Submerged

by Thomas F Monteleone

  But (came a thought from another part of his mind) staying calm was exactly the way he had to be if he wanted to stay alive down here. As the unofficial “chief” of the dive club, it had become his unspoken responsibility to watch out for the other guys, to make sure they never forgot how to keep themselves alive under the water.

  Especially Andy Mellow and Kevin Cheever.

  They both moved through the day-to-day with an unconscious sense of invincibility—Andy because he was a big, tall guy; Kev because he was smart and perceptive. Neither were arrogant in an aggressive way, but they both gave off unspoken “attitude”—they were big enough or smart enough to withstand whatever the world threw at them.

  He sensed something moving above them before he actually saw the other two men’s lamps. After so many years of diving, he’d developed a primitive proximity sense—a kind of early-warning system that something or someone was drifting near to him in the silent water. It was hard to describe, although Dex had tried on many occasions, and divers either knew instantly what he was talking about or they didn’t. Not exactly a “psychic” experience, but more than likely an ability that fell into the “ESP-lite” category.

  Waving his own lamp, Dex gave them as much of a beacon as he could in the ultra-dim surroundings.

  “Gotcha,” said Andy Mellow. “We see you guys…”

  Dex watched Andy, then Kevin, as they drifted away from the safeline and floated mask-to-mask with him. “Ready to have a closer look?”

  “Let’s do it,” said Kev.

  They’d done this sort of diving before on known wrecks—sites where all the obvious dangers had been documented and plenty of warnings existed. Dex had made them practice the most cautious procedures just in case they ever did come across a previously unknown derelict.

  And now he hoped all the practice and the drilling on safety would pay off.

  Dividing up into two buddy-teams was the usual tactic, and everyone did this without being reminded. Since Mike and Dex were on tanks with the shortest air remaining, they stayed together and would make the ascent together. The final team of Tommy Chipiarelli and Doc Schissel would eventually spell them.

  As they eased past the conning tower, Dex fanned his lamp-beam back and forth, watching for anything that could mean trouble. Fouled cables, anchor chains, spilled ammunition, netting…there was simply no way to know what they might find.

  So Dex tried to expect the unexpected…

  “Okay,” he said. “Everybody stay in contact. Keep giving your position and anything you see.”

  “Moving down past the bridge and the con,” said Mike. “Looks clear.”

  “I’m on the foredeck. It’s a long-assed way to the bow,” said Kevin. “What’s going on here? The Nazis didn’t have anything this big.”

  “Or so we thought,” said Donnie, who’d been monitoring their progress through the conversation.

  “In case anybody’s interested, I just reached the bow tubes—I count eight torpedo ports. This thing was nasty.” That was Kevin.

  “Just reached the aft deck,” said Andy; his voice was lower, but not calm. “Something funny here…”

  Dex felt a tightening in his gut like something was grabbing and twisting—a sensation he hated because it made him feel helpless and scared, and there was no place for that kind of thinking when this deep.

  “What do you mean?” he said quickly. “Andy, you okay?”

  “Fine. No problem. It’s just that—”

  “What’s up, man?” said Kevin, who was floating some 200 feet away from the conning tower.

  “The aft deck,” said Andy. “It’s like…different. I’ve never seen anything like this.”

  “Hang on, Andy. Wave your lamp so we can see you,” said Dex. “Mike, come on. We’re coming down, okay?”

  “Hey what’s going on down there?” said Don. He sounded distant and helpless way up there in the bridge. “What’s the matter?”

  “I don’t know,” said Andy. “Wait till you see this. There’s no deck gun. Christ, there’s no deck, really…”

  Dex was going to ask him what the hell he was talking about when he caught Andy’s torchlight beam oscillating back and forth. A few flipper-kicks and he was drifting over to his position.

  That’s when he could see for himself.

  Floating just beyond the trailing edge of the bridge and the con, Dex saw the deck of the U-boat beneath him. As he looked aft, the deck seemed to be swelling up, expanding into the general shape of a Quonset hut.

  “See what I mean?” said Andy.

  “Looks like a hump-backed whale,” said Mike.

  “What does?” said Don. “What’re you guys talking about?”

  “I’m coming back there.” That was Kevin, who sounded bored of hanging off the bow tubes and probably feeling isolated and more than a little useless.

  Dex and the others began to drift back over the swollen hull of the sub, looking for anything that might give them a clue as to what they were actually looking at. It was definitely the oddest-looking WWII-vintage sub he’d ever seen. There didn’t appear to be any outward breaches. No sign of any kind of damage. If the sub had taken a hit, it had to have been in the section settled into the sand and mud of the Bay’s bottom. As they worked their way toward the boat’s tail fins, the large hump on its back gradually tapered down, following the lines of the hull.

  “What’s it look like to you?” said Andy. “Is it a tanker?”

  Dex exhaled, drew a breath. “I have no idea. If it is, it’s more than twice the size of the regular ‘milk-cows’ they used. The shape looks like it’s definitely part of the hull. Not just some weird add-on.”

  “Strangest-looking sub I’ve ever seen,” said Mike. “Not that I’ve seen a lot of them—especially this close-up…”

  “Hey Donnie, you there?”

  “Yeah, I’m up here twisting in the wind. Would you guys mind telling me what’s going on? What’s so freaking weird?”

  “In a minute,” said Dex. “But before I forget, make sure either Doc or Tommy brings down the videocam. Even though it’s murky, we’ll try to get a record of this, okay?”

  “Gotcha,” said Don. “I’ll tell ’em. Now will somebody please—”

  Mike started giving him details of what they were all looking at as Kevin joined them. Dex had just checked his SPG, his submersible pressure gauge; he was running low on air. He and Mike only had a few more minutes of safe time, and he tapped him on the shoulder and pointed at the gauge.

  Nodding, Mike held up his index finger. “Yeah, I just checked mine too. Hate to leave just when it’s getting good.”

  “We’ll be back,” said Dex, sensing something drawing close to him from behind.

  Turning slowly, he saw Kevin Cheever in his lime green dry-suit slowly gliding toward them, the beam of his lamp probing the dim water between them.

  “Hey, guys, make room for Papa. It was lonely down at the other end…” He paused as he drifted up to Dex’s right shoulder, close enough at last to see what they’d found. “Holy shit…what the hell is this thing?”

  “You know what I think it is,” said Andy. “I think it’s some kind of secret weapon…something we never knew about.”

  “Sounds possible,” said Kevin. “The German’s had jet fighters near the end of the war.”

  “Well,” said Mike, speaking in his slow, thoughtful-math-professor tones. “If they didn’t want anybody to know about it, I’d say they succeeded…”

  “Okay, Mike and I’ve gotta get topside,” said Dex. “Remember the safety regs, okay guys? We don’t want any trouble down here. Don’t do anything risky. It’s going to take a little time to get familiar with what we’re dealing with, right?”

  Kevin gave him a thumbs-up.

  “And nobody gets any crazy ideas about going inside this thing—not y
et, anyway.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” said Andy, sounding impatient as ever.

  Dex waved as he headed back to the safeline with Mike. After Dex pulled the right numbers from his Cochran, a tiny decompression computer, they began their slow ascent. Since they were just below the depths where excess nitrogen could build up in their bloodstreams, their ascent was not all that slow. As they did this, Dex considered the possibilities implied in their discovery.

  If nothing else, they were in for a bit of adventure. But there could also be some notoriety, maybe a few minutes on the Discovery Channel, and maybe even a little money…

  But one thing was bugging him.

  He couldn’t stop wondering why there was no record of any subs this big, or with this shape. Could it be a fake? Not very likely. Who would go to all that trouble? What was that huge aft-section all about? It almost looked like a modern-day “boomer,” which was the Navy’s nickname for the big Triton-class missile subs.

  Could the Nazis have been that slick?

  Dex intended to find out…

  Chapter Five

  Don Jordan

  Chesapeake Bay, May 8, The Present

  Don Jordan loved being a dive boat captain, and he owed his happiness and self-employed status to Dex McCauley, who’d urged him to take the risk in the first place.

  Don knew Dex’s story from lot’s of nights and lots of beers in the local bars. At forty-two, Dex had already done a whole lot of living. After joining the Navy at eighteen, he’d pulled a twenty-year hitch in Naval Underwater Rescue and Recovery. He retired with a Master Sergeant’s pay and an expert-rating in every kind of diving you could imagine. While he’d been with plenty of women, he’d ended up marrying one that hated him pretty quick and took off with a slob who had a normal job selling car insurance. Thankfully there’d been no kids. Not much family—that he ever talked about anyway. He’d been an independent sort most of his life, and with his Navy pension in place, he didn’t really care if he did any business or not. Which is probably why he’d prospered with his little dive shop called Barnacle Bill’s—where he met Don.

  And it didn’t take him long to make friends with a lot of his customers because most people were attracted to his easy smiles and his totally relaxed manner. He was tall and rangy, with deeply set eyes and a face that was all angles and planes. Going gray a little early didn’t show much in his buzz-cut, and it made him look as tough as he was. Dex was the kind of guy who spoke softly, but with a confident authority in his voice. When he talked to you about a subject—whether it was history, politics, travelling, or even something dopey like the history of art—you knew he was going to give you the straight scoop.

  In fact, when Don thought about it, Dex was one of those guys who knew a little bit about just about everything.

  And, it wasn’t long before his customers started bugging him to offer diving classes. Dex liked the idea, and when he set up a whole slate of classes for every level of experience, he asked Don to be his captain.

  Don jumped at the opportunity. Adding diving classes and expeditions to his charter business would jack the profits to another level, and it promised to be more interesting than trolling lines around the Bay for six hours at a clip. He dumped the Maine Coaster for a real “crew boat,” which he and Dex found during a trip to the Gulf Coast to find the ideal craft.

  The Sea Dog had been built to take crews out to offshore oil rigs and had sported a steel 54-foot hull, reinforced superstructures, and two big, 872 Detroit diesels. She had a bold bridge and flying bridge in the foredeck and a long, open aft section that could be outfitted with a dive salon, machine shop, winches, or anything else they might need.

  When he took the Dog out for dive work, the guys from the Deep Six would all take up the slack and share any Mate’s duties. They all loved the boat, and they all felt at home on her.

  And he trusted them to do her up right.

  Funny thing about the dive club, though—as tight as they were, there couldn’t be a more different bunch of guys. As he sat by the Divelink base station, vicariously inspecting the wreckage just by listening in, he wondered how each of them would handle the discovery.

  Other than Dex, Don figured Kevin Cheever would be the coolest with it. Kevin had spent all his post-college days with electronics companies who fed regularly at the government contract troughs, packing the latest cyberware into fighter planes and warships. That was how he picked up cheap, obsolete surplus gear.

  Kevin was one of those smart guys with a real quiet, confident manner. He always reminded everybody there was only one thing that can go right when you’re diving—staying alive—and a hundred things that can go wrong.

  And as much as Kevin was always hammering that thought home, that’s as often as Andy Mellow seemed to ignore it—or at least chose not to think about. In his mid-forties, Andy was the principal at the high school in Newport, Maryland—a smallish Eastern Shore town where everybody knew him and he knew all of them. He was big, happy-go-lucky kind of guy looking for something pick up the pace from his auto-pilot job in public education.

  “What’s the latest down there?” said a voice from behind him. No need to turn around, Don recognized Larry “Doc” Schissel, who’d come from the other cabin in the bridge where he’d been tapping out queries on the laptop computer’s wireless satellite modem. He was wearing the top of a bright orange drysuit and a Speedo. Larry was tall and gangly, going gray but avoiding the middle age paunch that was rapidly pushing Don from a size 36 to 38 and beyond.

  “Dex’s on his way up with Mike,” said Don. “Should be on deck any minute now.”

  “Guess I better finish suiting up,” said Doc.

  “Yeah, I bet you wanna get down there and take a look.”

  Doc smiled. “You just wouldn’t understand, Donnie, but you’re right.”

  Don shook his head. “No, no, this time I’m not kidding around. I get what you guys’re talkin’. I can feel it. This time it’s…different.”

  “Yeah,” said Doc. “I think you’re right. I feel it too.”

  “How’s Tommy? He ready?” said Don, referring to Doc’s dive-buddy for the day.

  Doc had this way of smiling, and chuckling through his teeth kind of at the same time. He did it as he shook his head slowly. “Yeah, he’s twisted up tighter than an old clockspring. He’s been down there pacing the deck in full gear.”

  “I know. I saw him.” Don paused. Then: “Doesn’t it bother you a little bit that Tommy’s not exactly…oh, I don’t know…the, ah…safest guy you want to be down there with?”

  Doc looked thoughtfully at him, stopped grinning. “Just between you and me—sure it bothers me, but I figure I’m never going down depending on the other guy anyway—even if it’s Dex. I gotta make sure I take care of myself.”

  “Yeah, I think you got that one right.”

  “Hey, I better get going…”

  Doc checked his watch, waved before he turned and left the bridge, heading down to the main deck where all their gear was stowed. Don liked Doc Schissel a lot. He was one of those very smart guys who was so shy, it took a while to realize what he was thinking and how much he knew about things. Sometimes, when Dex and the math-genius Bielski and Doc would start talking about something weird like cryptozoology or the Big Bang theory, Don wouldn’t have any idea what they were talking about, but it was still fun just listening to them.

  Larry Schissel had become one of the most popular family doctors in the town of Newport where Andy’s high school was situated. They’d gotten paired up at a charity golf event, started talking as they carted around the course and became friends. Andy started talking about scuba offhandedly, and the more he talked, the more intrigued Larry had become. By the time the golf-round was over, Andy had convinced him to stop in at Barnacle Bill’s Dive Shop and check things out, maybe even show up at one of the club meetings and meet the gu
ys. Larry took him up on it, and it didn’t take long for him to realize he liked the chance to inject a little adventure into his life.

  “You can only diagnose so many cases of the flu before it starts to lose its challenge,” Larry had said with a wry smile.

  And Don remembered how Dex had been so excited to enlist a real doctor into the dive team. He never tried to soft-pedal the dangers of diving, and the need for every advantage you could chisel out of what he called “the Fates.” Life was like the ultimate casino, where you played your chips, taking chances every day. And Dex always said we all needed every extra chip in our stack we could grab. When you were underwater, that just gave you that much more of a chance to be coming back up for air.

  New equipment and always-improving technology was great stuff, but none of it could replace a trained physician in an emergency. So it was no surprise Dex fell all over himself to personally train Doc Schissel—who proved to be a quick study. Within a few months, he was the sixth guy on the team, and that’s when they started calling themselves The Deep Six.

  Sure, it was dopey. But they liked it that way.

  Don wondered what they’d call themselves if anybody else joined the club. Not that it mattered. They were a good bunch of guys and Don liked them all—except maybe for Tommy Chipiarelli.

  Well, that wasn’t exactly right.

  It wasn’t that Don didn’t like Tommy, it was more like he’d never been able to understand why he was so…so wired all the time. Transplanted from New York to the Baltimore City Fire Department, he was only thirty-two and like most guys just out of their twenties, believed he was going to live forever.

  Which was his biggest problem—he acted like it too. He drove a retro muscle car with big wide tires, and he was well-known throughout the BCFD. Tommy wore a silver ID bracelet from the Department which said: To Thomas A. Chipiarelli—For Heroic Service Beyond the Call of Duty. He’d racked up a ton of commendations in his ten years of service, but also had a pretty fair collection of reprimands for recklessness and a tendency to bend orders from his captain.