“Let's keep going. There should be at least one more plane in here,” Dirk said, trying to keep her mind off the inevitable. The ROV again moved through a vacant compartment before emerging into the next hangar section. Seconds later, the tail and fuselage of a second Seiran bomber emerged into view, complete with folded wings. Just beyond was its matching pair of floats, strapped to the deck by cables. An assortment of wall-mounted tool bins followed and then twenty feet of empty space. Snoopy finally bumped up against the giant round hatch door that led to the submarine's forward deck.
“Well, that's it,” Dirk said solemnly. “We've covered the length of the hangar and no sign of any aerial bombs other than the torpedoes. Summer said nothing for a moment, subconsciously biting her lower lip in dejection. ”Well ... there was no indication of a forced entry anywhere, nor did the silt appear to have been disturbed anytime recently. Perhaps they were destroyed in the torpedo blast?"
“Could be. There's still a small section of hangar behind us we could take a look at.”
Dirk quietly steered Snoopy back toward the submersible, reeling in its dangling electronic power cable while it progressed. The cockpit fell silent as brother and sister contemplated their predicament. Dirk silently cursed their bad luck and failure to locate the aerial bombs. As the ROV passed the second plane's fuselage and approached the first plane's set of pontoons, a quizzical look fell over Summer's face.
“Dirk, hold it there for a second,” she said quietly, focusing on the monitor.
“What is it?” he asked while neutralizing the position of the ROV.
“Look at the pontoons. Do you notice anything different?”
Dirk studied the monitor for a moment, then shook his head.
“The pair at the end of the hangar were cabled directly to the deck,” Summer said. “But these two have a platform under each of them.”
He looked at the images and his brow furrowed. Each of the pontoons sat balanced on a square-shaped platform roughly two feet high.
Dirk eased the ROV around and alongside the base of one of the pontoons, then positioned it next to the platform. Spinning the ROV around, he applied the thrusters hard for a few seconds to try and blow away the encrusted sediment. He repositioned the ROV, then waited for the resulting cloud of sediment to subside. Peering through the murk, they could clearly see an exposed section of the platform. It was a hardwood crate built from what appeared to be mahogany. Dirk carefully studied the entire platform.
“By God, that's got to be it.”
“Are you sure?” Summer questioned.
“Well, I can't say what's inside, but the exterior is the same construction and dimension as the bomb canister crates that I found smashed open on the I-403.”
Dirk surveyed the crate from all angles, then confirmed that a matching crate was wedged beneath the second pontoon. Summer made a notation on the video files, documenting the exact location in the hangar where the crates were found. Pitt observed that each crate appeared to be held in place by the force of the pontoon, which was securely tied to the hangar deck by a half-dozen thick steel cables that crisscrossed the top of each float.
“Nice eye, Summer. You get a beer for that catch.”
“Make mine a bottle of Martin Ray Chardonnay,” she replied with a half smile. “I'm just glad we know where they are now.”
“It's going to take someone a little more doing to get these out of here.”
“Us too, for that matter,” Summer replied glumly.
The wheels in Dirk's mind were still churning to compute an escape plan as he guided the ROV back toward the submersible. He lost concentration when Snoopy's bright underwater lights approached and shined brilliantly into the submersible's cockpit. Blinded in the glare, he instinctively steered the ROV down toward the hangar deck as he brought it closer to the Starfish. But as it approached, the ROV suddenly hung suspended, failing to move the last few feet to its cradle.
“Dirk, Snoopy's umbilical is caught on something,” Summer noticed, pointing out the bubble window.
Dirk followed her guide and could see in the murkiness that the ROV's cable had snagged on some sort of debris lying on the hangar deck, about twenty feet in front of them.
“I'm surprised we even made it so far through this obstacle course,” he replied.
Reversing direction, he backed up the ROV until the cable straightened from its grasp around what looked to be a small engine sitting in a tubular frame three feet off the ground.
“A gas-powered compressor, I bet,” he said, noticing a pair of decayed hoses connected to one end of the motor.
“What's with the big handle?” Summer asked, eyeing a large metal tod protruding from one side of the block. A round, shovel-type grip was attached to the end.
“It has an old mechanical starter. Kind of like pulling the rope on a lawn mower, only pumping the handle cranks the motor over. I saw a Swiss-made compressor on a dive boat once that had the same setup-” Dirk stared at the handle for a moment, not moving the ROV.
“You're going to bring Snoopy home?” Summer finally asked.
“Yes,” he replied with a sudden gleam in his eye. “But first he's going to help get us out of here.”
On board the Sea Rover, nervous apprehension was creeping over the captain and crew. It had been nearly ninety minutes since they last communicated with the Starfish and Morgan was anxiously preparing to call in an emergency rescue. The Sea Rover was not carrying a backup submersible, and the nearest NUMA submersible was at least twelve Hours away.
“Ryan, let's contact the Navy's Deep Submergence Unit. Notify them of our situation and request the ETA on a deep-water rescue vehicle,” Morgan barked, silently dreading the thought.
If Dirk and Summer were in real trouble, he knew they had only a matter of minutes, not hours. Their chances of rescue would be as slim as a dime.
“Okay, Summer, hold the take-up reel.” Dirk had positioned Snoopy near the top of the hangar ceiling a few feet past the compressor when he gave the command to Summer. She pressed a button on the console that stopped an automatic spool from reeling in the ROV's power cable. Dirk gently moved the ROV back toward the compressor, watching the cable slacken beneath it. Like an anaconda coiling about its prey, he carefully manipulated the ROV in a circular motion above the compressor, letting the slack cable wrap loosely around the protruding handle. After dancing the ROV around and around several times, he successfully engineered five loops about the handle, which he tightened by drawing the ROV up and away.
“Okay, activate the take-up spool and I'll pull with Snoopy!” “That compressor must weigh three hundred pounds. Even underwater, you'll never budge it,” Summer replied, wondering if her brother had lost his mind.
“It's not the compressor I'm after, it's the handle.”
Toggling the ROV's controls, he increased the power to Snoopy, now pointed in the direction of the submersible. The ROV surged forward until its power cord tightened around the metal handle. Its small thrusters churning the water, the little ROV fought to move forward but could not muster enough force to budge the handle. Then Summer joined in, reeling in the other end of the cable with the automatic take-up spool until the cord went taut around the base of the handle. Though both ends of the handle were now being yanked at, it was the lower end snagged by Summer that did the trick. The boxed end of the metal bar slid off the sprocketed knuckle that turned the flywheel and the whole handle slipped free of the compressor, gliding through the water toward the Starfish. Dirk carefully dragged it in a horizontal position, so as not to lose his coiled grip, and gently tugged it to the front of the submersible.
“I don't think Ryan is going to appreciate how you're treating his ROV,” Summer said with feigned concern.