Salvage

by Chris Howard

  “Just what the scans showed,” put in DuFour.

  Wilraven nodded, leading them toward the row of open shipping containers along the platform’s stern. “Too good to be true?”

  Both his first and Captain DuFour shrugged. DuFour said, “Andres had one of the ROVs do a cursory look around. They saw no sign of the captain and crew of the Serina Beliz.” He waved to the cranes behind him. “Crawlers are pulling the slings into place. We’re running the wide ones, six of them, with the medium hoist beams.” The hoists, beams, and shackling systems were DuFour’s specialty, with a dozen custom bolts and gear aboard designed or built by him.

  Wilraven was nodding as he headed toward the wide open doors of the remotely operated vehicle control center—the “ROV shed,” one of the big shipping containers at Irabarren’s stern. Inda and her team huddled over a bank of controls, a wall of video images from different angles—the view from the four different machines down in the deep, along with dropped camera and lighting emplacements.

  The dive master, Andres Jeanpierre, was watching from one corner, arms folded. He gave the captain a quick nod and part of a smile.

  Inda, her hand gripping the backs of her ROV team’s chairs, glanced up when Wilraven stepped into the shed. “Captain. Wendolyn is starboard, Dess is on port. Crawlers are threading the slings.” Without waiting for any response, she turned toward a video display higher on the wall, talking into the headset’s mic. “Dewayne, Erich, give me another two meters slack.”

  Wilraven’s gaze slid along the panels, getting the details, determining where things were in the operation. The crawlers were off their leashes, doing their tunneling thing. The big cranes were cabled to lifting beams, which would spread the load—the weight of the Serina Beliz—among the six sling bags.

  The ROV ops were chattering directions and speed.

  With more than one vehicle in the deep, it was important to keep everyone as separated as possible, especially with the crane cables, crawlers, and sling bags all run out. It was like six people line fishing at the same extreme depth on the same small boat. If the ROV, crawler, and crane operators weren’t careful, it could quickly become cable salad down there. To Wilraven that meant it would be a mess he and the divers would have to clean up, after the tangle had been lifted to a respectable depth—seventy meters or so. Then they would have to start all over again with Serina.

  Wilraven turned to the open doors to see that Levesgue had finally joined the party, not looking very happy. Wilraven went back to the work, desperately wanting to ignore him.

  One of the ROVs pulled back, the floodlights going wide, revealing most of the Serina’s starboard bow at a steep upward angle, the superstructure and dark bridge windows—the starboard door open into pure black. The wide, rectangular emergency bay high on the Serina’s yellow-green hull still contained the freefall boat and emergency buoys.

  Aro Taketa, one of the ROV team, whispered, “What happened to her?”

  Wilraven stared at the screen a moment more, wondering the same thing. “We’re going to find out.”

  Jodi Chavous, the second ROV op, guided her sub along the portside railings of the Serina, cameras swiveling along the decks, one pinned to an open hatch, yawning in the abyss. The imagery from the ROV’s floor cam, tilted in toward Serina’s hull, revealed nothing that could bring a ship to the sea’s floor. Another camera angled back to take in the ship’s superstructure on the port, more open doors, but nothing that looked like damage and no sign of the crew.

  Half an hour later, with the sling bags cradling the Serina’s hull and the cable ends shackled to the lift beams, Irabarren’s cranes were ready to do their job.

  Everyone turned to Wilraven for the final go-ahead, and he nodded. “Let’s bring her up to ninety meters. Nice and slow.”

  Levesgue stepped all the way into the shed, holding up a hand. “Hold on.”

  Wilraven barely turned around, shooting the soldier an angry look. “Fuck off. This isn’t your job.”

  “It isn’t yours either. This is Mr. Corkran’s job, and you’re going to follow Mr. Corkran’s orders, Captain.”

  Wilraven froze—and so did everyone else in the shed—on the click-click of Levesgue chambering a round in his handgun. “Nice and easy, Captain Wilraven. Come on out of there and give Mr. Corkran a call like you told him you would.” And when Wilraven didn’t turn or move for a few seconds, Levesgue added, “Or I will shoot your fucking brains all over the video screens and make your crew clean it up with toilet paper.”

  Gun in hand, Levesgue ordered Wilraven to the bridge of the Marcene—with the captain rolling a question around in his thoughts. How’s anyone going to call in or out with your jamming gear turned on? Levesgue had just shut the portside door and locked it when Wilraven’s phone chirped. He unclipped it, staring down at it for a second before lifting it to his ear.

  And Wade Corkran was pissed.

  Wilraven gestured angrily. “No, it’s just a couple meters out of the mud. We haven’t done anything with her yet.”

  “Don’t.”

  “What do you want me to do then?”

  “Raise her enough to move.”

  Move the ship . . . underwater? Wilraven felt like pulling his phone away from his ear to stare at it, see if it was malfunctioning. His first step was to get Serina inside the diveable zone, three hundred feet. “Once we’re off the floor, I need to get her onto the rollers and bring her up inside three hundred feet.”

  The rollers were the bow and stern winches on Irabarren or Marcene—either vessel could hold the Serina secure.

  “No higher than that. Not on the surface.”

  Wilraven frowned. “Then what?”

  There was a pause on Corkran’s end; then he said, “I want you to move the Serina Beliz eleven miles east of your location, and drop her. Let her go.”

  “Drop?” The captain felt his face tighten around the sense of confusion welling up inside. His response was automatic. “I can’t do that.”

  “Those are your orders, Captain.”

  “The fuck is that? You’re paying me to do a job, lift a ship. I do salvage. Not cemetery work. You can’t order me to commit a crime and endanger my crew. We’ve already had a visit from Cuban authorities—or whoever they were—and we’re seven miles outside territorial water. It wasn’t friendly.”

  Corkran sounded impatient. “Yes, yes,” he said dismissively. “I have the report from the team. That’s why I have supplied the security.”

  “You’re not giving me a choice.”

  Wilraven jerked at the cool metal pressing against the side of his face. Levesgue leaned into the gun, whispering in his ear. “Follow your orders, Captain. Move the ship to the location specified by Corkran. Or you’re dead. There, you have a choice.”

  Wilraven blinked, stunned, the threat of the gun or death not sinking in. “But . . . ” He swung toward the bank of windows looking out over the sea east of the Marcene, the hard ring of the gun barrel pivoting with this motion. Levesgue was smiling slightly. Corkran must be mistaken. “That’s in Cuban water.”

  “I know where it is, Captain Wilraven.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Gift of the Deep

  Leaving his house through the garage the next morning, Andreden swung his backpack over one shoulder. Unlocking his car, a soft chime rang and the lights flashed. He pulled open the door and froze. There was a folded note on the driver’s seat. Straightening to look around his closed and locked garage, he tossed his pack into the open door to the passenger seat.

  The note read:

  Meet me at 36.60611 North 122.7492 West

  L.

  Sitting behind the wheel, Andreden thumbed through maps on his phone, and as he had suspected, the coordinates were way out in the middle of Monterey Bay.

  No time specified in the note, so he headed into Knowledgenix as planned, stopping for coffee and pulling through the security gate around seven thirty in the morning. He drove right up next to th
e front door, with the driver side facing the Knowledgenix main building. In one continuous move, he pushed open the door, slammed it behind him, and dashed inside. He had noticed the new security detail on the roof with scopes and proximity sensor gear, scanning the surrounding area for threats—guys in dark clothing with high-powered rifles. Martin had insisted on it.

  Andreden dumped his pack in his office and went to look for Martin. He found him in the Personifex labs with Rebekah Kahley, both of them talking to Aristotle, a learning construct for the ancient philosopher. He even spoke in ancient Greek, and when Andreden stepped in, Kahley was carrying on a serious conversation with old Ari, “ . . . monimoterai gar kaiton epistemon autai-dokousin einai”—which Andreden guessed had something to do with knowledge or knowing, something with epistemos. Personifex was the intelligence system Theo and a dozen other prototype organisms and constructs were built around.

  Martin looked up at Andreden, shot him a serious look, and then came around the lab tables and screens, one hand open, palm up—questioning—as he drew close. “Any trouble?”

  Andreden shook his head, held out his arms, and bent his head down to give himself a quick scan for damage. “I’m here in one piece.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “Just wanted to let you know I’m taking out the Janeth. Going to have an offshore chat with our friend.” He didn’t need to say “Laeina.” He had continued to keep Martin in the loop on their mysterious toymaker.

  “Alone?”

  “Of course. I don’t think she’d show up if I brought along a security detail.”

  Martin didn’t look happy about that, but waved him on his way. “I’m going to have security ready to launch, and you signal or call if anything—anything—doesn’t seem right.” Martin was eleven years older than Andreden, and their long friendship—spanning twenty years—had always come with an edge of fatherly care on Martin’s side. Andreden had always been the daredevil, the lone diver, the reckless fighter against tyranny—which had nearly ended his life years before. The problem was that since the shooter in the hills, Martin had turned the fatherly care dial way up. “You call me, you call in security if there’s even hint of something not right in the air. You call if the damn water doesn’t look blue enough. Promise me.”

  Andreden was nodding while going through the camera app on his phone, sending a scan of Laeina’s handwritten line with coordinates. “Okay. Sent you her note and location. That’s exactly where I’ll be.”

  The thirty-three-foot Sangermani-designed and built Janeth K13 was one of the smaller power craft in the Knowledgenix fleet. She was fast, twin-engined, with two of the older model deepwater inspection ROVs onboard.

  It took over an hour for Andreden to reach Laeina’s coordinates. He sailed right through the point, slowed and swung around to put the bow toward the coast before cutting the motors.

  Drifting.

  He was looking for the binoculars when Laeina hopped the stern and came around the helm seating, her head angled to one side as she squeezed seawater all over the deck.

  A little annoyed at being surprised, Andreden tried to think of something irritable to say, but couldn’t think of anything stronger than, “Waiting long?”

  “No longer than expected.” She pointed at the boxy yellow ROVs parked and lashed down behind the bench seat at the helm. “What are these?”

  “Inspection ROVs—remotely operated vehicles.”

  She waved over the side. “And they go in the water?”

  “Two-and-a-half thousand meters or so.” He came around to the subs. “Depending on what we have for lines.” Opening the covers for the winches, he gave the side-by-side spools a scan, slapping a hand on the yellow-painted cylinders of one of the ROVs. “Looks like we have that for starboard.”

  Laeina moved next to Andreden, one hand on his shoulder as she bent to study the machine. She pointed at the stern thrusters. “These propel the ROV forward?”

  “And back. The props and motors are bidirectional.”

  Nodding, she ran her fingers over the framing, tapping on the clear hemisphere at the bow. “And this?”

  “Camera. The lights are above and below.” He couldn’t stop himself staring at the webbing between her fingers—delicate, almost transparent. Hands that had stopped bullets.

  She turned and held his gaze for a moment. “I would like to see this in the water. Can you do that for me?”

  “Sure,” he said, wondering what she was after. Andreden reached for the locks, big wing-headed bolts that held down the ROV. He spun them up, loosening the machine from its drain pan, and Laeina backed up a step as he swung in the starboard hoist to hook up the machine’s umbilical and frame mount.

  With a quick look at the helm video panels, he said, “We’re about a thousand meters here, just up from the head of the Monterey Canyon.” He shrugged. “It’ll take half an hour or so to reach the bottom, with plenty of slack to move about at that depth.”

  Laeina was quiet, just watching him swing the hoist over the side and lock it in place, nothing but deep sea below—and on the surface, the waves were just the right color blue.

  “Anything specific you’re looking for, Laeina?”

  She smiled, thinking it over. “It is something you are looking for. But I will give you a hint. Run out the line to the ocean’s floor to find it.” Then she laughed at his confused look. “You will be looking for me, Mr. Andreden.”

  He didn’t have an answer—or any words—for that.

  “And a gift.” She held out a long chain of black links with a finger-sized ampule of glass on the end, a clear fluid tipping back and forth inside. “A little bit of my world for you to carry around with you.”

  He reached out and let the teardrop-shaped piece of glass slide into his hand. It was beautiful, the glass frosted toward the bottom, perfectly clear toward the top, where six tiny black tentacles gripped it and formed a ring for the necklace. Laeina let the slender black links slide out of her hand, Andreden closing his fingers around the gift. He didn’t know what it was for—or if it did anything. “Thank you.”

  She continued looking at him, maybe to see what he would do with it, and it only took him a moment to realize she was waiting for him to put it over his head.

  When the ampule was hanging in the center of his chest, she smiled and said, “There. It is like your fire warning system at Knowledgenix, the red boxes on the walls in each corridor. Now if you need help, or trouble has found you, break the glass.” She indicated the ampule. “And I will be able to come to you, locate you, and perhaps help you.”

  The gift presented, Laeina went back to watching the ROV and the hoist, nodding to herself. Staring into the water, she said, “I did learn more about the man who tried to shoot you. He came here to kill you, and was commanded by someone on a ship on the other side of this country, the east coast?” She pointed east as if she wasn’t sure he would understand. “A ship called Katren. Have you heard of it?”

  He shook his head, with a question that felt like bile in his throat climbing easily to the surface in his thoughts. He kept his mouth shut, fought it down, turning toward the hoist controls. He didn’t want to ask how she had found this out from a man who had clearly taken poison and died.

  Laeina didn’t seem to notice a shift in his expression or any obvious outward change in his stance that reflected the struggle going on inside. She bent forward, pulling her hair together, most of it in long dark braids. She looped it over her forearm and made a loose knot as she slid out her hand. She threw it all over one shoulder. Then she peeled off her top, a long, loose shirt that clung wetly to her body, almost knee-length, with a pattern of soft green spirals. She stripped down to tight-fitting leggings and a bra, stretching and pacing up and back on the open end of the deck.

  Andreden just watched her, the start of a scowl on his face.

  “Are you ready?” She was enjoying herself. “I’m going to race your machine to the canyon floor.”

  He sounded doubtful. “A l
ittle over a kilometer down?”

  She laughed, waving off what she took as Andreden’s doubt about the abilities of the ROV. “I know. Not really a race. I can reach the floor here in a few minutes. I just want you to witness this.”

  One hand on the hoist’s controls, Andreden returned the laugh, adding a little defiance. “It may sound strange, but I believe you.”

  Laeina jumped to the Janeth’s starboard rail, balanced there wearing almost nothing.

  “And you’re not cold?”

  She shook her head and kicked off, arms over her head, hitting the water with very little disruption of the surface. She came up, a rolling wave lifting her to the crest, and she slid down the other side, smiling up at him.

  “No. Not cold.” She looked above him at the motion of the ROV hoist and the cable being rolled out. “You are already lowering your machine?”

  “You said it wasn’t much of a race. I’m just trying to get a head start.”

  Laeina cursed something in what sounded like Greek and rolled to one side, sliding right through the rise of the next wave.

  She was gone.

  Andreden shoved the winch and spool speed to full, reaching over to snap on the lights, acoustic, and video feeds from the ROV.

  Not much on the video, dark blue fading to black. He heard her laughter over the audio. The hi-res sonar showed him the steep canyon walls far below. The ROV was at a hundred meters, nose down, thrusters at max. Laeina kicked by in almost complete darkness.

  Laughing in the deep.

  Twenty minutes later, carefully steering away from the south wall of the canyon, Andreden pulled the speed back. The ROV passed the nine-hundred-meter mark, and he didn’t want to run it into a rocky outcrop, or worse, the floor. He gave the lines more play, easing out of the nearly vertical dive to a safer forty-degree angle.

  The proximity alert went off, a high-pitched chime, and Andreden instinctively shut down the thrusters.