18
KURT FOUND THE FIRST
SEVENTY-TWO HOURS as chaperone of the sea to be twice as bad as
he’d expected. No, he thought, that was an understatement, it was
at least three times as bad as he’d feared.
Every group of
researchers wanted special treatment, every group seemed to
question the rules and his decisions, even his
authority.
A team from Iceland
insisted that an experiment by one of the Italian groups would
interfere with the baseline data they were trying to collect. A
Spanish group had been caught trying to plant a flag on the tower
of rock in strict contravention of the agreed-to plan. And while
Kurt found their boldness somewhat endearing, the Portuguese were
ready to duke it out over the incident. He half expected pistols at
dawn, the way they spoke.
Meanwhile, the
Chinese were complaining about the presence of three Japanese teams, to which the Japanese
responded that the Chinese didn’t need anyone there as they would
just steal all the data in a cyberattack once it was downloaded
anyway.
Dealing with enough
squabbling to make the UN jealous was not the only problem. Along
with Joe and the rest of the Argo’s
crew, Kurt also had to act as lifeguard.
Most of the science
teams had only rudimentary training in the ways of the sea, either
on the surface or below. Two of the teams had already collided
head-on. Their small boats suffered only minor damage, but it was
enough to send them back to Santa Maria for repairs.
Others had issues
diving. One team narced itself by using the wrong mixture, and two
of the Argo’s rescue divers had to
corral them before they lost consciousness. Another member of a
different team had to be forced to take a decompression stop he
didn’t think necessary, and a French scientist almost drowned when
an inexperienced divemaster put too much weight on the man’s belt
and he sank to the bottom like a stone.
In full gear, Kurt
and Joe dove down and rescued the scientist, only to surface and
find another team with an engine fire aboard their rented vessel.
It was enough to make Kurt wish they’d never found the damn tower
in the first place.
As the sun began to
head over the yardarm, the day’s madness seemed to be winding down.
Most of the smaller boats were heading back in toward Santa Maria.
Kurt guessed the bars would fill up quickly, and stories would be
tossed around, growing more extravagant with each telling. Or
perhaps not. He wasn’t really sure what scientists did with their
spare time. Maybe they would plot against one another all night and
come out in the morning ready to cause him and Joe more
headaches.
Either way he was
already regretting his decision to play umpire when he stepped out
onto the Argo’s starboard bridgewing
and spotted a 50-foot black-hulled trawler he hadn’t seen
before.
“You recognize that
one?” he asked Joe.
Joe squinted off into
the distance. “Wasn’t here this morning.”
“I didn’t think so,”
Kurt replied. “Get the Zodiac ready.”
FIVE MINUTES LATER,
Kurt, Joe, and two men from the Argo’s
crew were skipping across the light swells, headed for the trawler.
They reached it and circled it once.
“You see anyone on
board?” Kurt asked.
Joe shook his
head.
“You know,” Joe said,
“technically, this boat’s outside the exclusivity
zone.”
“Come again?” Kurt
said.
“We’re three-quarters
of a mile from the tower,” Joe said. “The exclusive zone is a mile
in diameter. Technically, this boat’s outside that. We’re only
supposed to have authority over vessels, divers, and submersibles
inside that radius.”
Kurt looked at Joe
oddly. “Who made that rule?”
“I did.”
“When did you start
becoming a bureaucrat?”
Zavala shrugged, a
wry smile on his face. “You put me at the big desk and tell me to
take charge, these kind of things are going to
happen.”
Kurt almost laughed.
Governor Joe.
“Well, if you’re in
charge, let’s widen that circle.”
“We need a quorum,”
Joe said.
“Did that boxer hit
you harder than I thought?” Kurt asked.
Joe shook his head
and looked at the crewmen. “All in favor of enlarging the
observation zone say aye.”
Kurt and the other
two crewmen said aye simultaneously.
“The rule is duly
changed,” Joe said.
Kurt tried hard not
to laugh. “Great. Now get us aboard that boat.”
On board the trawler
they found maps, diving gear, and some type of paper with Cyrillic
lettering on it.
“It’s Russian,” Kurt
said. “We have any Russian teams registered?”
Joe shook his head.
“We got papers from their Science Ministry requesting information,
but no one signed up.”
“Looks like they came
anyway.”
Kurt moved to the
rear of the small boat. A long anchor had been thrown out. There
was no flag up, but Kurt was pretty sure a diver had gone down that
chain. He noticed a pair of shoes by the dive ladder.
“Only one pair of
shoes,” he noted.
“Someone went down
alone,” Joe guessed.
Diving alone was
crazy enough; leaving no one on the boat up above was even crazier.
A little wind, a little change in the current, or the arrival of an
opportunistic pirate or two, and you could surface to find yourself
lost and alone in the ocean.
“Look at this,” the
Argo’s crewman said, pointing to a
video screen.
Kurt turned. On the
monitor was a murky scene being broadcast from an underwater
camera.
“Could it be live?”
Kurt asked.
“It looks that way,”
the crewman said, examining the setup.
Kurt studied the
screen. The dark water and swirling sediment were obvious as the
camera maneuvered in what looked to be a confined space. He saw
metallic walls and equipment.
“Whoever it is,
they’ve gone inside one of the wrecks,” Joe said.
“Unbelievable,” Kurt
said. Short of antagonizing a group of sharks, wreck diving was
about the most dangerous thing you could do underwater. He could
not believe someone would try it alone.
“This person is far
too stupid to be in our exclusivity zone.”
Joe laughed and
nodded.
Kurt pointed to a
second set of tanks. “Are those charged?”
Joe checked the
gauge. “Yep.”
“I’m going down,”
Kurt said.
A minute later Kurt
was in the water, breathing the compressed air and kicking with
long strokes as he made his way down the chain. Approaching the
bottom, he saw a pinpoint of light and angled toward
it.
Whoever it was,
they’d gone into the downed Constellation. Considering that the
middle of the plane was broken open like a cracked egg, that didn’t
seem so reckless. But the movements of the camera had seemed odd,
and as he stared at the shaking beam of light he wondered if the
diver was in some kind of trouble.
Kicking harder, he
made it to aircraft’s triple tail. The cone of light from inside
the fuselage continued moving in a random pattern.
He swam to the break
in the aircraft’s skin. The light was coming from the forward
section. The random movements made Kurt think it might be floating
loose. He feared he was about to find a dead diver, one who’d run
out of oxygen but whose light, probably attached to his arm by a
lanyard, still had battery power and was floating around above him
like a helium balloon on a string.
He eased inside,
working his way around tangled insulation and bent sheet metal.
Clouds of sediment wafted from the front of the plane, and the
oddly moving beam pierced the darkness, faded, and then came
through again.
Kurt swam toward it.
Emerging through the cloud of silt, he found a diver digging
voraciously, twisting and pulling frantically. The flashlight was
attached to the diver’s belt.
He reached out and
put a hand on the diver’s shoulder. The figure spun, swinging a
knife toward him.
Kurt saw the blade
flash in the reflected light. He blocked the diver’s arm and then
twisted it, dislodging the knife. Bubbles from both regulators
filled the cabin. Combined with the swirling sediment and the
waving light, they made it difficult to see.
The knife tumbled
through the water and disappeared. Kurt held the diver’s right arm
in a wristlock. His other arm shot forward, grabbing the diver by
the neck. He was about to rip the diver’s mask off—a classic
underwater fighting technique—when he saw that the diver was a
young woman, and her eyes were filled with panic and
fear.
He released her and
held up a hand with his fingers spread. Calm
down.
The woman nodded but
remained rigid. She motioned toward her feet.
Kurt looked down.
Somehow she’d gotten her leg caught between a twisted part of the
fuselage and some equipment. A jagged cut in the sheet metal marked
her attempts to saw through the metal with her knife. It didn’t
look like she’d gotten very far.
Kurt had a better
idea. He sank down, wedged his back to the skin of the fuselage,
and placed both feet on the attached equipment box. With all the
strength in his back and legs, he pushed against the metal box. He
expected it to snap and break loose, but instead it bent just
enough.
The woman pulled her
foot out and immediately began rubbing her ankle. When she looked
up, Kurt put his index finger and thumb together, making a
circle—the universal OK symbol. Are you
okay?
She
nodded.
Next he brought his
two index fingers together parallel and then looked at her
questioningly.
She shook her head.
Apparently, she wasn’t diving with a buddy.
Just as he
thought.
He pointed at her
sharply and then made the thumbs-up signal.
She hesitated and
then nodded reluctantly. Grabbing her light, she began to swim out
of the aircraft. Kurt took a last look around and then
followed.
After a decompression
stop for her, they broke the surface together a few yards from her
boat. She swam to it and climbed in first. Kurt
followed.
Joe and one of the
Argo’s crewmen remained aboard to
welcome them.
The woman removed her
mask, pulled back the head covering on her wet suit, and shook out
her hair. She didn’t look happy to have boarders. Kurt didn’t
care.
“You must be out of
your mind to make a dive like that on your own.”
“I’ve been diving
alone for ten years,” she said.
“Yeah,” he said. “You
spend a lot of time exploring sunken wrecks?”
She grabbed a towel,
dried her face, and then looked back at him defensively. “Who are
you to be telling me what to do? And what are you doing on my boat
anyway?”
Joe puffed up his
chest, about to launch into an explanation. Kurt beat him to it.
“Our job is to make sure you scientists don’t drown or infringe on
the rules we set up. You seem to be doing both, so we came to check
you out,” he said. “This boat isn’t even registered as part of the
study. You want to tell us the reason?”
“I don’t have to
register with you,” she said smugly. “I’m outside your official
zone. Outside of your jurisdiction, as you Americans like to
say.”
Kurt glanced at Joe.
“Not anymore,” he said, turning back to the woman. “We enlarged
it.”
“We even had a vote
and everything,” Joe added.
She looked from Kurt
to Joe and then back again. “Typical American arrogance,” she said.
“Changing the rules to suit you whenever the need
arises.”
Kurt could almost
understand that sentiment, except she was missing an important
fact. He grabbed the pressure gauge on her tank and turned it over.
As he suspected, she was well into her reserve air.
“Typical Russian
stubbornness,” he replied. “Getting angry at the people who just
saved your life.”
He showed her the
gauge.
“You had less than
five minutes of air left.”
Her eyes focused on
the gauge, and Kurt let it drop. She reached out and took it in her
hand, studying it for a long moment.
“You should be glad
we’re so arrogant,” he said.
She let the gauge go
gently and looked up. He could see her jaw clench, though he wasn’t
sure if it was out of embarrassment or anger. “You’re right,” she
said finally, taking a more subdued tone. “I am . . . appreciative.
I was just . . .”
She stopped and
focused on Kurt, and whatever she was about to say she replaced it
with a simple “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,”
Kurt said.
He noticed a change
in her demeanor, even a hint of a smile on her face. “You are the
ones in charge here?” she asked.
“Unfortunately,” Kurt
replied.
“I’m Katarina
Luskaya,” she said. “I’m here on behalf of my country. I would like
to talk to you about this discovery.”
“You can register
with the liaison officer in the—”
“I was thinking more
like talking tonight,” she said, focused on Kurt. “Perhaps over
dinner?”
Joe rolled his eyes.
“Here we go. The Austin charm in full effect.”
Kurt was too busy for
this. “You’ve seen too many movies, Ms. Luskaya. There’s not much I
can tell you anyway.”
She stood up,
unzipping the top half of her suit, exposing a bikini top that
accentuated her curves and an athlete’s midrift.
“Perhaps there’s
something I can tell you,” she said. “Since you are in charge, I
have some information you might be interested in.”
“You’re
serious?”
“Very,” she said.
“And, besides, we all have to eat. Why should we do it
alone?”
“So we’re all going?”
Joe asked.
Kurt cut his eyes at
Joe.
“Maybe not,” Joe
said. “Lots of paperwork to do anyhow.”
Kurt doubted the
woman had any information of value, but he admired her blatant
attempt to get him alone and no doubt see what information he might
have.
It suddenly dawned on
Kurt that if there was even the slightest chance that something
important could be learned from Ms. Luskaya, well, then it really
was his duty to find out.
“You’re staying in
Santa Maria?” he guessed.
She nodded, and Kurt
turned to Joe.
“I trust you guys can
make it back to the Argo on your
own?”
“And if we can’t?”
Joe said.
“Then signal for
help,” Kurt said, smiling.
Joe nodded
reluctantly and motioned toward the Zodiac. The Argo’s crewmen climbed aboard and Joe followed,
muttering something about “shirking responsibilities” as he
went.
Kurt looked at the
young woman. “Do you have a car in town?”
She smiled.
“Mmm-hmm,” she said. “And I know just the place to take
you.”