He kicked his fins and swam alongside the hull heading forward and descending deeper. The wreck rested on a sandy slope that fell away into blue black water. There was no grass or coral on the sea floor, but from under the wreck small schools of fish flashed past him in their panic at having a visitor after all these years.

The forward gun turret had been ripped open. The gun barrels that once protruded there were now long gone, and the upper deck revealed a huge gaping hole. Cole wondered if it had been the sub’s own ammunition that had caused the damage. Forward of the hole the deck ran intact for several more feet before the entire forward section of the submarine had been ripped open. The bow section now hung by what looked like a combination of steel cables and thin pieces of twisted metal. The incline increased so rapidly there, the bottom fell away and the forward piece hung unsupported over the crevasse.

Much as he wanted to swim around the bow opening and look into the interior where that section had been cut away, Cole had little time to explore. Riley and Priest could be arriving at any minute. If he didn’t have something to bargain with, Priest would kill them all. In fact, he probably planned to do that anyway. But if Cole had proof of Operation Magic in his hands, they might have a chance.

Cole saw that there were two options for entering the sub. Either down the hole in the deck where the rest of the gun turret had once stood, or through the gaping opening of the fractured hull forward. Both options could be deadly traps. The greatest danger in wreck diving like this was the possibility of getting hung up inside the wreck, with a piece of equipment or a foot or hand snared on some debris or pinched in a too-narrow opening. And he had no buddy diver to free him from a snag.

Cole thought back to the plans of the sub he had studied for months. The captain’s cabin was located two decks below the conning tower. He would need to get down here, through this black hole in the deck. He shone his dive light down, but the jagged metal sections were all uneven and they cast shadows making it difficult to make out what was below. He turned to Enigma and signed to the video camera that he was going to enter the wreck there.

He knew that beneath the gun turret there had once been a walk-in refrigeration locker for food and beneath that, a storage area for artillery shells. When he swam down into the hole, he saw a large compartment open up and judging from the debris scattered about, plastic pails and boxes, he guessed it was the walk-in fridge. The deck beneath that was intact and at the forward end of the compartment, he could make out a dark hole that went deeper into the hull. That would have been the elevator for transferring the shells from the ammo compartment below up to the big guns on deck. It appeared the ammo below decks had not exploded. Maybe the explosion had come only from the shells that were already in the gun turret. Thinking back to Michaut’s story of the French captain watching the planes approach, Cole thought it likely he had told his men to arm all the deck guns.

Cole needed to get to the next deck down, but he wasn’t going to try to pass through that elevator shaft.

He shone his light around the gloomy compartment and he noticed that with each stroke of his fins, he was disturbing the organic matter that formed a thick layer over the top of the debris. Thick clouds floated up obscuring his visibility. Soon, he would be able to see nothing. He stopped pumping his legs and floated turning himself with small hand movements.

Behind him, Enigma sank down into the hole. When she was low enough, her lights lit the compartment much better than his hand light and on the far side he saw an opening. He slowly paddled in that direction and as he neared, he saw that the explosion must have blown the door off the opposite side of the refrigeration compartment.

He reached the door frame, but he was blocking the ROV’s lights. Cole moved aside, reached back and grabbed the PVC frame, pulling Enigma closer so the lights could shine into the opening. The compartment lit up like a museum diorama. A giant grouper floated above the heavy refrigerator door that rested on the floor of the compartment at skewed angle. The big fish stared at him unafraid. The steel door half covered the black opening in the deck. Cole could see the ladder that descended to the officers’ quarters below. Next to the opening, lying on the deck half under the thick steel door, were bones: the arm and skull of a human skeleton.

At that moment, the compartment went black. The lights blinked on again, then off, and then back on.

They’re here.

CHAPTER EIGHTY-SIX

From Fast Eddie to Shadow Chaser

March 31, 2008

9:32 a.m.

Riley slowed the racing powerboat and brought her alongside Shadow Chaser. Dig grabbed the rope ladder that hung on the side of the trawler. The gas engines were so loud, there was no way Cole and Theo hadn’t heard them coming, but no one appeared on deck. When she shut the engines down, Shadow Chaser seemed eerily quiet, aside from creaking as she rolled in the swell.

“You go up first,” Dig said. “And don’t ever make the mistake of thinking you’re faster or smarter than I am.”

She said nothing to that. She would show him when the time came. On the foredeck, she pulled out the bow line that she had tucked into the forward locker earlier and threw a couple of hitches around the foredeck cleat. Her head was pounding and her leg ached when she swung it over the bulwark and stepped onto the steel deck. Time was what she needed. Time to recoup some of her strength. To let him think she believed him when he said he was smarter and faster. She tied off the powerboat so it would drift back off the stern of the trawler. Dig wasn’t going anywhere until he had what he’d come for.

“Cole? Theo!” she called out.

“In here.” The mate’s voice came from the wheelhouse.

Behind her Dig climbed over the bulwark, his gun pointed at her back. “Go on,” he said.

Before they arrived at the wheelhouse, Dig grabbed her elbow with his injured arm and pulled her close. He pressed the gun barrel into her ribs. They rounded the corner together, and Dig stopped her outside the doorway.

Theo was standing in front of his array of screens, a small box with a joystick in his hands. He didn’t turn to look at them when he spoke. “Cole’s inside the sub.”

At Dig’s prodding, Riley stepped over the door sill and entered the wheelhouse with Dig attached to her side like an unwanted appendage. She looked at all the screens and could not make out which one was broadcasting video. “Where?”

Theo pointed. “That one.”

The screen showed a murky gray scene that she had mistaken for what on a television, people call ‘snow.’

“Can’t see much, can you?”

“We could a few minutes ago, but Cole just went down the ladder from the mess deck.”

“Geez,” she said. “He’s deep inside then.”

Theo nodded. “Enigma hasn’t caught up with him yet. There’s so much silt and biological matter down there, that every time Cole moves, he stirs up what looks like a dust cloud.”

“How did he get in?”

“One of the bombs from the American planes had blasted a hole in her. Took out the forward gun turret.”

Dig shifted back and forth from foot to foot, his grip on her arm growing tighter. “What are you talking about? Explain.”

Theo turned and looked at him as though realizing for the first time that he was there. Then he turned his gaze to Riley. “You’re bleeding,” he said.

She rubbed her free hand across her mouth and wiped it on her shorts. “I’m okay.”

Theo glanced down at the gun Dig held pressed against her side. “Is that necessary?”