The Sam Reilly Collection Volume 3

by Christopher Cartwright

  “Sure. What do you want to do?”

  “There’s a giant mound of sand right below our keel. Tom and I going to take the Sea Witch II down there, and cast our eyes over it.”

  Veyron’s eyes narrowed. “You think it’s the remnants of the Gordoye Dostizheniye’s bridge tower buried?”

  “I doubt it, but it’s the only thing we have to go on at the moment. So, I’m going to take it.”

  Veyron nodded, like it was the only reasonable possibility in a series of impossible events. “I’ll come down and give you a hand putting her in the water.”

  Sam headed down the next set of steel steps until he reached the dive center, housed in the heart of the Maria Helena, between her massive twin hulls. The Sea Witch II, the bright yellow Triton 36,000/3 submarine stood next to the moon pool, perched on a frame to protect its twin hulls. Its borosilicate glass dome in the middle could house up to three divers, but that wasn’t on the agenda for this trip. The two pilot seats at the front of the bubble waited for him and Tom to fill them. Although Sea Witch II could descend as deep as 36,000 feet—the depth of the Mariana Trench—she wouldn’t be required to descend to any such depth today. A mere 30 feet below the surface of the gentle waves, the peak of the sand mound awaited their probe for information.

  He glanced at the moon pool in the middle. The water was so clear he could clearly make out the shape of the mound of sand below. The structure was far too vertical to be naturally formed out of sand. Already, large sections had broken off and were crumbling down the sides. Veyron began to connect the winch cables to the top of the small submersible.

  Tom stepped down the stairs. His eyes first looked at the crystal-clear waters of the moon pool and then at Sam’s hardened face. “It doesn’t look that deep. I think I could hold my breath and free dive down to inspect the sand mound.”

  Sam grinned. “You go right ahead, Tom. That water’s only just shy of freezing. I think I’ll take the comfort of the Sea Witch II.”

  Tom smiled. “Chicken.”

  Sam ignored him and climbed in through the top hatch of the submarine. He took a seat in the left pilot’s chair and slid it forward. He felt for the main battery switch, positioned in front of the joystick, and flicked it on. The series of red backlit lights illuminated the gauges and controls. He slid his hand backward and gripped the joystick, which sat between the two forward seats. Glancing to see that no one was near the propellers, he squeezed the joystick. The electric motors whirred into life. He adjusted the control to the left and then the right to confirm each propeller was spinning correctly.

  Tom shuffled down the hatchway. “On second thoughts, if you’re taking the easy way out, I may as well tag along with you.”

  “I thought you might,” Sam said.

  “Where are you up to?”

  “I think we’re just about right to go, if you want to close the hatch.”

  Tom stood up to close the hatch, but a set of fingers stopped him. The hatch opened fully and Matthew leaned inside with a cell phone. “Sam, the Secretary of Defense wants to speak with you before you dive.”

  “Really?” Sam cringed. “Was it too hard to tell her I was already under water?”

  Matthew shrugged as if to say it wasn’t his problem and handed him the cell phone.

  Sam took it. “Good morning, ma’am.”

  “There’s nothing good about this morning, Mr. Reilly. It’s been one whole God damn series of screw ups!” Her words were crisp and pugnacious. “Have you found the Gordoye Dostizheniye?”

  “Not yet.” Sam wondered what interest she could possibly have in the lost Russian cargo ship.

  She took an exaggerated breath and then sighed. “That’s one thing, at least.”

  Sam waited for her to tell him what was on her mind. When she didn’t, he asked. “Ma’am, I really need to put a submarine in the water. May I ask what I can do for you?”

  “How long until you locate the Gordoye Dostizheniye?”

  “I have no idea. At this stage, I’m still not a hundred percent certain we’re even searching in the right place.”

  “The Russian Navy have their own recovery team on its way. Our intelligence suggests they’ll be on the site within another twelve hours. I suggest you find the wreckage and salvage it within eleven hours!”

  Sam smiled. “That’s not a lot of time to locate a ship and retrieve something.”

  “That’s all you have. If we miss this window we’ll never get another chance to recover it. The seabed is less than a hundred feet deep throughout the entire area. You’ve achieved more in less time before.”

  “I probably knew where the shipwreck was then.” Sam knew the gripe wouldn’t get him anything. “What do you need me to recover?”

  “A shipping container. Its number is 404.”

  “A shipping container!” Sam was incredulous. “You know there’s still a chance this is a rescue mission? As you pointed out, these are relatively shallow waters – there may be air pockets within the ship where life might still be preserved.”

  “Forget about those lives. This takes priority.”

  “Really?” Sam asked. “What’s inside container 404?”

  “That’s not your concern. It’s more secure than a bank vault – so don’t even think about trying to enter it. Your job is to retrieve it before the Russians arrive.”

  Chapter Five

  Sam felt the submarine shift as he strapped himself into the pilot seat. To his right, in the copilot’s chair, Tom had commenced cross-checking the startup procedure using the mnemonic HACHIT – checking the Hatch, Air supply, Controls, Harnesses, Instruments and Trim.

  Outside, Veyron confirmed the winch hook and cable were correctly connected and the overhead hatch was sealed properly.

  Sam waited until Veyron climbed off the back of the submarine and then asked, “Are we ready to get this sub in the water?”

  “You’re good,” Veyron confirmed.

  “Thanks.” Sam turned to Tom. “You happy?”

  Tom flicked the running lights on. “Systems all check out. We’re good to go.”

  Sam depressed the radio transmitter. “Maria Helena, this is Sea Witch II, we’re good for launch.”

  “Copy that Sea Witch II, safe journey and good luck.” It was Matthew who replied, his professional monotone voice comforting in its familiarity.

  In front of them, Veyron adjusted the controls for the crane. “All right, gentlemen, here we go.”

  Sam shifted slightly in his seat as the Sea Witch II was winched into the moon pool. The submarine rocked gently as she was lowered into the seawater. He braced himself on two grip bars, but there was minimal movement in the gentle sea.

  “Maria Helena, we’re ready to release the tether and commence our dive,” Sam said.

  “Copy that. Releasing the tether,” Matthew replied.

  Above, Veyron climbed on top of the submarine’s dome and disconnected the hook and cables. Thirty seconds later, Sam watched him step back onto the edge of the moon pool and give him the thumbs up.

  Sam nodded in return and flicked the ballast switch. Water began flooding into the tanks, while air bubbles gurgled to the surface. “Okay, Tom. Let’s find the Gordoye Dostizheniye.”

  The Sea Witch II dived to a depth of 60 feet. Sam stopped the water intake and leveled her into neutral buoyancy. In a heads-up display across the front of the dome, a GPS screen overlapped the bathymetric map of the seafloor. He then started the forward propellers, located at each end of the twin hulls. They whirred quietly as they moved the sub towards the strange mound of sand.

  Sam brought the submarine down right in front of the large mound of sand. The clear water and ample sun from the surface penetrated to give a clear vision of the strange formation. It looked like the remnants of a forty-foot sandcastle, with its features weathered away into a crude mound by the first wave of the incoming tide.

  The sandcastle was already starting to deteriorate under the sea’s constant movement.
Large chunks, the size of a medium sized car, had broken off and fallen to the ground. On the seabed, bizarre grooves were marked into the ground.

  “What do you think those are?” Sam asked.

  Tom studied the seabed for a moment. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say those grooves almost look like a giant hand raked its way through the sand.”

  “Yeah. That’s pretty much what I thought, too.”

  “What if it wasn’t just a thought?”

  Sam’s lips curled into an incredulous grin. “You think some giant built this sandcastle?”

  Tom shook his head. “No, but what about a giant sinkhole?”

  San ran his eyes over the strange grooves in the seabed again. They formed almost perfectly straight lines, etched deep into the sand. It would take a lot of energy to do that.

  “It’s a possibility.” He shook his head in disbelief. “I’m not convinced, but I don’t have anything else right now.”

  “What do you want to do about it?”

  Sam positioned the Sea Witch II directly over the mound of sand. “Take the controls, and keep us as close as you can to the sand.”

  “Sure. What are you going to do?”

  Sam gripped the twin joysticks in his hands that controlled the manipulator arms, which protruded from each of the submarine’s pontoons. Each arm had a reach of twelve feet forward of the bubble. “Let’s see how solid this thing is.”

  “Don’t dig too far,” Tom cautioned. “No need to bring the whole thing down on us. I’m a cave-diver, not a doodlebug.”

  Sam did a double-take and stared at Tom. “A what?”

  “You know, one of those bugs that digs a hole in the sand… never mind. Just be careful.”

  Sam sighed heavily. Relaxed his shoulder and gently took control of the twin manipulator arms. He slowly drove the robotic arms into the crest of the mound. He felt no resistance in them whatsoever. The fine white sand known as glacial silt parted like powder.

  He watched as the crest was replaced with a thick dust cloud of the fine sand. “What the hell?”

  Tom moved the submarine backward – the last thing they wanted was the murky cloud to be sucked into their impellers. “Whatever that is, it wasn’t here a few days ago. That’s for sure. This is glacial silt. It will disappear in a few days.”

  “Agreed. Take us around to the base. I want to try the ground penetrating radar.”

  Tom positioned the submarine about twenty feet back from the base and Sam adjusted the transducer until it lit up a clear image of the mound of sand. There was no doubt about it. The entire thing was soft sand. There was no steel from the bridge tower of a cargo ship or any other sign of a manmade structure.

  Sam shook his head. “I’ll be damned, but I’d say the ground just opened up and swallowed the Gordoye Dostizheniye whole!”

  Tom said, “What do you want to do about it?”

  “There’s nothing we can do. We’ll need to wait until we can bring in a large-scale dredging vessel. But where the hell we’re going to find one of those this far north, I have no idea.”

  Chapter Six

  Cloud Ranch, Southwest of Mesa Verde National Monument, Colorado

  Brody Frost would have never, if someone had told him years ago, that his work buddy on a Colorado ranch would be a white guy from New York. Whoever heard of a cowboy from New York? Except the kind from that old movie, Rhinestone Cowboy. What a joke. But Malcom Corbin was okay, even if he was a greenhorn. Easy company. Didn’t talk much.

  Today, he and Malcom were riding one of the mesas on the Cloud Ranch, looking for strays and unbranded calves. The weather was typical for July in southwestern Colorado—sunny, hot, no clouds in the sky. The strong breeze that often blows at the top of the mesa on such a day was not present. It would have been welcome, though. The damp bandana Brody wore around his neck would have cooled him better with a bit of wind.

  Malcom, riding several yards away, gave a short whistle, catching Brody’s attention. When he looked over, Malcom lifted a lazy arm and pointed toward the mesa’s edge. There a young calf was resting in the shade of a bush.

  “Where’s his mama?” Brody called.

  “Yonder,” Malcom said.

  “Yonder?” Brody had to laugh when Malcom tried to sound Western. “Seriously?”

  He looked where Malcom was pointing. Sure enough, a cow stood listlessly. Not much feed or water up here. If they didn’t get her down to better pasturage, she’d die, and her calf with her. He nudged his horse with his knee, and the gelding obediently turned in the direction of the cow, while Malcom dismounted and cautiously approached the calf. Neither wanted to spook the animals that could easily panic and run over the edge, where a 500-foot or more, sheer drop would kill them quicker than any lack of water.

  Concentrating on the cow and his slow approach, lasso ready in case she bolted, Brody edged closer. He was focused so much that he didn’t notice at first when the wind picked up. He managed to flank her and began to crowd her back toward her calf, when he heard Malcom swear.

  Brody asked, “What’s wrong?”

  “Dust in my eye. Where’d this wind come from?”

  For the first time, Brody noticed the stirring in the sagebrush at his horse’s feet. As he watched, it became strong enough to swirl and eddy around the gelding’s legs. But a few yards away, where Malcom stood calming the calf, it was moving fast enough to give Malcom some trouble.

  Malcom looked up. “I’ll be damned, where’d that come from?”

  “No telling,” Brody answered. “Sometimes it just starts blowing. This looks strange, though. Look how it’s like a river in this one spot.”

  The two men stared in wonder as the sand and dust coalesced into what did indeed look like a current of fast-flowing red-brown water, nearly a mile wide, with calmer air on either side of it.

  “What the hell? You ever see anything like that before?” Malcom asked. He leaned down to get a closer look at the debris flowing past him. Suddenly, a stray gust took his hat, and despite his swipe at it, the hat joined the wind current and flew toward the edge of the mesa. “Shit! I just bought that Stetson,” he swore.

  Brody shook his head, and dismounted, careful to stay out of the midst of the red-brown current. Malcom also dismounted again, and both laid their reins over a stunted juniper tree, signaling their mounts to stay put. Brody secured his own hat to his saddle horn.

  The two walked toward the edge of the mesa, skirting the side of the strange wind current, which was now as tall as Malcom, at about six feet. In contrast, Brody himself was more than a few inches shorter, at five-foot-six.

  Brody got down on his hands and knees and then stretched out full-length on the ground before belly-crawling to the edge. He’d never liked heights, and this one was no different. Below, the glint of water in a year-round spring-fed trickle caught his eye. He didn’t see Malcom’s hat.

  “It’s gone, bro.”

  “Damnit to hell! I paid a fortune for that hat,” Malcom swore. “I’ve got to try to find it.”

  “I told you the $100 hat was fine, buddy. You had to have the fancy one.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I’d be going after the $100 one, too. I’m not made of money,” Malcom answered. “How do we get down from here?”

  Brody sighed. The greenhorn was going to get himself killed. “Follow me.” He led Malcom well away from the torrent of wind, and started a careful descent.

  Any kid growing up in the Four Corners area had scrambled up and down red rock cliffs. Called slickrock locally, it isn’t truly slick. Sandstone has enough texture to provide grip for the right kind of shoes. Cowboy boots aren’t the right kind. But subtle grooves formed by erosion, along with narrow cracks and ledges, can provide a route for the experienced climber, which Brody was. He thought about having Malcom take off his boots. Even thought about taking off his own. Macho pride stopped him. It was going to be a hairy climb down, though.

  Tense moments followed as Brody picked his way to the
bottom of the canyon. He was fearful that at any moment, Malcom would lose his grip and come tumbling down on top of him, sweeping both to their deaths on the rocks below. Forty-five minutes later, they reached the bottom.

  An entirely different ecosystem existed at the bottom of the canyon. In spring, snowmelt from miles away would feed the stream, which must have also been fed by an up-canyon spring to still have water in it at this time of year. Sand stretched for yards on either side of a lazy dribble. Trees, mostly cottonwood, clung to the sides of the canyon, and scrub juniper took advantage of any sand-filled crack in the rock. The two men walked up the canyon to see if they could spot the place where the strange wind flowed over the top. Malcom kept his eyes on the ground, while Brody searched the trees where Malcom’s precious Stetson might have been caught.

  Both were surprised to find the debris riding the wind above their heads and being drawn farther up the canyon. Even weirder, there was a similar current of sand and other detritus flowing down from the opposite side of the canyon to join the flow on their side.

  “What do you make of that?” Malcom asked, scratching his head.

  “It’s impossible,” Brody answered. “That would mean the wind is blowing from the opposite direction on that side. It doesn’t make sense.”

  As if they’d thought of it simultaneously, both men turned and began moving up the middle of the canyon, stepping into and over the little stream to follow the wind. A mile later, they rounded a bend and found the wind’s destination. It made even less sense. Every particle of sand, bit of dried sagebrush or tumbleweed, and fleck of juniper bark was flowing into a good-sized cliff dwelling village carved into the rock a couple hundred feet up the cliff side opposite their mesa.

  “Whoa, look at that!” Malcom said. “Did you know that was there?”

  “No,” Brody replied in wonder. “I bet no one does. That must be almost the size of Mesa Verde or the Chaco Canyon ruins. If anyone knew it was there, there’d be a road blasted into this canyon and hundreds of cars would be honking at us right about now.”