Circle of Bones: a Caribbean Thriller

by Christine Kling

  Much as he wanted to swim around the bow opening and look into the interior where that section had been cut away, Cole had little time to explore. Riley and Priest could be arriving at any minute. If he didn’t have something to bargain with, Priest would kill them all. In fact, he probably planned to do that anyway. But if Cole had proof of Operation Magic in his hands, they might have a chance.

  Cole saw that there were two options for entering the sub. Either down the hole in the deck where the rest of the gun turret had once stood, or through the gaping opening of the fractured hull forward. Both options could be deadly traps. The greatest danger in wreck diving like this was the possibility of getting hung up inside the wreck, with a piece of equipment or a foot or hand snared on some debris or pinched in a too-narrow opening. And he had no buddy diver to free him from a snag.

  Cole thought back to the plans of the sub he had studied for months. The captain’s cabin was located two decks below the conning tower. He would need to get down here, through this black hole in the deck. He shone his dive light down, but the jagged metal sections were all uneven and they cast shadows making it difficult to make out what was below. He turned to Enigma and signed to the video camera that he was going to enter the wreck there.

  He knew that beneath the gun turret there had once been a walk-in refrigeration locker for food and beneath that, a storage area for artillery shells. When he swam down into the hole, he saw a large compartment open up and judging from the debris scattered about, plastic pails and boxes, he guessed it was the walk-in fridge. The deck beneath that was intact and at the forward end of the compartment, he could make out a dark hole that went deeper into the hull. That would have been the elevator for transferring the shells from the ammo compartment below up to the big guns on deck. It appeared the ammo below decks had not exploded. Maybe the explosion had come only from the shells that were already in the gun turret. Thinking back to Michaut’s story of the French captain watching the planes approach, Cole thought it likely he had told his men to arm all the deck guns.

  Cole needed to get to the next deck down, but he wasn’t going to try to pass through that elevator shaft.

  He shone his light around the gloomy compartment and he noticed that with each stroke of his fins, he was disturbing the organic matter that formed a thick layer over the top of the debris. Thick clouds floated up obscuring his visibility. Soon, he would be able to see nothing. He stopped pumping his legs and floated turning himself with small hand movements.

  Behind him, Enigma sank down into the hole. When she was low enough, her lights lit the compartment much better than his hand light and on the far side he saw an opening. He slowly paddled in that direction and as he neared, he saw that the explosion must have blown the door off the opposite side of the refrigeration compartment.

  He reached the door frame, but he was blocking the ROV’s lights. Cole moved aside, reached back and grabbed the PVC frame, pulling Enigma closer so the lights could shine into the opening. The compartment lit up like a museum diorama. A giant grouper floated above the heavy refrigerator door that rested on the floor of the compartment at skewed angle. The big fish stared at him unafraid. The steel door half covered the black opening in the deck. Cole could see the ladder that descended to the officers’ quarters below. Next to the opening, lying on the deck half under the thick steel door, were bones: the arm and skull of a human skeleton.

  At that moment, the compartment went black. The lights blinked on again, then off, and then back on.

  They’re here.

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-SIX

  From Fast Eddie to Shadow Chaser

  March 31, 2008

  9:32 a.m.

  Riley slowed the racing powerboat and brought her alongside Shadow Chaser. Dig grabbed the rope ladder that hung on the side of the trawler. The gas engines were so loud, there was no way Cole and Theo hadn’t heard them coming, but no one appeared on deck. When she shut the engines down, Shadow Chaser seemed eerily quiet, aside from creaking as she rolled in the swell.

  “You go up first,” Dig said. “And don’t ever make the mistake of thinking you’re faster or smarter than I am.”

  She said nothing to that. She would show him when the time came. On the foredeck, she pulled out the bow line that she had tucked into the forward locker earlier and threw a couple of hitches around the foredeck cleat. Her head was pounding and her leg ached when she swung it over the bulwark and stepped onto the steel deck. Time was what she needed. Time to recoup some of her strength. To let him think she believed him when he said he was smarter and faster. She tied off the powerboat so it would drift back off the stern of the trawler. Dig wasn’t going anywhere until he had what he’d come for.

  “Cole? Theo!” she called out.

  “In here.” The mate’s voice came from the wheelhouse.

  Behind her Dig climbed over the bulwark, his gun pointed at her back. “Go on,” he said.

  Before they arrived at the wheelhouse, Dig grabbed her elbow with his injured arm and pulled her close. He pressed the gun barrel into her ribs. They rounded the corner together, and Dig stopped her outside the doorway.

  Theo was standing in front of his array of screens, a small box with a joystick in his hands. He didn’t turn to look at them when he spoke. “Cole’s inside the sub.”

  At Dig’s prodding, Riley stepped over the door sill and entered the wheelhouse with Dig attached to her side like an unwanted appendage. She looked at all the screens and could not make out which one was broadcasting video. “Where?”

  Theo pointed. “That one.”

  The screen showed a murky gray scene that she had mistaken for what on a television, people call ‘snow.’

  “Can’t see much, can you?”

  “We could a few minutes ago, but Cole just went down the ladder from the mess deck.”

  “Geez,” she said. “He’s deep inside then.”

  Theo nodded. “Enigma hasn’t caught up with him yet. There’s so much silt and biological matter down there, that every time Cole moves, he stirs up what looks like a dust cloud.”

  “How did he get in?”

  “One of the bombs from the American planes had blasted a hole in her. Took out the forward gun turret.”

  Dig shifted back and forth from foot to foot, his grip on her arm growing tighter. “What are you talking about? Explain.”

  Theo turned and looked at him as though realizing for the first time that he was there. Then he turned his gaze to Riley. “You’re bleeding,” he said.

  She rubbed her free hand across her mouth and wiped it on her shorts. “I’m okay.”

  Theo glanced down at the gun Dig held pressed against her side. “Is that necessary?”

  “Answer my question. What’s going on down there?” Dig lifted his head to indicate the monitor.

  Theo turned back to face the monitor and Riley looked, too. They could now see what looked like rungs of a ladder scrolling up the screen.

  “Cole is already inside the Surcouf. Our information indicates that the documents, if they still exist, are inside the captain’s cabin. That’s where he’s headed —”

  The camera swung away from the ladder and panned around. It looked like a narrow hall or companionway. Several rounded doorways in the bulkhead looked as though they were built crooked — they were tilted at an angle. The camera jostled and revealed the overhead where pipes and wires ran fore and aft, and silvery bubbles from Cole’s scuba tank rolled around collecting into bigger bubbles like bits of mercury. The camera panned down and a small school of pale, colorless fish hovered in the second open door. Moments after the light hit them, they darted off in panic. A new saying, Riley thought: caught like fish in the headlights.

  “Cole must be hand carrying Enigma,” Theo said, “using it as his light source.”

  The camera glided though another doorway and this time a gloved hand appeared on the monitor, and it pointed toward a pile of debris coated with pale brown fur. Then they saw his backpack wit
h the pair of air cylinders very close to the camera. His body glided across the compartment and hovered over the top of the debris, his fins not moving.

  She knew the man on the screen was Cole, but she could not see his face. Silently, she pleaded with him. Turn around. I need to see you. To know you’re okay.

  Theo pointed to another screen above the helm that showed the sonar image of the bottom and the clear outline of a portion of the submarine. “You can see that the sub is on a steep slope. It looks as though whatever was inside the cabin has collected on the low side.”

  That explained why everything looked askew. Why it looked like the depth perception was off and it was so difficult to make out what they were looking at.

  Moving slowly, so as not to disturb the film of growth and debris any more than was necessary, Cole lifted objects from the pile.

  “He said he put the strongbox inside the captain’s desk,” Riley said.

  “Who said this? What are you talking about?”

  “James Thatcher,” she said, too late. She did not want Diggory to know about Henri Michaut. “He interviewed an old sailor who had once served on the Surcouf. He said that was where the captain kept important documents.”

  “That doesn’t look much like a desk.”

  On the screen, Cole lifted a brown blob of growth and brushed away the feathery tendrils. Though several barnacles remained, she could make out the shape of the once-white ceramic mug. She remembered Michaut saying that he and Woolsey had interrupted the captain’s dinner. Now, all these years later, Cole pushed the mug inside a string bag he had attached to his weight belt.

  Every move Cole made caused the water to grow more cloudy. They saw all sorts of tiny sea creatures and particles float by close to the lens, reflecting the light, obscuring the view of the far side of the compartment.

  Theo said, “I assume all furniture on a sub is bolted to the deck. There might be a desk under there, or we may be looking at the remains of clothing, bed clothes, a mattress. Or the wood might have rotted away or been eaten by worms.”

  “It’s there,” Dig said.

  “Do you even know what ‘it’ is?” she asked.

  “Shut up,” Dig said. “You’re in no position to be asking questions, Riley.”

  He jammed the gun harder against her ribs and she winced at the pain.

  “I think he’s found something,” Theo said.

  Dig pushed her and she stepped forward until her midriff was pressing against the wheelhouse dash. On the screen, it was difficult to make out what Cole was doing in the cloudy water.

  Theo said, “I don’t dare try to move Enigma any closer. If I start up her little props, it will make the visibility worse.”

  Cole lifted a long flat plank. On top of it was a mass of some material, maybe the remains of clothing, maybe marine growth; it was difficult to tell on the small monitor. The piece he was lifting looked like it might have once been the desk top. Either it had broken in the explosion or the wood had rotted and the whole thing collapsed during the years it has spent on the sea bed. Cole got his head under the plank and using both hands, he withdrew something. His back was to the camera, and they could not see what he held in the shadow of his body.

  Cole slid his head out from under the plank of wood and turned. In his gloved hands, he held a box.

  “Oh my God,” she said, her voice a mere whisper.

  The plank drifted back down onto the pile of debris. Cole floated there holding the thing in front of his face mask, turning it over and examining it. There was almost no growth on the box, and though it was rusted, the metal deteriorated, it looked intact.

  Cole swam closer to the camera and then, at last, she saw his eyes through the glass of his mask. He was looking at her, she was sure of it. Somehow, through the lens and camera and the more than a hundred feet of cable, he knew he was looking right into her eyes. She saw his lips curl up around the regulator as he held up the box with one hand. With his other hand, he made a big circle before pointing all his fingers at the box.

  “What’s he doing?” Dig asked.

  Theo sighed. “I think he’s playing Vanna White. It’s his way of saying you win.”

  Cole reached forward and jostled the ROV.

  “What’s he doing now?”

  “He’s putting the box in Enigma’s steel cargo net. It’s the safest way to get it to the surface.”

  Cole backed away from the camera and pointed toward the surface. She recognized what his hands were doing, but she couldn’t read it. He was signing letters.

  “Theo?” she said. “What’s he saying?”

  Theo glanced at Dig. “He said I’m supposed to tell the asshole he’s coming for him.”

  Dig snorted. “Just get that box to the surface.”

  Cole again disappeared from view, and they watched as the screen showed only the bluish cloudy water. Then the rungs of the ladder flashed past in the light again as Cole swam up pushing Enigma through the opening to the next deck.

  The water was not quite as murky there. Once again, he appeared in front of the camera and began to sign.

  “He’s saying that it’s okay now to use the Enigma’s own propulsion system.”

  On the screen they saw Cole’s eyes widen. It looked as though someone were shaking the camera and the image of Cole wavered from side to side. He looked up and then to both sides. Debris lifted up and floated around him, and a human skull floated past in the cloudy water. Cole pulled the camera close to his face. They saw the bubbles from his regulator stream past the lens. His fingers started flashing.

  “What’s happening?” she said.

  “I don’t know,” Theo said, “but he’s signing your name.”

  Cole’s body jerked like he’d been hit with something. The last image they saw on the screen was his hand, his pinkie and forefinger up, his thumb off to the side. It was the only sign Riley knew. It meant ‘I love you.’

  “Cole?” she said.

  The screen showed more water and debris rushing past, then one of the lights went out on the ROV and the image grew even darker. For a moment, it looked like the video camera was showing a metal part of the submarine, then the screen went black when they lost the feed.

  “If this is some kind of trick,” Dig said.

  Riley ignored him. “Theo?” She looked at the young man’s face. He was staring at the screen. His horrified expression was no act. “What’s going on? What’s happening?”

  Theo continued to stare and she followed his gaze to the big monitor hanging over the helm.

  It was the sonar screen, and it now showed only the sloping sea floor. The Surcouf was gone.

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-SEVEN

  Aboard the Shadow Chaser

  March 31, 2008

  10:27 a.m.

  She could not breathe. How? Was it possible for a submarine to disappear? Where did it go? Maybe it was another of Cole’s pranks or better yet, part of Cole’s plan. Theo was good with electronics. It must be one of his tricks.

  Riley turned to look at him, and Theo’s eyes told her it was no trick.

  “I don’t understand,” she said.

  Theo opened his mouth, then raised his hands and shook his head. “I don’t either. It’s a steep incline. Maybe when he moved that stuff inside, it was enough to shift the wreck –”

  “You know the layout better than I do,” she said. “The exit – how close was he? He could have gotten out, right?”

  Theo kept staring at the screen. “It’s possible. It will take him ten to fifteen minutes to get to the surface.”

  Dig yanked her arm and pulled her toward the wheelhouse door. “Bring up that camera. I’ve got to get that box.”

  She struggled against his grip. “No.”

  He shoved her through the door.

  That was when she saw it. The gray, cauliflower-shaped cloud was visible over the top of the island of Guadeloupe. It was the shape of it that stopped her. Unlike any cloud she had ever seen before. Riley gr
abbed the rail and blocked the way aft. “Theo,” she called. “Come look.”

  The young man appeared behind Dig and the three of them stood there watching the cloud grow. Theo was the first to say it. “Montserrat. The volcano.”

  Riley saw smoke from several fires on the island of Guadeloupe. She swung her head back and forth. “What’s happening there?” She pointed to the smoke.

  “It could have been a major seismic event,” Theo said. “We wouldn’t feel it on the water.”

  Dig said, “I don’t give a damn about what’s happening on the island. Bring up that box.”

  The VHF radio back in the wheelhouse erupted with voices speaking in rapid French.

  “What are they saying?” Theo asked.

  Riley listened. People were talking at once, stepping on one another’s transmissions. One woman was screaming in incomprehensible Creole.

  “Someone just said several buildings have collapsed in Pointe-à-Pitre,” she said. “My God, Theo. An earthquake. If he’s trapped –” She could not finish the sentence.

  Theo turned on the FM radio. There was only static. “Power must be down on the island. That’s why everyone is on the VHF.”

  Riley said, “Now they’re asking for all emergency personnel to report for duty, and any people with medical training to go to the city to treat the injured.”

  Theo tapped the scan button. “I think I can pick up a Dominica station here.”

  A British accented voice began speaking through the static. “The Soufrière Hills volcano on the island of Montserrat has erupted with an unprecedented explosion causing more than half of the lava dome to collapse. The ash and steam plume is visible for miles. While here on Dominica, we felt a morning tremor, reports are coming in of a more severe earthquake on the French island of Guadeloupe.”