A strange clanking sound broke him out his contemplative reverie. Bones was rapping on his air tank, trying to get Dane’s attention. When Dane tore his gaze away from the black void, he saw Bones gesturing first to his wristwatch, and then pointing a finger straight up repeatedly.
Time to head back up.
If they stayed much longer, they wouldn’t have enough air to make their decompression stops.
Just a few seconds more, Dane thought. I need to know what’s in there.
Later, he would wonder if his fascination with the doorway was perhaps the onset of nitrogen narcosis, a condition where excess nitrogen in a diver’s bloodstream causes symptoms ranging from euphoria to paranoia to full blown hallucinations, but at that moment, he didn’t care.
Just one look.
He kicked toward the door and thrust his dive light inside. It took a moment for his slightly addled brain to make sense of what he was seeing. His first impression was of the white blizzard of static from an old television, a three dimensional tableau of light and dark, stark white and impenetrable shadow. As he played the light back and forth, the entire image seemed to come alive, and it was only then that he realized that the strange white shapes were bones.
Human bones.
The skeletons lay piled up from one extremity of the room to the other, and so deep that his light could not reach through them to the bulkhead on the other side. There were hundreds, perhaps more; naked skulls, gazing up at him, skeletal hands reaching out in some final desperate and ultimately futile attempt to grasp salvation.
Perversely, nature had chosen to leave this crypt more or less untouched. A few rags of clothing were woven through the skeletal sculpture, but there was no accumulation of minerals or sediment.
Dane recalled the brief about the Awa Maru; more than two thousand had perished in the sinking. It wasn’t hard to imagine the desperate passengers and crew forced into a single compartment by the quickly rising waters…and yet, something about this explanation didn’t ring true.
Curiosity overpowered his characteristic caution, and before he quite knew what he was doing, he pulled through the opening and began swimming down to the tangled bones. As he drew closer, he saw that something else had survived. Hanging from almost every single bony neck was something that looked like strands of brown thread. Some were thin strings — bootlaces perhaps — while others appeared to be metal breakaway chain necklaces, tarnished and oxidized by years of immersion. The necklace Dane inspected first had two small semi-rectangular tabs, similarly in a state of incipient corrosion, which he recognized immediately.
Dog tags.
He reached out to touch one, rubbing it between a gloved thumb and forefinger. The rust crumbled away beneath his touch to reveal metal, embossed with words…a name, only partially legible, but written in familiar Roman letters. Howard? Edward?
American, maybe? Definitely Allied military. Was this a troop ship? If so, where were the helmets and guns?
Comprehension dawned like a spasm of nausea. These men weren’t troops on their way to the front lines. They had been prisoners of war, captured by the Japanese, destined for a brutal forced labor camps.
This was a hell ship.
The clanking sound came again, but because he was holding audience with the dead, the sound startled him. He twisted as if the skeletal arms were reaching out to grab him, and kicked away, swimming frantically for the opening where Bones — Dane grimaced around his regulator at the thought of his teammate’s nickname — was busy rapping the butt of his dive knife against his air tank.
Yes, thought Dane, flashing an eager thumb’s up. Time to go. Let’s get the hell out of here.
Just a few minutes after Maddock and Bones slipped below the surface, Willis glimpsed a dark speck on the horizon. He immediately pointed it out to Professor and in the sixty or so seconds it took for the latter to retrieve a pair of binoculars, the little dark spot grew larger; large enough for both men to recognize that it was another boat and that it was headed right for their position.
“Think we ought to prepare to repel boarders?” Willis asked, with only a little bit of sarcasm in his tone.
“Darn it. Forgot to pack the cutlasses,” Professor answered in the same uneasy tone.
They had kept a constant lookout during the search, mindful of the fact that their presence in internationally disputed waters might make them a target for a search or shakedown by military patrol, or worse, they might attract the notice of pirates rumored to be operating out of secret bases in the Spratly Islands. Unfortunately, their options for dealing with such an encounter were limited. They had made the difficult decision to limit their shipboard arsenal to a couple of rifles and one pistol apiece — enough, Maddock had explained, to fend off an opportunistic attack by poorly organized pirates, but not so much that an official Chinese or Vietnamese naval interdiction might lead to arrest, capture, or worse.
In the binoculars, the approaching vessel was revealed to be a sleek motor yacht, modern and far too expensive for outlaw mariners, though definitely not military. The radar put its approach speed at twenty-one knots. With divers in the water, running wasn’t an option, but even if the men remaining aboard Jacinta had been inclined to try, the yacht would have been able to easily overtake them.
“How are we gonna play this, Prof?” Willis asked, nervously.
Professor lowered his glasses. He wasn’t particularly bothered by the prospect of violence, but like any other SEAL, there was one thing that he was afraid of: failure…blowing the mission, letting his country and his swim buddies down.
“W-W-M-D,” he muttered. What would Maddock do? “Okay, let’s break out the rifles. Maybe if they know they we’re not toothless, they’ll hold back long enough to let Maddock and Bones finish the dive.”
Willis nodded and went off to retrieve the weapons while Professor maintained his vigil with the binoculars. He could see the silhouettes of men moving about on the approaching vessel, but little else. After a few more minutes, the yacht veered to port, and if the diminishing froth of its wake was any indication, cut its engines. Even as it coasted to a stop, a smaller vessel — Professor recognized it as a Zodiac, a civilian version of the Rigid Inflatable Boat that the SEALs often used — pulled out from sheltered side of the yacht and turned toward the Jacinta. There were five occupants, all wearing dark tactical gear and carrying assault weapons.
“Well, that answers one question,” Professor said, under his breath.
Willis returned a moment later with a rifle in each hand. He held one out to Professor, but before the other man could take it, there was a loud cracking sound, like someone smashing a hammer into the side of the boat. The bulkhead just behind them exploded in a spray of wood and fiberglass, and a couple seconds later, the report of a high-powered rifle echoed across the water.
Both men threw themselves flat on the deck, but Professor knew the shooter had missed on purpose; it was a warning shot from a sniper on the yacht, covering fire to protect the men on the assault boat.