"Run it, please. You have not had a look yet?" Purdue asked, with his eyes nailed to the blank monitor in anticipation.
"Yes, sir, I had a look, but it is very murky down there. All I could see on the footage was some contours of the landscape deeper down from where we last got a reading of 800 meters below surface," Tommy reported, with his hand on his hip as he waited for the minisub footage to roll.
Purdue grabbed a chair and slid it in under him. He leaned on the dashboard edge with his elbows and watched intently, hoping to ascertain the location of his rogue machine while the storm escalated by the minute. His right hand reached for the control, ready to hit pause as soon as he noticed something that could point out the vicinity of the submersible. Liam came in quietly, joining the other three to watch the monitor. The camera, as instructed, had recorded the descent and the subsequent movement along the north post of Deep Sea One. It was virtually impossible to discern one thing from another down there, occasionally there was a glimpse of marine life and drift kelp. During a succession of small mounds the camera fell forward as the minisub dipped into a deeper ditch, moving past the other steel posts in the ocean bed.
It appeared to be disturbed for a moment, shaking once or twice, before continuing. A few meters on the screen hazed and displayed some electrical disturbance. White and grey horizontal lines of static crossed briefly over the screen before the minisub capsized. All four men held their breath, but the footage remained unchanged as the machine glided toward the edge of a reef, sliding gradually as if pushed a little farther every time the current swept it.
"Thank you, gentlemen, I'll take it from here. Take a break," Purdue said. He loathed people peering over his shoulder, especially when he tried to concentrate. Almost disappointed, the three crewmen left for the kitchen, not entirely impartial to a proper break from duty. It had been a long day full of toils and the storm did nothing for their morale either.
Purdue watched the opaque ocean bed on the screen as the minisub appeared to tilt slightly. Then it stopped moving, merely turning its front as it was rotated by the water. In the near distance Purdue could distinguish an object of considerable size. He squinted and leaned forward.
"No fucking way," he whispered, his heart jumping in his chest. No more was his attention merely on the location of his missing submersible, but now he could see something truly astonishing on its footage. Eagerly he pressed Pause and zoomed in on the image of the object. He had no idea what it was, but it certainly was not natural, nor was it part of the smooth ocean floor. Curiosity flooded his common sense, as it always did, and he leaned so far forward that the tip of his nose almost brushed the screen.
"What are you?" he marveled at the strange long structure stretching across the sand bank, half-submerged in the sand. His finger sat on the Play/ Pause button. He jabbed it quickly once and then once more, to shift it a split second on. Purdue's face lit up, but he said nothing. Fire ignited behind his eyes when he saw the detail that the closer frame provided.
"It cannot be! Could it be?" he gasped as he saw the narrow hull come into view, atop which the elongated hatch sat, emerging into sight from the obscurity of the dark depths. "My God! A sunken Elektroboot? Here?"
The Type XXI submarine was well-known to Purdue. He had learned about these submarines produced in the latter part of the Second World War while he was searching in the Strait of Gibraltar for a rare Roman artifact a few years before. Aboard a questionable trawler, which dealt in more than fisheries, he had heard tell of the 118 U-boats of superior design that were used by several countries in the Second World War.
By the shape of the hull he recognized the rusted wreck in the sand as one of these unique vessels, there was no doubt about it. Because of their streamlined design and improved output power, they could operate efficiently underwater without having to surface to sprint during attacks. It also aided them in being elusive in radar searches and their thin bodies made for exceptionally fast diving time. These U-boats, he was told, were superior to their predecessors on every level.
Most of them were accounted for, in fact, he was certain of it. After decommissioning some were scrapped, others dismantled or turned into museums.
"Darwin! Tommy!" Purdue shouted on the radio, "I need you in the booth immediately, lads!"
His heart was now throbbing wildly. A sunken submarine guaranteed adventure and promises of valuable secrets, until now cloistered at the bottom of the ocean.
"What are you hiding?" he whispered to the image on the screen, "Art? Treasure? Nazi treasure, I bet. I bet you were used to carry Nazi treasure out of the country and you never made it to your destination."
"Sir?" he heard Tommy's voice through the hiss and roar of thunder and the clamor of the waves.
"The coordinates. I need the coordinates of where the minisub cut off from us. Can you do that?" Purdue asked with a great renewed sense of urgency.
"Of course. Let me check," Tommy said, and sat down in front of the ROV control panel. He retrieved the positioning data of the submersible just before it lost contact with them and gave it to Purdue. The three engineers stood fidgeting around him, waiting for some revelation like anxious fathers in a maternity ward.
"Gentlemen, I will need you to stay on a few more days after your rotations are concluded, if you don't mind. I will pay each of you overtime for your extended assistance after shift change. But first I need to procure a new minisub, otherwise we'd never be able to reach that beauty on the ocean floor," Purdue purred. "Now, I need a warm beverage before I get started." With that he left for the kitchen and left the three astonished men behind in the control room.
"What beauty?" Liam asked in utter confusion. His eyes followed his colleagues where they stared at the image of the stretching vessel caught in the oblivion of the North Sea depths. "Oh."
☼
Chapter 5
"We were ordered to drop you off where you want, miss," said Cody, one of Purdue's largest security men. "Personally I would love to drop you at the bottom of the Water of Leith, but for some reason Mr. Purdue doesn't think you merit a beating for the shit you pulled."
"If your security wasn't so lax you would not have had your perimeter breached, braveheart," she retorted in a low tone, smirking at the vexation of her reluctant escort.
Cody and his colleague, Jason, were to drive her back to the city on Purdue's order. The night before he had decided not to press charges because he could see by Calisto's clothing that she had been down and out. Her hoodie was once black, but now sported a ragged grey threading and her nails were dirty. When she crossed her legs on the couch he could see the dilapidated state of her old Doc Martins and it fascinated him how she had navigated the ledge in them, let alone move so quietly that no one heard her climb above the iron doors.
Although he was not a bleeding-heart type, he figured he did not have to be a dick about it, because nothing valuable was missing, unless you considered the meat that was gone. Purdue made it clear that he was not a charity and he believed that each person cultivated her own circumstances; therefore, she could not expect any more aid from him apart from a lift back to the Edinburgh city center.
Cody grimaced at her amusement as they walked out to Mr. Purdue's 4×4. Calisto's eyes scrutinized the vehicle, but she did not ask any questions. She had never seen an off-road vehicle with tinted windows, let alone one with a driver. It all seemed a bit absurd until she considered the horrid condition of the road leading up to Wrichtishousis, which she had walked the afternoon before to reach the mansion.
"Get in," Cody said, and after she complied, he slammed the back door of the vehicle behind her and the vacuumed silence suddenly had her ears ringing. Both men rounded the 4×4, their voices muffled by the airtight doors. Calisto sat forward, lip-reading what the anal one of the two was whining about.
"You know he would never know if she disappeared. It's just you and me, mate. We can end her so easily," Cody grunted, rattling the car keys.
"You ha
ve been watching too much telly again," Jason replied, as he reached for the passenger door. He shook his head at his colleague's intent. Cody was always hot-headed, not much of a social success due to his overt aggression and his tendency to take mundane things as personal attacks. He certainly perceived the intruder's efficient infiltration of the mansion as a personal insult on his abilities. There was some debate among the team members as to the comparison between his temper and the dark red hue of his hair.
"So easily."
"Get in the car, Cody," Jason smiled, and opened his door, surprised at the woman's sudden distrust of them. In her seat she sat with her arms tightly locked by her sides, ending in fisted hands, which were evidence that she was scared.
"Don't worry. We are not the bad guys, lady," Jason assured her in his gentlest voice, while his friend fell into his seat and looked at her in the rearview mirror,
"Yeah, and we only hurt bad people," Cody said. He started the car with a smile and looked at her again, raising his eyebrow, "You're not a bad girl, are you?"
This time Calisto had no witty comeback and she quickly elected instead to look out the rapidly fogging window to digest the beautifully imposing manor. On their way to Canongate Cody looked in the rearview mirror at the beautiful woman with the lost expression in her eyes, peering wearily out the window at the beacons they passed as if they were breadcrumbs to her, marking her location so that she would not get lost.
"Where are you from?" Cody asked in a loud voice that made her jump. She was amazed. It was the first normal question out of his usually pursed lips that did not contain some form of death threat. "You have an accent."
"Oh, I am not Scottish, no. Grew up mostly in Spain. Then I stayed with my boyfriend in London and eventually ended up homeless in Edinburgh," her voice fell considerably on the latter, and she took pause before looking up at him in the mirror. "It's been a road strewn with broken champagne glasses that I've been walking barefoot, I guess." Calisto flicked her nails in thought. The two men looked at each other and the interior of the car fell silent for a while.
"So where should we drop you?" Cody asked, trying to trivialize the woman's plight with an empty question of which he already knew the answer.
"I thought I was headed for the Waters," she smiled. This time Cody did not explode. He actually chuckled and Jason was relieved. There was a light drizzle in the air, the tiny drops culminating in crystal streaks of glitter, which ran down the windows, but the day was relatively still. Jason turned on the radio and the sound of rock music pleased all three of them. Nodding his head to the beat, Jason looked back at Calisto. She had turned her head so far back that she had to prop herself on one hand to see properly, staring out the back window at the cars behind them.
"What do you see?" he asked. The passenger quickly turned back to face him.
"Nothing. I was just looking at the road behind us. It's a habit I had as a child, looking at how far I have come and what I am leaving behind, you know?" she said sheepishly, sharing her personal idiosyncrasies with two strangers who had chased her down like a dog just the night before.
"You're a bit of a deep chick, aren't you?" Cody's loud voice remarked, while his eyes were framed by the mirror again. Calisto smiled, but then, reflected in the mirror, she saw Cody's face light up with a sudden brightness. Immediately he pinched shut his eyes as the sharp beam of light assaulted the mirror from the car behind them.
"Hey! Fuck off! It's the middle of the day, you prat!" Cody shouted, saluting the car behind him with an extended middle finger raised against the rearview mirror. Still the headlights remained in his mirror. He slowed down considerably.
"Let's see how he likes driving slower than he can walk, the bastard," he said with a darkening scowl. Calisto did not want to look back and Jason kept stealing looks to the back window, but in the brightness he could not discern anything.
"What is his fucking problem?" Jason barked as they came to High Street. His voice had not an ounce of fear in it, but he did sound roused enough to be concerned.
The car tailgated them all the way. This was no coincidence on account of bad driving or alcohol, this was deliberate.
Suddenly the 4×4 jerked violently, forcefully throwing its three occupants forward. The car behind them had plowed into them and was speeding up again to crash its grill into the rear of the car. Calisto pressed the button to lower her window.
"Don't be stupid! They could mistake you for Mr. Purdue and blow your brains out!" Jason screamed, and he sank between the seats to grab the woman and pull her down, but he missed and she leaned out the window. Wildly grappling with his long arm, Jason got hold of her hoodie and pulled her inside.
"It's a Landie. They're driving a blue Land Rover," she wailed. But before the men could respond a hail of bullets sprayed the powerful armature of their vehicle.
"Stay down!" Cody shouted and lunged at the wheel, swiftly jerking it to the left. Over the pavement the 4×4 raced onto Cockburn Street with fury, but the Land Rover stayed on its tail.
Calisto ran her hand down her leg and pulled a gun from the quick-draw holster at her ankle.
"Cody, watch your head!" she screamed. "He is a high shooter!"
"Wha—?" Cody tried to duck, but suddenly a bullet smashed the back window and missed him by inches.
"This is bulletproof glass! How the fuck did they do that?" Jason shrieked, wrenching his Beretta from its holster.
"Elephant gun," Calisto cried, as she aimed for the Land Rover's front left tire. Jason looked at her in disbelief as she cocked the Makarov in her dainty hand. Expertly she blew out the tire. The rubber exploded with a crack and the Land Rover vaulted from its path, bounding wildly in three consecutive clean rolls before crashing into a wall.
"Stop!" Jason told Cody, "Let's go get the bastards. I wanna know what they want and why the hell they are trying to kill us!"
They parked the 4×4 close to the bent and steaming wreck of the Land Rover to cordon off its escape route, should it by some miracle still be able to move. Rushing to the mangled doors the two security guards had their Berettas handy for any surprises. Calisto stayed close behind Cody, her weapon still drawn.
"How did you get that?" Jason asked her. "We patted you down when we found you."
"I stashed it on the ledge before I jumped, so that I could retrieve it later," she frowned nonchalantly, giving Jason the distinct feeling that he was nothing but a novice at cunning.
Cody scoffed at her, equally dissatisfied with how stupid she made them look.
The three approached from the side of the road to determine the number of pursuers in the vehicle and the condition they were in. The other side of the capsized Land Rover was mere centimeters from the crumbling wall it had collided with. Cody and Jason crouched at the doors while Calisto stole to the back of the vehicle. As the two men sank down to look, they met the barrel of a gun at close range. Calisto could hear the bullets tear through fabric and flesh—two shots, one for each—maybe more. Her ears were unreliable in the din of her heartbeat and whimpering. Then there was silence. She carefully peeked over the elevated back tire, her hands shivering with adrenaline. A sick feeling came over her, as she expected to find her two escorts perished and their blood drenched on the cement, but they were both merely wounded. Jason and Cody had averted the direct hit and killed the two men in the car before they could pull their triggers again on that deadly aim.
Calisto came out behind the wrecked car and holstered her Makarov, not noticing the third occupant of the crashed vehicle slipping between the wall and the Land Rover's side. Jason saw him first and his eyes widened before he could utter a warning at the attacker behind Calisto. But she was more observant than her stalker knew. Jason's expression said it all. As the wounded, massive assailant wrapped his arm around her to put her in a fatal chokehold, Calisto fell to her knees on the pavement, eluding his grip. Without a moment's hesitation she used the loose bent doorframe to slam his knee out, catching him right on the patell
a. With a yelp he fell against the car, where the pretty dark-eyed woman crushed his trachea and instantly snapped his neck.
Jason and Cody stared with open jaws, holding their respective injuries between bloodied hands. Their spent guns lay next to them. It was unbelievable how all of this happened in fewer than ten minutes.
"We have to get out of here before the police get here," Calisto said. "I'll drive you back to the mansion. And don't worry; there are routes there that no one knows about. I can lose anyone who follows us. Now get your arses up, gentlemen."
Fueled by the rush of the frightening event the two security men made for Mr. Purdue's 4×4 and Calisto threw it into gear as they closed the doors. Speeding off into the narrow street, they left behind a big unanswered question, but it was better than being accosted by police and no doubt ending up with substantial legal trouble. Cody and Jason would have to be temporarily decommissioned from duty because of their wounds. Cody had a shattered femur. Jason came away with a very close rupture to his chest and abdomen from the two bullets he took.
Calisto drove them back to Wrichtishousis and immediately the captain notified Mr. Purdue of the incident.
"Mr. Purdue would like to have a word with you when he gets back tomorrow," the captain told Calisto. She nodded. "And for the security of the residence I would like to have your weapon."
Calisto raised her eyebrow in protest.
"Just until you leave the premises again," the captain sighed. Reluctantly Calisto handed over her favorite Makarov and went to take a shower. Her bones were frozen and her nerves shot.
"What do you think Mr. Purdue is going to do, cap?" asked Jason as the company med tech attended to the wound. The captain turned slowly to face the few men present in the infirmary under the ground floor of Wrichtishousis. Truthfully he did not know whether to scoff or grin.
"I believe he is planning to recruit her as his new bodyguard."
Deep Sea One Page 3