“Best scrap your dive plans, Pops. The bell frame must have bent when we hit bottom and is blocking the hatch. No way we’re going to get that open.”
Fletcher had a sinking feeling the dive gods weren’t finished invoking payment for some past sin. “Okay. I’ll try raising the ship on the subcom. Why don’t you pull out the Mustang suits and see if you can get Brownie into one.”
Tank pulled open a side compartment that contained thick, rubberized survival suits designed for cold-water immersion. He slipped into a cumbersome suit, then tried pulling another onto Brown’s inert body. Fletcher activated an emergency radio configured with an external transponder mounted on the exterior of the bell. For the next several minutes, he tried hailing the Alta. He got only static.
Without the radiant heating from the surface umbilical, the temperature in the bell quickly cooled. Feeling the chill even in his dry dive suit, Fletcher abandoned the radio to help Tank squeeze Brown into the survival suit. “They must have their hands full topside,” he said. “I’ll try calling again in a minute.”
“There’s no sense in waiting around,” Tank said. “You saw the slack in the umbilical. The lift line is severed. They’re not going to be able to pull us up, but they can certainly acquire us if we make the surface on our own.”
Fletcher considered Tank’s words. He was inclined to wait until reestablishing communications with the surface before initiating an emergency ascent, but the silent response from above likely meant a serious situation aboard the Alta. Tank was probably right. With Brown injured, there was no point in hanging around the depths.
“All right. Prepare to drop the weights. I’ll radio up that we’re engaging in an emergency ascent — in case someone can hear us.”
While Fletcher made the call, Tank opened a floor panel. Inside was a pair of T-grips fashioned to a set of external weights clamped beneath the bell. He waited until Fletcher turned from the radio and gave him a nod, then twisted the grips.
There was a slight clink as a pair of lead weights dropped from the bell housing. But only one of the weights fell free to the seafloor. The other remained wedged in place by the bent frame. With a slight shift in balance, the diving bell started a crooked ascent. Fletcher winked at Tank but stiffened when a horrendous screeching echoed through the bell. A rush of turbulence appeared out the side viewport as the bell jolted to a stop.
“We’re snagged on the BOP!” Tank shouted.
Both pressed their faces to the port. All they could see was a cascade of bubbles rushing past with the roar of a Boeing 747 at takeoff.
Ascending at an angle, the bell had caught a protruding elbow from the blowout preventer. The steel extension had sliced into the rack holding seven of the diving bell’s nine emergency gas tanks. As the bell rose, the blowout preventer severed the tanks’ valve connections before jabbing into the base of the rack and snaring the bell in a vise-like grip.
Fletcher jumped to the console and checked the pressure gauges. The normally stoic diver turned gray as he watched eighty percent of their emergency atmosphere disappear to the surface. Trapped inside the bell ensnared on the bottom, they were now at the complete mercy of a surface rescue.
Tank looked to his partner. “How bad?”
Fletcher turned slowly but said nothing. The look in his eye told Tank all he needed to know. They had only a few hours to live.
6
Six hundred feet above the diving bell, the Norwegian ship Alta was in the throes of death. Thick black smoke covered her forward deck, streaked by sporadic bursts of flame. A large derrick used to feed drill pipe over the side lay collapsed across the deck. Waves came close to washing over the rail as the ship listed deeply at the bow.
Kevin Knight, the Alta’s captain, stared out the bridge window at the carnage. Minutes before, he had been monitoring a weather report when a deep rumble sounded in the bowels of the ship. The deck flexed beneath his feet. An instant later, a forward fuel tank erupted in a blistering explosion that engulfed the vessel.
“Sir, the dive shack reports they’ve lost contact with the bell,” yelled the third officer, whose face trickled blood from a shattered window.
Alarm bells blared, and flashing console lights indicated sections of the ship already flooded. Knight ground his molars as he absorbed the growing damage. There was no avoiding the inevitable.
He turned to the communications operator. “Issue a Mayday call! Relay that we are sinking and require immediate assistance.”
Knight picked up a transmitter and spoke over the ship’s public-address system. “Fire control teams, report to your stations. All remaining hands prepare to abandon ship.”
“Sir, what about the diving bell?” the third officer said. “And there are three more men in the saturation chamber.”
“There’s an emergency pod built into the saturation chamber. Get the men into it at once.”
“What about the bell?”
Knight shook his head. “Those boys will have to sit tight for now. There’s nothing we can do for them.” He gave the hesitant officer a stern gaze. “Go get to that chamber. Now!”
The dazed crew and roughnecks made their way aft to a pair of enclosed lifeboats. Several men who were burned or injured had to be lifted into the boats, a task made more difficult by the ship’s steep list. Knight raced through the vessel, calling off the firefighters, ordering all men to the boats while ensuring nobody was left behind. At the base of the accommodations block, he found the chief engineer emerging from belowdecks.
Knight yelled over the roar of nearby flames. “Is everybody out?”
“Yes, I think so.” The engineer was breathing heavily. “She’s flooding fast, sir. We best get off at once.”
Knight shrugged him off. “Get to the boats and launch them. I’m going to make a final pass forward.”
“Don’t risk it, sir,” the engineer yelled. But Knight had already vanished into a swirl of smoke.
The stern was rising precariously as he stepped across the deck. Through the smoke, he caught a brief glimpse of the bow already awash. He ran to the waterline, scanning the deck for any last crewmen. A pair of loud splashes told him the two lifeboats had jettisoned. The realization gave him a sense of relief — and terror.
The acrid smoke burned his eyes and choked his lungs. He called out a last plea to abandon ship. As he turned to move aft, he noticed a boot protruding from behind a deck crane. It was his executive officer, a man named Gordon. His clothes were charred and his hair singed. He peered at Knight through glassy eyes.
The captain tried pulling him up. “Gordon, we have to get off the ship.”
The exec screamed at his touch. “My leg!”
Knight saw that one of Gordon’s legs was twisted at an obscene angle, a bloodied piece of bone protruding through his trousers near the knee. A knot twisted in the captain’s stomach.
A crash disrupted his thoughts as a bundle of drill pipe broke free and tumbled into the water. Tortured groans emanated from belowdecks as the hull strained under the imbalance of the rising stern. The deck shuddered beneath Knight’s feet as the ship tried a last-gasp fight to stay afloat.
Slipping an arm around Gordon, Knight tried to raise the injured man. Gordon let out a raspy grunt before falling limp in Knight’s arms. The captain struggled to lift the officer, but his own knees, weakened by an ancient football injury, wouldn’t allow it. The two sagged to the deck as a generator broke loose and slid across it, missing the men by inches.