by Albert Able
The lawyer was especially nervous because, unusually, his controller was not answering the calls leaving him no choice but to go through the standard procedure, which in short meant leaving a message and waiting. Ebola, however, refused to leave the office empty handed; the situation had become impossible. From experience the lawyer knew how generously the Syndicate rewarded success but he had also witnessed how they fatally punished failure. He decided to be prudent and act on his own, after all the controller had carefully instructed him and he had passed the information to both parties as instructed. Just why the Syndicate wanted the information regarding the gold divers imparted to both the Japanese and Ebola’s fanatics he chose not to question. He knew there had to be a profitable reason. Most importantly there could be no hint of failure on his part. So having finally convinced himself that he was doing the right thing, he called his bank manager.
“I’m going to need two hundred and fifty thousand American dollars in cash this afternoon. Yes cash, this afternoon,” he repeated. “Is that a problem for you?” he sighed impatiently. “Good then I’ll collect it personally, three-thirty.” He replaced the phone.
“You better not let me down over this one Franco. My client will not be very nice to you if you do. Is that clear?”
Franco Ebola stood up, an indolent expression on his beaky features.
“I won’t be very nice to you either if you don’t turn up with the money.” He turned and slouched out of the office.
The lawyer collected the cash from the bank at three-thirty; he was even more anxious. Unusually, his controller had still not called back. Nevertheless he made his way to the harbour where the three powerboats were moored. Franco Ebola was sitting in the stern of the nearest boat.
“Ah there you are - good timing. I was just about to call my master in the south!” He was bluffing of course. The last thing he wanted that master to know was that he was dealing from both sides of the pack.
“Stay there - I’m coming up.”
He jumped up to the quay and took the lawyer by the elbow.
“Not in front of the men - we don’t want those religious fools to get the wrong idea do we?”
They walked a few metres and out of sight of the boats.
“So you have the cash?” He pointed to the bag.
The lawyer passed over the zipped holdall.
“There count it!”
Ebola took the bag and weighed it in his hand.
“Feels right, do I need to count it?” he challenged.
“It’s up to you. Anyway there is a slight variation in your orders. Whatever the Mullah may have told you; you are not to act independently. There is a Japanese diving operation out there as well; you are to act under their command. Is that clear?”
Taken off guard by this change of plan, Ebola snapped testily, “Who gave you that order?”
“The same man who authorised that cash. Is that enough for you?”
“Whatever,” he acknowledged casually, but his instinct made him edgy; Franco Ebola was an opportunist felon; Manila was the patch where with the aid of a few heavyweight musclemen, he’d made a good living selling protection to anyone who could be bullied into paying for it.
Hired by the lawyer on behalf of the Syndicate to guard the arms shipment, he’d narrowly saved his own neck by the fact that one of his men had managed to get himself killed trying to protect the cargo.
The Mullah, however, expected him to personally lead the assault to punish the infidels. His reward was to be a small share of the gold. Naturally Ebola reasoned that life would be so much sweeter with all of it in his own pocket, which would also allow him to vanish to some distant part of the world where even the Syndicate would never find him.
Now he was faced with this new complication: the mysterious Japanese, from whom he must take his orders. He was not comfortable with the situation but at least he was holding a quarter of a million dollars in his hand - a powerful incentive to see what happens next, he convinced himself.
“How do I contact them?” he asked casually.
“They will be in touch with you.” The lawyer turned to walk away.
Ebola weighed the holdall again.
“In that case,” he smiled, giving a mock bow to the departing figure, “I await their command.”
w
As the gold ingots were extracted from the wreck they were loaded into a metal basket and hauled to the surface to be lowered into the cargo hold of La Vielle. The ingots varied in size, weighing from about two and a half to four kilos. The cases stacked under the ammunition lockers yielded almost one and a half tons of gold. Now they were trying to open the next bulkhead door, leading, they calculated, to the torpedo room. This heavy steel door however proved to be much more difficult than the first. The oxyacetylene cutter was making little progress so they resorted to their hydraulically operated diamond tipped grinder. This proved to be much more effective, in spite of the body shaking vibration it caused. Aware of the risk, they nevertheless turned their backs to the ammunition stacked on the shelves.
“If it goes up at least we won’t know!” Hal philosophised.
It took over an hour to cut through the massive clamps and hinges.
“At last you bastard! Now pass me that fucking jack,” Rod the Australian diver shouted triumphantly into his microphone. The hydraulic lever was positioned, Number Two diver pumped vigorously; nothing seemed to be happening. He pumped with renewed effort and then suddenly the door flew into the torpedo room in a dense cloud of silt and debris.
“Wowee!” Rod shouted. “Get that suction pump in here – let’s see what we’ve got.”
It took a full ten minutes before the water was clear enough to distinguish the contents. The first thing to appear were two more of the monster torpedoes, sitting forlornly on their loading racks coated in brownish silt, looking more like ancient fallen trees. The racks underneath, where other torpedoes should have been held, were stacked with crates, exactly the same as those found in the ammunition store.
“Fuck me,” Rod hissed. “There’s twice as much of the stuff in here!”
“Steady now boys.” It was Big J following their progress from the video monitor. “You’ve also got a live torpedo for company, so let’s just check it out before we get too excited, eh?”
The torpedo was still sitting in its rack with the crates of gold stacked underneath it. Several had scattered their contents around what had once been the floor. Rod reached out and touched the torpedo gently.
“You’re not going to give us any trouble mate, are you?” Rod whispered with feeling, a cloud of rusty silt swirled in the water.
“Leave that bloody thing alone,” the other diver growled.
“Good thinking,” Big J echoed from the surface.
Rod pulled back his hand as if the torpedo had been red-hot.
“OK, OK,” he responded, accepting the rebuke.
They spent the next few minutes assessing the situation, then started carefully collecting the random ingots and passing them out to the recovery basket. It took two shifts to remove the rest of the gold, having taken the precaution to place reinforcing supports under the torpedo. As the last bar was passed through the hatch, Rod called up to Big J
“That’s the lot in here ‘J’, which I can tell you is just as well because that fish has just slipped a bit on the rack. I’m going to have to fix an extra support.”
“OK, do that, then get the hell out of there. We’ll finish this shift early.”
Rod sent the others out to the “bell” before setting about fixing some extra supports to the crumbling torpedo racks. He was only able to affect a very crude additional truss before he left the submarine and joined the others. They were all in a buoyant mood as they rode the bell to the surface and transferred to the pressure vessel.
Big J, however, was still worried about their safety. The torpedo, in spite of the additional supports, looked precarious; the shells in the other compartment were little better.
He decided to call everyone together. Once again they all squeezed into the hold alongside the pressure vessel.
“What’s the total so far Greg?” Big J asked.
“Looks like around seven tons,” he grinned happily.
“That’s more than I thought; what’s that worth?” Big J asked.
“Let’s see, at around ten million dollars per ton...” He looked pleased with himself. “Say seventy million dollars give or take a few cents!”
They all laughed and cheered.
“And we haven’t looked into the aft section yet!” Hal exclaimed through the pressure vessel’s microphone.
The other divers in there with him jockeyed to speak.
“Don’t worry ‘J’, we’ll sort the rest of it out, eh boys?” Rod shouted over the others.
Big J raised his hand, begging for a chance to speak.
“Well you know me boys, always the cautious one. I’m sure if there’s any more down there, you’re the boys who can get it up. But I wonder if it’s worth the risk. He raised his hand to stop the enthusiastic replies. “Now just listen to me for a moment please. Alex advises me that we have another problem. So perhaps we better listen to him before we make any decisions. Alex.” Big J waved him to the front of the tightly packed group.
“Right - no need to beat about the bush,” Alex started seriously. “There are at least two groups of nasties lining up to muscle in on our dive. These people are heavily armed and dangerous.” He paused. “Now you may notice that Cookie isn’t here.” Actually no one had. “Well unfortunately he has betrayed our position and passed the details of our find to these other people.”
“Why would he do that?” an incredulous voice asked from the inside pressure vessel.
“The oldest reason in the world. The promise of personal riches.”
“Are you absolutely certain he did it?” another voice asked.
“Sadly yes. His mobile calls were monitored by our security friends. When I approached him he admitted it.” Alex was silent for a moment. “It’s a familiar story I’m afraid. You must understand that the people we are almost certainly going to have to contend with attach no value to human life. They corrupt people with promises to fulfil their wildest dreams. Cookie sadly, must have realised the truth and could not live with the fact that he had betrayed you all.” He shook his head. “I found him dead in his bunk half an hour ago he - must have swallowed some kind of poison.”
There was a shocked gasp from listeners.
“Poor old Cookie,” someone muttered.
“What a bloody shame,” another added.
Alex raised his voice. “So that, gentlemen, is the enemy and they have set their sights on your gold!” He paused. “I would expect that with the failure of Cookie’s regular report they will presume he has been rumbled. I feel certain that will force them to make their move.” He paused. “That being the case, we must review our status. OK?” No one interrupted. “So let’s see, we have eight divers in saturation and twelve other people on board including Marion. They,” he indicated seawards with his thumb, “have at least twenty armed men and a mixed bag of at least twelve others on their dive boat. So that’s the bad news. The good news is that we have our own defence team. We are armed with a good selection of surprises waiting for anyone with ambitions on your property!” Alex pointed to Dick and the three other men. “The odds do not appear to be too good but remember, we know their plan and they don’t know about our extra muscle.” Once more he gestured towards the three new members of the team. “However I am suggesting to you all that you consider that this is the prudent moment to cut your losses and leave now with the gold you have on board!”
“What’s the alternative?” Rod asked from the pressure vessel.
Alex looked stern. “The alternative is a running battle with at least twenty fanatical men from the same terrorist group we upset by dumping their shipment of arms, and a second front from a Japanese crime family called Golden Lilly who are already hovering around near Corregidor with another eighteen or twenty men on board waiting to take over our operation.” He looked at Rod, peering through the little circle of pressure glass. “As I said, we have some good weapons and some excellent men but numerically they have a big advantage.” He turned to the others. “The choice is yours gentlemen?” He stepped back.
Big J raised his hand.
“Alex, do you have a handle on how much time we have?”
“It’s only a guess but not more than twenty-four hours.”
“Then I’d like to make a suggestion,” Big J continued, his audience strangely silent and expectant. “First we get the next shift onto the wreck and check out the aft section. Whatever we find there we bring up as quickly as possible. We could get one team down there now; it’s about one hour earlier than usual and the current may be a bit too strong!” He looked into the pressure window. “Do you fancy a try?” The OK sign greeted him. “Once we know if there’s anything worth fighting over, we will be able to send down the second team and make one big effort to raise everything possible, before the tide turns; - then we quit” He looked around. “Is that OK with everyone?”
“Sounds good to me,” John enthused. “Rod let’s get your boys into the bell!”
“Too bloody right mate,” Rod exclaimed.
Alex knew they would want to check the rest of the hull, they would never have been able to resist it, so while the divers and support crew busied themselves with the bell He called his newly formed security team together.
“OK, so now we must make plans to defend ourselves.”
Alex spent half an hour detailing his plan to his three-man defence force and the rest of the surface crew before returning to La Vielle with Greg.
f
The dive bell shuddered from the effects of he current, which was still running at about two knots, as it worked its way down the anchored cable to the wreck. The internal air pressure kept the water at bay as John opened the exit hatch in the floor.
“Well here goes.” He called into his helmet and lowered himself into the water. His legs were immediately gripped by the current and slammed against the side if the hatch.
“Christ the current’s still very strong,” he cursed.
Undeterred, he dropped through the hatch and trailed like a hooked fish attached by his supplementary safety line.
“It’s too bloody strong to swim. I won’t reach the safety line from this angle - you’ll have to lower some ballast down my line.”
“Stand by,” Rod acknowledged the request.
A five-kilo weight was attached to the line.
“First one’s on its way.”
The weight dropped smoothly down the line to the waiting diver.
“Got it. I reckon I’m going to need at least four of those.”
“Yeah you’re probably right.” Rod slipped the extra weights onto the line.
The sharks looked on with interest from the shadow of the wreck; this was a different movement for the alien creatures.
Eventually with sufficient weights to counter the effects of the current John secured himself and the safety line to the wreck.
“OK boys you can join the party now.”
With “Big Blaster” in tow, the others followed down the tethered line. They hoped that “Big Blaster”, combined with the extractor hose working in unison at full rate, would enable them to work their way into the stern section of the submarine with maximum effect. This part of the wreck was far more badly damaged than the forward section, making it all the more difficult to explore.
At first there was no sign of any more gold. Eventually they came to another bulkhead, its door jammed open with possibly just enough room for a small man without any equipment strapped to his back to squeeze through. John shone his lamps into the space but the cloudy water was still impenetrable.
They tried the hydraulic jack on the rust encrusted door without success.
“How about if I rig one the spare air hoses from to my helme
t. I’m sure I could get in without the air pack.”
“Always the improviser eh Slim? Well at least you’re the smallest. If you’re happy, it’s worth a try,” John agreed.
Big J rarely interfered with the men when they worked underwater; they were all experienced and were constantly improvising to resolve problems for which there were no set procedures.
“Take it easy Slim, we’ve never worked with more than ten-metre extensions before,” he suggested discreetly
“Don’t panic Boss. I intend to spend my share of all this lovely gold,” Slim chuckled as he made his way back to the bell to collect a spare hose.
Equipped with the extension and carrying his gas-air mixes pack. He returned to the bulkhead.
“Right boys, let’s be getting to it.”
Slim slithered through the narrow gap, sending up another cloud of rusty silt. He could see less than one metre into the murk so waited impatiently as the pump sucked at the water. As it slowly cleared he recognised the mass in front of him as a rock. The bottom of the submarine must have either rusted away or been blown away when it was torpedoed and settled on the rocky seabed. Something moving on the edge of his vision caught his eye. He swung his powerful lamp but found nothing until he saw the jagged hole leading out of the hull.
“I don’t know what kind of fish there could be down here but we may have just invaded their home,” he joked humourlessly into his microphone.
Slim, wanting to get out of the claustrophobic embrace of the compartment, moved with determination towards where he believed logically the next bulkhead should be. Heavy with silt, the cloudy water obscured his route. With only his second step, he was pulled up sharply by his safety line, causing him to roll sideways and fall against the mound of coral. The encrusted rock, to his surprise, gave way under his weight, as if it were a pile of loose stones. He steadied himself as a new cloud of silt erupted all round him.