“Okay, guys, we’ve got company coming!” Don Jordan yelled down from the bridge as he pointed off the starboard side where an orange and white helicopter angled toward them. The whine of its turbines filled the air and within seconds it was hovering close enough to batter them in its prop wash. Tommy moved up next to Dex, nudged him. “Man, that thing is rippin’ it up pretty good,” he said.
Dex watched the chopper’s side door open to reveal a guy in search and rescue gear — hood, goggles, and flippers. He was the “swimmer.” He stepped into the air, knifed down to the water and swam quickly to the little platform at the stern.
Climbing on board, the guy didn’t say a word until he reached Mike’s still form. “Okay, we hoist him out of here, now! Is he breathing?”
“Negative,” said Doc.
“Decompression?”
“We were just past 66 feet — some damage,” said Dex. “But he cut a hose. No air.”
Signaling to the pilot, the Coast Guard swimmer then motioned everyone to stand back. Instantly, a steel basket began unreeling from the chopper toward the deck. “Watch out! Stand clear!”
“Get back,” said Dex. “That thing can carry a static charge that can half kill you.”
“What?” said Andy.
“Stay away from the rail!” said Dex.
“You got it,” said Tommy.
When the basket brushed the Sea Dog’s rail, Dex thought he caught a small spark of discharge just as the swimmer grabbed it, then guided it down to the deck. They wrapped Mike in the blanket, eased him into the steel cradle, then the swimmer hoisted himself above it. Holding on as the rig was hoisted back into the belly of the chopper, he didn’t so much as wave at Dex and the others.
“Oh, man, this is bad,” said Kevin.
“I can’t believe it,” said Andy.
Dex shook his head, fighting a feeling of total nausea, like a classic case of sea-sickness. “It’s not over yet, guys,” he said. “Look.”
They followed his gaze as the prow of a Coast Guard Cutter cleaved the bay water at high speed. Its course would bring it alongside Don’s boat very quickly.
“That thing can move,” said Doc.
“What’re they going to want?” said Tommy. “We in trouble?”
“Nah,” said Kevin. “They’re just following protocol. They’re government — gotta file a report. You know how that is.”
The cutter slowed and made a sharp turn to come about on their starboard.
“Good sailors, those guys.” said Dex. “My father was Coast Guard.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, I never saw him all that much. But he did get me into boats and the sea.”
“My old man worked at Sparrows Point,” said Tommy, shaking his head as if to get rid of a bad memory. “Steel yards. He came home so beat up, he never talked to us. Just dropped into his chair with a bottle of Natty Boh and the TV. That was it, man…”
Dex was looking out toward the patch of sky where Mike had been taken. “How many kids did he have, I… I can’t remember. Or maybe I don’t want to…”
“Two, I think,” said Kevin, shaking his head slowly.
Doc folded him arms, watched several sailors on the cutter climbing down into a motor launch. “This is not going to be easy.”
It never is, thought Dex. He had been forcing himself to think as clearly as possible. Mike’s death changed everything in ways none of the other guys had probably thought about. Dex knew how he had to deal with the emotional side of what happened — just start thinking about other stuff, the stuff you had some control over. No percentage in making yourself neurotic worrying about the immutable things already slipping away into that cold place we called the past. A career in the Navy had shown Dex how he was put together and what worked for him… what had marked him as a survivor… no matter what. He knew the key to keeping it together.
And that was to never look back.
“Ahoy, Seadog!” The amplified sound of the cutter’s bullhorn cut through his thoughts. “Permission to come aboard!”
The cutter was in close quarters to their vessel, and four seaman were already motoring toward them in a small, sleek boat. Don signaled them over. As captain, he would handle the protocols; Dex was just another passenger, and that was fine with him.
He stood there waiting for the routine questions. The Coast Guard dealt with water fatalities all the time, and this would only be unique because of the circumstances leading up to it — not many divers breathed their last in the passageways of a Nazi sub.
Which changed everything.
Until this moment, Dex hadn’t thought about it much. He’d just kind of subconsciously assumed the sub and its location would remain a… a secret, among him and the others. At least until they’d clocked its identity, picked over it for anything of value.
But that was over now.
There was bound to be publicity, which would attract other boats, other divers. Even the Navy would act like they were interested — even if they weren’t.
It probably wouldn’t be such a big deal in the long run, but there was that small matter of that weird bar of Tommy’s. A subliminal alarm kept beeping at the base of his thoughts, suggesting it might be important. Important enough to keep quiet… for as long as they could.
The rest of the guys had seemed to instantly sense the odd, delicate situation they were in. Nobody wanted to be interrogated because they had been in the vicinity of somebody dying, and they all probably figured Mike’s death had most likely complicated by their discovery of the wreck. Dex had mentioned the need to keep the news and location of the sub a secret for the time being for several reasons — one, other wreck divers and “treasure hunters” would descend on the boat and it would not only be an absurd circus, but also a lot more dangerous. Two, they hadn’t had enough time to solve some of the boat’s major mysteries — like discovering its mission, whatever was under that hangar-deck, and of course the bar of unrecognizable metal.
When Dex tried to casually assume responsibility and do all the talking to the Coast Guard officer who needed some answers, none of the other guys acted like they wanted any part of it. After Mike’s body was hauled off, they all drifted away from the railing — a signal that Dex could tell the officer whatever he wanted and they wouldn’t be doing any editing or embellishing.
Not even Tommy, and thank Christ for that. He strayed up to the bridge with Donnie and sat there keeping his hands warm around a mug of coffee.
The Ensign with the clipboard and pen had the name Hawkins stenciled on his uniform; he started taking notes as he ran down the standard checklist of questions about the accident. The guy wasn’t overly wary or suspicious and Dex figured this wasn’t the first water accident victim he’d investigated.
And when Dex gave him his full credentials, especially the part about being a master diver with the Navy, everything changed even more for the better. Their conversation became less of a formal inquest and more of a friendly chat between brothers on the sea. Finally, the talk steered around to the nature of the wreck itself.
“What’d you guys find down there, anyway?”
“Well, I was hoping we could keep it quiet for awhile — before the accident, I mean.”
Hawkins kind of half-grinned sarcastically. “Why? Buried Treasure?”
“Nah,” said Dex. “World War II wreck. But we wanted a little more time to poke around before it attracted a crowd.”
“So what is it?”
“U-boat.”
The Ensign looked at him with a half-smile. “I’m assuming we’re not talking about ‘the Black Panther’?”
Dex shook his head. Hawkins had referred to the U-1105, a well-known wreck off Piney Point near the mouth of the Potomac. The sub had gotten its name because of the black rubber coating on its hull to make it less visible to sonar. “C’mon. Of course not. We found a new one.”