It was good to be diving in warm water for a change.
The wreck of the San Juan came into view. It listed entirely on its starboard side. Large swathes of floating cardboard sheeting surrounded the wreck, showing clearly how the cargo ship had managed to stay hidden for so long — someone had been creatively altering the topside shape to confuse anyone searching with satellite images.
The bridge was one of those aft towers that rose multiple stories above the main deck. It had a narrow open deck running on the outside of the bridge to the port and starboard side, like a slim wing. The starboard side was buried deep in the sandy seabed, but the opening was clearly accessible on the portside.
Sam pointed to the opening and he and Tom swam toward it. The hatch was a heavy steel watertight door with a thick latch on the inside and outside that allowed it to be battened down in a severe storm.
He unlatched the door, and pulled on its handle.
The door swung open with ease and they both swam through.
Sam switched on his flashlight.
Although there was plenty of light descending through the clear water, it was much darker inside the bridge. Despite its odd angle, the bridge looked undamaged. It was typical for a cargo ship, with a large fishbowl shaped windshield above an array of mechanical controls, instruments and navigation charts.
Sam ran the beam of his flashlight across the bridge, from port to starboard. The digitally fortified bridge was a far cry from the command centers of bygone merchant ships. Instruments ran the entire length of the bridge, with the helm placed at the center, in a position of command.
Along the portside instrument panel stood the navigation station with GPS, digital maps, and Admiralty charts, to the right of which, stood a large monitor with the Electronic Chart Display and Information System (ECDIS), a geographic information system used for nautical navigation. Beneath the ECDIS system was a steel cupboard that housed a series of fiber optic cables which ran underneath the workstation into two motherboards. Attached were two small digital boxes — presumably hard drives — which appeared somewhat unimpressive compared to the size of the ship.
Tom shined his flashlight right on it.
A yellow imprint read, Backup AIS hard drive.
Sam pulled it free from the fiber optic cable that connected it to the motherboard. The hard drive fit comfortably in the palm of his hand. He slipped it into the pocket of his buoyancy control device and zipped it up.
“That was quick,” Tom said.
“And surprisingly easy,” Sam replied. “It figures. The first time in months we’ve had the chance to dive in warm, equatorial waters.”
Sam pushed himself back from the computer hub.
Facing forward, he spotted the lopsided view from the captain’s chair. It showed three radar screens next to the helm. Directly in front of him, above where his eyes would be if the ship was righted, were the ship’s primary indicators, which had once showed the ship’s course over ground, compass, depth, engine RPM, rate of turn, clock, and barometry.
Tom said, “What a waste. A perfectly good ship given a watery grave to cover something up.”
Sam smiled. “Depending on what Elise finds on this hard drive, we might still have to find a way to bring the San Juan to the surface.”
Beneath his dive mask Tom raised an incredulous eyebrow. “The bulk of the ship is sub-one hundred feet. It would be a nightmare to bring her to the surface.”
“More importantly, it would take too long. We need answers now. But I don’t see any other leads to go off if the hard drive’s empty. Someone on board this vessel gave the perpetrators away, otherwise they would have never sunk it.”
Tom nodded. “All right, let’s head to the surface… see what we can find.”
Sam turned toward the exit, switched his flashlight off, and said, “Stop.”
Because, descending toward the door were two bright lights approaching like the eyes of a predator.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Sam ran his eyes across the SCUBA divers.
Taking them in at a glance, he knew they weren’t there for a recreational wreck dive. They carried Soviet era, Special Underwater Assault Rifle, called an APS. The weapons were AK-47 sized with a similar format, and sported a massive banana style magazine that contained some 26 self-contained rocket-like 5.66mm X 120mm dart cartridges. The APS was capable of unleashing its full dart barrage in a matter of seconds.
Tom said, “Down the stairs!”
“I’m on it!”
Sam kicked his fins hard, swimming down the internal stairwell. They had no way to tell if they had been seen or not. It didn’t take long before their visibility in the dark reached zero and they were forced to switch their flashlights back on.
At the bottom of the bridge tower, Sam and Tom raced through the hull, searching for an exit point. With the ship listing over on its starboard side, most of the exterior portholes close to them were blocked. They swam quickly through the empty hull, popping up through a manhole nearly two hundred feet along the forward deck.
Sam switched off his flashlight. “Now what do you want to do?”
“We can’t surface right now,” Tom said. “They’d come straight after us.”
“I have an idea.”
Sam dived to the portside of the hull so that their attackers inside the bridge couldn’t spot them. He then slipped behind the steel door which opened to the bridge. It was the only entry-exit point on that side of the ship.
Next to the door was an iron rod that could be used to batten down the door in case of a storm. It was designed to be used on the inside, but also fit the lock on the outside. Sam shoved it between the handle and the edge of the door, effectively jamming it shut.
The divers spotted him as he kicked his fins and started to swim toward the surface. They raced toward the now locked steel door, trying to kick their way out. It was a fruitless exercise. The door was designed to survive the wrath of the ocean during a violent storm.
Sam and Tom rapidly sped toward the surface, as the divers quickly disappeared into the internal bowels of the ship to find their own way out. It would take the divers some time to escape.
Sam exhaled as he and Tom made their ascent.
On the surface, they quickly climbed aboard the Moonlight Sonata, with Veyron and Matthew helping to pull their equipment in.
As soon as they were on board, Sam said, “Pauline, we’ve got company down below — get us out of here!”
Pauline didn’t need to be told twice. She pushed the twin throttles all the way forward and the large pleasure cruiser took off like a racehorse.
Sam dried himself and stepped into the main living quarters, where Elise was still working on her laptop.
He placed the San Juan’s AIS hard drive on the table next to her. “I got you a present.”
She took it, smiled, and said, “That’s great. I found you something while you were away, too.”
“What?”
“An F16 Falcon Fighter.”
Sam wiped his face with a towel. “Come again?”
“It was a US F16 Falcon Fighter which took off on the same morning the Phoenix Flight 318 went missing. It flew across Portugal and above the Mediterranean Sea before looping back around and landing on board the US aircraft carrier, the CVS Harry S Truman.”
“Are you sure?”
Elise pointed to a series of photos on her laptop. “The times match up exactly.”
Sam ran the palms of his hands across his forehead and through his hair. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Tom stepped into the room, having heard the last comment. “You think the US government was responsible?”