“She knows,” Sam said.
“Doesn’t matter. I’ll explain it to her if she gets snoopy,” Purdue smiled.
Apparently, Nina was not the only woman who could read their mannerisms.
“What is going on, boys?” Crystal asked suddenly. She looked bewitching in her skintight diving suit, and her sex appeal rendered the two men speechless at first before their spell lifted enough to answer her.
“Purdue is going to stay on board. You and I will lead the dive for now,” Sam winked, trying to charm her from seeing the true urgency of Purdue’s decision. But once more he had underestimated female intuition.
“Why? What is wrong?” she asked, dismissing all Sam’s attempts at fooling her.
“It’s not a big deal, love,” Purdue said plainly. “We have more important things to deal with right now and those are things we only have a certain time window for if you catch my drift."
“Yes, I do catch your drift. But your data is crucial. Without your dimensions…”
“Sam is taking care of that,” Purdue almost snapped at her. It was unlike him to be impatient or brash, but he did not want to have to explain his protection of Nina right now. Sam lifted the tablet for her to see, looking boyishly victorious. Crystal did not fall for it all, but she was aware of the tug headed their way and the time limit they were pushing.
“Okay,” she said sternly, flashing Purdue a particularly sharp look. “Let’s go, Sam.”
A few minutes later the two divers descended into the temperate waters of Bluewater Bay. Sam followed Crystal’s lead as she navigated their route by the coordinates on her underwater mapping system, fixed to her arm just above her diving watch — a pivotal instrument on all her salvage dives. Upon closer inspection, Sam realized that the device looked like something Purdue may very well have designed and built for Crystal.
It appeared to be far more advanced than Sam’s humble depth gauge, but he had little time to compare technology now. His film equipment needed attention as she pointed out that they were approaching a particularly huge shadow below them. Sam looked down at what was a hint of something gigantic that had not been there a moment before. It startled him. A strange tingle crept up his spine that he reluctantly construed as a tinge of terror. He may as well have caught sight of a Great White shark by the way his heart was racing.
Crystal was probably used to seeing such ominous monsters lurking motionless in the deep because did not seem the slightest bit uncomfortable. Sam frowned as his camera's viewfinder captured the structure. He felt Crystal's gentle grasp on his arm. Had he not seen her approach him her touch would have frightened the life out of him.
The curious thing was that they were not even that deep, yet the water was almost completely dark — not murky — dark, as in void of natural light. Only a few sun rays were able to penetrate the water surface as far down as 200m, where the Disphotic zone — the twilight zone of the ocean — began. The wreck, according to Purdue’s software and sonar, was resting at approximately 190m below the surface in complete darkness.
Either his depth gauge was faulty, or they were deeper than initially measured. Crystal stared at Sam in befuddlement. He gestured to his depth gauge, and she brought hers next to his to check. Both instruments displayed a depth of 300m, although this part of the bay was not nearly as deep. Perplexed, they looked at one another. Crystal shrugged and Sam shook his head. She gestured for him to use Purdue’s tablet to measure and map the exact coordinates at this depth, just to record the confusing and extremely disturbing data. Once they came back to the surface, they would figure out the discrepancies.
With great reluctance, Sam followed Crystal’s lead to go deeper towards the eerie-looking wreck. He wondered why the vessel had such a strange effect on him. Not only did it radiate absolute evil for anyone with an ounce of emotional, sensory perception, but it also exuded intelligence.
‘Things that think without brains freak me the fuck out!’ Sam thought as his heart raced. It felt as if the ship was watching them, yet Crystal went about her business as usual, checking if the salvage of the giant metal cadaver was feasible. She tried to ascertain whether the hull would be able to float with a bit of welding and checked the level of deterioration due to years of environmental factors at work.
In the meantime, Sam sucked it up and proceeded to record dimensions for Purdue, although it was hard to determine the measuring points. The ship was immensely complex in its construction, and Sam had not the slightest clue about shipbuilding. The countless rods, steel barriers, deck guns and other protrusions made it near-impossible to take exact measurements.
He did the best he could and made sure that he did not neglect his own mission of filming as many details as possible. Sam tried not to touch the wretched wreck out of sheer discomfort, but he had to film all the crevices and sub-levels. He also had to use the structure to hold on or to propel his body forward after taking pictures, while the light of his camera lit up the smothering darkness.
Every time Sam laid his hand on any part of the vessel, he felt a terrifying current engulf him, body and soul. It was not a physical sensation, but one of absolute intuition. He knew Purdue and Crystal would call him daft for admitting such nonsense, so he kept it to himself for now. Still he could not get the feeling out of his head, that the vessel had a mind of its own and that it had the ability to vanish at will, should he lose focus.
Never before had Sam hoped this much that he was mistaken.
Chapter 19 — Cabin Fever in the Open Air
“Why did you decide to stay up here, Purdue?” Nina asked when Purdue brought her a beer. She knew something was afoot since after a minute-long conversation with Sam his quite resolute plans had suddenly changed.
“What do you mean?” he asked nonchalantly. “I will go next time. It’s no big deal.”
“No, you were dying to see that wreck with your own eyes. Had it not been for the two bottles of Scotch and fourteen beers you ravaged with Sam, you probably wouldn’t even have slept,” she reminded him.
“It was not fourteen,” he scoffed. “At most eight.”
“Wow! That makes a difference. I stand corrected,” she smiled and licked a popsicle. She had been pleasantly surprised when she had found a stash of juice popsicles in the larger fridge below deck. The welcome coolness of the frozen popsicle alleviated the glare of the African sun somewhat.
“You sound almost disappointed that I chose to stay up here with you,” he teased.
“With me?” she replied in surprise. “Shouldn’t it be ‘with us’?”
Purdue chuckled softly at Nina’s psychological wiles he could so easily see through. He had known her far too long to fall for her mind games. With the wind muddling the feathery gray and blond hair around his ears and neck, his eyes gazed far across the gentle waves.
"Nina, you are a brilliant woman. You know full well that I would always relinquish the pleasure of diving for you. Come now,” he said dreamily without meeting her eyes.
“Aye. I got that a long time ago. But my question is why?” she reiterated.
He looked her in the eye for a moment, the reflection of the sun on the water highlighting the gray of his irises. “You know why. You know I have not given up on whatever we once had. How could I? You are, in my opinion, the pinnacle of feminine creation, my dear Nina, and I will be damned if I am going to let you run off with someone else. Someone… lesser… than you deserve.”