Bones walked the box over to Streib, who knelt, scooped a handful of silver coins out of the box, and placed them in his pocket. He handed the empty box back to Bones, who shook his head, walked back to the sub and put it inside the sample bay.
Streib looked up from examining one of the coins, his gun still aimed at Bones. “Now…”
Streib never got to finish his sentence. Dane punched the exposed button. Immediately they heard a high-pitched, energetic whine, followed quickly by a dull whump.
The gunman’s face erupted into a grimace of terror and confusion.
One of the missiles rocketed past his head where it slammed into the steel doorframe of the moon pool’s inner airlock. The explosion was instant and brutally powerful. An invisible fist struck them all a vicious blow as a wave of heat swept across them. Bones and the intruder were both knocked off their feet by the blast, while Dane sat suspended in the submersible, now twirling slowly in the air.
Bones recovered first from the blast and leapt to his feet. He reached the attacker in three strides, zeroing in on the hand still weakly clutching his weapon. Bones batted the weapon aside, wrapped a meaty hand around the man’s wrist, and drove his knee into the man’s exposed groin. As the fellow doubled over, Bones followed up with a knee to the forehead that sent the fellow to the ground on legs suddenly turned to rubber. He kicked the hand holding the gun hard with his rubber fishing boot, eliciting a grunt of pain and sending the firearm skittering across the deck far out of reach.
The intruder recovered enough to struggle to regain his feet. Bones dropped on the intruder, putting him into a control hold, Dane leapt from the dangling sub. He hit the moon pool deck hard, rolled, and broke into a sprint as he came to his feet. He dashed across deck and picked up the TEC-9. He checked the clip, confirmed that it was loaded, and then walked over to Bones and the attacker, gun raised.
Dane motioned for Bones to move out of the way. His partner extricated himself from the man, giving him a final shove as he stood and backed away.
It was Dane’s turn to give the orders. “On your feet, hands up.”
Their attacker wobbled to his feet like a frat boy on Saturday night. “That was loud,” he groaned. While Bones had been tested with various types of ordinance detonating in close quarters throughout BUDS school and knew what to expect, their would-be attacker had clearly been stunned by the experience.
“You’ll have to speak up so I can hear you over the ringing in my ears,” the man mumbled.
“Hands up!” Dane yelled.
The stranger complied, fingers trembling but hands held high.
“Bones.” Dane indicated a coil of polypropylene dock line nearby.
Bones grabbed it and was on the intruder in seconds, binding his hands behind his back.
“Let’s try this again,” Dane said. “Who are you and what do you want with us?”
The man took a deep breath. “My name is Roland Streib. I’m really not your enemy. You’ve got to believe me. I just didn’t handle things the way I should have.”
“Dude, you got that right.” Bones folded his arms across his chest and fixed Streib with a cold stare.
“Tell us something we don’t know, Streib.” Dane twitched the TEC-9 at their captive.
Streib narrowed his eyes and went on. “I’m the project manager for the space capsule salvage operation, for the Science Channel.” He paused, as if this credential might impress them in some way. He was met only by the stony stares of two naval warriors.
“That’s crap,” Bones said. “A TV guy carrying a TEC-9? No way.” He freed his dive knife from its sheath. “Tell us the truth or I start cutting off the parts you aren’t using at the moment.” His eyes dropped to Streib’s belt line.
Streib’s eyes widened. “It’s true! I swear! I borrowed it from an ex-military buddy of mine for this trip. We've had some anonymous threats about disturbing the past or whatever. Besides, I wasn’t going to hurt you. I only wanted to scare you away from the capsule.”
“Why?” Dane demanded.
“We’re about to raise it, for one thing. We don’t need any interference. But…” He trailed off, looking at the submersible.
“But what?” Dane pressed.
“I also wanted to see what you brought up. The coins. I tried but couldn’t get my ROV far enough inside the Bell to get them.” He stared at the manipulator arm with the magnetic attachment.
Dane followed his gaze while keeping the gun trained on him in a rock steady stance. “So what's the significance of these coins?”
Their captive managed a laugh. “You don’t have to feign ignorance. Why else would you be going to all the trouble to dive on the thing if you weren’t already in the know?”
Dane and Bones exchanged glances and Bones nodded. The meaning was clear. Dane could take first crack at extracting information from the captive — which in turn would become intel once they brought it back to the Admiral. If he failed, Bones would take over.
Dane considered the situation. Above all, he needed to maintain their cover. He disapproved of torture and he really didn’t enjoy killing, but would have considerably less choice in the matter should Streib prove to be privy to their agenda. He hoped it wouldn’t come to that.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. We did bring up that metal box, but we didn't know what was in it until you told us.”
Streib snorted. “Give me a break. Why else would you be diving on the capsule if it weren’t for the coins? There’s nothing else of real value on Liberty Bell 7. It’s a priceless piece of American space history, sure, but it’s not like you could sell it. It’s still government property that you’d have to turn over. Besides, if treasure was all you wanted you’d be on the Spanish frigate site, only a quarter mile from here.”
Dane thought fast. Apparently this guy knew a lot about some coins in the metal box that Bones found, but nothing about the nuke on board the craft. Dane had to keep it that way.
“We wanted to dive the Spanish wreck, but there’s already another ship on that site, so we thought we’d check out the capsule wreck as a pre-dive to test our systems.”
Streib glanced at the submersible, its spinning arc now beginning to slow.
“Listen guys, I don’t know who you are, but you don’t fool me. There are only a handful of subs in the world capable of working at these depths.” He stared into the sloshing moon pool. “You must be U.S. government: either employees, contractors, or possibly military,” he said, casting a sidelong glance at Dane and his new TEC-9 with which he already appeared more than comfortable.
Dane felt his jaw start to go slack and he willed it shut. Even Bones glanced over at him for the first time since he’d started guarding Streib. But it was the expedition manager who filled the silence first.
“You can drop the pretenses. I know why you’re here.”
Chapter 8
When neither Dane nor Bones spoke, Roland Streib elaborated at gunpoint.
“You want these coins for the same reason I do…” He glanced down at his pants pocket where he had dumped them before continuing. “To prove once and for all that the Mercury-Redstone 4 mission was a fake. A sham. Hoax. A wool-over-the-eyes stunt in an attempt to scare the Holy Hell out of the Russians.”
Streib’s hands started to come down and Dane shook the submachine gun. Streib put his hands back up high.
Dane was concerned at how close the salvage manager seemed to be to his true objective. It seemed like the nuke was the only thing he wasn’t aware of.
“Less worrying about who we are, more about answering our questions. Tell us about the coins. Why do you think they’re so important?”
“Space lore has it that at least one roll of dimes, Mercury dimes, naturally, went aboard the capsule with Gus Grissom. Gus and a bunch of the other astronauts and mission personnel wanted to have a souvenir of their flight. Some common object that they could say has been to space after the flight, to show off to their friends or even sell later on. But of course, these supposedly space-flown dimes went down with the capsule when it sank. Gus reportedly screwed the pooch and blew that hatch by mistake, causing the Liberty Bell to flood.”