"I want everybody out of the room except the members of my team," Bearing ordered.
Bearing's bodyguard saw to it that the old boy's wishes were carried out to the letter. He glowered at Cosmo and Honey Bear until they were sufficiently intimidated, then he ushered them out along with the others. When I looked around the room at what was left, only Maggie, Byron Huntington and a dark-haired lady in a white jumpsuit remained. The latter was without makeup but was the kind of woman who still managed to look attractive and efficient. She took a seat beside me on the sofa and studied Schuster in an almost detached fashion.
Bearing cleared his throat. "Well, Mr. Wages, this is your team."
"What if I said I wanted Huntington out?"
Schuster smiled. Huntington didn't.
It took the so-called cryonics expert less than 30 seconds to reach the boiling point. "See what I mean, Bearing," the little man protested. "The man has absolutely no concept of what we are dealing with. You and I both know that I am absolutely essential to the success of this mission."
Schuster, in his strange way, continued to smile.
I've learned that when you want to know something the best thing to do is start firing questions. So I shot the first volley back at Schuster.
"Just what is it that makes Huntington so damned valuable to this project?"
"As preposterous as it sounds, Mr. Wages, I am the only one on this ill-conceived mission that knows anything about the cryonic procedure."
"What about Holbrook and Chrysler?" I countered.
"See, Bearing?" Huntington sputtered, "The man is a fool. He knows nothing." Byron turned toward me, face flushed, fists doubled and shaking. "If it's necessary to explain the difference between cryogenics and cryonics, then you're an even bigger fool than I thought."
It was the dark-haired lady who spoke up — and in the process probably saved me both some money and the likelihood of a lawsuit. "Byron is right, Mr. Wages. Bearing has it pretty well covered. Maggie understands what is required if we do get lucky enough to find the cylinders. Mr. Huntington understands the cryonic procedures and sequences that will have to be followed if there is any hope of saving the subject for reanimation. As for me, I can make it all happen. I'm your basic technical expert with the gear. You have no way of knowing this, but I'm pretty good at putting the pieces together and keeping things running."
"And you, Mr. Wages," Bearing muttered from his muffled world, "are the man who has to see that it all comes together. I'm counting on you."
The ugly specter of the other half of my payment floating out the window and scattering haphazardly over the blue green waters of the Gulf of Mexico tempered my displeasure with Byron Huntington. But the thing that really annoyed me was the way Bearing Schuster just sat there and smiled.
The old boy fired up his chair and wheeled himself over to the wall maps. "The arrangements have been made. You and the members of the Prometheus Project team will leave for Montego Bay in the morning. From there you will go to a designated area just north of Negril where the second portion of your mission will become more apparent. How you get from Point A to Point B is entirely up to Mr. Wages. I am informed that you have numerous contacts in the area, Mr. Wages, so you will be responsible for hiring any additional personnel that may be required."
I was grinning sheepishly and wondering just what Cosmo had told him about my previous sojourns into the Jamaican hinterlands.
"Pay particular attention to the following," Schuster warned. He pressed a couple of buttons and prefocused lights illuminated two specific points on the map. "This is the Doobacque Cluster. In all, there are seven islands. The largest, Big Doobacque, is the farthest to the southwest. The one in the center is called Deechapal, an area with which I myself have some familiarity. The last reported position of the Garl on May
26th was here, some fifty miles off of the Tiger Reef. She was sighted by a Panamanian vessel at twenty-two forty-two zulu. The skipper of the Panamanian ship reported that the Garl was damaged extensively, was in heavy seas and appeared to be taking on water. He made several attempts to contact the Garl with offers of assistance but never received a response. He made one aborted attempt to come alongside but gave up due to the weather. Then on the morning of May 27th, there was a reported earthquake at or near Bajo Nuevo and that was followed by three days of severe storms along the south and west coasts of Jamaica. The Garl was never seen or heard from again."
Bearing seemed out of breath and began frantically punching buttons on the control panel of his wheelchair. It was obviously a distress signal to the young man with the elixir. The boy swooped in, gave Bearing an eight-ounce jolt of the seemingly magic potion and promptly disappeared again.
I saw the interlude as an opportunity to ask some more questions. Bearing looked slightly agitated by the interruption but didn't try to stop me.
"What's the speculation on the Garl?"
"There are several possibilities," he said, matter-of-factly. "The report claims that she was taking on water and listing hard to port. That could have triggered an explosion in her boilers. Or she could have had some kind of sickness on board, or… the list goes on and on."
"That's very close to the Tiger Reef," I speculated.
Hannah Holbrook gave me a look that made me think she thought I was showing off for Huntington's sake.
Bearing nodded. "The two theories on the fate of the Garl that I find most intriguing are that she hit the reef at the height of the storm — or, the one that makes the most sense to me, she went to the leeward side of the reef to ride out the storm and then hit it. Our friend Cosmo, however, has pointed out that calculating the draft of the Garl, her time out of port, amount of fuel, and the fact that she did not take on cargo at Montego Bay all lead to the conclusion that she would not have had any trouble with the reef unless she did encounter it on the leeward side."
I tried to sum up what Bearing had just told us, which was really nothing more than mere speculation. "What you're saying is that she could be inside or outside the reef — and maybe not even there at all."
Bearing graced us with another of his wan smiles. "Precisely, Mr. Wages."
"What difference does it make?" Huntington blustered.
I decided to show off again. "If the Garl went down on the windward side of the reef, she could be a helluva lot further out and a helluva lot deeper than we want her to be. All of which adds up to taking longer to locate her — and more divers, more money and time and equipment to retrieve those cylinders.''
"And if she went down inside the reef?" Byron pompously asked.
"Shallower water, easier to find, and probably a whole lot easier to go treasure hunting. The only thing that bothers me about the leeward side of the reef is the damn sharks, some of the biggest and meanest in the Caribbean."
"Six gillers," Hannah added. "Some of them aren't even categorized." Hannah was showing off, too.
"Do you have any other questions, Mr. Wages?"
It was now or never, and I realized that this was probably my last chance. "Schuster Laboratories had a research facility in the Cluster for years. Surely you've still got some people tucked away in the company that know the Cluster better than any of us. I guess the question is — why didn't you sic some of your own people on this project?"
Bearing made another futile attempt at a smile. "You used the correct word, Mr. Wages. 'Had.' Schuster did have a facility there many years ago. It was a government project — top-secret. The project was completed, the reports filed, the data assessed and the facility mothballed. Some years ago my son leased a portion of those facilities to the Zercher Salvage Company, a Jamaican operation, I believe."