The ship had arrived on site early in the morning, relying on the approximate position Zhu Kwan had received from St. Julien Perlmutter. Qin Shang was relieved to see only two ships within twenty miles. One was an ore carrier heading toward Chicago, the other Chen Jiang identified as a research vessel only three miles away, showing her starboard broadside as she moved on an opposite course with uncommon lethargy.
Using the same basic techniques and equipment as Pitt and the crew of the Divercity, the Jade Adventurer was only in the third hour of the search when the sonar operator announced a target. After four more passes to improve the quality of the recording, the sonar operator could safely say they had a ship on the bottom that, although broken up, matched the dimensions of the Princess Dou Wan. Then a Chinese-manufactured ROV was lowered over the side and descended to the wreck.
After another hour of passionately staring at the monitor, Qin Shang snapped angrily. “This cannot be the Princess Dou Wan! Where is her cargo? I see nothing that confirms the report of wooden crates protecting the art treasures.”
“Odd,” murmured Chen Jiang. “The steel plates of the hull and superstructure look scattered around the wreck. It looks as if the ship was burst apart.”
Qin Shang's face went pale. “This wreck cannot be the Princess Dou Wan,” he repeated.
“Move the ROV around the stern,” Chen Jiang ordered the operator.
In a few minutes the little underwater prowler stopped and the operator zoomed the camera in on the lettering across the stern of the hulk. There was no mistaking the name,
PRINCESS YUNG T'AI, SHANGHAI.
“It is my ship!” Qin Shang's eyes were stricken as he stared into the monitor.
“Could it have been salvaged without your knowledge?” asked Chen Jiang.
“Not possible. No treasure that immense could have remained hidden all these years. Pieces of it would have most certainly surfaced.”
“Shall I order the crew to prepare the submersible?”
“Yes, yes,” Qin Shang said anxiously. “I must have a closer look.”
Qin Shang hired his own engineers to design the submersible he named Sea Lotus. She was built at a company in France that specialized in deep-undersea vehicles. He had watched over every aspect of her construction. Unlike most submersibles, where the requirements of the equipment came before the comfort of the crew, the Sea Lotus was built more like an office than a Spartan chamber for scientific study. She was a pleasure craft to Qin Shang. He trained himself in her operation and often piloted her around the Hong Kong harbor shortly after she was built, making suggestions for modifications to suit his personal demands.
He also ordered a second submersible built, called Sea Jasmine. Her purpose was to act as backup in case Sea Lotus suffered mechanical problems while on the seabed.
An hour later, Shang's private submersible was rolled out of her compartment onto the stern of the salvage vessel and stationed beneath the modernistic A-frame that would lift her out and into the water. When all systems were checked, the copilot stood at the hatch, waiting for Qin Shang to enter.
“I will pilot the craft alone,” he said imperiously.
Captain Chen Jiang looked up at him from the deck. “Do you think that wise, sir? You are unfamiliar with these waters.”
“I am quite familiar with the operation of the Sea Lotus. You forget, Captain, I created her. I will go down alone. It is for me to be the first to see the treasures stolen from our country all these years. I have dreamed too long of this moment to share it.”
Chen Jiang shrugged and said nothing. He merely nodded for the submersible's copilot to stand aside as Qin Shang descended the ladder down through the tower that prevented rough water from cascading into the open hatch leading to the control and pressure chamber. He pulled the hatch closed and sealed it, then turned on the life-support systems.
Diving to 430 feet was child's play for a vessel built to withstand the immense squeeze that water exerted at depths of 25,000 feet. He sat in a comfortable chair of his own design, facing the control console and a large viewing window on the bow of the submersible.
Sea Lotus was swung out over the water by the A-frame away from the ship's fantail, where she hung for a few moments until her rocking motion ceased. Then she was lowered into Lake Michigan. Divers released the lift hook and made a final check of the exterior before Qin Shang took her into the frigid depths.
“You are free of the lift line and cleared to descend,” Chen Jiang's voice came over the communications speaker.
“Flooding ballast tanks,” Qin Shang replied.
Chen Jiang was too experienced an officer to allow his employer to override his responsibilities as captain of the Jade Adventurer. He turned to an officer and issued an order unheard by Qin Shang. “Have the Sea Jasmine prepared to launch as a safety precaution.”
“Do you expect trouble, sir?”
“No, but we cannot allow harm to come to Qin Shang.”
The Sea Lotus quickly slipped out of sight beneath the waves and began her slow fall to the bottom of the lake. Qin Shang stared through the viewing window into the dark green water as it magically went black and he saw his reflection inside the pressure chamber. His eyes were cold, his mouth was in a tight line, unsmiling. Within the brief span of an hour he had gone from a man of supreme confidence to someone who looked sick and tired and baffled. He did not like what he saw in the nebulous face staring back at him, seemingly outside in the depths. For the only time in his life that he could remember, he felt a growing surge of anxiety. The treasures had to be somewhere inside the broken hulks, he told himself over and over as the submersible sank ever deeper into the cold waters of the lake. They had to be. It was inconceivable that someone had come before.
The descent took less than ten minutes, but to Qin Shang the seconds passed like hours. He gazed into pure blackness before switching on the exterior lights. It was also becoming cold inside the chamber, and he set a small heating unit to seventy degrees. The echo sounder indicated the bottom was coming up fast. He allowed a small amount of pressurized air to flow into the ballast tanks to slow his descent. On deep-water dives beyond one thousand feet, he would have dropped weights attached to the keel of the submersible.
The flat, barren lake bed emerged under the lights. He adjusted the ballast and stopped five feet from the bottom. Then Qin Shang turned on the electric thrusters and began banking in a wide circle. “I am on the bottom,” he called to his support crew above. “Can you see where I am in relation to the wreck?”
“The sonar shows you only forty yards west of the starboard side of the main wreckage,” Jiang answered.
Qin Shang's heartbeat raced in anticipation. He banked the Sea Lotus until it was moving parallel to the hull, and then brought the sub upward until it passed over the railing along the edge of the forward cargo deck. He saw the cranes looming out of the black void and banked to miss them. Now he was over one of the cargo holds. Hovering the submersible and tilting its stern upward so the lights beamed down, his eyes strained into the darkness as he stared into the gaping cavern.
With indescribable dread, he saw that it was empty.
Then something moved in the shadows. At first he merely thought it was a fish, but then it moved up from the black of the cargo hold and materialized into an unspeakable monstrosity, an apparition that belonged in another world. Slowly it rose, as if levitated in air, like some hideous creature from the murky abyss, and moved toward the submersible.
On the surface, Captain Chen Jiang stared with mounting apprehension as the research vessel he'd sighted earlier had turned on a ninety-degree course and was now facing the Jade Adventurer. Abruptly presenting its bows after having showed its starboard broadside, the research vessel now revealed a United States Coast Guard cutter that it had shielded from view. Now both vessels were traveling at full speed directly toward the Chinese salvage ship.