The captain stood upright in a daze. Blood dripped from his nose. He touched the blood with his hand and shook his head. He fixed his horror filled eyes at Balmain. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
“We can’t save ourselves…” Balmain sighed as he met the captain’s eyes with conviction. “But there might still be time to save the rest of them!”
He walked past the captain, who stepped to the side without saying a word. Balmain continued down the series of steel steps into the main cargo hold a farther three decks below without looking back at the captain.
Balmain stepped onto the steel passageway that ran the length of the ship. The hull creaked loudly in protest of the pressure being exerted by the ocean. It was a horrific sound. The metal was slowly becoming distorted, twisted and eventually would be torn apart as the behemoth vortex attempted to drag the cargo ship down by her stern.
The ship went quiet for a moment, as though its hull had somehow made some sort of gain in the battle to survive. Balmain continued moving toward the container. He knew better. The ship wasn’t winning. It was merely in the midst of its death throes.
As though to confirm his suspicion, the silence was shattered by a series of loud popping sounds, as the glass portholes toward the stern finally gave way to the intense pressure being exerted on them. Seawater gushed in. He heard the roar of the automatic diesel motors kick into life as the bilge pumps attempted the impossible task of overcoming the incoming tide of seawater. The shallow wall of seawater lapped his ankles along the passageway. He moved quickly, but didn’t rush. He had time. All he had to do was reach it. The water was at his ankles, gushing toward the Gordoye Dostizheniye’s stern.
He followed the steel corridor eighty-five feet until he reached the container. The stainless steel specialized shipping container stood in a stark contrast to the other weathered containers nearby. It had a digital keypad on its side, perpendicular to the main door. Balmain calmly typed in the code and the door unlocked.
The door opened automatically and he stepped up into the dry water-proof container. Inside it looked more like something out of a spacecraft than a cargo container. It had been purpose built to protect and conceal the item. A small writing desk was mounted to the sidewall on his right. He quickly withdrew a black permanent marker from it, stepped outside and scribbled something next to the security keypad.
Balmain then stepped inside the container, switched on the internal lights, and closed the door. He listened as a series of hydraulic bolts moved to seal the container once more. He took a deep breath in, feeling more confident now that he’d reached it.
He could hear the rumblings of water now filling around the sides of the water-tight shipping container and made a silent prayer in gratitude that he’d reached it in time. He quickly scribbled a note to the salvage crew who he knew she would certainly send. He had no doubt she would. The only question was – would they be the first to reach it? When he finished the note, he read it again.
Now that he’d done all that he could, Balmain felt a sudden wave of relief. It was time now, and he would gladly pay for the crimes of his past. He felt the shipping container tilt downward, reaching an almost ninety-degree angle.
Balmain gripped the metallic hold on the side and felt the floor slip out from under him. A moment later his entire world was falling, like he’d just dropped off the end of a rollercoaster ride. Only this time his heart didn’t race. For once, there was no doubt where this ride would end. There was no chance of survival. Instead of racing, his heart seemed to slow. As though it was simply biding its time, and counting the seconds until the very end.
A moment later, he felt the vibrations of the ship breaking apart around him and wondered if the purpose-built shipping container could possibly withstand the pressure.
There was no way to tell how far the Gordoye Dostizheniye had sunk. He mentally recalled the maritime maps of the Bering Strait. The depth was meant to be as little as fifty feet, yet somehow, he felt like he’d dropped hundreds of feet.
Slowly, the ship finally came to rest and the container settled at a forty-five-degree angle on its side. He glanced at his wristwatch. A handmade Russian mechanical chronometer. Unlike its quartz counterparts that required batteries, this worked on a complex series of springs and components that ingeniously self-wound to maintain time. He’d bought it when he first arrived in the coastal village of Pavek. He smiled curiously. In all that time, this was the first he could remember where the arm had finally stopped turning.
It now permanently read 3:10 a.m.
He looked up and stared at the stone – the cause of all his problems in the past twenty years – a lie against humanity. Standing four feet high and shaped like the letter T was the ancient megalithic stone structure. He looked at it once more – his eyes fixed on the image carved into its ancient surface – the tail end of a comet blazing through the earth’s sky.
It was the last thing he ever saw, before the lights, damaged by the recent jarring movements, began to flicker and finally went out – leaving him entombed in pure darkness to await the death he now welcomed.
Chapter Two
Chukchi Sea, South of the Arctic Ocean – 3:15 a.m.
Sam Reilly sat up in his bed with a jolt. His heart raced as he felt a surge of adrenalin flow through his muscles, but for the life of him he couldn’t remember why. He switched on a sidelight. He’d been in a deep sleep. It was meant to be another twelve hours before they reached the Queen Elizabeth Islands of the Arctic Archipelago.
What happened?
The sea gave little credence to the passage of time above the Arctic Circle where the summer’s sun never fully disappeared. Instead, it required of those who navigated these waters to become attuned to every little change in the action of the sea. The thought triggered a memory. For a moment Sam found it difficult to distinguish between his dreams and reality. Had he felt the Maria Helena shift direction? They were approaching the open ocean of the Arctic, on their way to Nunavut, Canada, to study the depth of the polar ice cap. There had been a prolonged centrifugal pull toward the port-side of his bed. He glanced at the compass at the end of his bed. It showed a southwesterly heading.
Why have we turned around?
Sam climbed out of his bunk. He slipped into a pair of thick working pants, a shirt and sweatshirt. He slid his boots on and tightened the laces. He glanced at the clock fixed to the side of his bed – it read 3:18 a.m.
So much for twelve hours of R and R…
He closed the door to his cabin and ran up the three flights of stairs to the bridge. Inside, he found the heater set to maximum and Tom Bower at the helm. Wearing cargo pants and a Hawaiian shirt that made the bold statement of saying, “So what if I’m above the Arctic Circle, no reason why I shouldn’t treat this like any other vacation.” But Tom’s eyes weren’t as cheery as his shirt.
Sam said, “What’s going on, Tom?”
“We’ve been appropriated by the U.S. Coast Guard for a rescue mission. I’ve already taken the Maria Helena up to her maximum speed. We’ll be there in two hours.”
“Where?”
“Middle of the Bering Strait.” Tom kept his eyes fixed on the sea ahead. The hull of the Maria Helena was rated for ice, but any collision at the speeds they were travelling now would be fatal for her hull. “The Gordoye Dostizheniye, a Russian cargo ship – she’s gone under…”
Sam looked at the ocean, it was glassy and almost perfectly still in the night. “In this weather? What did she collide with?”
“I don’t know.”
“Great. How big was the cargo ship? Any idea how many lives we’re chasing here?”
“No idea…”
Sam nodded. He understood the situation. It was all happening at once. No one had information yet. Tom had turned around upon hearing the mayday call on the radio. The U.S. Coast Guard was sending their nearest resources. The Russian Navy would be trying to get there, too. In the meantime, men and women, right this instant, wer
e most likely trying to stay alive in the near freezing waters.
He took a breath in and asked, “What do we know?”
“Nothing. I think you’re up to date with all we have. Matthew’s speaking with the Coast Guard now, trying to find more information. We’ll know more in a minute.”
Matthew stepped onto the bridge with a few loose pieces of fax paper in his hands. His eyes met Tom’s and he spoke with gentle accusation. “I leave you in charge for an hour and a cargo ship sinks!”
Tom shrugged. “You can hardly hold me responsible for maritime events taking place nearly two hours away?”
“Just watch me.”
“All right. Enough of that.” Sam looked at Matthew, who was still wearing what he’d presumably gone to bed in – a pair of shorts and tee-shirt. Does no one around here realize we’re sailing through sub-freezing waters? He asked, “What have we got, Matthew?”
“Morning, Sam. Have a read of this.” Matthew handed the faxed report to him.
Sam took the full transcript of the radio transmissions from the previous half-hour and quickly read the two-page brief. He wore an incredulous and wry smile, as though it had to be some kind of sick joke. His eyes swept to the end of the report, where it confirmed the ship had fifteen crew on board when she went under. His smile instantly disappeared.
He turned to Matthew. “How does a modern cargo ship of over a hundred twenty thousand tons get into trouble in calm seas, and sink within minutes?”
Matthew shook his head. “Beats the hell out of me.”
Chapter Three
At 5:06 a.m. the Maria Helena slowed to an idle and coasted into the site of the Gordoye Dostizheniye’s sinking. The sea was already flooded with daylight, allowing Sam a good visual of the entire location. It was as calm and still as any harbor. The seas were rarely this settled near the entrance to the Bering Strait. Tom steered in a slow, wide, clockwise direction.
Sam turned to face Tom and Matthew. “Either of you see any flotsam or debris?”
“Not a thing,” Tom answered.
Matthew’s eyes swept out toward the horizon. “It makes a perfect postcard picture, but I find it hard to believe a cargo ship’s gone down within a hundred miles of here.”
Sam turned his focus to Elise, who was tapping away at the keys of her laptop. “Do you have those satellite images yet?”
“Got them, but from what I can see, all they show are the crystal-clear waters of the Bering Strait.” Elise wore an expression Sam had seen before. It said, someone got something wrong, but it wasn’t from my end. “I’ll get Laura to run a search of the images to see if anything correlates to any suspected debris from a sinking ship.”
“Laura?”
“That’s your newest member of the crew.”
“Really?” Sam was incredulous.
“It’s what I’ve named my new Artificial Intelligence system I’ve designed to run complex tasks autonomously.”
“All right.” Sam said, indifferent to Elise’s creation. He spoke to Tom, “Have you got any visual of the Gordoye Dostizheniye on the depth sounder?”
“Not a thing.” Tom shrugged, glancing at the computer screen behind the helm that depicted the outline of the seafloor. “The seabed’s flat as the surface and just as remarkably clean, too. The National Parks and Wildlife people would be proud of the state of it.”
Sam stepped beside Tom. “There’s no debris at all?”
“I don’t know what to tell you, the seafloor’s completely clean.” Tom increased the angle of the multibeam sonar transducers in order to increase the range of the surveying range.
Sam asked, “What about the image quality?”
“The quality’s good. I’m telling you, there’s nothing down there but sand.”
Sam shook his head in dismay as he stared at the depth sounder’s visual screen. The Maria Helena used state of the art multibeam bathymetry. Unlike traditional, one-dimensional depth sounders, which used just one transducer pointing downward, the system used an array of a hundred and twenty 12 kHz transducers to develop precise geometric patterns of the seafloor. It could send out the swath of sounds to cover a distance on either side of the ship that is equal to about two times the water depth. The sound then bounces off the seafloor at different angles and is received by the ship at slightly different times. All the signals are then processed by computers on board the ship, converted into water depths, and automatically plotted as a bathymetric map – also known as submarine topography – with an accuracy of about five feet.
Sam crossed his arms and stepped back. His eyes staring at the calm waters. “Does it strike anyone as odd that the sea is not just completely devoid of any debris from the cargo ship, but also of any sea life?”
“Good question…” Tom thought about it for a minute. “All I can think of is that whatever did happen nearby certainly got the local marine life rattled.”
“Matthew,” Sam said. “Can you please get the Coast Guard back on the satellite phone? See if they can confirm the location.”
Matthew nodded. “I’m onto it.”
Tom decreased the angle of the multibeam swath, which increased the range of its sonar image, while decreasing its quality. He watched the results and smiled. “Hey, Sam, I think I’ve got something.”
Sam stared at the bathymetric display. “What is that?”
Tom threw the twin propellers into reverse and straightened the helm until the Maria Helena was directly facing their discovery. “I think it’s a giant mound of sand.”
Sam ran the palm of his hand through his thick brown hair. “So, the seabed is completely flat and devoid of marine life, there’s no sign of the Gordoye Dostizheniye while a strange mound of sand is waiting in the middle here?”
“Yeah, I think that’s just about the gist of it,” Tom confirmed.
“Any chance that strange mound of sand is large enough to cover the cargo ship?”
“Not a chance.”
“All right, let’s set up a wide grid search pattern. See if we can come across anything.” Sam turned to Matthew. “Any luck with the Coast Guard?”
Matthew shook his head. “They’re saying the GPS coordinates are correct.”
Sam walked over to Matthew. “Let me speak to them.”
Matthew handed the satellite phone over.
“Good morning. My name’s Sam Reilly. I’m in charge of the Maria Helena, currently at the site of the Gordoye Dostizheniye’s sinking. There’s nothing here,” he reported. “Can you please verify the location?”
“You’re right over the top of it.” The man spoke quickly and with certainty. “We’ve got your ship on satellite tracking. You’re definitely right over the top of it now. You should see the wrecked hull of the Gordoye Dostizheniye right now.”
“Negative. We’ve searched the area, we’re not picking up any sign of the ship. Maybe you got the GPS coordinates wrong?”
“We didn’t.”
“Maybe whoever sent the mayday call did then?” Sam breathed in. “It would be easy to do under the circumstances.”
“Not possible. We had a spotter plane in the air within minutes of the mayday call.”
“And? No sign of the ship?” Sam mentally urged the man to answer in more detail, but said nothing.
“No, sir. What they did see was an area of disturbed water, and what looked like a small vortex in the middle of it. The vortex disappeared as the pilot observed it.”
“And it didn’t occur to anyone that the vortex could have sucked the ship down?” Sam asked, allowing a hint of sarcasm to enter his tone.
“We did, sir. But what the spotter saw would have been too small and too weak to sink a vessel of the size of the Gordoye Dostizheniye.” He pronounced the Russian name with fewer syllables than required, but Sam didn't hold that against him. Few Americans could navigate the double vowels of the Russian language.
“So, you’re pretty sure of the coordinates,” Sam repeated.
“No, sir. I’m certa
in of them.”
Sam ended the call. “Tom, let’s get a close up of that mound of sand.”
Tom increased the resolution on the bathymetric map. “It’s a big mound of sand. It looks unstable. You can already see where parts of it have fallen in upon itself.”
“What do you think the possibility is that the Russian ship was pulled into a submarine sinkhole?”
“It’s possible, but pretty unlikely. You think the entire ship was pulled into a sinkhole and that forty-foot pile of sand is covering its bridge tower?”
Sam shook his head. “No. But right now, I can’t think of anything else it could be.”
“What do you want to do?”
“Not much we can do. It looks like we’re going to have to take Sea Witch II down for a closer look.”
Chapter Four
Sam stepped down the stairs onto the main deck. Veyron already had the Maria Helena’s runabout winched into the water and tied up along the starboard side of the hull. The engine was in the process of warming up on the slim chance they would still find any survivors. The smell of thick beef stew wafted up from the kitchen. On the helipad, Genevieve was in the process of taking off with the Sea King to start an aerial survey for survivors.
The downward thrust from the helicopter sent a gust of sea-spray over the deck. Sam ducked to cover his face. A few seconds later Genevieve dropped the nose, and the Sea King quickly headed off toward the south.
Veyron switched the runabout’s engine off and climbed back on board the Maria Helena. “Any news of survivors, Sam?”
“No. Right now, we’re still trying to locate the Gordoye Dostizheniye.”
Veyron glanced at the clear seas. You could only just make out the flat seabed below. “Are you sure we’ve been given the right coordinates?”
“I don’t know.” Sam looked at the clear water below. He shared the same thoughts. It seemed impossible you could hide a massive cargo ship in these waters without some sort of hint of its destruction. “The Coast Guard tells me they’re a hundred percent certain we’re in the right place. They even said they had a spotter plane overhead when the last of the cargo ship disappeared inside a vortex. The pilot took a GPS reading at the time.”
The Sam Reilly Collection Volume 3 Page 29
