by Dave Gerard
“How long would he normally be down on a dive?”
“Thirty or forty minutes. Then he’d surface. That’s standard length.”
“When did you notice he was gone?”
“Around the one or two-hour mark. Like I said, he was going solo, so we didn’t keep track perfectly. But around then, someone said ‘Hey, where’s Dave.’”
“Who said that?”
“I don’t remember.”
“And then what happened?”
“We all went out to look for him. Everybody grabbed tanks and got in the water. Even Lloyd. We looked for hours. I didn’t feel good about it. If he hadn’t surfaced by then, he never would, I thought. But we kept looking, long past dark.”
“Did you find any trace of him?”
“No.”
“What did you do after that?”
“We put down anchor. Dubino worked the ROV straight through the night, to see if he could find anything that way. Nothing. The next day, we got into the water again and looked. But we didn’t find anything.”
“You found no trace of him?”
“No.”
Harder paused for a moment, thinking about what to ask next. He reviewed some notes.
“Did you like David Marcum?” he said after a moment.
Barber seemed caught off guard by the question. “Yeah,” he said. The answer sounded genuine. I saw a flicker of some emotion cross his face. But I couldn’t place it.
“What do you think happened to him?” Harder asked.
Barber shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess he ran out of air, or went too deep, or got tangled up in something. Scuba diving can be dangerous. That’s why you don’t go it alone.”
“Did you continue to search for him after that?” Harder asked.
“After the second day, we called it off. We didn’t think there was any chance we’d find him after he’d been gone that long. We stayed in the area and continued our work. We kept an eye out, of course. But we never saw him again.”
Harder paused and scribbled something on his pad.
So that was it, I thought. A scuba diving accident. That was what we had suspected all along. But it felt unsatisfying, somehow. After all this time, I had expected more. I watched Ashley’s expression. She looked calm.
“Where did this accident happen?” Harder asked after a while.
“Objection,” said Loudamire. But not as loudly this time. “Calls for ultrasensitive information.”
“What was Excel Resources searching for?”
“Same objection.”
“Did you find anything down there?”
“Objection, ultrasensitive information, privilege.”
“Do you recall a set of gold coins that David Marcum had?”
“Same objection.”
This continued for some time. Loudamire objected to any questions about the where, what, or why Rockweiller was doing. There was nothing we could do about that now except preserve our objections for the record. To get more information, we would need to convince Judge Graves to reconsider his ruling on ultrasensitive information.
At the end of an hour and a half, Harder finished with Barber, and we took a recess. Bock & Co. kindly provided us with a small office down the hall to palaver in. We went in and closed the door. Ashley sat down in a chair. She looked drained, somehow. Deflated. But I also saw that she was breathing more easily. Almost as if she were relaxed. Maybe that’s what she had needed. Just to know.
Harder let out a deep breath. “Well,” he said. “There it is.”
“There it is,” I agreed. I turned to Ashley. “How are you feeling?”
She shrugged tiredly. “I don’t know. I guess I thought there would be more to it.”
I nodded. “I know what you mean.”
We talked about the deposition a little bit and discussed what to do about the ultrasensitive stuff. But mostly we just sat and processed what we had heard. After about fifteen minutes, we went back into the conference room to question the other crew members.
Harder deposed the remaining crew members one after the other: Michelle Kauller, Richard Layes, Carl Ruthers, and Jason Dubino. Each of them told the same story. Loudamire kept the deposition within bounds by objecting whenever Harder strayed into ultrasensitive territory. Harder spent about an hour in total with each witness. We didn’t learn much new. I checked the time frequently and tried not to yawn.
Toward the end of the day, Harder did something brilliant.
It was on the last witness. Layes or Dubino. I couldn’t remember which, as they had all blended together by then. Harder took him through the same line of inquiry that he had used with the other witnesses. It was anticlimactic, since we’d all seen this play out several times now, including Layes or Dubino (whichever it was) himself. I yawned and half-listened to the familiar sequence of questions.
“What is your occupation?”
“Scuba diver.”
“What were you doing on the Excelsior on the day in question?”
“Scuba diving.”
“How long have you been doing scuba diving?”
“‘Bout twenty years.”
“Are you good at it?”
“I reckon.”
“When did you start working for Excel Resources?”
“‘Bout five years ago.”
“What do you do for them?”
“Scuba diving.”
This went on for a while. Then Harder asked another question, in the exact same tone of voice, without varying his pitch or pace at all.
“Did you find anything besides the gold coins?”
Layes/Dubino answered before he could think about it. “Some artifacts. The bronze lions. The can—”
I froze. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Bock and Quinto freeze too. I had to rewind the scene in my head to make sure it had actually happened. It took a few moments for Layes/Dubino to process what he’d just said. It was like watching someone get shot and then keep going a few more steps before collapsing. I saw an expression of horror dawn on Loudamire’s face. She opened her mouth to spout an objection, but it was too late.
“Objection!” screamed Loudamire. “Objection! Calls for privileged and ultrasensitive information. Violation of protective order!”
“What did you say?” Harder asked Layes/Dubino, ignoring her.
“Nothing.” He was visibly shaking.
“Did you say lions?”
“No.”
“No?” Harder asked incredulously. He turned to the court reporter. “Madam court reporter, would you please read back what the witness just said—”
“Objection!” said Bock, breaking in. “Objection. Totally improper. This…Mr. Harder, this is despicable. To try and trick a witness into answering a question that you know is off limits. I guarantee that the Judge will hear about this. This is a sanctionable offense!”
“What, asking a question, or telling the truth?” Harder shot back.
This devolved into a four-way shouting match between Harder, Bock, Loudamire, and myself. Layes/Dubino sat there sweating while we fought it out. In the end, Bock and Loudamire wouldn’t let Harder ask the question again, or ask any more follow up questions. Their position was that Layes/Dubino had never said it. They called off the deposition, saying they were going to go to the Judge for sanctions. After that, we stormed out of Badden & Bock’s offices and back onto the street. As we walked toward the parking lot, the tall Houston tower faded behind us, turning crimson in the light of the setting sun.
A few days later, we reported to Remington’s office. Kruckemeyer was there too. We had sent them a summary of the depositions, as well as the videotapes. Remington had the video of Thomas Barber’s deposition up on a screen as we walked in. He did not look happy.
“Who the hell taught you to take a d
eposition?” Remington demanded as soon as we walked in. “Bob, did you do this?” he said, rounding on Kruckemeyer. Kruckemeyer grimaced and shook his head.
Harder was nonplussed. “I’m sorry,” he said uncertainly. “But I’m not sure what I did wrong.”
“Not sure what did you do wrong?” Remington repeated, his voice going up an octave. “I’m not sure what you did right. For starters, why in God’s name did you let all of the witnesses sit in on each other’s testimony? Why didn’t you invoke the Rule?”
The Rule, as it is known, requires other witnesses to leave the room when someone is testifying. The point of the Rule is so witnesses can’t hear each other’s testimony, and then tailor theirs to match it. Frankly, I hadn’t thought about the Rule either. But I wasn’t about to bring that up.
“The ah…the Rule,” Harder stammered. “I guess I didn’t think about it.”
“You didn’t think about it. Do you think you might have gotten different testimony if you hadn’t let every Tom, Dick, and Harry sit there and watch the show?”
“I guess…I guess I might have.”
“You’re damn right you might have. If you’d taken them separately, there might have been inconsistencies that could tell us something.”
“Right. I should have done that. I’m sorry.”
“And more fundamentally, Richard, you didn’t get any details. Who are these people? What did they do before Excel Resources? Have they ever been convicted of a crime? How much are they paid? What is their relationship to Lloyd Gunthum? What is their relationship with Rockweiller Industries? Have they ever talked to anyone else about David Marcum?”
“Right. I see.”
“And what about the accident, for Christ’s sake? What kind of scuba gear did they use? How deep did they go? Was there any history of malfunctioning equipment? Had there been accidents before? Were the safety logs maintained? Did they come back with Marcum’s gear missing? Did they report the accident? Why or why not? What search parameters did they use to try and find him?” Remington continued to fire off questions while Harder hung his head lower and lower.
“You get up to seven hours for each deposition, Richard,” Remington said. “Seven hours. Do you know why? It’s so you can nail down the details. It’s all in the details. That’s where you find the little discrepancies. The ones that unravel things. You took what, one or two hours with each witness? It’s inexcusable. You let them bully you into cutting it short. This is why I don’t let associates take depositions.”
Harder was devastated. He looked like he was about to cry. Even I felt bad for him by that point. Remington saw this and relented. He sat down in his chair and let out an explosive breath. “I’m sorry, Richard. I don’t mean to be so hard on you. This is a skill that takes time to learn. You’ll get there.”
Harder nodded. “I’m sorry, sir. Can we take their depositions again and use the rest of the time?” he asked hopefully.
“No. That’s not how it works. It’s one and done.” We sat for a minute to absorb this.
“Luckily for us,” Remington continued, “the primary actor, this Lloyd Gunthum character, wasn’t there. So we’ll get one more shot at this through him.”
“We can also go after Jeremy Riker,” I added. “He was on the ship, but they didn’t put him up for deposition. I don’t know why.” I made a note to ask Badden & Bock why Riker wasn’t there, and ask Lyle to find out what he could about the guy. “And at least we learned something, right?” I said in Harder’s defense. “We know what happened to David Marcum. That was the whole point. I mean, we suspected he might have died in a scuba diving accident. But now we know.” Harder nodded his agreement.
“Oh, we learned something alright,” said Remington. “I watched the videos of each and every one of these witnesses, Jack. And I’ll tell you one thing for certain: they’re lying.”
SEVENTEEN
A week after the deposition, I got a call from Jacob Schnizzel, who was back from vacation.
“Professor Schnizzel,” I said, cheered. “How was your trip?”
“Fantastic,” he said. “It was fantastic. I went to Miami. My old stomping grounds.”
“Get a tan?”
He chuckled mirthlessly. “A tan? Me? No, sir. Not with one hundred SPF sunblock. No skin cancer for me.”
I filled Schnizzel in on the latest developments. He was thrilled to hear that Marcum had flown to Malaysia. This validated his theory about what part of the world we were dealing with. And the flight to Kuala Lumpur narrowed his focus considerably. He started rattling off the names of famous ships in the area. The Sao Paulo, the Dourado, the Ceylon, the Serrao…
I also told him about the deposition. When he heard about Dubino’s slip up, he immediately seized on something.
“Can-something, you say?” he interrupted me. “He said ‘can-’ before he was cut off? Could he have been saying ‘cannon?’”
I blinked, thinking back to the deposition. “Maybe,” I said slowly. “Hang on.” I pulled up the video and found the spot. Then I played the audio out loud. We heard Dubino say “can—”
“Cannon!” Schnizzel exclaimed. “He was going to say cannon!”
“You might be right,” I admitted.
“If they found a cannon, then they found a wreck,” he said confidently.
“You think so?”
“Oh, yes. Cannon are the primary way by which archaeologists identify ancient wrecks. They register strongly on magnetometers, so you can pick them up at a distance. And by looking at the style of the cannon, you can tell what time and place the ship was from. Cannon are very distinctive. The San Jose, for example, was identified by the unique dolphin engravings etched into its cannon.”
“Wow,” I said in wonder. “You really think they found a wreck?”
“I do.” He could barely contain his excitement. “We may have a new find on our hands, Jack. This is phenomenal. To think that you may have been right all along…incredible. Did the witness say anything else?”
“Oh, yeah. That’s actually what I wanted to ask you about. He said something about bronze lions.”
There was silence on the other end of the line. I continued talking, describing how obstructive Badden & Bock had been, and how I had lit them up and saved the day. I also threw some shade at Harder, which was a little mean-spirited, and I regretted it.
“What did you say?” Schnizzel said, interrupting me.
“About what?”
“About lions. I must have been daydreaming. For some reason I thought you said bronze lions.”
“Yes, I did. Dubino said they found bronze lions with the coins and the ‘can-’ whatever. Harder got it out of him pretty cleverly, actually. I thought the lions might indicate a wreck. Maybe some kind of old artifact.”
Schnizzel didn’t answer for the longest time. I checked my phone, thinking he must have hung up. “Hello?” I said. “Professor?”
“Bronze lions,” he muttered finally. “No. No, that would be impossible.” He seemed distracted, as if talking more to himself than to me.
“Come again?”
“Never mind. Forget I said anything.”
I shrugged. Whatever. “Okay. So. What do we do now? How do we find out which wreck it could be? And more importantly, how do I convince Kruckemeyer and Remington that I’m not delusional, and that this is a real possibility?
“You’re on your own with that second part. That’s your battle. As far as which wreck…did you check the documents? Surely there’s got to be something in there. That would link Rockweiller to a wreck.”
Did I check the documents. Ha. “You’d think so,” I said. “But no. Believe me, I’ve looked. I read every document with the word ‘Malaysia’ in it. The only thing that came up were two consulting contracts. Southeast Asia Salvage, and some other one. I don’t remember. And receipts from a Ma
laysian food truck. A Rockweiller executive used to eat Golden Nuggets and Singapore Noodles for lunch there every day.”
“Did you say Southeast Asia Salvage?” Schnizzel said.
“That’s right. Why? Have you heard of them?”
“Maybe. Listen. What was the name of the other company?” he asked. There was a strange urgency in his voice. “Do you remember?”
“The other company…” I screwed up my face, trying to think of it. “It was some foundation. Soo-something. Soo…hang on.”
“Suharto.”
“Yes,” I said, surprised. “Suharto. That was it. How did you know?”
Schnizzel said something, but he was too soft, and I couldn’t hear him. “Pardon?” I said. But he just kept whispering it over and over. Eventually I made it out. “Oh my God.” I tried to get more out of him, but he just kept saying it over and over again. I heard something break on the other end of the line.
“Professor Schnizzel?” I said, concerned. “Are you okay?”
“Yes. I just dropped something. Hang on. I need to sit down for this.” He sounded unsteady.
“What the hell is going on?”
He breathed quickly into the phone. Hyperventilating. I heard him take a few deep breaths to calm down. Finally, he spoke.
“There was a ship,” he told me. “That sank near Malaysia. A very famous ship. It was said to have bronze lions aboard. And…” he trailed off.
“What ship?” I said impatiently. “Was it one of the ones on your list?”
“No. It’s not on the list. Too implausible. Impossible, really. And yet…”
“And yet what?” I said, exasperated. “Spit it out already! What’s the ship?”
Eventually, after some more coaxing, Schnizzel finally told me name of the ship. I looked it up. I saw who had sailed it, and when, and how it sank. And what it was said to be worth.
It completely blew my mind.
Two days later, I called a special meeting in Remington’s office. It was well past dark by the time we gathered. Remington was annoyed. He didn’t like meetings, and had a lot to do. But his annoyance faded into curiosity when he saw that Schnizzel had driven down for the occasion, and that he carried a quantity of books and maps under his arm. Cindy, Harder, and Kruckemeyer were there too. I’d even called in Lyle, who gave me thumbs-up as he sat down.