Chapter Twenty-Five
The Moonlight Sonata, a 190-foot luxury pleasure cruiser reduced its engines to idle, and coasted along the shallow waters off the Island of Capri. The royal blue of the deep water turned azure and emerald green in these shallows, against the backdrop of vertical walls of white limestone that dominated the island’s coastline.
At the helm, Pauline Faller adeptly eased the twin throttle controls back until the vessel came to a standstill in the calm waters.
Sam smiled as he met her eye.
At five foot ten, she had a toned and athletic figure. Her smile was big and commanding, her wit like a wasp, and her mind, razor sharp. Beneath her carefree exterior, there was a hardness, a pain from her past that had been suppressed to the point that it may never be released.
They had met in Afghanistan in 2003, where she had flown fighter jets for the US Air Force. The two of them even dated for a short while after she completed her tour of duty and had moved back stateside. But their lives were headed in different directions. She had seen more combat action than any other pilot since Vietnam. Driven by duty and honor, she achieved some of the highest accolades of any pilot in the past two decades.
But it had come at a price.
PTSD was still considered a dirty word, heavily stigmatized as weakness. She’d gone through her entire career proving that she was hard enough, capable enough, and strong enough to engage in a predominantly male dominated profession. There was no way she was going to turn her back against that now and ask for help. Instead she had become withdrawn and isolated from her friends and family. In the end, she knew that if she didn’t do something, she was going to end up paying for it with her life.
So, she resigned her Commission, and just like that, left the old world behind and everything in it — that world included Sam Reilly. It turned out, after years of travel, she finally found a place to call home. She landed a job skippering a luxury motor yacht out of Nice in the French Riviera. The owner, a wealthy businessman, used the yacht with his family a couple weeks a year. She lived aboard and maintained the vessel, but for the rest of the time, she was free to do what she wanted with the vessel.
Sam noted the vagabond lifestyle had agreed with her. It had been ten years since she had broken up with him. Her lithe body was slightly fuller somehow, yet all those curves had managed to fall in just the right places. The sight teased him with a small pang of, what could have been if things hadn’t ended as they had. Those years had been kind to her. If anything, age had made her more attractive. It made him wonder if she was seeing anyone.
Pauline met his eye, a grin forming on her lips, and for a moment he wondered if she had read exactly what he was thinking of from his face.
He turned and spotted a helicopter circling overhead. It hovered and then landed on the sand off Cala Grande Beach, not far from the Blue Grotto.
He had dived the Blue Grotto years ago.
There, sunlight passed through an underwater cavity and shined through the seawater, creating a blue reflection that illuminated the cavern. The grotto extended some hundred and fifty feet into the cliff, and was nearly five hundred feet deep. During Roman times, the grotto was used as the personal swimming hole of Emperor Tiberius, as well as a marine temple.
At the back of the main cave of the Blue Grotto, three connecting passageways lead to the Sala dei Nomi, or "Room of Names", so-called because of the graffiti signatures left by visitors over the centuries. Two more passages led deeper into the cliffs on the side of island. It was thought that these passages were ancient stairways that led to Emperor Tiberius' palace. However, the passages were natural and despite Sam Reilly being brought in to investigate any below the waterline, all the passages eventually narrowed into a dead end.
Pauline pressed the anchor button, and the Danforth anchor lowered.
Sam said, “It looks like my friends have arrived.”
Pauline said, “Take the runabout to pick them up.”
“Okay, thanks.”
Sam lowered the little motorboat into the water and motored it up to the beach. Matthew, Veyron, and Elise got off the beach and climbed aboard, carrying a heap of diving equipment. A few minutes later he returned to the Moonlight Sonata and everyone quickly climbed up.
“Welcome aboard,” Sam said. His eyes turned to Pauline, he said, “This is Pauline. We go back to our time in Service with the Armed Forces. She’s graciously offered the loan of her vessel while we dive the San Juan.”
Pauline greeted them with a smile. “Technically, this is my boss’s yacht. But he’s in Singapore right now, and I’m sure he would approve of using his vessel for a good cause.”
Sam introduced them all to her.
“Matthew has worked on my dad’s ships for more than thirty years and he and I have worked closely together for more than a decade now. He’s skippered every ship I’ve worked on until recently, when he lost the Maria Helena.”
Pauline’s eyes narrowed on Matthew. “You sunk the Maria Helena? That was careless of you. What went wrong?”
Matthew spread his hands. “A rogue submarine fired torpedoes at us.”
Pauline opened her mouth, releasing the smallest of laughs, before her eyes landed on Matthew’s hardened demeanor, and she said, “Holy shit, you’re serious.”
Matthew nodded. “Afraid so.”
Sam continued. “This is Veyron — no relation to the car. He’s an expert engineering Rockstar, specializing in submersibles and ROVs.”
“Pleased to meet you, ma’am,” Veyron said.
Elise was the last to step on board.
She was slightly shorter than the average American woman, but not by much more than a few inches. She wore cargo shorts and a white tank top, revealing toned and muscular arms. She had golden skin, light brown hair, and a wondrous expression, like life was all one big game, and she was the one with the most talent.
Elise carried a watertight backpack with her laptop and satellite phone. “I’m Elise,” she said, offering her outstretched hand.
Pauline took it with a firm shake. “Pleased to meet you. What do you do for Sam?”
“My expertise is in computers. Anything from data mining, high tech communications, through to hacking. I’ve spent a lot of time developing AI programs for search and rescue.”
“I know of numerous uses for AI all over the world, but I’ve never heard of AI being used in search and rescue. Is it useful?”
“Yes. Very. Think about it. We currently have 1,886 artificial satellites orbiting the Earth,” Elise said, using the current statistics correct as of forty-eight hours ago. “That number’s rising rapidly, which means we’re gathering unimaginable visual images of the globe. When there’s a disaster, for example, a ship lost at sea, a commercial aircraft missing, or a tsunami that’s washed people out to sea, many of the private companies that own these satellites release hundreds of thousands of images.”
Pauline blinked against the strong sunlight reflecting off the nearby beach. “I think I recall hearing something about a sailor going missing in 2017 on an around the world solo sail. They said something about placing the photographs on a website and that way people from all around the world could use it to search for him in the Atlantic Ocean.”
“That’s right.” Elise smiled, revealing a nice set of teeth. “Somewhere on those images, there is almost a certainty, that the missing person or vessel, had been captured by digital camera. The problem is, it might take weeks, months, or even years — assuming they ever are found — to be spotted by human eyes.”