Sea of Greed

“No,” Kurt said, “they took only the conning tower. This was Tessa’s work.” He glanced at Paul. “Make another pass, get in close to the scaffolding.”

Paul guided the ROV back around and brought it in closer to the largest section of the wreck. At this closer range, the welded cradle that had been built around and under the submarine became easy to examine.

“Breaks there and there,” Kurt said. “Stress fractures. They put enough lifting force into the effort, but they didn’t build a strong enough cradle.”

“Seems unlikely Tessa’s people would get their math wrong,” Gamay said.

“I’m sure they got it exactly right,” Kurt answered. “But knowing how much each section of the ship weighed doesn’t account for the inertia caused by the water-filled compartments or the force required to break it loose from the seabed. Nor is subsurface welding an easy art. Looks like the cradle broke at the welds.”

“You seem excited by this,” Gamay said.

“Absolutely,” Kurt said. “Had they lifted this thing onto a barge and hauled it away, they would have had unlimited time to discover everything inside. A failure like this suggests a desperate second act to retrieve what they eventually found. It makes it more likely they left something behind.”

Kurt stood. “Finish the survey. Find the best way in and out of each section and account for any danger you can spot. I’ll be getting the Trench Crawlers ready. As soon as you’re done, we’re going down.”

53

KURT AND GAMAY dropped silently toward the bottom of the Mediterranean in what looked like suits of body armor that had been crossed with robotic monsters from a comic book.

Seven feet tall and weighing nearly three hundred pounds, the Trench Crawler was the latest of NUMA’s deep-diving creations.

Known as an ADS, or atmospheric diving suit, because it maintained a surface-level pressure of one atmosphere within its shell, the Trench Crawler allowed its occupant to dive deep and spend extended time on the bottom without the need for decompression stops or extended time in a decompression chamber upon surfacing.

It had a bulbous, rounded head, adorned with external cameras and lights, long mechanical arms that bent in directions no human arm could and legs that were bulky and articulated at the knees. Unlike other atmospheric diving suits, the Trench Crawler had fully robotic arms and a wider body, allowing the diver to keep his or her hands inside the shell, where they could manipulate the controls.

A pair of fully rotatable thrusters were attached to the sides, while a compartment on the back contained batteries, oxygen for eight hours, an emergency surfacing float and a pair of small submersible drones that could be deployed and controlled remotely from within the Trench Crawler’s shell.

Sealed inside, Kurt’s face was lit by the dim glow of small screens, two on the right and two on the left. They displayed the operating systems and the camera views, while a traditional curved helmet view gave an image of the outside world.

Descending beside him, Gamay Trout was in the Bravo model of the Trench Crawler.

“Now I know how a giant feels,” she said over the hydrophone.

“I hope that’s not a crack about my height,” Paul said. He was on the surface, acting as mission control.

“Not at all,” Gamay said. “Although, I wouldn’t need four-inch heels if I wore this on our next date.”

“Nor would you need a reservation, because the waiters would flee the restaurant in horror,” Kurt added, interrupting the two of them. “Time to focus, we’re nearing the bottom.”

“Sonar has you just south of the wreck,” Paul said. “With lights on, you should see it in thirty seconds or less.”

Kurt switched the exterior lights on and the water around him lit up as tiny particles reflected it back in his direction. Kurt’s left hand was on the thruster control. His right hand on a keypad.

“Angling lights downward,” he said as he rotated the suit’s exterior lights.

Above and to his right, a second set of lights appeared as Gamay switched hers on.

“Sixty feet,” Kurt said.

For a moment, there was nothing to see but darkness, then, finally, a barren, grayish plain below.

Watching the depth control meter on one of the screens, Kurt saw the absolute depth at 9,758 feet. A second number underneath it read only 50 and was slowly clicking down toward zero. “Fifty feet,” Kurt said. “Switch to neutral.”

“Neutral buoyancy,” Gamay said.

Kurt adjusted the ballast in his suit and his descent slowed and then stopped. Spread out on the plane were metal parts, junk and debris, but nothing more.

“Anyone see a submarine around here?”

“You’ve drifted a little farther south,” Paul told them. “Head north. It’s no more than five hundred feet from your present position.”

Engaging the thrusters, Kurt and Gamay moved north, traveling in a slow formation.

The debris field thinned and then the curved hull of a submarine’s central section came into view. Closer in, it was easy to see how the scaffolding around it had broken. Kurt said, “Where to, Paul?”