Corey clicked the mouse a few times.
“Too much of it’s submerged, but it could be the Dourado.”
“All right. We’ll send Uma down.” Uma was the nickname of their unmanned miniature submersible camera. Bones was a fan of the movie Pulp Fiction, and felt that Uma was a “sexier” name than the acronym UMSC. That, and UMSC was too reminiscent of the Marine Corps acronym.
Bones went back out onto the deck where the little submersible was prepped and ready to go. Just over a meter in length, Uma resembled, if anything, a half-flattened egg with three “eyes” set in the front edge. A camera lens was set in the center, with a headlight on either side. A propeller in a circular frame was attached to either side of the device. The entire frame could rotate forward and back, and each propeller could oscillate inside the frame, controlling the direction of the small craft. Another propeller set in the back provided thrust. Uma could also take on and discharge water for ballast and for diving. He carefully placed the instrument in the water and gave Corey the thumbs-up.
Controlling Uma from his console, Corey instructed the device to take on water in order to accelerate her dive. He flipped on the lights and the camera. The wreck was in relatively shallow water, and soon the sea floor came into view on the monitor. Fish scattered as Uma careened at them, piloted remotely by a maniacally cackling Corey.
“You’re enjoying this way too much,” Dane told his colleague, placing a hand on his shoulder.
“Don’t you want me to enjoy my work?” Corey said, still laughing.
“I want you to find the ship.”
“Done,” Corey replied. The faint outline of a sunken ship appeared in the distance. Corey picked up the pace, and the bulk of the ship gradually filled the screen.
“It’s an old one,” Bones whispered.
The wreck had gone down bow-first. The stern stuck out of the silt at a gentle angle, and the outline of much of the ship was discernible beneath the silt. A heavy mast lay half-buried. Everything was encrusted with sea life, but its old age was obvious.
“Take her around the stern,” Dane instructed.
Kaylin entered the cabin, and stood next to Bones, as far as she could stand from Dane and still be able to see the monitor. Dane took little notice of her. His eyes were on the prize. As Uma rounded the far side of the wreck, his heart sagged.
“It’s not her,” he said flatly.
“How can you be sure?” Willis asked.
“See the rudder?”
Willis nodded. Beside him, Bones cursed loudly, and Kaylin hung her head.
“The Dourado lost her rudder when she hit the rocks. This ship has her rudder, and her stern appears intact.”
Everyone was silent for a moment. Dane took a deep breath and tried to lighten the mood.
“Hey, we didn’t really think we were going to find her in five minutes, did we?”
“Hell yes that’s what we thought,” said Bones. “You know I don’t like to wait.” He turned and stalked out of the cabin. Willis followed behind, chuckling.
“Bring Uma back up,” Dane instructed.
“Gotcha,” Corey replied. Under his control, Uma discharged the water she had taken on, and began a steady climb to the surface, where Bones was waiting to fish her out. “Maybe the next one,” he sighed.
CHAPTER 8
Maybe this one is it.” Corey’s voice was void of all conviction. They had struck out so far: three wrecks that had looked promising, three misses. Such results were not unusual, but it dampened their enthusiasm in any case.
Dane stared at the screen, watching as the submerged ship came into view. This one lay on its side, a gaping hole where the center of the deck had been. The masts were long gone, but it was obviously a wooden sailing ship.
“Can you see the rudder?” Dane asked, as Uma approached the stern.
“Negative,” Corey replied. He leaned closer to the screen, narrowing his eyes. “Let me get a little closer.”
Uma banked sharply, and dove down toward the ship’s rear. Dane leaned closer to the screen. It was difficult to tell beneath the crust of barnacles that coated the wreck, but the ship appeared to be absent its rudder. As the image clarified, Dane’s suspicions were confirmed. The rudder was missing.
“Looks good,” Dane said. “How close are we to where Jimmy predicted we’d find her?”
Corey consulted a chart, tracing his finger across the lines and moving his lips as he read. Satisfied, he looked back at Dane with a broad grin on his face.
“Spitting distance.”
That was all Dane needed to hear. “Let’s get wet!” he shouted.
Bones whooped and clapped his hands.
They hastily donned their dive gear. Willis leaned against the rail, a rifle held loosely in one hand, looking at them with undisguised envy.
“Man, I know y’all are gonna let me dive sometime, right?” He grinned. “No fair letting y’all two have all the fun.”
“Let’s see how it goes,” Dane said, strapping on his dive knife. “For now, we need your eyes up here.” He hoped Willis would not, in fact, be needed on the surface, but he was playing it safe.
“I know,” Willis replied. “At least I can chill with the lovely lady.” He gave Kaylin a playful wink.
Kaylin smiled, but did not answer. She took Dane’s hand and drew him closer to her. “I know this sounds cheesy, but I hope you can do it, you know, for Dad.”
Dane nodded. This one was for Maxie. He hoped they would not let him down. He turned to Bones.
“Ready?”
Bones raised his right hand, palm outward, in a sarcastic imitation of an Indian salute. Dane returned the salute with an upraised middle finger. The two divers sat down on the rail, turned and nodded at one another, and flipped backward into the water.
The water was cool, but not unpleasant and the initial shock wore off quickly. Dane got his bearings. A few strong kicks, and he was shooting down toward the wreck that lay beneath their boat. Bones swam alongside. The faint shafts of sunlight dissolved as they penetrated the depths of the ocean. As the darkness swelled around them, Dane flipped on the dive light strapped to his forehead.
The sunken ship was just barely visible in the distance. Once again, he welcomed the shiver of excitement that ran through his body whenever he dived on a new wreck. They approached it cautiously, careful not to stir up any more silt than necessary. The closer they swam to the ship, the more certain he became that this was the Dourado. It was the right size, the right apparent age, and in the right location.
They swam to the stern and made a careful inspection. The rudder had definitely been broken off. Dane ran his hand along the back of the ship, moving it down toward the ocean floor. There it was! He took out his dive knife and gently scraped at the barnacles that coated the ship’s exterior. Where the ship disappeared in the silt, a jagged hole gaped like the mouth of an angry leviathan. It was just as Rienzi had described in his journal. He looked at Bones, who nodded his understanding.
Together, they swam toward the gaping hole in the deck. Bones, ever vigilant, peered into the hole, letting his light play around the hold in search of unwelcoming hosts. He gave Dane the “all clear” signal, and let his body drift down into the boat. Dane followed behind.
This was the most dangerous part of a dive. The fine layer of silt that collected on the inside of a sunken vessel could easily be turned into a swirling maelstrom by an incautious flip of a swim fin. A diver could get lost inside an unfamiliar ship, blinded by the blizzard of dirt particles suspended in the water. Dane was not worried, though. He and Bones knew how to take care of themselves.