Serpent nf-1

by Clive Cussler

Donatelli's continued use of the honorific was Old World habit or simply the practiced good manners of a restaurateur used to dealing with a high-class clientele, Austin figured. It was a refreshing change from the phony first name, "Hi, my name is Bud" informality that was one of Austin's favorite gripes.

  Austin's eyes swept the cruiser stern to stern and took in its navy hull and creamy superstructure as if he were studying the curves of a lovely woman. "She's got classically beautiful lines," he said. "How does she handle?"

  "Like a dream. I fell in love the first time I saw her abandoned in a boatyard in Bristol, Rhode Island. I've spent thousands restoring her. She's forty-five feet, but the sweep of her bow makes her look even longer. A very stable boat, perfect for taking the grandchildren out." He laughed. And a way to escape the family when I need peace and quiet. My clever accountant has made the boat part of the business, so I have to catch a fish now and again for the restaurants." He paused and looked mistyeyed at the sea where a flock of gulls speckled the dark water like snowflakes. "So this is where it happened."

  Austin pointed to the red plastic bubble bobbing in the slight chop. "The top of the ship lies thirty fathoms under that marker. We're directly over her." There was no need to use the Doria's name; they both knew what vessel he was talking about.

  "I have cruised the waters all around the island," Donatelli said, "but I have never, never been to this spot." He chuckled softly. "We Sicilians are superstitious people who believe in ghosts."

  All the more reason to thank you for helping with this project."

  Donatelli affixed Austin with piercing deep-set eyes. "I wouldn't have missed this for the world. Where do we start?"

  "We've got a set of plans in the captain's cabin."

  "Bene. Come, Antonio," he said to his cousin, who'd been imitating a fire plug. "Let us see what we can do for these gentlemen."

  Captain McGinty unrolled a sheet of heavy white paper onto a table in his cabin. The paper was labeled Italian Line plano delle sistemazioni passeggeri," or plan of passenger accommodation. At the top was a photo of the liner cutting its way through the waves in better days. Below the photo were diagrams of nine decks.

  Donatelli tapped the area that showed the Belvedere Lounge at the front of the boat deck. "I was working here when the Stockholm hit us. Boom! I landed on the floor:" His finger moved to the promenade deck. All the passengers are here waiting for rescue. A big mess," he said, shaking his head in disgust. "Mr. Corey finds me, and we go down to their cabin. Here. On the starboard side of the upper deck. Poor Mrs. Carey is trapped. Off I go like a scared rabbit to find a car jack Down here." His finger retraced his route of that night. "Past the shops on the foyer deck, but the way is blocked, so I go way back here to the stern, then down to A Deck."

  Donatelli halted his straight-forward account, remembering the terror that gripped him as he descended into the dark bowels of the sinking ship. "Excuse me," he apologized, a catch in his voice. "Even now, after all these years . . ." He took a deep breath and let it out. "That night I found out what Dante went through in his descent to Hades." He puffed his cheeks and continued. "So finally I make it to B Deck, where the garage is. Everyone knows the rest of the story?'

  The others gathered around the table nodded.

  "Good," Donatelli said with obvious relief. Although the cabin was cool his brow glistened with perspiration, and a vein throbbed on the side of his head.

  "Could you tell us exactly where in the garage you saw the armored truck?" Austin said.

  "Sure, it was up here in this corner." He borrowed a pencil and made an X. "I heard there were nine cars in the garage, including the fancy one the Italians built for Chrysler." He compressed his lips in a tight smile. "I never found the jack I was looking for."

  "Our plan is to go in through the garage doors," Austin explained.

  Donatelli nodded. "The cars could drive right into the garage from the pier. I think it's a good plan, but I know little of these things," he said with a shrug.

  Captain McGinty was less equivocal. A few minutes earlier he'd been diverted by a call on the ship's phone. Now he was back at the table shaking his head: "Hope you boys aren't going on a fool's errand. I see a big problem staring me in the face."

  "That may be an understatement. I'd be surprised if the problems weren't jumping up and down on our backs like an eight-hundred-pound gorilla," Austin said.

  "This one is a pisser. I know guys who've gotten into that hold, coming down through the decks." He indicated the starboard wall of the garage. "Everything in that spacecars, trucks, cargo would have fallen onto this side that's lying in the bottom sand. Your armored truck could be buried under tons of junk. Guys who've been in that hold saw that future car Chrysler was shipping over, but they couldn't get at it because the space is full of twisted beams and busted bulkheads. You go in with gym suits like you're planning, there's the danger you could get caught up."

  Austin was well aware this could be one of the toughest assignments in his varied career. More difficult in its own way than raising that Iranian container ship or the Russian sub.

  "Thanks for the warning, Captain. My idea is to approach this as if we were looking for a target where the bottom's been littered with wrecks. Like the East River, for example. You may be right, that the job is impossible. But I think it's worth taking a look" He grinned. "Maybe we'll even find Mr. Donatelli's car jack."

  McGinty let out a whooping laugh. "Well, if it's a fool's errand, you're my kind of fool. What say we offer a toast to our success?"

  Donatelli opened the grappa and poured drinks all around using a waiter's flourish that hadn't deserted him.

  "By the way, that was the boys down below calling from the bell," McGinty said. "They've just about cut through the hull. I told them to get things ready for tomorrow, then take a rest. You'd be down first thing in the morning to do the job."

  Austin raised his glass. "Here's to lost causes and impossible missions."

  The quiet laughter was cut short as Donatelli solemnly raised his glass high. "And here's to the Andrea Doria and the souls of all those who have died on her."

  When they tossed their drinks down, it was done in silence.

  42 LIFE IS NEVER DULL AROUND THE Andrea Doria for the schools of silver-scaled fish that claim squatter's rights in luxurious cabins that cost their previous occupants thousands of lira. But nothing could have prepared the denizens of the blue twilight world for the arrival of two creatures more bizarre than any inhabitant of the depths. Their plump bodies were covered with shiny yellow skin, their backsides protected by a black carapace. In the center of their bulbous heads was a single eye. Twin stumps protruded from the bottoms of their rotund bodies. Near the top were similar, shorter appendages, each ending in a claw. Most curious were the softly whirring fins on each side.

  The creatures hung in the water like balloons in the Macy's Thanksgiving parade. The soft laughter of Zavala's voice cackled in Austin's headset.

  "Have I ever told you how much you resemble 'the Michelin man?"

  After the meal with McGinty last night I wouldn't be surprised at anything. My gym suit is a little tight around the gut."

  .

  The Ceanic Hard Suit must have been nicknamed by someone with a vision problem. The so-called gym suit was actually a bodyfitting submarine. The forged aluminum skin was technically a hull. Vertical and lateral propulsion thrusters on each side were activated by foot controls. With its oxygen recirculation and carbon dioxide scrubbing capability, the suit was good for six to eight hours of dive time with forty-eight hours of emergency life support. It topped the scales at nearly half a ton, yet in water the suit weighed less than eight pounds. The Hard Suit provided mobility, long dive time, and no decompression. The suit's major disadvantage was its bulkiness. Penetrating the interior following Donatelli's route would be suicide. They would become ensnared on wires or lines within minutes.

  In formulating a dive plan, Austin reviewed all past dives on the
Doria, successful or not. Austin thought the Gimbel expeditions had the right idea. The 1975 attempt tried to use a submersible for reconnaissance, but the craft lacked the power to fight the current. The diving bell intended for use as an elevator and work station was improperly ballasted and went dangerously out of control. What impressed Austin was the fact that saturation divers working from the surface with umbilical hoses managed to accomplish a great deal against formidable odds. They actually got into the garage. The 1981 Gimbel expedition was better prepared. The bell system worked well. Although it ran into all sorts of problems, including nasty weather and a current that tangled the umbilicals, divers managed to find the safe and hook it up to a crane.

  In the end, Austin chose a combination of Hand Suits and saturation divers. He patched together an expedition relatively well equipped for the task. His father provided the Monkfish and crew. Gunn combed through the NUMA expedition and ship schedule and pulled together the diving bell and a decompression chamber on the deck that was equipped with showers and bunks. The borrowed mini-sub, with its recon capabilities, was an unexpected bonus. Most important were NUMAs six experienced saturation divers who were flown in from Virginia. Since their arrival on the Monkfish they had been worked in round-the-clock shifts to cut a hole in the liner's hull.

  The weather on Nantucket Shoals lived up to its reputation for changeability. When Austin and Zavala crawled out of their bunks that morning the air was transparent. The lumpy sea of the previous day had vanished, and the ocean was mirror calm, reflecting like polished glass the images of the seabirds dotting the surface. A pair of black fins cut the water. Dolphins. McGinty said they were a sign of good luck and would keep the sharks away. The surface current was about one knot. He predicted that a thick fog would later work its way onto the shoals, and the current might come up, but they could deal with that.

  Encased in their heavy suits, the NUMA men were lowered by crane into the water. They spent several minutes just under the surface checking out their gear while the crane again swung out over the water and dropped a Kevlar cable that was ganged into four short lines ending in sturdy metal dips. They gripped the line firmly in their mechanical claws. With a hum of vertical thrusters they descended into the indigo sea. The Monkfish was locked in place exactly over the wreck by four anchor lines, two at the bow, two at the stern, one hundred meters in each direction. Stability was crucial. Otherwise the diving bell would swing at the end of its tether like a pendulum.

  Although the Hard Suits were equipped with lights and they brought portable lamps with them, no illumination was needed. The visibility was at least thirty feet, and the shadowy outline of the ship stood out in relief against the paler bottom. They headed toward where a section of the hull was illuminated by a cold pulsating glow.

  At the center of the eddying bluish corona two saturation divers clung to the up-ended port side of the ship like insects on a log. One diver knelt on the hull with a cutting torch in his gloved hand while the other tended the Kerry cable that conveyed the fuel and kept an eye on things in general. They had been transported down earlier by the diving bell, which served as an elevator and underwater habitat for the dive team.

  Suspended by a thick cable that ran to a winch on the deck of the Monkfish, the bell hung a few meters above the hull. It was shaped like a gaspowered camp lantern. The four sides were rounded slightly at the corners, the roof sloped down from the hole for the hoisting cable. Another cable containing communications and power entered the bell from a lower point on the roof. Fastened to the outside were tanks holding breathing gases and torch fuel. The bottom of the bell was open to the sea, which was held in abeyance by air pressure. From the opening umbilicals snaked to the divers, carrying the breathing mixture and hot water to bodywarming tubing in their Divex Armadillo suits. In addition each diver carried an emergency breathing tank on his back.

  The divers were working on a section of steel plating that had been scraped clear of anemones to expose the black hull paint. The heat discoloration from the magnesium rods in the high-pressure feed oxyarc cutting torch outlined a large rectangle around the garage doors. The saturation diver who'd been tending the torchman became aware of the twin yellow blimps approaching. Using the slow-motion movement that comes with working in deep water, the diver reached up to take the cable from Austin and Zavala. The NUMA men could communicate directly with themselves and with the salvage boat, but there was no direct link to the saturation divers except through the bell. Austin was unconcerned because everyone had gone over the plan many times, and hand signals were adequate for all but the most complicated message.

  The kneeling diver snapped off his torch when he saw the new arrivals. He pointed to each comer of the rectangle where he had cut double holes and gave the thumbs-up signal. Then he and his companion attached the clips from the surface line to the holes. The divers moved several meters away, and one made a jerking motion with his hand like a locomotive engineer pulling the whistle cord.

  Austin radioed the deck crew. All clear. Start hauling."

  The deck crew relayed the message to the crane operator, and the Kevlar line went as taut as a bow string. Seconds passed. Nothing happened. The framework around the door had been cut like a dotted line on cardboard. Austin was wondering if more cutting was needed when there was an explosion of bubbles from the deck. The section pulled free with a muffled boom.

  Austin directed the surface crew to move the crane over and let the doors drop onto the hull.

  A huge gaping rectangular hole had been opened in the side of the ship at the B Deck level. The tourist class cabins had been stuffed into fore and aft sections of this deck and C Deck, the level below it. The forward section of deck was where the cabins were split by the autorimessa, the deck that housed nine cars and an armored truck.

  Zavala powered his suit so he was directly above the newly created opening

  "You "You could drive a HumVee through this thing."

  "Why do things halfway? Think of it. Everyone who dives on the wreck from now on will think of this as Zavala's Hole."

  "I'll pass that honor on to you. How about naming it Austin's Aperture?" .

  "How about scouting things out?"

  "No time like the present."

  "I'll take the point. We'll go nice and slow. Watch out for ceiling cables and collapsed bulkheads. Remember to keep a safe distance apart."

  Zavala didn't need to be warned. The Hard Suits resembled space suits worn by the astronauts. As with astronauts floating in free fall, motions had to be deliberate and unexaggerated. Even at slow speed a collision between the thousand pound suits would rattle their teeth.

  Austin moved in under Zavala so that the light from his suit pointed straight into the ship. The powerful beam was swallowed by the darkness. He gave his vertical thrusters a short blast, descended feet-first into the garage, then stopped and rotated the suit three hundred sixty degrees. The water was free of loose ends and projections. He gave Zavala the all-clear and watched the bloated yellow figure sink through the blue-green hole and come to a hovering stop.

  "This reminds me of the Baja Cantina in Tijuana," Zavala said. Actually it's not as dark."

  "We'll stop for shots of Cuervo on the way back," Austin replied. "The ship is ninety feet wide. The cargo would have slid. down to the bottom like Captain McGinty said. Everything is at a ninety-degree angle, so the floor of the garage is actually that vertical wall right behind you. We'll stick close to the wall so as not to become disoriented."

  As they descended Austin went down a mental checklist, anticipating obstacles and reactions. While he worked on practical problems and solutions his brain was busy on another, irrational level, probably the survival mechanism that raised the hackles on the unshaven necks of his ancestors. He was hearing Donatelli's voice describing his terrifying descent into the innards of the ship. The old man was wrong, Austin concluded. This was worse than anything Dante could have imagined. Austin would take the fire and brimstone of t
he Inferno any day. At least Dante could see something. Even if it was only demons and the damned.

  It was hard to believe now that the decks of this vast empty hulk once throbbed with the diesel power of fifty thousand horses, and more than twelve hundred passengers basked in the ship's sensuous beauty, their needs served by a crew of nearly six hundred. The first person to dive on the Andrea Doria after she slid beneath the Atlantic said the ship seemed still alive, producing an eerie cacophony of groans and creaks, the banging of loose debris, water rushing in and out of doorways. Austin saw only decay, emptiness, and silence, except for the sound of their rebreathers. This huge metal cairn was a haunted place where a man who lingered too long could go mad.

  The ship seemed to close in on them, and Austin kept checking his depth gauge. Although they were only about two hundred feet from the surface, it seemed deeper because of the darkness. He looked upward. The bluegreen rectangle that marked the opening was diffused in the murk and eventually might have become invisible if the saturation divers hadn't placed a strobe light on the edge as a beacon. Austin glanced at the blinking pinpoint and felt reassured, then turned his focus to what lay below.

  Under their feet solid objects were looming out of the darkness into the circle of illumination cast by their lights. Straight lines and

  edges. Mysterious rounded shapes. Tons of debris were jammed into the horizontal space that had once been the starboard bulkhead of the Dona. When the ship was level the garage was covered with heavy metal mesh and catwalks. Now these were vertical as well. Austin and Zavala started a search pattern, moving in parallel lines, back and forth, between the vertical partitions formed by the old floor and ceiling of the garage, the type of search they would execute if they were on the surface looking for a shipwreck. They encountered dangling wires from the old light fixtures but not enough to be dangerous and they were easily avoided.

  Their lights caught the glint of metal and glass and vague forms that occasionally resolved into familiar shapes.