Cali was silent for a moment, digesting Mercer’s words. “Ah ha,” she said with a wicked grin. “Incendiary bullets.”
“Did they have them back then?”
“Absolutely.”
It was Mercer’s turn to think through the scenario. He could find no flaw in her reasoning about the Russians or Germans or about a sniper using incendiary bullets to ignite the airship’s explosive skin. “You know,” he said at last, “they’re going to have to rewrite a lot of history books by the time we’re done.”
Niagara River, New York
Mercer, Cali, and her NEST team met Brian Crenna’s support boat at a pier on Grand Island. A chilled mist clung to the fast-flowing river and obscured the forest on the Canadian side. In the middle of the channel sat Crenna’s barge, the crane’s telescoping boom rising into the fog like a spindly finger. The tires hanging from the side of the barge looked like oversized portholes, and they could clearly see men on her deck.
The support vessel was an old cabin cruiser that had seen better days. The once white fiberglass hull had yellowed with age, and the red strip along her waterline had faded to the color of old brick. Crenna brought the boat in fast, cutting a tight circle at the last moment to lay the cruiser against the dock, barely squeezing the rubber fenders. The three fishermen readying their big Bertram sportfisher farther down the jetty looked up when the wake made their vessel bob, but they didn’t say anything about the breach of maritime etiquette.
“How’d it go?” Cali called after a deckhand had tied the craft to the wooden dock and Crenna had idled the engine.
“No problem. We’ve got the crane anchored just upstream of the Wetherby.” He pointed to the stack of black trunks on the dock. “What’s with all the gear?”
“Just some scientific instruments,” Cali said. “Plus a pair of dry suits. The water’s freezing.”
By her evasive tone Mercer realized that Captain Crenna hadn’t been informed exactly what was in the crates they hoped to recover. He supposed it didn’t mater. As he’d told Ira, plutonium isn’t particularly dangerous unless ingested or inhaled. As long as the crates maintained their integrity, Crenna and his crew weren’t in any danger.
“Oh,” Cali said as if she’d just remembered, “and a bunch of gas masks.”
Crenna’s scowl deepened. “Gas masks? What the hell for?”
“Asbestos from the Wetherby. Given her age, she’s going to be loaded with it. When we bring up the trunks, you and your crew are going to have to wear them. Sorry, it’s an EPA regulation.”
Crenna shook his head. “Damned government regulations. All right, load up and let’s go.”
“Nicely done,” Mercer whispered to Cali as they started helping Jesse and Stan transfer the matte-black trunks onto the cruiser. He made sure no one touched the big leather hand grip that hadn’t left his side since Washington.
As the cruiser pulled from the dock, Mercer tossed a casual wave at the three fishermen who were still puttering around their boat. Two waved back and the third, a large black man wearing a Greek fisherman’s cap, gave him an ironic salute.
The barge wasn’t as new as the crane sitting at its stern. Rust showed in streaks through worn paint and scaled the railings. Equipment bins overflowed with coils of rope, lengths of chain, and various tools. There was a compressor for refilling the scuba tanks that looked like Crenna had either just bought it or had rented it for the job.
“The crane used to be mounted on a truck,” Crenna explained. “I put it on this barge a couple of years ago when I was hired to salvage a fishing boat that sank on the other side of Grand Island. It cost the owner twice what the boat was worth, but I wasn’t complaining. So who’s diving?”
“Mercer and I,” Cali replied.
Jesse Williams looked up from one of the trunks. “I thought I was going.”
“You will when we set the burn charges. Mercer wanted to check out the Wetherby for himself.”
The former college football star looked at Mercer. “You know what you’re doing?”
After years of procrastination Mercer had finally gotten his dive certification a few months earlier, although he’d dived countless times before. While he’d only ever gone down wearing a wet suit or just swim trunks, when he’d asked Cali for the chance to see the Wetherby she’d told him the dry suits were just more cumbersome. “I’ll be fine,” he’d said.
They were ready to go an hour later. Because she had more experience, Cali would carry the dive computer strapped to her wrist as well as a waterproofed gamma ray detector.
Mercer’s OS Systems Nautilus dry suit was a little snug around the crotch because he was taller than Jesse Williams, but otherwise it felt comfortable. Jesse helped him into his tanks, buoyancy compensator, and weight belt while Stan checked over Cali’s gear. Jesse went over procedures for filling and venting the suit during the dive and made sure Mercer’s knife and the steel pry bar were secure.
“You’re sure about this?” Williams asked before fitting the helmet.
“Piece of cake.”
Mercer popped his jaw to equalize the pressure when the helmet was sealed.
“How do you read me?” Cali asked over the integrated communications net.
“Loud and clear.”
Together they waddled over to the rear of the service boat where a gate had been opened. Cali jumped first. Mercer waited until her head bobbed up before following her into the water.
Even with the protection of the dry suit and thermal underwear, he could feel the close presence of the cold waters, but it was the current he noticed most. It ran about three knots, powerful enough to sweep him downriver if he wasn’t careful. Visibility was no more than twenty feet and would diminish when they reached the wreck.
Captain Crenna had lowered an anchor down to the Wetherby, its line vanishing into the murky gloom. Cali put one hand on the rope and dumped air from her suit, allowing herself to glide into the depths. Mercer followed, adjusting his suit as the water pressure caused a fold of the tightly woven nylon to dig under his arm. The morning fog had dissipated but there was a lot of sediment in the water, dramatically cutting visibility. Mercer snapped on his dive light when he saw that Cali had slowed her descent.
Just like Ruth Bishop had said, the Wetherby had settled into a trough in the river bottom where she was sheltered from the worst of the current. She lay on her port side with her classic champagne-glass stern pointing upstream. Her hull was continuously scoured clean by the river, although there were still thousands of cut fishing lines streaming from her rails and superstructure. The ship was doubtless home to a lot of salmon and walleye, and local anglers paid the price for fishing on her with snagged lines. Her superstructure had been battered over the years, first when she drifted and sank and later by flotsam flowing down toward Niagara Falls. At some point the tree Ruth mentioned had been ripped free, leaving a gaping hole.
Cali and Mercer attached safety lines to her stern bollards and finned the length of the vessel. Her funnel was long gone and silt had built up around her bow where powerful back eddies had formed. One of her forward hatches was still secured, while the other was open, a yawning square that revealed her darkened hold. Because she rested on her port side there was no evidence of the explosion that had sent her to the bottom.
“What do you think?” Cali asked as they held tight to their lines just outside the open hold, the current pushing at them like a stiff breeze.
Mercer flashed his light into the hold but its beam could barely cut the gloom. “Let’s belay the line and take a look inside.”