understand. You know, it's not the easiest thing for a hardheaded American jerk to learn to think like a Scotsman."

  "Or for a hardheaded Scotswoman to learn to listen."

  They sat silently for several moments, staring at each other, the drawn window shades admitting just enough light to generate appealing shadows.

  "Why suddenly the change of heart?" he asked, breaking the ice.

  "I saw you at the church. I saw the tears."

  Scotty said nothing.

  "Remember what I told you about my father?" she asked.

  "You told me a lot of things."

  "I said he was a big man, with square features and a rockhard constitution. And he could be as stern as the Lord but also as soft as a lamb. Strength and gentleness. Few people possess both. My father did. I think you do, too."

  "You find that appealing?"

  "Yes. It gives added insight, too. I think you're an honest man and have been honest with me."

  "Just because you saw me cry?"

  "That's part of it. I also read feelings in your face. Living here gives one great knowledge of expression, Mr. Bruce."

  "Scotty."

  "Yes, Scotty."

  "So does this make our relationship more personal once again?"

  "In part. You are still Geminii. I am still an inquisitor. Once I leave here, I will not be able to speak to you until the hearings are over. Any contact between you and me would only create an inference of collusion. I cannot allow that to happen."

  "Can't we just sneak around a little?"

  She smiled, shook her head, glanced around the room at reams of unfolded charts and maps. "You look busy."

  "These are our salvage plans. I can put most of them away. Except for the few involved with tomorrow's final haul-up."

  "What about the weather?"

  "We're in for some relief overnight. I promise you I won't be blown overboard, though if we Geminii executives all winded off to the Land of Oz, I don't think we'd be missed around here."

  "In general? You're right!"

  He pulled up the sleeves of his ski sweater and placed feet on the coffee table, boots and all. He stared. She was wearing a plain blue dress and very little makeup. Yet she still looked very sensual. And her sense of propriety enhanced the impression even more. She was almost something unattainable, something not to be touched.

  "What if I told you I care about you?" he suddenly said.

  "Excuse me?" she countered, taken by surprise.

  "I'm attracted to you. I care about you."

  She looked away. "Words of the moment," she stammered

  "Absolutely not," he said.

  The admission unsettled her. She shifted awkwardly on couch, then stood and meanderod about the room, glancing finally at a book lying open on the desk.

  "Were you reading this?" she asked, needing time to think,

  "Yes."

  "A history of Scotland?"

  "I decided I ought to find out something about Robert Bruce since it's become the standing line around here that I'm his successor, maybe even his reincarnation."

  She picked up several pamphlets that were lying on desk. "A history of Scottish nationalism. The platform of Scottish National Party." She turned toward him. "Are these just ornaments?"

  "No."

  She placed the material on the desk again and sat. "Do think you'll be able to digest it all?"

  "I'm going to try, but I make no promises."

  "What made you suddenly so ambitious?"

  "Our talk at the inn. But don't praise me too enthusiasaically. They've lain there for a while. I've barely bent the pages."

  "The intent is good."

  He smiled. "I'd like to return to my words of the moment," he declared.

  "If you must." she parried.

  "You make it sound painful. Feelings between men and women are not always painful."

  She did not respond.

  He pressed. "I told you I care about you. You didn't reply. I'd like to know if my admission meant anything to you." he hoped Mrs. Munro had been right.

  She looked away, very disturbed. "This is Scotland. Not America. This is not the wild and woolly West. Things are done differently here. Things take time. Feelings just don't pop out of nowhere."

  "I asked you a question. I'd like an answer. Did it mean anything to you?"

  "Yes."

  He smiled. "I see."

  "You don't see me."

  "Don't I?"

  "I told you I've sworn away the privileges of the unburdened. I'm also not one for emotional attachments."

  "You're not a teenager anymore. I'm sure there've been a lot of emotional attachments in the past. I'm also sure one or two of them went kind of bad, judging by the way you've shut everything out. 'Cause that's the reason people close themselves off emotionally. Political convictions or historical burdens have nothing to do with it. You say you have an obligation to feel no emotion. I don't buy it!"

  "You're a very direct man."

  "Honest is the word. You said it yourself. So if you're seeking honesty in me, I expect it in you."

  She took a deep breath. He touched her hand. She held for a moment, then pulled her hand away. "I do feel," she said, softly, almost hiding the words. "It puzzles me. Frightens me, too. And I can't let it interfere with my responsibilities." She stood abruptly. "I have to go."

  He stood, too. "Are you sure?"

  "Yes."

  "When can we see each other again?"

  "After the hearings. Maybe."

  He walked her to the door. As she was about to leave, she kissed his cheek. He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close, embracing her. She resisted, then relaxed and submitted. He held her tighter and kissed her neck. She breathed heavily, squeezed once, then pulled back.

  "I must go," she said.

  He opened the door. "I'm glad you came," he declared.

  She eased through and walked down the path, stopping near the gate, turning. "So am I," she said.

  Chapter 17

  The machine-gun sputter of the inboard engine slowly died as the motor launch pulled alongside the diving support vessel, allowing William Whittenfeld and two security officers to board.

  "They're in the command cabin," a boatswain said.

  The deck was crammed with equipment. A huge crane stood ship center. Two other cranes were at the bow and stern, respectively. The command cabin stood in the background; the huge Martcon Saturation Diving System, deck decompression chamber and diving bell included, was located directly in front.

  Whittenfeld followed the boatswain into the cabin, a rectangular module packed with sophisticated instruments and television screens.

  "So do we see the light at the end of the tunnel?" he asked, ambling to Scotty Bruce's side.

  "Could be," Scotty replied, pointing to one of the television monitors. "The RCV remote has done a good job."

  "Let me take a look." Whittenfeld buttoned his coat. It was cold in the cabin, perhaps even colder than outside. "The blowout preventer first."

  "We've got a clear view of her," Scotty said. "Take the eye in!"

  The RCV console operator began to manipulate his hand controls; the bright lights and
television eye of the thruster-propelled RCV module focused on the twisted pile of debris, 520 feet below the surface.

  "There's a lot of junk still down there," the module engineer said as he tilted the module's eye. "There! There's the blowout preventer."

  "Closeup," Scotty ordered.

  Upon command, the RCV module moved directly to the blowout preventer and its twisted guide frame. The blowout preventer was still firmly attached to the wellhead. However, the guide frame was mangled, and strangely, none of the hoses or guide wires were connected or visible nearby.

  "What do you think, Scotty?" Whittenfeld asked, his expression as grim as the monitor view.

  "Don't know," Scotty replied.

  "Shouldn't the hoses and wires still be attached?"

  "They should. But obviously they've been torn away."

  "Are we ready?"

  "Yes. Both teams of divers have been compressed to five hundred and twenty feet."

  "Let me see the area again."

  The RCV engineer thrust the undersea eye into action, moving it across the twisted mass of silt-covered metal.

  "Goddamn hose's and guide wires," Whittenfeld mumbled plaintively, turning to Scotty. "If the divers find any one or all of them, have them brought to the surface first—before we bring up the blowout preventer. Then we can clear the remaining debris." He addressed the senior diving engineer. "Got it, Hox?"

  The diving engineer, a grizzled veteran named Hoxley, nodded. "We find them, we get them."

  Whittenfeld walked across the cabin. "I'm going to order a tender tug to moor up. As soon as any of the hoses or guide wires are recovered, I want them transferred to the tender. When the divers have prepared the target objects for liftout, notify me. In the interim, I'll be at my office or in reach of base radio. If anything unexpected happens, call me immediately."

  "Do you want to speak to the divers?" Scotty asked.

  "Yes ."

  Scotty handed Whittenfeld a headset equipped with voice descrambler. Because of the magnitude of the dive, the divers would not be breathing compressed air but an oxygen-helium mixture, which would prevent deep-water nitrogen narcosis and oxygen poisoning. Although essential for such deep dives, helium made the normal voice unintelligible without an intervening eIectrical aid that was contained within the telephone equipment.

  Whittenfeld issued instructions, then left the cabin. Scotty followed. Passing the deck decompression chamber, Whittenfeld looked in at the divers, then turned.

  "Go get it," Whittenfeld said with a smile.

  "I'll call as soon as we have something," Scotty promised.

  Whittenfeld looked around the loch, then returned to the launch, taking the two security men with him.

  Max Furst and Rudy Blasingame had entered the deck chamber several hours before with another dive team, starting decompression to depth. Apart from time spent in the diving bell itself, it would be their week-long home during return-to-surface rest stops and the eventual arduous four-day process of decompression.

  Blasingame looked through the chamber porthole, holding the telephone receiver. Scotty Bruce was outside, wearing the deck headset.

  "Saddle up," Scotty said.

  Furst and Blasingame stripped off their clothes, put on wet suits, which they would wear underneath their hot-water garb for additional thermal protection, then wiggled through the narrow chamber entrance trunk into the attached diving bell.

  They donned their hot-water suits. Outside, the hatches were closed and sealed, and the bell was unmated from the deck chamber. Inside, Furst and Blasingame belted themselves to their seats while the bell was attached to the deck crane.

  "Cameras activated," Scotty called, a slight veil of static smearing his voice.

  There was a television camera inside the bell and one attached to its outer shell. In addition, both diving helmets were equipped with television eyes. The entire undersea operation would be monitored and directed from the surface.

  Furst and Blasingame felt the bell rise, swing through the air, then descend with a jerk into the water. Soon the bell moved smoothly downward and reached its target depth, the floor hatch popping open due to the equalization of external and internal pressure.

  Furst fastened the open hatch to prevent it from flapping. Below the hatch, water pooled around the exit rim, held out by the internal pressure. Biasingamc looked out one of the portholes. The bell's floodlights illuminated the area. Though everything was dense with silt, they could see twisted piles of debris almost within reach.

  "We're picking up the work area," Scotty said, his voice descending through the telephone cables from the surface.

  "Good," Furst said as he donned mixed-gas headgear and checked the hose connections, his voice audible at the surface through the diving suit's internal telephone system.

  Equipment in place, Blasingame helped edge Furst into exit position, then handed him a preliminary run of tools. Smiling, Furst slipped down through the bulkhead into the water next to the ballast line, attached the bell guideline, and started off toward the metallic graveyard.

  The support vessel was bobbing gently as Scotty watched ash-colored clouds cast shadows over the water. Urquhart Castle stood beyond the stern, rising like a majestic gravestone. The wind was surging across the loch's surface, bringing subtly lower temperatures. He rubbed his hands together, bending frostbitten fingers. His face, however, remained warmly protected. He had not shaved since the Columbus had gone down, and the beard covering his cheeks and chin had grown full and dark. He'd never worn a beard before, but this growth did not feel resented. It was a marker, his own peculiar epitaph for associates now dead.

  He stared at the descending bell life line. Furst and Biasingame had been under for five hours already. During the tour, he'd been in the control room directing the assault. Just prior to his present break, Blasingame had returned to the be!l, releasing Furst to duty. So far, they had cleared the blowout preventer and guide base from debris and had scoured the area looking for the missing control hoses and guide wires. They had failed to find them.

  "Scotty," Hoxley suddenly yelled, body half out of the control cabin.

  "Yeah?" Scotty said, jolted from reveries.

  Hoxley was visibly excited. "We may have something." Scotty jumped past Hox!ey into the cabin, moving to the television console, simultaneously placing the communications headset in place.

  "What do you have?" he asked, peering at the television screen, whose view was hopelessly clouded with silt.

  "I got the lower part of a control hose," Furst replied. "The free end has been torn apart"

  "A band or compaction tear?"

  "No."

  "Can you be more specific?"

  "I don't want to sound like an idiot. You'll see soon enough."

  "Sound like an idiot!"

  "It looks like it's been chewed!"

  Scotty quickly glanced at the others in the control room—he was the only one who'd heard the words then cleared his throat. "Say again.'"

  "I said it looks like it's been chewed!"

  "TV reception's bad. Could you clean your lenses?"

  "Can't. There's a lot of oil and grease residue down here sticking to the glass." He paused. "The hose is the damndest thing I ever saw!"

  "Bring it up to the camera eye."

  A thick wire passed close to the television, but the resolution was still poor.

  "Can you see it?"

  "Not very well."

  "As I said, you'll see it soon enough."

  "Is the other end about?"

  "Haven't seen it. There are a couple of more places it can be buried within reach, but the edge of the plateau is not too far away, and I'm sure we've lost some of the material to the real deep pits."

  "Is the hose free?"

  "Yeah. You get me some sling hooks and shackles, and I'll rig to a hoist and oxy-arc off a usable segment right quick."

  "How far are you from the bell?"

  "I've got seventy-five feet of guide
line with me."

  "The compass heading?"

  Furst spit out a figure. Scotty advised Hox!ey to order the crane operator to swing the giant hoist into position and drop a lifting line down to the work site. Hoxley immediately left the cabin. Scotty stayed behind, entered the radio shed, contacted Whittenfeld ship to shore, and informed him they had found a suspicious control hose section.

  "Suspicious?" Whittenfeld asked.

  Scotty held his breath; he knew it was coming. "The diver says it looks like it's been chewed apart."

  Silence!

  Then: "Is the transfer ship there?"

  "Yes." He could sense Whittenfeld was trembling.

  "We're on our way out."

  "Right."

  "Scotty, I want you to clear the deck of the support vessel."

  "I don't understand."

  "You don't have to understand, Mr. Bruce. Just do it."

  Whittenfeld had never called him Mr. Bruce before. "Of course," he said.

  "How many men heard Furst's appraisal?"

  "Just me." He'd never heard Whittenfeld's voice so strained.

  "Was the hose visible on the television monitor?"

  "Not really. Too much silt and grease down there."

  "Good. Now clear the deck, Mr. Bruce! And keep your telephone channel to the divers closed!"

  Static crackled; the transmission died. Scotty looked at the radio mike, then dropped it on the radio console.

  A launch arrived twenty minutes later. Lefebre and Girard boarded the diving support vessel.

  "Mr. Whittenfeld could not come out," Lefebre said while approaching Scotty cross-deck. He was chewing a huge wad of tobacco, a habit Houghton had suggested Lefebre had picked up from American mercenaries in the Congo. "He sent me in his stead. With his full proxy."

  "What does that mean?"

  "That means you will do as I say."

  "And if I refuse?"

  Lefebre walked toward the crane. "You won't." He pointed toward a boatswain. "Get that man off the deck."

  Scotty demurred. "He's needed there. Someone has to guide the hose on to the tender tug."

  "Girard will do it. Whittenfeld considers the hose a sensitive matter. He wants no one on board. He has ordered everyone to comply with those wishes. If not voluntarily, then with my assistance. Do I make mvself clear, Bruce?"