Текст книги "Circle of Bones"

Автор книги: Christine Kling

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Текущая страница: 31 (всего у книги 32 страниц)

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?”

“Answer my question. What’s going on down there?” Dig lifted his head to indicate the monitor.

Theo turned back to face the monitor and Riley looked, too. They could now see what looked like rungs of a ladder scrolling up the screen.

“Cole is already inside the Surcouf. Our information indicates that the documents, if they still exist, are inside the captain’s cabin. That’s where he’s headed —”

The camera swung away from the ladder and panned around. It looked like a narrow hall or companionway. Several rounded doorways in the bulkhead looked as though they were built crooked – they were tilted at an angle. The camera jostled and revealed the overhead where pipes and wires ran fore and aft, and silvery bubbles from Cole’s scuba tank rolled around collecting into bigger bubbles like bits of mercury. The camera panned down and a small school of pale, colorless fish hovered in the second open door. Moments after the light hit them, they darted off in panic. A new saying, Riley thought: caught like fish in the headlights.

“Cole must be hand carrying Enigma,” Theo said, “using it as his light source.”

The camera glided though another doorway and this time a gloved hand appeared on the monitor, and it pointed toward a pile of debris coated with pale brown fur. Then they saw his backpack with the pair of air cylinders very close to the camera. His body glided across the compartment and hovered over the top of the debris, his fins not moving.

She knew the man on the screen was Cole, but she could not see his face. Silently, she pleaded with him. Turn around. I need to see you. To know you’re okay.

Theo pointed to another screen above the helm that showed the sonar image of the bottom and the clear outline of a portion of the submarine. “You can see that the sub is on a steep slope. It looks as though whatever was inside the cabin has collected on the low side.”

That explained why everything looked askew. Why it looked like the depth perception was off and it was so difficult to make out what they were looking at.

Moving slowly, so as not to disturb the film of growth and debris any more than was necessary, Cole lifted objects from the pile.

“He said he put the strongbox inside the captain’s desk,” Riley said.

“Who said this? What are you talking about?”

“James Thatcher,” she said, too late. She did not want Diggory to know about Henri Michaut. “He interviewed an old sailor who had once served on the Surcouf. He said that was where the captain kept important documents.”

“That doesn’t look much like a desk.”

On the screen, Cole lifted a brown blob of growth and brushed away the feathery tendrils. Though several barnacles remained, she could make out the shape of the once-white ceramic mug. She remembered Michaut saying that he and Woolsey had interrupted the captain’s dinner. Now, all these years later, Cole pushed the mug inside a string bag he had attached to his weight belt.

Every move Cole made caused the water to grow more cloudy. They saw all sorts of tiny sea creatures and particles float by close to the lens, reflecting the light, obscuring the view of the far side of the compartment.

Theo said, “I assume all furniture on a sub is bolted to the deck. There might be a desk under there, or we may be looking at the remains of clothing, bed clothes, a mattress. Or the wood might have rotted away or been eaten by worms.”

“It’s there,” Dig said.

“Do you even know what ‘it’ is?” she asked.

“Shut up,” Dig said. “You’re in no position to be asking questions, Riley.”

He jammed the gun harder against her ribs and she winced at the pain.

“I think he’s found something,” Theo said.

Dig pushed her and she stepped forward until her midriff was pressing against the wheelhouse dash. On the screen, it was difficult to make out what Cole was doing in the cloudy water.

Theo said, “I don’t dare try to move Enigma any closer. If I start up her little props, it will make the visibility worse.”

 Cole lifted a long flat plank. On top of it was a mass of some material, maybe the remains of clothing, maybe marine growth; it was difficult to tell on the small monitor. The piece he was lifting looked like it might have once been the desk top. Either it had broken in the explosion or the wood had rotted and the whole thing collapsed during the years it has spent on the sea bed. Cole got his head under the plank and using both hands, he withdrew something. His back was to the camera, and they could not see what he held in the shadow of his body.

Cole slid his head out from under the plank of wood and turned. In his gloved hands, he held a box.

“Oh my God,” she said, her voice a mere whisper.

 The plank drifted back down onto the pile of debris. Cole floated there holding the thing in front of his face mask, turning it over and examining it. There was almost no growth on the box, and though it was rusted, the metal deteriorated, it looked intact.

Cole swam closer to the camera and then, at last, she saw his eyes through the glass of his mask. He was looking at her, she was sure of it. Somehow, through the lens and camera and the more than a hundred feet of cable, he knew he was looking right into her eyes. She saw his lips curl up around the regulator as he held up the box with one hand. With his other hand, he made a big circle before pointing all his fingers at the box.

“What’s he doing?” Dig asked.

Theo sighed. “I think he’s playing Vanna White. It’s his way of saying you win.”

Cole reached forward and jostled the ROV.

“What’s he doing now?”

“He’s putting the box in Enigma’s steel cargo net. It’s the safest way to get it to the surface.”

Cole backed away from the camera and pointed toward the surface. She recognized what his hands were doing, but she couldn’t read it. He was signing letters.

“Theo?” she said. “What’s he saying?”

Theo glanced at Dig. “He said I’m supposed to tell the asshole he’s coming for him.”

Dig snorted. “Just get that box to the surface.”

Cole again disappeared from view, and they watched as the screen showed only the bluish cloudy water. Then the rungs of the ladder flashed past in the light again as Cole swam up pushing Enigma through the opening to the next deck.

The water was not quite as murky there. Once again, he appeared in front of the camera and began to sign.

“He’s saying that it’s okay now to use the Enigma’s own propulsion system.”

On the screen they saw Cole’s eyes widen. It looked as though someone were shaking the camera and the image of Cole wavered from side to side. He looked up and then to both sides. Debris lifted up and floated around him, and a human skull floated past in the cloudy water. Cole pulled the camera close to his face. They saw the bubbles from his regulator stream past the lens. His fingers started flashing.

“What’s happening?” she said.

“I don’t know,” Theo said, “but he’s signing your name.”

Cole’s body jerked like he’d been hit with something. The last image they saw on the screen was his hand, his pinkie and forefinger up, his thumb off to the side. It was the only sign Riley knew. It meant ‘I love you.’

“Cole?” she said.

The screen showed more water and debris rushing past, then one of the lights went out on the ROV and the image grew even darker. For a moment, it looked like the video camera was showing a metal part of the submarine, then the screen went black when they lost the feed.

“If this is some kind of trick,” Dig said.

Riley ignored him. “Theo?” She looked at the young man’s face. He was staring at the screen. His horrified expression was no act. “What’s going on? What’s happening?”

Theo continued to stare and she followed his gaze to the big monitor hanging over the helm.

It was the sonar screen, and it now showed only the sloping sea floor. The Surcouf was gone.

CHAPTER EIGHTY-SEVEN

Aboard the Shadow Chaser

March 31, 2008

10:27 a.m.

She could not breathe. How? Was it possible for a submarine to disappear? Where did it go? Maybe it was another of Cole’s pranks or better yet, part of Cole’s plan. Theo was good with electronics. It must be one of his tricks.

Riley turned to look at him, and Theo’s eyes told her it was no trick.

“I don’t understand,” she said.

Theo opened his mouth, then raised his hands and shook his head. “I don’t either. It’s a steep incline. Maybe when he moved that stuff inside, it was enough to shift the wreck –”

“You know the layout better than I do,” she said. “The exit – how close was he? He could have gotten out, right?”

Theo kept staring at the screen. “It’s possible. It will take him ten to fifteen minutes to get to the surface.”

Dig yanked her arm and pulled her toward the wheelhouse door. “Bring up that camera. I’ve got to get that box.”

She struggled against his grip. “No.”

He shoved her through the door.

That was when she saw it. The gray, cauliflower-shaped cloud was visible over the top of the island of Guadeloupe. It was the shape of it that stopped her.  Unlike any cloud she had ever seen before. Riley grabbed the rail and blocked the way aft. “Theo,” she called. “Come look.”

The young man appeared behind Dig and the three of them stood there watching the cloud grow. Theo was the first to say it. “Montserrat. The volcano.”

Riley saw smoke from several fires on the island of Guadeloupe. She swung her head back and forth. “What’s happening there?” She pointed to the smoke.

“It could have been a major seismic event,” Theo said. “We wouldn’t feel it on the water.”

Dig said, “I don’t give a damn about what’s happening on the island. Bring up that box.”

The VHF radio back in the wheelhouse erupted with voices speaking in rapid French.

“What are they saying?” Theo asked.

Riley listened. People were talking at once, stepping on one another’s transmissions. One woman was screaming in incomprehensible Creole.

“Someone just said several buildings have collapsed in Pointe-à-Pitre,” she said. “My God, Theo. An earthquake. If he’s trapped –” She could not finish the sentence.

Theo turned on the FM radio. There was only static. “Power must be down on the island. That’s why everyone is on the VHF.”

 Riley said, “Now they’re asking for all emergency personnel to report for duty, and any people with medical training to go to the city to treat the injured.”

Theo tapped the scan button. “I think I can pick up a Dominica station here.”

A British accented voice began speaking through the static. “The Soufrière Hills volcano on the island of Montserrat has erupted with an unprecedented explosion causing more than half of the lava dome to collapse. The ash and steam plume is visible for miles. While here on Dominica, we felt a morning tremor, reports are coming in of a more severe earthquake on the French island of Guadeloupe.”

Theo tucked his tablet computer under his arm and pushed past them. He trotted back to the big spool on the after deck and hit a switch with the palm of his hand. An electric motor hummed and the cable began to reel in.

Dig pushed Riley ahead and they followed. When they got to the rail on the afterdeck, she searched the surface for signs of bubbles. Cole, tell me you’re okay. You’re going to surface in a minute and we’ll laugh, right? Each time she saw something that looked like it might be a diver’s bubbles, hope rose in her chest, but then the water would turn smooth again, the disturbance nothing more than a wind wave.

She would know it if he were dead, wouldn’t she? She’d known something was wrong when Michael died, and he had been across an ocean. Not under one. Mikey, help me. Help me find him. Tell me he’s all right. 

Theo stopped the winch.

“Why are you stopping?” Dig asked.

“It’s a long shot, but Cole might have attached himself to the ROV. We bring him up too fast, and he’ll get the bends.”

Dig raised the gun and pressed the barrel against the side of Riley’s head. “You reel that in right now, or I’ll shoot her.”

“Theo, don’t —”

“Riley, look, so far, the cable’s intact. If Enigma made it out, there’s hope Cole did, too. He may be down there decompressing right now.”

Then where are his bubbles, she wanted to ask.

“Stop talking and bring it up.” Dig twisted away from her and trained the gun downward. She jumped at the boom when it went off.

Theo howled, his voice rising at the end as though in a question. He hopped a couple of times on one foot, his back arched, his face twisted in pain. He lifted his foot and examined the shoe. Blood dripped from a hole on the little toe side of his sneaker.

“Don’t argue with me, boy.”

Theo stared at Dig, the whites of his eyes huge behind his glasses, his lips pressed together as though he were forcing his mouth to stay shut.

Far across the water, Riley saw a sportfishing boat headed toward them. Stay away, she wanted to say. There is a crazy man here, and he is likely to shoot all of us before this day is done.

After that first cry, Theo didn’t make another sound. He hit the button and the crane started up again. The three of them stood silent at the rail watching the black, snake-like cable emerge dripping and glistening in the sunlight. To the northwest, over the island, the ash cloud grew like a brain coral recorded on time-lapse photography. It spread toward them coating the blue dome overhead with its gray pall.

Finally, the bright yellow of the PVC pipe appeared a few feet below the surface. There was no diver, either alive or dead, attached to the ROV. Where are you Cole? Please tell me you’re hanging on the anchor chain hatching some crazy plan. 

The Enigma no longer looked like a cute little toy. The yellow pipes were broken, mangled. Riley remembered how proud Cole had been when he had shown it to her during their first passage down to Dominica and the Indian River. The device now looked like it had been hit by a truck, or more precisely, dragged out of a wreck.

Theo hit the button to stop the crane before the device was halfway out of the water. “There’s something in the cargo net,” he said.

“Bring it up on deck,” Dig said.

“I can’t. The cable can’t support the weight of it. It breaks and it will all sink. Somebody needs to get in the water to attach the line from the crane.”

“I think I can do it from the Fast Eddie,” Riley said. She wanted to get down closer to the water to look for Cole.

“Good idea.”

“You’re not going anywhere without me,” Dig said.

She gave him a curt nod. “Let me untie the painter.” He released his grip on her arm, and she stepped back to the cleat. She handed the line to Theo, and he pulled the black speedboat alongside the rope ladder. Riley climbed down and Dig followed, struggling to hold onto the ladder. When he stepped onto the deck, he pulled the sling off over his head. She saw where blood had stained the left side of his shirt.

Meanwhile, Theo swung the crane out over the water. Out on the boat’s foredeck, she scanned the Shadow Chaser’s waterline. No sign of him. She reached up and grabbed the shackle dangling from the crane.

“Got it,” she called. She pulled on the line and walked aft, then jumped down into the cockpit so she would be able to reach the Enigma where it bobbed at the surface. Once the shackle was secured, she gave Theo a thumbs up and the crane motor hummed.

Dig pushed her aside as the mangled ROV rose dripping out of the water. He swung it over the powerboat’s after deck, and Theo reversed the crane. Over Dig’s shoulder, she saw a flash of white. The ceramic mug. She smelled the sharp, acrid odor she always associated with low tide. Dig reached into the steel mesh bag that was slung beneath the ballast tanks, and he withdrew the white mug. She saw his hand go up into the air, and she held her breath. Two other men had touched that artifact before Dig – Cole and the captain of the Surcouf. She saw his hand fly past as he threw the mug to the deck where it exploded into sharp white shards.

She felt as if something in her broke, too. She looked at Dig’s back. He had tucked the gun into his front waistband and he was using both hands to tug at whatever was still in the cargo net. She looked around for a weapon. Most sailboats or fishing boats at least had a winch handle or a gaff or a dive knife – but on this ocean racer, she saw nothing. As she searched every inch of the deck, desperate for something she could pull loose to hit him with, she spotted the fire extinguisher in a bracket next to the helm.

Dig swore and she turned back to look at him. The box was in the net, but he couldn’t get it out. The clasp had snagged on the steel mesh.

Riley popped the latch and pulled the white cylinder free from the bracket. Her attention was drawn back to the sportfishing boat that was still heading straight for them. The boat rode a huge creamy bow wave as it churned through the water closing on them.

Dig uttered a high-pitched cry and the box broke free. He staggered backwards, clutching the box to his chest.

In a flash, Riley saw Michael and her father and Hutch and the box she had carried to the Marine house years ago. She raised the fire extinguisher and swung it straight for Dig’s head. At the last second, his eyes flicked her way and he pushed forward into her. The extinguisher bounced off his back and clattered to the deck. She heard him grunt with pain before his head rammed into her midsection, and they both went down on the deck. Riley cracked her head on the support post for the driver’s seat and she lay stunned for several seconds.

Diggory rolled off her and kept his body curled around the box, shielding it from her. No, not after everything he had taken from her. He could not take that box, too.

He pulled the gun from his belt, and as he swung it towards her, she kicked hard at his elbow. The gun flew from his hand and clattered across the fiberglass deck. It lodged in a scupper where seawater flowed in and drained back out as the boat rolled.

Over the top of the speedboat’s gunnel, she saw the flybridge of the sportfisherman and the small figure of a man wearing a white shirt. Maybe he was coming over to tell them about the earthquake and the eruption. Maybe he wanted to warn them.

Diggory staggered to his feet. The powerboat beneath them was rocking in the waves, and he lurched after the gun, still clutching the box.

The sportfish boat was close enough now she could see the man’s white hair blowing back in the wind. She turned to look for Theo. His back was turned. He was bent over the cabin top, but he had untied their painter and thrown it into the water. The Fast Eddie was starting to drift away. That was why the chop was throwing them around so much.

Standing over the scupper so she couldn’t get the gun, Dig grabbed the top of the box and tried to pull the rusty old latch free. He groaned when it fell apart in his hands. He raised the lid.

Riley heard the deep guttural growl of the electric motors that powered the Shadow Chaser’s bow thrusters.

Behind her, Dig roared and threw the box to the deck. He strode over to it and kicked it once, and then again. The box was empty.

Then Dig looked up and faced the sportsfish boat bearing down on them. He stepped back, his eyes wide with recognition, and he fell on top of the engine cowling. He rolled over and tried to gain his balance. The whole front of his shirt was soaked with blood now.

Riley saw the fire extinguisher where it lay on the deck three feet away.

She looked for Theo. He held his tablet computer and he was steering Shadow Chaser farther away. As the gap between the two boats widened, Theo yelled, “Riley! Jump!”

Riley could see Pinky’s face now. His mouth was opening and closing as he shouted, but the wind carried his words away. He pointed at them with one hand while holding the helm steady with the wrist of his injured hand.

Turning, she saw Diggory balanced atop the engine compartment, his back to her, making ready to dive overboard. No, she thought. He was not going to get away this time. She grabbed the extinguisher as she bolted across the cockpit. She swung the cylinder in a wide arc. Even with all the engine noise, she heard the crunch when the metal hit Diggory’s knee. She jumped aside as he collapsed back into the cockpit. Then she leaped onto the powerboat’s rail and filled her lungs. As she dove, Riley caught one last glimpse of the Fish n’ Chicks bearing down on the Fast Eddie, riding high on that creamy bow wave. Pinky was smiling.

She kicked harder and pulled wider than she ever had before as she reached for the deep blue depths. She reached for Cole. Please, let him be down here, hiding under the boat. Dear Universe, God, Neptune, anyone who’s listening. Please. Bring him back to me. Her lungs burned, ears ached, and she thought she couldn’t go any longer without air when she felt the impact of the explosion. She heard the boom a second later.

Riley surfaced on the far side of Shadow Chaser and sucked in the sweet air in great gulps. Clouds of smoke rose from the opposite side of the trawler.

 Theo’s face appeared over the rail. “Riley, here!” he shouted. He threw down the rope ladder. While he secured it to the bulwark, she saw that the heavy hemp rope was singed.

When she got up to the deck, Theo draped an arm over her shoulder and led her back to the stern. He had only one sneaker on, the other foot wrapped in a rag. Neither of them spoke. When they rounded the cabin, she felt the heat on her face. All the cabin and superstructure on Fish n’ Chicks was gone. She was little more than a hull filled with flames. There was nothing at all left of the black-hulled ocean racer, Fast Eddie. With the engines still hot and gasoline vapors in the bilge, the boat had gone off like a bomb.

From the direction of St. Francois on Guadeloupe, a self-important-looking little boat charged toward them, red and blue lights flashing. The French Coast Guard.

Gray cloud now covered most of the sky overhead. A thin strip of blue remained visible far off to the east. Through the gray film, the sun looked like a pale, sickly orb. A speck of something flew into her eye. She rubbed at it and felt the dried salt on her skin. Then she noticed other particles drifting through the air. So many tiny white flakes. In her mind, Riley saw the silt swirling around Cole moments before the camera died. She saw the white mug shattering into a thousand shards. Her legs buckled and she collapsed. Her wet feet had left a single trail of footprints in the fine film covering the deck. Cole was gone and the sky was raining ash.