The U.S. Navy had developed the 5.5-pound shoulder-launched Spike to pick off swarming attack boats that might leak through standard defenses. The missile could hit a target moving at sixty miles per hour. Nailing a stationary object like the Sancho Panza would be a piece of cake. He removed a launcher from another bag and placed it next to the missiles.
A camera in the missile’s nose could transmit a real-time picture along a fiber optics connector. It was like taking a photo with a cell phone. The shooter puts a box around the target and BANG! That was it.
The one-pound warhead was a firecracker compared to bigger missiles, but the Spike had a focused explosion that packed a punch. Even better, the shooter could put the missile exactly where it would do the most damage. It was fast, too. The missile attained a velocity of six hundred miles per hour within 1.5 seconds of launch. The Spike had a reduced smoke motor, making it invisible as it flew toward the target. Missiles fired in a tight cluster would blast a huge hole in the hull. The boat would sink to the bottom within minutes.
He raised the binoculars again and saw activity on deck. A man and a woman were climbing through a hatch down into what looked like a giant bubble. The round vehicle was lifted off the deck and lowered into the water where it disappeared below the surface. He guessed that the man was Hawkins. Didn’t matter who the woman was. For her, it was simply bad luck. The IED had blasted away his capacity for empathy along with his face.
However, Leonidas hadn’t planned on Hawkins leaving the boat so soon. If he shot now, he’d miss two people. Salazar had been adamant. Everyone on the boat must go. No big deal. He had nothing else to do, so he’d wait. Lighting up another joint, he took a deep drag of the intoxicating fumes and blew the smoke out the twin nostril holes.
CHAPTER NINE
Color drained from the world outside the transparent passenger sphere as the submersible sank into the ocean’s depths. The red and orange glow filtering through the sea sparkle disappeared first. Then the rest of the spectrum was absorbed. Violet light faded into blue and black.
Hawkins switched on the floodlights. A school of silver-scaled fish were caught in the twin cones of brilliance that penetrated the darkness.
“Meet the welcoming committee,” Hawkins said. “Are you comfortable with the temperature?”
The interior of the cabin was cool, but Hawkins and Kalliste had changed into jeans and windbreakers before entering the sphere.
“I’m fine, thanks. Let’s go make history.”
“Aye, aye, and down she goes.”
Hawkins put Falstaff into a slow, descending spiral around the marker buoy line.
Kalliste gazed with wonder through the wall of the transparent sphere. “I can’t believe we’re making this dive,” she said. “Thank you so much for doing this, Matt.”
“I’m the one who should be thanking you, Kalliste. I’d be in my office back in Woods Hole instead of being here on the brink of a great discovery.”
She glanced around at the encroaching ocean. “I’m getting very nervous.”
“Don’t be. You’re as safe here as on your living room sofa.”
“It’s not the dive,” she said. “I feel perfectly comfortable with you. It’s the ship. What if it’s not Minoan?”
“We’ll know soon enough. We’re almost on the bottom.”
The submersible set down close to where the buoys anchor flukes were embedded in the sand.
“Almost no vegetation,” Hawkins said. “That’s a good sign. The temperature at this depth discourages the growth of marine organisms that feed on wood.”
Hawkins powered the vertical thrusters. Falstaff rose around six feet, coming to a hover. He put the submersible into a slow spin. The floodlights stroked the darkness like beams from a shore beacon. He was flicking on the video camera when he heard Kalliste say, “Oh!”
He looked up from the control panel. Directly in front of the submersible was a tall pillar that had a knob on top. The shape was indistinct because of an uneven covering of concretion, but the knob had the vague shape of a bird, with the beak pointing directly at them.
Kalliste murmured something in Greek. “Omorphi. Poly Omorphi.”
“Don’t know what you said, but I wholeheartedly agree,” Hawkins said.
“I said it was very beautiful. In more ways than one. You see how it looks vaguely like the head of a bird? This may be important. The bird motif was a common bow feature on Minoan vessels. Can we take a look at the stern section?”
Hawkins reached for the controls that would move Falstaff vertically. They rose several feet higher than the knob, and he angled the submersible into a forward tilt, piloting Falstaff slowly over the wreck. Although the deck was covered in sand they glimpsed some of the ship’s ribs and amorphous lumps here and there.
Kalliste dug a cellphone out of a waterproof neck pouch and put it on video mode.
“I know the submersible has cameras,” she said. “But I want something I can get back to the Hidden History channel as soon as we come out of the water.”
The submersible traveled around a hundred feet. The floodlights fell on a section of fish net draped around the high stern.
Kalliste leaned forward, her eyes narrowing. “That’s where the fisherman’s net snagged the wreck. See that long plank projecting from the stern right about where water level would ordinarily be? We call vessels with that feature ‘frying pans,’ because that’s what they look like.”
“What’s its purpose?”
“Some people think it was a stabilizer that lengthened the waterline without elongating the hull. Others say it would be a drag on the ship, like having a ladder down the side, and would tend to draw the ship’s stern to the wind.”
“That could be dangerous with high waves and a following sea,” Hawkins said.
“That’s why there’s scholarly disagreement. But the stern projection tells us something. Like the bow, it is a design used by Minoan shipwrights.”
“Are you ready to make a positive ID, then?”
She shook her head. “It makes no difference how ready I am. Any theory I present will be subject to scathing review from my colleagues and peers. It must be airtight. But evidence of Minoan shipbuilding techniques could help bolster our case.”
“Cargo specimens would help even more.”
“Without a doubt, Minoan artifacts would seal the deal. You forget that our pig-faced Spanish friend has forbidden us from touching the wreck. It’s a shame, because I can’t get funding from the television people without hard evidence.”
“If I set Falstaff down within inches of the deck, the thrusters might accidentally blow sand off and uncover cargo. Technically speaking, we wouldn’t touch the wreck.”
Looking over at him, she smiled. “Who am I to argue with a respected Woods Hole scientist?”
Hawkins moved Falstaff back over the stern, then brought the submersible down to less than a yard above the deck and blasted away with the vertical thrusters. The submersible shot up above the billowing cloud of sand. He set Falstaff down again, several feet ahead, hopscotching to the bow. Falstaff pivoted to point back to the deck and, suddenly, its lights illuminated patches of newly exposed planking and ribs.
“Look at that blackened wood. There was a fire on board,” Hawkins said. “Probably what sent her to the bottom.”
“Maybe someone knocked over an oil lantern.”
“Or the ship was sunk during a battle. We’ll make another pass.”
As Falstaff retraced its route, objects could be seen nestled on and between the planks.