by P. W. Child
Crystal zoned out in thought and finally replied, “In 11m of water off the coast – that would make the wreck a navigational hazard.” She looked at Nina and Purdue. “They would have had to tow it away or dismantle it completely.”
“They did. In 2004, they raised a 27 metric tons gunnery range-finding telemeter. And in 2006, they retrieved the 400kg crest of the eagle and swastika from its stern. Boom! Mystery solved. This, lady and gentleman, is not the Graf Spee," Nina concluded.
Outside the door Cheryl’s eyes grew wide, her shaking hands covering her mouth. The distressing news made her sick, sicker than her morning withdrawal and she bolted for the bathroom. She threw up huddled over the toilet bowl; certain, that Zain would kill her if he found out she had led them on a hoax treasure hunt.
In Cheryl’s absence, the conversation continued, and had she listened, it could have saved her from a lot of inner turmoil.
“The reason I asked the two of you to hear me out first was because the funding of this expedition and its continuation depends on the two of you,” Nina said. She lowered her voice for the question she had called them here for. “It is entirely up to the two of you whether I divulge this information officially to the group. Now, I was thinking, since we already have Crystal’s contractors on their way…”
Crystal smiled. “I like your way of thinking, Nina!”
“You are saying we should pretend that we don’t know this and still tow the ship?” Purdue guessed. “Well, are you confident that this is the same class of ship?”
“Positive,” Nina affirmed, nodding zealously. Purdue had to smile at the idea. He had already spent so much money to fund the operation, so why not continue anyway?
“So it is of historic value. Who knows, perhaps even more so than the Graf Spee, depending on what we find on it,” Crystal smiled. “Let’s do it, Dave. Let’s salvage this wreck and see how far we can take it north. You never know what kind of secrets it yields!”
“But we don’t tell anyone else. Agreed?” Crystal suggested.
“Agreed,” Purdue replied.
Nina smiled slyly, closing the lid of her laptop. “It will be our little secret.”
Ch apter 22 – The Second Secret
In the afternoon, Crystal got word from her men on the salvage tug that they would soon arrive in South African waters.
"We can start collecting our gear so long, people," Purdue announced as Crystal filled him in on the schedule. "Naturally the first part of the expedition revolves around the most trying and daring of all our tasks concerning Dr. Malgas' find. That is, of course, to tow the wreck into international waters without the local authorities getting wind of it.”
“Cutting it thin, aren’t we?” Dr. Malgas asked with a heavy weight of worry in his voice. He chugged back some brandy, looking quite the worse for wear since his argument with Dr. Gould. It seemed that he had abandoned all care about the ramifications of his doings, as long as he could tag along and take credit for the lost ship when the time came. His weary eyes sought Mieke’s face, who assured him with a nod that everything would work swimmingly if he kept his cool during the process.
“Cutting it thin is what we do best, Dr. Malgas,” Purdue smiled. “We have learned under harrowing circumstances that there is not really no alternative to just biting the bullet and getting things done.”
“We have researched the coastline well, Dr. Malgas,” Crystal reassured him, appearing next to Purdue as if she was his shadow. “We have investigated all the angles and factors carefully, so don’t fret. We have obtained the coast guard’s roster and schedule to make sure they do not pass us by at an inconvenient time, so to speak,” she smiled at Purdue and Sam.
Nina watched the affair with a keen eye, feeling the tension between all the factions in this excursion, but keeping her doubts and judgments firmly to herself. Crystal spoke like a stewardess, very sure of herself. But Nina wondered if the master diver was really as confident as she led on. Certainly the notion that the ship was a not what they had thought it would be had to leave her, at least, a little bit insecure.
“I have been making notes about the routines of our neighbors, their habits and such,” Sam winked at Billy Malgas. “Between myself, Purdue and Crystal we have made sure that our window of operation stays undeterred while we work.”
Crystal cleared her throat, still reeling from the secret they shared. “I hate to play Devil’s Advocate here, but…” she took a moment as everyone turned their attentions to her, “…but won’t the locals find a salvage tug a bit suspicious right here in their waters?”
As if he had been waiting for someone to ask that very question, Purdue’s face lit up. With a warm smile, he walked toward Crystal and explained, “Oh, we have no concerns about that, my dear. I have a device I have been working on since Sam informed me of this fascinating operation back in Edinburgh.”
Cheryl, Mieke, and Dr. Malgas perked up to see what Purdue was doing when he retrieved the item from a sturdy iron case. Inside the case, it was resting in a molded foam cradle to protect it from excessive vibration or impact. The gleaming little contraption gleamed like a mirrored box with a thin lid, which served as a screen or view finder for the genius inventor to mark coordinates on.
“This is the TechMag Satellite Manipulator,” he said proudly.
“Hey, I haven’t seen that one yet,” Sam mumbled, coming to scrutinize it.
“No, no-one has. I thought to keep it on hand just until I had examined the conditions under which we had to move the wreck to get it out of the 12-mile-zone,” Purdue revealed. “I designed it while we were waiting to get our logistics sorted out. Lovely little thing, isn’t it?”
Nina frowned, “And now, ladies and gentlemen, the question we all have on our tongues…allow me. What does it do?”
Sam snickered, but the rest of the group seemed spellbound by the device, waiting with bated breath, ready to take in the incomprehensible jargon Purdue would use to explain his invention to them.
"It will most probably sound like science fiction to you all, but in fact, it is very simple," Purdue began. "With this frequency modulator, I can manipulate certain satellites into applying the electro-magnetic resonance normally used in seismic imaging, for instance, to disturb the spin dynamics of protons in the atmosphere…"
“Wait, wait,” Dr. Malgas interrupted. “Please, Mr. Purdue, can you explain the non-engineers amongst us can understand it as well?” Upon Malgas’ interruption, just about everyone agreed.
“Not that we don’t appreciate your exceptional scientific knowledge, Dave,” Nina soothed, “but we just need to know what the little silver box of yours does to the ship out there.”
She added a wink to soften the blow of ignorance Purdue must have felt at Malgas so rudely interrupting him.
“Very well,” he sighed amicably, shifting his spectacles a bit higher on the bridge of his nose. “It makes the satellites I choose shoot a beam into the atmosphere to disturb it wherever I point the device.”
"And then?" Sam asked, intrigued.
Purdue smiled. He knew Sam was sharp when it came to deducing things and trusted that the journalist would comprehend better than the others. “Then, the active disturbance in the particles in the water will literally alter the geophysical properties of the subsurface, my lad!”
“You mean it will cause the water around the wreck to do something so that the sand will be rearranged?” Sam asked slowly, keeping his voice low, trying not to sound too foolish.
“Wow!” Crystal reveled at the thought. “If that is the case, I can totally see where you are going with this.”
“Precisely,” Purdue grinned, holding up the device, showing off the screen displaying coordinates and frequency waves at work. “Once we shift the sediment on the ocean floor around the wreck, it will literally move the ship with it toward the magnetic field where the pull is strongest."
“Like geomagnetic forces prompt birds to migrate?” Nina asked.
“M
uch like that yes, Nina,” Purdue nodded. “It will do what the ocean does anyway, but it will accelerate the movement to such an extent that this will happen in a very short time.”
“Is anyone else finding this very dangerous or am I missing something?” Nina admitted, her arms folded tightly in front of her chest and her thumb nail between her teeth as she spoke. “This kind of geological shift would significantly influence tidal behavior, wouldn’t it?”
She was met with silence, so she continued, "I mean if the ocean floor suddenly moved a gigantic fucking ship around like it's a chess piece, that amount of sediment and water would be instantly displaced, right? How come nobody else is seeing this?”
“I see it,” Crystal agreed quietly, staring at the floor to find an answer to their predicament.
“I have thought of that, Nina,” Purdue answered her, “but this is a chance we have to take. Perhaps if I made subtle adjustments, the result would be less dramatic than, say, a tsunami or an earthquake.”
“I have to concur with Nina here, Dave,” Crystal declared with a stern concerned expression. “Don’t get me wrong, it is an appealing idea and quite remarkable in theory, but you are endangering the lives of the locals, especially those who live close to the coastline.”
“We can at least try it,” Sam suggested. “We could attempt a little nudge first, to see about the effects. That way we could gradually adjust the level of force in the water and the sand.”
“They have different densities, Sam,” Nina argued. “How can you exert a certain amount of force on the sand, enough to move the wreck, without perturbing the less stable water above it?”
Purdue had to concede; he was at a loss. "I had not thought of that; not in practice, at least. Nina, you are quite correct.”
"So now what do we do?" Zain chipped in from the bar counter. For the first time, he had an open opinion, based firmly in his greed. "Why can't we just dive down to the wreck and see what’s in there?”
Dr. Malgas, Mieke, and Cheryl, in particular, gaped at his ignorant argument. Least of all, they did not need him to sabotage the integrity of their goal in this entire exercise.
“I think that is obvious, Zain,” Dr. Malgas replied with a mock lecture, trying desperately to alleviate his embarrassment in front of the Scots and the German. “We could be seen bringing up objects from the bottom of the sea by the people who frequent the beach, the people who live here? Remember them?”
Zain detested the lecturer’s patronizing tone, yet he knew he had to maintain his charade at all costs. Mieke shook her head at the idiocy of the security advisor as Dr. Malgas further explained the potential negative repercussions of Zain’s suggestion to him in a private conversation in the kitchen where they pretended to look for a late lunch. Cheryl kept her mouth shut, alarmed at Zain’s ludicrous assumption that he was invited to their brainstorming. She flashed her eyes to Sibu, who just kept gnawing on a T-bone from the previous night’s braai.
“Now, I am open to suggestions, but need I remind you all that Crystal’s contractors should be arriving shortly to tow the wreck further away from the coast into international waters?” Purdue sighed. “There simply is no other way to do this without a bit of a risk.”
Sam slapped his hands on his knees before rising from his chair, “I say we give it a try, regardless. It will not benefit us sitting here, worrying about something we have not even tried yet. We really don’t have much of a choice, ladies.”
Nina and Crystal shrugged, but they were both opposed to the idea that scratched at their ethics. The sea would not take lightly to being disturbed like that, they all knew, but it was a secret salvage. How else were they going to get it done without resorting to extreme measures?
Purdue took their expressions as votes and finally he knew they had no choice.
“Let’s do it.”
Cha pter 23 – Grotesque
The Aleayn Yam was braving the doldrums, hiding its secret cargo away from the eyes of the good gods as the crew of evil pirates played cards to kill time. They had recently passed Mozambique, making sure not to get too close to the coast out of fear of being questioned by authorities.
They looked forward to collecting a fresh bounty of humans for trade, ransom or merely the pleasure terrified hostages lent their pirate hearts. Ali was sleeping in his cabin while Manni and the other four men engaged in a drunken game of gambling that edged near murder. Had they not had a stake in each other’s ventures they probably would have killed each other long ago. Perhaps it was the prerogative of criminals with wicked souls to be happily cursed to keeping company with their kin.
“You cheated, bastard!” Eli complained as Manni laughed at his defeat.
“No, I did nothing wrong. You all saw me!” Manni defended himself, still smiling as he guzzled the second cup of moonshine. “You owe me a fifty! Come on!”
“I’ll win it back!” Eli protested. Eli was one of only five men left under Ali’s malevolent command. The others had perished when they had captured the Aleayn Yam, due to a tough and smart Egyptian crew that had refused to allow their salvage tug to be taken with ease. Apart from Ali and Manni, Eli was now left in the company of Isho, Benjamin, and Jonah, all men from the same town in Somalia where they had been nothing but criminals. The other ten members of their illegal operation had come from different parts around the Arabian Sea. It had only been logical that they ended up as pirates, but they had been far from under-qualified.
They had all been carpenters, welders, and sailors by trade, but their innate greed and readiness to conquer at all costs had turned them into pirates. The human trafficking trade had always been the most lucrative, but the hardest to perpetrate, even for the likes of Ali.
One advantage of recent times was that the world had become soft and these days, people were so afraid of being judged as racists, fascists or psychopaths that they had become reluctant to fight back against pirates Ali and his crew. The liberal world’s current forced diplomacy and pacifism only gave brutal killers the green light to rape and rampage at will on the seven seas, save for a few feeble attempts of some local governments to curb this scourge with secret task forces. These task forces were obliged to keep their operations covert. Otherwise, the majority of naive regimes would take action against them for the senseless murders of pirates. After all, thanks to the new laws of humanity, criminals had advanced from rightful execution to protected status. Ali was well aware of these task forces, undercover as fishing boats and pleasure cruisers, so he steered clear of territorial waters.
“You lost again!” Benjamin screamed in intoxicated amusement at Eli’s losing streak, provoking the sore loser to lunge forward and hit him upside the head without any reservation. Benjamin's red eyes flared, and he propelled himself across the table onto his adversary to get even. They were locked in a heated scuffle on the wet floor, rolling around in spilled rum and shattered glass to the cheers of their fellow crewmen.
Ali came storming in. “What the hell is going on here? Shut up and get your worthless carcasses up, for God’s sake! I have that German woman on the radio, you fucking imbeciles! How is she going to believe we are a salvage crew if she can hear you behaving like animals in the background, hey? Hey!”
The men instantly fell silent, and Jonah helped his two colleagues up from the nasty floor to appease Ali. He had to remind them of the price such a group could fetch.
"Once we have the German and her friends on the open seas, you can all claim your rewards. From what I believe, we will have four women on the boat. They should make us a good profit and those we cannot sell…you can have."
The men roared with lust and excitement. It was true that female hostages were extremely profitable goods, but sometimes governments or families refused to pay ransom for the unfortunate souls kidnapped by pirates and then these women suffered appalling fates at the hands of their devilish captors.
One of the drunken crew members smashed a bottle against the wall, howling in cruel exhilaration
at the thought. Then suddenly they all perked up, listening to the distant bellow of a deep and cataclysmic sound approaching. A storm strength gale rolled in from the south and rocked the tug boat uncontrollably, surging from below and withdrawing rapidly, challenging the vessel’s buoyancy.
“Look what you’ve done! Acting like stray dogs! You have angered the Big Blue! We’re all gonna die!” Ali screamed at the top of his hoarse voice. It was a well-known fact among the seamen that Ali Shabat was extremely superstitious, but they would never have made fun of his beliefs. Firstly, he would have killed anybody mocking him. Ali had a homemade collection of daggers he could throw with acute accuracy at alarming distances.
Secondly, the pirate captain had almost never been wrong in his assessment of the wrath of the seven seas before. The crew had learned to trust his instincts, admittedly not believing much in their own.
“Ali, what did the woman say?” Manni asked after a few uncomfortable seconds.
“They are waiting for us. We have just come out of the Mozambique Channel, boys, and about to pass into their waters, so we do not need this kind of hostility among ourselves!” he rumbled again, delivering one of his passionate speeches.
“Yes, Ali,” came the collective obedience from the men.
The boat fell sideways, rolling in the savage waves that rose up like majestic aquatic walls all around them. It was a terrifying sight to the seasoned seamen; the stuff of nightmares. “The weather service hasn’t predicted any storms and no other ship has sent any warning over the radio either. This is the doing of the gods! We are being punished, and you have time to fight over a cursed card game, you idiots!"
Manni swallowed hard, nervous to address the volatile leader, but he had to say something. “Ali. Ali, I think maybe the sea is angry over the killing.”
Ali turned abruptly to his first mate. In his eyes, he looked furious, yet something in there was fearful and fraught with doubt. "What?"
