25

THE PACIFIC OCEAN SPREAD CLEAR AND FLAT, A PLAIN OF POLISHED GLASS under an empty sky. Mitch stood on the bow of the Grasp II, enjoying the view and the gentle breeze as the ship cut through the still air at five knots. The horizon was so sharp and distant that he thought he could see the slight curve of the Earth.

Or was it an optical illusion? Another sailor had once said any curve in the horizon was so slight that it couldn’t be seen. Mitch had nothing better to do, so he decided to test that claim. He fished a piece of paper out of his pocket, smoothed it out, and held it a foot from his face with the corners touching the rim of the ocean. Then he stared over the center, trying to decide whether he could see a sliver of dark blue above the paper. There it was. No, one corner had slipped down a hair below the horizon. Now there was nothing but bright sky above the blurry white of the paper. Was he holding it too high?

After ten minutes, he gave up and looked for something else to do. He had a lot more free time on this trip than he had expected.

He had thought he would be down below working with Ed Granger on the search for Nazi treasure. But after one busy day getting the ROV, sidescan sonar, and dive equipment ready, he was suddenly a fifth wheel.

Jenkins had pulled Mitch aside and told him the “good news” that David Cho would be working with Ed, which would give Mitch plenty of time to “relax” and “kick back.” Nothing against Mitch, of course. The passengers just wanted Cho, that was all. They insisted that he was good at this sort of thing, whatever Ed might say. Ed had said plenty, of course, but it hadn’t changed anything.

So Mitch watched the ship’s scratchy collection of James Bond DVDs for the dozenth time. He fished out the old Nintendo console in the lounge and played Super Mario Bros. until he had rescued Princess Peach twice. He stared at the horizon. And through it all he chafed at not being down below with Ed, surrounded by monitors, keyboards, and joysticks— all feeding him dozens of types of information. He knew more about the ocean bottom sitting in his battered old swivel chair than a diver on sea floor. That’s where the action was. And Mitch was shut out.

Well, he’d know soon enough. They had reached the search area three days ago. They had deployed the sidescan sonar and the sensor arrays, and now they were slowly sailing back and forth in long sweeps criss-crossing a jagged undersea mountain range with roots miles below on the ocean floor and peaks just a few hundred feet below the surface.

Mitch walked over to the railing and looked down into the small bow waves. The Nazi treasure sub must be down there somewhere among those rocks. They would have been running silent and deep to avoid American destroyers and anti-sub planes. Their sonar would have been off, and they would have been relying on charts to navigate. The German sailors wouldn’t have had any warning. They would have been working, eating, sleeping, and playing cards over coffee. Then a sudden shock and water roared in. Maybe they were crushed to death or maybe they had time to drown.

Mitch crossed himself unconsciously, a habit he had picked up from his Mexican mother. Salvaging a shipwreck, especially one filled with bones, always made him uncomfortable. It hit too close to home.

“Hey, I’ve been looking all over for you.”

He turned and saw Ed Granger coming toward him. Ed was breathing heavily and his low forehead was damp. He hauled his fireplug frame up a short flight of steps and tugged at Mitch’s arm. “Come on!”

Mitch saw the excitement in his friend’s eyes. “You found it?”

“Maybe. I found something that’s about the right size and shape. Don’t wanna jinx it, but…”

“That’s great! So, when are we sending Eileen down?” Envy stabbed him as he suddenly remembered. “Or, I mean, when are you sending her down?”

Ed laughed and punched him in the arm a little harder than was necessary. Mitch was about to complain, but the words came tumbling out of Ed. “It’s we, buddy! That’s why I was looking for you. As soon as I saw it on the sidescan, Lee says, ‘You must send down the ROV at once.’ So I say, ‘Yeah, right. No way I’m sending it into a wreck without Mitch backing me up.’ And Lee says, ‘You have Mr. Cho.’ Then I tell him, ‘That’s not good enough. Not with a wreck. Do you know how many things can go wrong? We lose the ROV down there and we’re done. D-O-N-E. We can turn around and head back home. I do this with Mitch or I don’t do it at all.’ ”

“Thanks, man! So they agreed with you?”

“No, they called Jenkins and wanted him to order me to do it with Cho. Jenkins turns to me and says, ‘If I order you, you’ll just disobey, right?’ And I say, ‘You think?’ So he tells Lee, ‘If he does that, I’ll have to confine him to quarters and the ROV still won’t go down. You’d better let him use Daniels.’ Then they jabber away in Korean for a while. And then they said yes.”

Mitch felt a warm glow in his chest. He grinned. “I’ll try not to screw anything up.”

Ed snorted. “Oh, you’ll screw up, down, and sideways. You always do. But you’ll be better than Cho.”