“Two,” replied the director.
“Have them walk through. And for God’s sake, if they see him, tell them to stay clear.”
As the director relayed the orders via radio, Lemond studied the other cameras. Twelve gates, twelve waiting areas… lots of territory. “Wait! Gate ten.”
“You see him?” asked the director.
Lemond peered closer, shook his head. “No, the height is wrong.”
Gate seven announced its final boarding. The attendants began closing the jet way doors.
“Well, so much for that one,” said the security director. “Next we’ve got two flights leaving at the same time. Gates one and four. Bring them up, Jorge.”
As the operator reached for the switch, Lemond saw a flash of movement at the corner of the monitor. “Hold it! Pull back and pan right.”
“What is it?” asked the security director.
The camera moved just quickly enough. On the monitor, a trench coat-clad figure handed his boarding pass to the attendant and slipped through the door.
Lemond grinned. “That’s him,” he said. “That’s him! Where’s he going?”
The director consulted the schedule. “Yarmouth, Nova Scotia.”
27
Seeing the wreck with fresh eyes, Tanner recognized it immediately as a World War II U.S. fleet submarine. A dozen questions filled his mind, chief among them: What was it doing here, less than 400 yards off the mainland?
Tanner finned up to join Cahil on the bridge. Both periscopes were snapped off at their midpoint, but the masts for the surface- and air-search radars were intact. Below them, the foredeck sloped into the darkness, casting everything forward of the escape trunk in shadows. Had the trunk been used? Briggs wondered. Had there been any survivors left alive to use it? There was only one way to find out, he knew, but the trick would be getting inside. With a nod from Bear, he finned over the rail.
Beneath the bridge they found a gash in the hull. Tanner tried to recall what he knew about a fleet sub’s layout. As a child he’d been fascinated by submarines and spent many hours poring over artists’ diagrams. They had to be somewhere near the forward battery compartment, he decided.
Working together, he and Bear dug through the rubble until the gash was wide enough to accommodate them. Tanner shined his flashlight inside. The beam revealed nothing but darkness and swirling silt. His heart was pounding. He forced himself to take a deep breath. It was likely that no human had seen the inside of the submarine for better than fifty years. How many of the crew were still trapped inside? He looked at Bear’s face and his own emotions reflected there: anticipation and fear.
He checked his watch, then signaled, Ten minutes left. Bear nodded.
Tanner turned sideways, wriggled through the hole, then waited for Cahil to join him. They were in the main pump room, Tanner realized, looking around. Above them would be the control room, diving station, and conning tower.
They swam aft through the hatch to the fresh water tank, into the radio room, then through to the galley and crew’s mess. Pots and pans littered the deck and flotsam swirled in their flashlight beams. A cabinet door wafted open and shut with a muffled banging sound. Tanner found an escape trunk hatch, rubbed the grime from the porthole, and peered inside; it was flooded. From damage or use?
They swam aft into the crew’s quarters. The bunks were empty, mattresses long ago rotted to pulp that billowed with their passage. There were no skeletal remains, which surprised Tanner. Had all of the crew gotten out? He hoped so. The only other option was grim: The boat had sunk so quickly that everyone had died at their battle stations.
The door to the washroom stood open, revealing a toilet fuzzy with algae. Tanner saw a light wink at him from the darkness, and his heart skipped. It was his own reflection in the bathroom mirror.
They continued into the forward engine room, found it empty, and continued into the after engine room. On either side of the catwalk lay the boat’s two Fairbanks-Morse 1600-horsepower engines. They were in the heart of the sub now, and this is where Tanner hoped they might find a clue to its identity.
With Cahil’s help, he pried open the catwalk hatch, slipped feet first past the barrel-like generator, and rolled over onto his belly. On elbows and knees, air tank banging on the catwalk above, he wriggled forward, shining his flashlight along the engine casing. Silt swirled in the light beam. He could feel the press of tons of steel hanging over him; he forced it from his mind.
There! Stamped in the engine casing were a series of numbers. He rubbed away some of the algae and peered closer. 5-4-7-9-1-1-2-3-6. He committed the serial number to memory, then wriggled backward and let Cahil pull him back up.
Well? Bear mouthed.
Tanner gave him a thumbs-up, then checked his watch: four minutes of air left. With their reserves, they had just enough time to explore the rest of the boat.
They found the first skeleton in the officer’s wardroom.
It lay face up on the deck, both arms crossed over the chest cavity. Nearby lay a cap, dissolved save the plastic brim and a badly corroded steel emblem. It was an officer’s insignia: a lieutenant junior grade. Tanner shined his light over the skull and caught a glint of something inside the eye socket. Using his hand, he fanned away the silt and looked closer.
In the center of the forehead was a perfectly round hole. Gently, Tanner turned the skull until he found a matching hole at the back, this one larger and more jagged. Out of it dropped a lump of metal. He picked it up. It was badly corroded and partially squashed but unmistakably a bullet.
Swimming through the after torpedo, they found their second skeleton. Here also was the cause of the sub’s demise. The skeleton lay at the edge of a gaping shell hole in the deck, which began above their heads, arced through the compartment, and exited below their feet. Tanner shined his light up through the hole and could see the rocky edges of the rift. Amazing the torpedoes hadn’t detonated, he thought, running a hand over the blunt nose of one of them. The shell had probably been a dud. If not, the bow would have been blown off.
He turned back to the skeleton. It lay sprawled beside the torpedo rack, one wrist chained to a stanchion, the other to a rotted leather briefcase. Gently, Tanner opened the case’s lid. Inside was a manila folder and a small automatic pistol, a .25 caliber Beretta. As he touched the folder, it dissolved into a cloud of pulp. He slipped the gun into his rucksack.
Cahil tapped him on the shoulder. He pointed at the skeleton’s lower legs. Half covered in silt were a pair of stainless steel braces, the leather straps still encircling both tibias at the knee and ankle. These, too, Tanner slipped into the rucksack.
Cahil tapped his watch.
Tanner nodded and pushed off the deck into the shell hole. Bear followed. Once on the foredeck, Tanner finned toward the canopy of sea grass. He cast a glance over his shoulder. Bear was gone. He could see a flashlight beam moving inside the shell hole. He swam back.
Cahil gestured him closer, then pointed to the edges of the hole.
They were smooth and freshly blackened by a blowtorch.
When they got back to the Range Rover, Mitsu was waiting.
“Did we have any company?” Tanner asked.
“No.”
Tanner squeezed his shoulder. “Thanks, scout. You did good. Run on home.”
Mitsu ran off into the darkness.
As Tanner started the engine, Cahil said, “So tell me: Aside from the obvious, what the hell did we just find down there?”