“I sure appreciate the effort.”
“Couldn’t do anything less, Colonel. Your credentials come from understood high places.”
“High enough to get me a special favor?”
“Just ask.”
Hooker wrote the name down on a piece of paper and slid it over to Don Watts. “I want his history. He may have used other names, but I’m pretty sure the last outfit he worked for would have checked him out pretty thoroughly.”
“What are you looking for?”
“Anything, but let’s start with a police record. In this computer age any contact with the cops gets you down on paper. A lot may be illegal, but if you’re clean it won’t matter. If you’re dirty, you can buy the farm... six feet deep.” Mako tore another sheet off the small pad and wrote on it. “I’m giving you a number that identifies me. Memorize it and use it if anyone puts a block in your path.” He handed the paper to Watts. For a minute and a half he stared at it, unblinking, then handed it back. Hooker lit a match and held the paper to it.
“That big, huh?” Watts said.
“That big,” Hooker confirmed.
Before Hooker could add anything else, the phone rang and Watts picked it up. He listened for a moment and switched on the overhead speaker. He said, “Say again.”
A muffled radio voice said, “This is Paul Vernon on the twenty-two boat, captain. We just got a signal on CB radio from one of the native fishing boats a couple of miles from here. He’s hooked into something huge about fifty feet below him. Whatever it is, the head of the thing is a few hundred feet away from his short line.”
“How long will it take you to get to him?”
“Fifteen minutes, sir.”
“Good. Stand by when you get there. Take that fisherman and his crew on your boat and attach a marker buoy to the line he has out. Keep that thing in sight.”
When he ended the transmission, Watts said, “Seems like something’s about to happen.”
“Are you going to cover this?” Hooker queried.
Watts shook his head. “Unless there’s a war, this ship is on permanent station until our jobs are finished. This situation isn’t serious enough to call for other ships to converge and I’ve instituted an action already that could handle any contingency.” He stared at Mako and let a grin cross his face. “Especially since I have a gung-ho army colonel ready to take a stab at this himself.”
“I didn’t ask for this,” Hooker said.
“But you wouldn’t turn it down,” Watts proposed.
“No way.”
“Who are you taking?”
“Kim Sebring and a few of her top diving team.”
“Need any special armament?”
“What can I have?”
“Your security clearance will get you anything under a destroyer, but I’d suggest a mobile rocket launcher. You won’t be in a naval engagement so it should take only one shot. Those rockets are armor-piercing explosive shells, and what they hit goes to never-never land. Have you ever fired them?”
“Trained with them and used them in the field.”
Watts didn’t ask him where. The expression on Hooker’s face told almost the whole story.
Kim Sebring picked her two best divers and left the others grumbling on the dock. No information was given out on the mission but everyone knew this was top priority. Sebring consoled those left behind by telling them to be ready for an emergency call. That seemed to satisfy them.
On the Clamdip Billy and Judy had engaged the compressor engine and were recharging the empty diving tanks while Kim Sebring was going over a notebook full of diagrams with her divers. Finally the three of them opened up a large oceanographic map of the seabed below them, sat on the corners and discussed one specific area. Hooker came over and watched them trying to make sense out of all the penciled markings and crayon-shaded sections.
Kim looked up and said, “I think we’ve figured out the secret of Scara Island.”
“That sounds like the title of a spooky movie.”
“Doesn’t it, though. And it almost is.”
“What’s happening?” Mako asked her.
She tapped the map with her forefinger. “This area has undergone a recent change. Not last week or last year, but a couple of centuries ago. The old Confederate ship Savannah, whose captain detailed everything, made soundings all around here. Note these large rises.”
Hooker studied them a moment and nodded. They were large hillocks that swelled up from the sandy bottom, some rising to within thirty feet of the surface. In those days a line of them had run nearly to Peolle, with another branching off like a scimitar, nearly touching what was now Scara Island.
Kim suddenly sketched in other shapes and when she was done she said, “This is the way it is now. Undersea movements have flattened out those rises, and now a channel runs on the left side of where they were. It isn’t a very deep crevice but it causes a flowing action that ends up on Scara Island.”
“That affects objects down deep?”
“No,” Kim explained. “It’s generally surface material that’s directed to the island. There are many currents in the ocean itself that nobody can fully explain. Some are proven and used, like the westerly and the easterlies. Sailing ships used these conditions to travel around the world.”
Billy suddenly called over his shoulder, “Mr. Hooker, sar, that boat she be straight ahead.”
Hooker leaned over the side, spotting the naval boat and one of the islander’s single outboard dories. “Whose boat is that, Billy?”
“She belong to Peter-from-the-market, sar. He buy that boat in Miami.”
“Get him on the CB and tell him we’re coming alongside. Ask him if it’s clear.”
While Billy contacted his friend, Hooker picked up the VHF microphone and said, “Sentilla scout, this is Clamdip. What’s the situation?”
“Sir, that fisherman has got something down there, all right. You look off about thirty degrees to his right and you’ll see the commotion in the water. Something barely surfaces there every once in a while.”
“Right. I think I see what you mean.” He pointed with his finger and everybody on board looked out, fascinated. “I’m coming alongside you for a closer inspection.”
“Whatever it is down there is pretty damn big, sir.”
“Well, the divers will go down and take a look at it.”
“Sir!”
“You’re off the hook, sailor. Confirm with your captain if you want to.”
The way he said “Yes, sir,” left no doubt about his doing just that.
But there was a different look on the faces of Kim Sebring and her divers. There was no apprehension at all, just anticipation, the excitement of the dive, the anticipation of possibly seeing firsthand some incredible thing that no one had ever seen before. All three of them had strapped on underwater cameras with small-sized but powerful floodlights and each carried a long aluminum tube that fired a twelve-gauge shotgun shell that could take out practically any predator.
Above the noise of voices Billy suddenly said, “They won’t need those bang guns, sar.”
“What?” Mako looked sharply at his mate. He wore his usual placid expression that showed no concern at all. Quickly he scanned the water around them and saw no flying fish at all. Then he looked at the barometer. It hadn’t changed at all. It was still a nice day.
“It is not the eater, sar.”
“You sure, Billy?”
“Like you say, I am one smart Carib. I am very sure.”
“Then go get some equipment and you can dive with us,” Mako suggested.
Billy’s expression didn’t change, but his mind did. And he told Mako, “Maybe I am not so sure, sar.”
Mako knew his buddy would add another excuse he could be a little more certain of. He said, “Oh?”