He stepped onto the balcony and put the phone to his ear. “The eagle has landed at DalyranAirport,” Zavala announced. “The Subvette trailer is off the plane and ready to go.”
“Good work, Joe.” Austin said. “I’ll meet you in ninety minutes.” He gave Zavala directions to the launch site.
“Might take longer, Kurt. I’m standing by the road looking for a tow truck to pull the trailer. Only little cars for rent at the airport. Gotta go. I think I see my ride coming.”
Austin didn’t doubt for a second that Zavala could pull it off. The soft-spoken Mexican American had a knack for accomplishing the impossible.
The sound of running water came from the bathroom. Awakened by the phone, Carina had slipped quietly out of bed. Austin could hear her singing to herself in the shower.
“I need someone to scrub my back,” she called out.
Austin didn’t have to be asked a second time. His improvised toga went flying. After their shower, they toweled each other off and got dressed. Austin wore tan shorts and a conservative Hawaiian shirt that Don Ho would have been proud of. Carina pulled on a shift of African sun yellow over her black bikini. After a room-service continental breakfast of rolls, hard-boiled eggs, and coffee, they drove to the marina.
Austin had been honest with Captain Mustapha. Before parting the night before, he had told the captain that he and Carina were hunting for an ancient artifact without permission of the Turkish government. He had no intention of keeping the artifact if they found it, but he wanted Mustapha to be aware of what he was getting himself into. On the other hand, the captain would be paid well for the added risk.
Mustapha said he didn’t worry about government rules. Austin had hired the boat. Mustapha would take them wherever they wanted to go. What they did there was their business.
Austin had told the captain he would need a secluded place with a launching ramp. Mustapha had described an abandoned boatyard whose owner had gone into bankruptcy. The boatyard was across the harbor from the marina. Carina would ride with Mustapha and rejoin Austin there.
The boatyard was reached by a dirt road with more craters in it than the dark side of the moon. Austin wandered among the wooden skeletons of unfinished boats and inspected the boat ramp. The blacktop was eroded along the edges, but the main part of the ramp was in relatively good shape.
Zavala was fifteen minutes overdue. Austin stood at the edge of the road wondering whether his friend’s resourcefulness had been put to the test. He cocked his ear at the rumble of an engine. A cloud of dust and feathers was heading in his direction. A truck lurched through the potholes, gears grinding in protest, its engine coughing asthmatically. The truck skidded to a stop in a haze of purple exhaust smoke and amid a cacophony of clucks from the chicken cages piled precariously behind the cab.
Zavala emerged from the truck and introduced the driver, a brawny Turk with a gold-capped smile and heavy five o’clock shadow.
“Good morning, Kurt,” Zavala said. “Meet my pal Ahmed.”
Austin shook hands with the driver and walked around behind the truck. The submersible was under a green plastic tarp lashed down with ropes. Zavala had used additional ropes to improvise a backup system for the ancient trailer hitch. “I had to jerry-rig a tow system,” Zavala said, gazing with pride at his handiwork. “Not bad for government work.”
“Not bad at all,” Austin said with a roll of his eyes. The improvised setup must have made for anxious moments on the coastal road’s tight curves. He wondered how the NUMA bean counters would react if they knew their multimillion-dollar submersible had been roped to the bumper of a chicken truck.
Ahmed backed the trailer onto the ramp. Motorized rollers moved the launch platform off the trailer and into the water, where it floated on two long pontoons.
Mustapha arrived with Carina. He threw out a towline to Zavala, who tied the other end to the launch platform. Austin peeled off a wad of Turkish lira for the grateful truck driver and thanked him for his help.
Before he left to deliver his chickens, Ahmed tucked the trailer into a corner of the boatyard. Austin and Zavala rowed out to the motor cruiser in the skiff, and Mustapha immediately got under way. The motor cruiser steamed out of the harbor and entered the bay with the submersible in tow.
The fishing boats and pleasure craft began to thin out until only a few distant sails were visible. Austin gathered his friends under the shade of an awning on the aft deck. As they sipped cups of strong coffee, Austin filled Zavala in on the escape from the abandoned village and the previous day’s outing with Mustapha.
“You crammed a lot into a short time,” Zavala said.
“The secret is time management,” Austin said.
The boat slowed as it approached the gray-brown swath of exposed rock where the cliff had fallen into the sea. The captain dropped anchor near the base of the cliff. Austin and Zavala rowed the skiff to the floating platform, climbed aboard, and pulled the tarp off.
Austin ran his eyes over the submersible’s gleaming fiberglass body. Zavala had copied every detail of his Corvette convertible except for the color, and added the modifications that allowed it to travel under water.
Austin shook his head with wonder. “It looks like it just rolled off the Chevy assembly line, Joe. How about a five-minute lesson in launch procedure?”
“I can do it in one minute. The Launch, Recovery, and Transport vehicle has its own power. External controls on the starboard side. Flood the pontoons. When the platform reaches dive level, pump out water to attain neutral buoyancy. Fine-tune our positioning with the LRT thrusters. Release the securing clamps. I drive off. You can stay below or take the LRT to the surface.”
“What about recovery?”
“The same procedure in reverse. I come in like a plane landing on an aircraft carrier. You secure the vehicle on the platform and up we go.”
“You’re a genius,” Austin said. “Crazy, maybe, but still a genius.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence. I worried that the project might be seen as a frivolous expenditure of NUMA resources.”
“It’s not exactly the ALVIN,” Austin said, referring to the tubby submersible that dove to the Titanic. “But I’m sure Pitt would approve.” NUMA director Dirk Pitt was a passionate collector of vintage cars. Let’s take the latest addition to the NUMA undersea fleet out for a spin.”
They rowed back to the boat and got into their scuba gear. Austin had asked Zavala to bring along scuba equipment that included an underwater communications setup. The Ocean Technology Systems receivers were attached to the straps of their full face masks.
Mustapha rowed the two men to the submersible platform. They climbed aboard and pulled on their air tanks. Zavala sat behind the Subvette’s steering wheel. He had modified the seats to accommodate the tanks. Austin took his station on a folding seat built into the starboard side of the launch vehicle. He punched a button on the control panel to start the battery-powered pumps. The pontoons filled with water, and the platform and submersible slowly sank below the surface.
At a depth of forty feet, Austin reversed the pump action to stabilize the platform in a hover. Other controls allowed him to detach the metal clamps that held the submersible on the LRT. The sub’s headlights snapped on. With a whirr of its vertical thrusters, the Subvette rose off the platform and hovered above it.
Austin pushed off from the platform and positioned himself in a sitting position above the submersible. He purged air from his buoyancy compensator and slowly dropped into the passenger seat. Zavala had built extra foot room into the cockpit to accommodate swim fins.