“How far out?”
“Maybe a hundred yards, dead ahead.”
Dane locked their course into the sub’s navigation system and they scooted across the deep sea plains toward the reading. A few minutes later a structure appeared out of the gloom.
“Spanish frigate,” Dane observed, hovering the submersible a safe distance away and above.
The two operatives marveled at the pristine condition of the aged sailing ship.
“Thing is in outstanding shape,” Bones commented, his eyes tracing the distinctive outline of the bow.
“Low oxygen content in the water down here preserves the wood.”
“That means the crew…” Bones trailed off as he gazed at a ship more than a half millennia old.
“In there, maybe even with skin still on their bones,” Dane said.
A soft beeping emanated from Bones’ side of the cockpit, and the Cherokee focused his attention on one of the instruments in his charge.
“This is funny. I’m getting a reading on the Geiger counter.”
Dane brought the sub in a smooth arc around the ship’s broken forecastle, coasting over a debris trail that seemed to spill from the wreck. As he did, the frequency of beeps from the Geiger counter increased.
“What’s so funny about that?” Dane said. Was it possible the Admiral and the General had not told them the complete truth regarding the role of nuclear weapons on the Mercury mission? They were, after all, only SEALs — tools of force used by the powers that be to carry out their directives. Dane was under no illusion that they were told nothing more than the bare minimum of what they needed to know in order to complete their objectives.
“We’re way too far from the capsule to be getting a reading from its nuke,” Bones stated matter-of-factly.
“Right, so does that mean there are more nukes that were dumped down here they didn’t tell us about?”
Bones fiddled some more with the radioactivity meter’s settings, alternately looking down on the debris trail and back to the Geiger counter’s screen.
“Do me a favor and drop down a little closer to that field of rocks over there.”
Dane eyed the rubble field and eased the sub closer to it. Bones’ eyes were locked to his device display. “I think it’s coming from those rocks.”
Dane eyeballed the dull-looking stones skeptically. “You sure it’s not from inside the wreck?”
Bones shook his head. “Readings get weaker closer to the shipwreck, stronger toward this trail of rocks.”
“Maybe there’s a device hidden under them?” Dane piloted the sub around the perimeter of the rocky pile.
“I think it’s just the stones, dude. Readings are pretty equal all the way over this mound. But I’ve got an idea.”
“You’ve got an idea that doesn’t involve either women or dive bars?”
Bones snorted. “Yeah, I guess I do. I say we take a sample of these rocks, check ‘em out later back on board the boat.”
“What for? We need to get over to…”
“Chill. It’ll only take a couple of minutes. And look, these things look like they spilled out of the ship. A Spanish frigate was pretty much always a treasure ship, wasn’t it?”
“I don’t know. They don’t look like gold or silver or anything valuable, really.”
“Such a pessimist, Maddock. After five hundred years, they could be all encrusted over, couldn’t they?”
Dane frowned. “But what’s with the radioactivity? I guess we could collect some and show them to the wreck divers up there, but they’d probably just get into a territorial pissing contest with us.”
“Enough with the thinking ahead. Let’s just get us some and we’ll figure out what to do with them later.”
Dane dropped the submersible to within a couple of feet of the mound of rocks. Bones used the long grab arm to transfer a pile of the geological specimens into a collection box stored outside the sub.
“Happy?” Dane asked. He pressed a button and they heard the soft hiss of compressed air venting into the sub’s buoyancy tubes. “These things are weighing us down. Let’s head to the capsule.”
“Always with the negatives.”
Dane checked the compass and set off in the direction of the space wreck. They coasted across the bare seafloor, Bones occasionally spotlighting a strange denizen of the deep.
“Freaky down here, man. I hope we can grab that nuke this time so we can get back to base tomorrow. I got this chick’s number and I was supposed to call her last night.”
“I’ll put you on the capsule, Bones. You just grab that thing.”
“Slow out this time, too.”
“You got it. No ROV is going to scare me this time, if we see it, I’ll…”
“Whoa!” Bones interrupted him to point at his sonar display.
Dane turned his head sharply to look. He saw only an empty readout and Bones’ confused face.
“What is it?”
“It’s…gone.”
Something in Bones’ voice set Dane on edge. “What’s gone?”
“I don’t know. It was there for a second, I swear. A large signature, then it squiggled off the field.”
Dane knew that as a sonar specialist, Bones had received specialized training in recognizing undersea sonar signatures. “Well, what was it?”
“It was big. Sort of looked like a…well never mind.”
“No really, what did it look like?”
“Like a warfare-class submarine.”
Chapter 10
Dane roved around a tall stalk-like life form growing out of the bottom and lined up his compass course toward the capsule.
“Streib said something about the Russians,” Dane said.
“Look, Maddock, I’m not sure yet, okay? It was only there for a second, and up a few thousand feet higher, too. I’m trying to remember all those signatures they showed us in training…” Bones rubbed his temples as if to coax the memories to the forefront of his mind. “It could have been a giant sea creature, an oarfish, maybe?” he hoped aloud.
“Don’t worry about it for now. Whatever it was, you said it’s up higher. I’ll boost our speed a little so we get there faster. Let’s do this thing.” Dane put the submersible’s thrusters on high and their craft accelerated over the deep mud flats.
Bones kept his eyes glued to the sonar monitor while they traversed the distance to the spacecraft, but the next thing to show up on his display was Liberty Bell 7.
“Capsule up ahead on the right,” seventy-five yards,” Bones said.
Soon they saw the looming form of the space capsule. Dane and Bones kept a sharp eye out for ROVs but for the moment, at least, they were alone.
“You know the drill,” Dane said. Bones began testing the manipulator arm he would use to grab the nuclear bomb while Dane maneuvered the sub next to the tilted capsule.
“It’s all good, ready when you are,” he said, flexing his fingers in preparation for the precision movements he would need to perform.
“Copy that, moving in.” Dane repeated the maneuvering he’d done on their first trip to the capsule, and in a few minutes he had the sub hovering once again over Liberty Bell 7’s open hatch.
Bones aimed the external spotlight into the sunken space relic, probing for the bomb. The sub lurched and they almost knocked into the capsule, but Dane corrected for the movement with a quick burst of reverse thrust.
Bones looked his way. “What’s up?”
“Sorry, got caught in some kind of downwelling. Weird. It’s been totally calm down here until now.”
Bones turned back to the window, peering inside the capsule. For one heart-stopping moment he thought the nuclear device was no longer there, but then he spotted the cylindrical form.
“There it is! It’s to our lower left.” He pointed. “I’ll need to come in from higher and to the right.”