The Gnome, having a slight buoyancy, stayed on the surface, before Netto engaged its motors and it submerged. Then he toggled a switch on the controller, and powerful LED lights bit through the desolate gloom. Breaking suddenly near the Beriev, a brilliant orb permeated the water mass, shrinking and dimming as the ROV drifted lower.
Netto launched the sonar software and squinted at the monitor. Sokolov looked over his shoulder as the depth gauge ticked off descent. Slowly, the sonar was painting a meticulous rendering of the Gnome’s surroundings in the screaming colors of a Kubrickan vertigo. The live video feed from the camera was murky. Even with the lights on, visibility was near zero.
It was a painful process to Sokolov, almost physically so. New bits of data presented by the Gnome’s sensors stirred hopefulness that bordered on anxiety. The mind wished that each new shape in the emerging picture would be the object of their search, but as detail grew, disappointment gave way to expectancy for the next unknown outline, again and again. It was… like tuning to human sounds within mountains of rubble… A frantic patience Sokolov had learned to contain. Only this time, there was no chance of finding survivors.
“There,” Sokolov let out, marking their first accomplishment.
The sonar had a range of 300 meters. At the edge of its reception, a hundred meters from the Beriev’s position, the picture showed a hazy V-shaped outline.
It was the Olympia.
“We got her!” Netto said. “Yura, you put us almost spot on.”
“No sweat.”
After they had pinpointed the shipwreck, Mischenko feathered the controls to correct the Beriev’s orientation, bringing it closely above the ship’s location, within range of the Gnome’s video cameras.
She lay askew on her port, elevated on an incline that rose over a trough. The highest point was her stern, starting at approximately thirty-eight meters below the surface. Her nose dipped ten meters lower, resting on a bed of sediment.
Mesmerized, Netto sat unmoving in his chair, transfixed on the apparition. Sokolov, though, seemed to be paying no attention to the breathtaking panorama of the wreck. He tapped his finger on the chart in the upper-right corner of the screen. It showed the water spectroanalysis readings processed by the Gnome.
“What do you make of this?” he asked Netto.
“Hmmm… The chemical sensors aren’t picking anything abnormal.”
“Meaning that the water is poison-free?” Sokolov asked.
Netto stuck out his lower lip. “To my own surprise, there’s no hint of any toxic pollutants.”
“Good,” Sokolov said. Then he added, “Are you sure?”
“Positively certain. You doubt the data?”
“No, I’m just double-checking.”
“Why?”
“If you’re wrong, my restless soul will come back for you.”
“Just what on earth are you up to?”
Sokolov shrugged.
“I’m going down there.”
10
Every member of EMERCOM’s special teams had to be proficient in at least two areas of expertise. While Sokolov possessed versatile skills to handle any crisis, his two primary professions were diving and NBC defense.
He finished checking his scuba gear. “All set. While I’m at it, Sergei can prove his worth to our cause.”
“Oh?” said Zubov. “I’m not diving there first.”
“I’d never give you the chance. What I want you to do is head over to the mainland and check out the patients. This entire territory belongs to the Presidential sanatoria, so with their state-of-the-art equipment, most of the victims were able to receive adequate treatment on site. Perhaps the medical staff may spill some light on what’s going on. Look around, see the symptoms for yourself, and get back.”
“Will do.”
Sokolov had stripped off his uniform, for a moment revealing a scar on his back. Blemishing his skin was the entry mark of a gunshot wound, courtesy of an Islamic terrorist who fired at him in a destroyed school. The bullet had missed Sokolov’s heart, but stabbed it with remembrance. Sokolov was quick to hide it under his drysuit.
Together with Zubov, they launched the inflatable. It was an Orion 25S, a top model produced by a military factory in Yaroslavl that built boats since 1936 and had been classified for the most part of its history. The Orion was indispensable equipment for EMERCOM’s sea operations, a quick and agile little workhorse. With an overall length of 5.6 metres, it could carry 9 passengers, with a maximum payload of 900 kilograms.
As Zubov started the Orion’s 30-horsepower outboard motor, Sokolov strapped on the scuba tank and prepared for the dive.
11
The sea was a cosmic black hole that sucked him in.
Sokolov felt vulnerable in the hostile water. His dive computer told him that he was submerging ever deeper into the very environment that could kill him. As he moved through a blizzard of microscopic plankton, it appeared that his presence was so negligible to the main as to be acceptable.
Sokolov kicked with his fins, following the Gnome’s umbilical cable down into the abyss. Like the leash of a blind man’s guide dog, it led him to the wreck through the mist. The sound of his breathing resonated in Sokolov’s ears, the Nitrox mixture passing through the regulator with a swelling hiss.
The tiny screen of the laptop that received the Gnome’s video signal could not reflect the sheer magnitude of the Olympia’s proportions. Seeing her reclining form again, this time with his own eyes, just meters away, Sokolov felt amazement.
She was a former queen that had died in oblivion, abandoned by past admirers, and betrayed by her court. Once lustrous, her skin had turned pallid grey. The explosion had mangled her side, ripping it wide open.
Hovering over the Olympia, the ROV lit the yacht’s sundeck in a ghostly glow. The deck itself was empty, the lounge chairs swept away.
“I see you!” Netto said over the comms link.
Sokolov held a thumbs-up into the camera eye of the Gnome and pointed in the direction of the Olympia.
“All right, show me the way,” he said.
Under Netto’s control, the Gnome whirred and rounded the angled stern, aiming at the teak door of the main deck. Sokolov pushed the door open and proceeded after his robotic attendant into the superstructure.
As soon as Sokolov floated into cavernous space of the main lounge, his mind was jarred by the surreal image. The Gnome’s lights played around the walls, casting sinister shadows of debris around the room.
What had once been a lavish lounge/dining area, was now a scene left in the wake of a hurricane. Bolted down to the decking, the furniture that held in place had rotated sideways, the enormous table and chairs clinging abnormally to a vertical surface of metal. The rest was scattered around, heaps of crashed paraphernalia: lamps, vases, paintings, and books among the rubble. Crystals of broken glass glistened on crumpled carpets. Of the two dominant rosewood columns, once proudly separating lounge from dining, one had splintered at the base, and the other remained as a purposeless bar stretched across the cavity.
Bubbles of trapped air rose up. The Olympia’s last gasp. As if not fully dead, she let out a coarse croak. It was the pressure of the sea testing her hull.