by P. W. Child
“Lovely to meet you too, Dr. Malgas,” she nodded courteously and insisted that he call her by her first name.
Two women came around the car, followed by two quite dangerous-looking men. Sam immediately noticed the young blonde woman, not that the dark beauty by her side was any less appealing. The blonde just looked somewhat familiar. She reminded him of his late fiancée Trish, back when he had first met her. Zain was very professional when meeting the new people, keeping an eye on Sibu, who did not make an effort to conceal the fact that he found the women very attractive.
Who could have blamed him? A Malay beauty, a stunning young blonde, a gorgeous petite academic and a sultry professional with angelic eyes – a collection that was going make it tough for the men on the expedition to focus.
The woman seemed to click immediately. At first, there were no competition or catty remarks as was often the case when a group of strong, beautiful women was thrown together. Crystal led the ladies into a hallway on the ground floor of the building to show them their bedrooms.
"Unfortunately, there are only two rooms left, if you two don't mind sharing?" she requested tactfully.
“No problem, thank you, Crystal,” Mieke smiled and went into one of the rooms to put down her small valise. Cheryl was the quieter one, only smiling. She was carrying a backpack and a large handbag.
“What about Zain and Sibu?” Crystal asked Nina, who came to call them for some wine and hors d’oeuvres on the patio.
“Oh, Purdue is showing them to their room around the corner by the master suite,” Crystal told her.
“Well, hurry up, ladies,” Nina warned, rolling her eyes. “You are about to see a Scotsman hosting his first braai!”
“This I have got to see,” Cheryl laughed, with much agreement from the others. Laughing and speculating, the women stumbled curiously along the hallway to the living room where the sliding doors would display the hilarity. Purdue, Sam, Zain, and Sibu stood around the impressive fire, each nursing a beer.
“Castle Lager, ladies?” Sibu shouted.
“I’ll have one,” Cheryl giggled.
“I’ll stick to what I know, thank you,” Nina announced. “And what I know is that I do not end up behaving very ladylike on beer. Crystal, wine?”
Crystal nodded enthusiastically. “Me too, please,” Mieke chipped in. She joined Nina in bringing the wine and glasses outside to the garden table. The sun had set, but the orange horizon held on to the daylight as the wind settled down into a gentle breeze. The sea rushed in the background as the group acquainted themselves with each one’s capacity on the expedition and background.
“Cheryl, you worked for Dr. Malgas before?” Crystal asked. “Why did you leave?”
It was an honest question, but it was one Cheryl had not expected. Especially Mieke could not wait to hear what her predecessor was going to say, and it made Cheryl extremely uncomfortable. There was no denying that she felt intimidated by the buoyant Mieke, who had replaced her.
"I…I fell ill. Unfortunately, I could not continue assisting Dr. Malgas because I was absent so often," she explained.
“That’s horrible. You have fully recovered, I assume?” Crystal asked, and Cheryl confirmed with a nod.
“Really?” Mieke asked plainly. “I heard you left because you were a heroin addict.”
Nina and Crystal sat speechless, exchanging silent looks as Cheryl and Mieke stared each down.
“That is behind me now,” Cheryl said, adamant on maintaining appearances.
“That’s great,” Mieke smiled sardonically. “Because that kind of dependence is dangerous. Keeps you from being… vigilant.”
Chapt er 15 – Planning and Preparation
After a night of drunken boasting, catty remarks and several noise complaints most of the group still did not bother to retire to their respective rooms. Especially Mieke and Cheryl seemed to have no interest in turning in since the heroin remark, and Nina and Crystal did their best to keep both local girls occupied separately. The men had no idea why the female camaraderie suddenly had taken a turn for the worse, but they assumed it was because they never joined in the merriment of beer and meat by the fire.
Sibu and Zain slept in their designated room, but Purdue spent most of the night going over his data. He had set the perimeter so that the high-frequency sonar would penetrate surface sand, hopefully revealing nothing there. Then he had fallen asleep. The lullaby of beer and Scotch was just too strong for him to stay awake. Sam curled up on the couch after a B-movie marathon. He woke up sore and hung over, but he woke up first due to a commotion somewhere in the house.
He stepped over Purdue’s wiring and staggered to the bathroom. Once he had disposed of what he thought was the contents of Loch Lomond, he heard sporadic muttering, muffled by a bedroom door. Sam decided not to flush the toilet until he had satisfied his curiosity. He slipped down the corridor through the dusky dark of pre-sunrise, until he heard male voices; the voices of Sibu and Zain. Sam snuck closer, his head still feeling like cotton wool and horse shit, and his throat sore from learning South African folk songs the night before.
“I don’t like it, Zain. Let’s just take the whore and use her as payment, you know, pimp her or something. I am telling you, she is fucking with us, dragging us along hoping we’ll drown so she can get away.”
Sam strained his ears.
‘What whore are they are talking about?’ He wondered. Intrigue filled him, but not in a good way. It was no excitement-infused eagerness to find out what the security blokes were up to; he felt as if there was something very wrong. ‘What payment? They do know that Purdue is paying everyone who is in on the expedition, right?’
“Now you listen to me,” said Zain sharply. “We play this charade as far as it goes, for Christ’s sake! You think small. I think big. If you don’t want to do this, then piss off and let me get rich. It’ll be better for me if I don’t have to share with you.”
“What? Are you serious? She’s playing us!” Sibu said as softly as he could in his hoarse voice.
Zain sounded extremely aggravated. “Why do you carry on with the whore, you fucking idiot? Don’t you see? These cats have so much more money and… and authority. Big leagues, these okes!”
‘What the hell does okes mean?’ Sam frowned.
“Forget what that slut can do for us anymore. She was just a stepping stone, Sibu. Think about it. Once we are out on the sea with these okes, we have bigger fish to fry, as they say,” Zain persisted.
“What does that mean?” Sibu asked.
“What?”
“Bigger fish to fry.”
‘Christ, what a moron,’ Sam thought as he listened to the conversation. Even he found Sibu quite stupid in his inability to see Zain’s point – whatever it really meant.
Zain did not even bother to explain. He just went off on a rant about his associate always failing to see the big picture, having no idea that Sam stood on the other side of the door, eavesdropping and generally agreeing with him.
Suddenly Nina pressed up against Sam. He uttered muffled shriek, and realizing that the two men might have heard him, he grabbed Nina and pushed her up against the wall next to the bathroom. As Zain and Sibu jerked open their door to see what was going on, Sam latched his lips on Nina’s in a passionate kiss she could not break from even if she ‘d wanted to. His entire bodyweight pinned her to the wall and the kiss the likes of which she had not enjoyed in years kept her quiet. Her nails dug into Sam’s back and arm as a gesture of furious protest, but he could not let the two brutes know that he had overheard them.
On seeing what they could only construe as a secret affair between two colleagues, Zain drew back into the room, pulling his associate away from a delightful show.
“Hey, mind your own business, Sibu!” he whispered to the chuckling man as he closed the door. “Don’t draw any unnecessary attention to us by letting them know what a fucking pervert you are.”
“You are so uptight, Zain. Maybe you need s
ome of that European ass to cheer you up too,” Sibu chuckled. “I intend to get me some.”
Zain gasped in total exasperation. “And when exactly are you planning to do that?”
“During the trip, of course. I know that tall bitch wants it. You heard how she talks,” he licked his lips at the thought of cornering Crystal on the boat.
“Don’t make me shoot you right here and now, Sibu,” Zain warned under his breath. He had had it with his associate’s predatory desires and murderous traits, especially now that he had gotten so close, mingling with the super-rich and well-connected people. They trusted him – the perfect front for any sinister plan. He was not going to let Sibu screw up his new path into international thuggery. Zain figured he could make a fortune with these people, and he had no qualms about shooting an old friend in the face to get it.
“What hell are you doing?” Nina hissed in Sam’s ear. She did not sound hostile, rather slightly taken aback.
"Just go with it… at least, until they are back in the room," Sam whispered.
Nina peered past Sam’s chest to see. “They are gone. The door is shut. Now let go of me. You just wanted an excuse to get close!”
“What? You snuck up on me,” he frowned. Nina was amused, but she was not going to let Sam see that. If he wanted to play with Crystal, she was going to let him. But he’d have to forget about the pleasure of enjoying Nina’s affection as well.
“We have to wake the others. The sun is already up,” she said blandly, grazing his chest with her hand as she walked away. Sam knew this game. He did not like it much, but somehow he constantly found himself in Nina’s penalty box. She was too sensitive to competition, even a brief flirt, in his opinion. Did she not know that he loved her and only her, even when there he was flirting with both of them?
He watched her walk over the white and gray tiles with bare feet. Her hair was wild and fell softly over her back and shoulders, and her smooth legs were only partially covered by the hem of the large shirt she was wearing over her bikini. It was autumn here in the Southern Hemisphere, but it still felt like summer. Once Nina’s thrall faded as she left him alone, he recalled the conversation he had overheard between the two security men.
‘Who is the whore they were referring to?’ he wondered, running his hands through his hair, pushing the strands out of his face. It had to be one of the women Billy brought with him, but which one, and why? It was cause for concern, but he was not going to ruffle any feathers by asking Billy. For all Sam knew, the lecturer had no idea what was going on and it could endanger the whole project.
Once everybody had gotten out of bed, the group sat spread out all over the premises. Outside, Sam and Billy discussed the tides and the coming dive of the day. Inside, Nina and Mieke cooked breakfast while Cheryl was still in the bathroom, doing what she had to do to survive the day without withdrawal symptoms. Zain had engaged Purdue in a conversation about the wreck and its estimated value, just as a matter of course. Purdue enjoyed talking about projected profits and thought nothing of the security advisor’s interest.
Sibu tried to impress the ladies in the kitchen, but he soon realized that he was just in the way. He tried very hard to stick to Zain’s rules, playing it cool and not causing any trouble by trying to hit on the women. The educated, smart women annoyed him immensely. They were not the kind of women he was used to. He preferred women on their knees – in every way. In his culture, women were there to serve the men and to take care of the home and the children. They were not supposed to have any social command. That was a man’s place.
But Zain had warned him; he had threatened to kill him should he ever do anything that could spoil their plan – and from what Sibu knew about his associate, the man was not one to go back on a threat. The day Sibu had seen Zain shoot his own cousin for taking away his business in the drug trade he had learned just how ruthless Zain was. Under that civilized coolness lurked a Copperhead poised for attack.
“Okay people, we have located what we think is the wreck,” Purdue spoke up after breakfast, once everyone was awake and fed, ready for the task at hand. “Here and here,” he pointed on the screen, “will be our entry points. Now, I believe Crystal Sam, and I will do the first dive, to scout the wreck?”
They all nodded in agreement. Nina did not like being left behind with the strangers, but the dive would not take longer than two hours. They decided to all join them on the yacht Purdue had chartered. At his request, the yacht had already been equipped with the necessary diving gear, and Nina had the consolation of knowing that the vessel had a big, well-stocked bar. Hopefully, she could keep Mieke and Cheryl off each other’s throats for the duration of the dive. It pissed her off that she had to babysit them like ill-mannered, bickering little girls, while her own temper threatened to flare should the childish competition continue.
“So we will get footage of the terrain we’ll have to deal with when the salvage tug arrives. Dr. Malgas, you will be able to see more detail on the wreck and Nina will help you validate if it is really the Admiral Graf Spee. That way you will be able to calculate what this find would be worth to – say, collectors or museums,” Purdue said to Billy in front of the group.
Zain and Sibu’s eyes met briefly before they cast a look toward Cheryl. She seemed satisfied that they knew she was making good on her promise of the prize. In fact, she seemed very content, but that was only because of the illegal substances cursing through her system after some happy time in the bathroom, courtesy of Pyramid Pete.
“And when are we expecting the salvage tug to arrive?” Sam asked Crystal.
She stood next to Purdue with her arms crossed over her chest. “I have notified them of our position. They are coming down along the coast from Egypt, so they should be here in a day or two,” she reported.
“That will give us just enough time to determine the condition of the wreck and decide on how we are going to recover it before figuring out how to tow it,” Purdue added with a smile.
Chapter 16 – Exploration #1
The boat’s owner had charged Purdue an extra fee for the yacht because he had insisted on chartering it without its crew. At first, the owner had been reluctant, but upon meeting him, the Scottish billionaire and the German lawyer had been able to convince the owner that his vessel was going to be in reliable hands. It had taken Crystal and Purdue little over an hour of coaxing and reassuring as well as several glasses of gin and tonic for the owner to finally change the contract.
After loading the sonar equipment and gear, Purdue arranged all the necessary devices for the use of his tablet to ascertain the status of the subterranean parts of the vessel once they reached the dive site. Nina was excited to see if it was truly the ship she had read about, although according to the documents she had found it had fled for the coast of Uruguay. She hoped that perhaps it was old propaganda since the pocket battleship of the Nazi Kriegsmarine was reported to have passed the Cape of Good Hope at one point, sinking several Allied ships in the process. It could have run aground on the east coast of Africa instead of the east coast of South America, who knows?
Sam loved diving. He was excited about the chance to float weightlessly in the quiet blue womb of the planet again and film the elusive ship that had only recently shown itself on radar and satellite zooms Purdue had run. Just the night before, in fact, they had come across something interesting. Once Purdue, Sam, and Billy had been properly oiled by the local alcoholic beverages, the subject of the oddity of the vessel’s elusiveness came up.
Sam had asked Billy if he was confident that local authorities had never before noticed such a massive piece of metal, which must have been right under their noses for almost eighty years. Billy, who had looked a bit bewildered by the question, had explained that his assistant had checked all records to make sure that no such on a potential discovery of the vessel had ever been entered. According to Billy, the ship had sunk and had been covered by the surface sediment of Bluewater Bay since the early 1940’s.
“Perhaps it was just buried in a shallow grave until recently. The coast here is known for its erratic currents and strong undercurrents, which could have been responsible for sweeping away the top sediment layer and revealing the dead ship,” he had speculated.
Purdue had shaken his head, “I’m no expert, but that’s something that would take decades, Billy.”
For the first time in his life, Sam had seen his sharp friend Billy looking speechless. To Sam's surprise, he had even looked a bit as if he did not know much about the find, but he had reckoned that it had just been his drunken bias judging the scrawny lecturer.
Then, when the subject of the conversation had drifted to the women, Sam had joked about how superstitious sailors had always been when it came to women on board. Soon after that, the discussion had taken a creepy turn, one Sam still mulled over now as they packed the gear to put out to sea.
Purdue, who had a penchant for the dramatic and the metaphysical when he had had too much to drink, had come to the fore with a chilling what if…
In the fire of the braai, his eyes had flared with mystery as he had leaned closer to his audience, now including the two security advisors and Nina.
“What if the ship was not there at all? Until now?” he had slurred, hands extended in a dramatic gesture. "What if the ship simply appeared there after some scientific anomaly facilitated its shift from one part of the ocean floor to another?"
“Ghost ship?” Sam had asked, fascinated.
"Aye, like a life-sized trinket of doom set up in a particular place to lure the greedy and desperate to try and claim it," Nina had added to the notion.
“That’s right!” Purdue had gasped.
“Aw, that is a good one!” Sam had chuckled, applauding.
Dr. Malgas, Cheryl, and Sibu had looked at each other with wide eyes at the possibility of the existence of such an insidious ghost ship. While Dr. Malgas knew that it couldn’t be a ghost ship, the notion instilled quite a bit of fear in him. Cheryl had felt uncomfortable as she had been using Dr. Malgas’ discovery for her own gain and Sibu, had immediately seen the devil in the water out to punish him. As a son of the Xhosa tribe and culture, the superstition and witchcraft had always been close to his heart, prompting him to go off into a torrent of curses and incantations at the talk of these things in his presence.
