Dark Watch Page 10

  But depth wasn’t the problem. Tory’s endurance was.

  Unbeknownst to Cabrillo and his crew, the Avalon had large holds both fore and aft that stretched from her bilge to her main deck and almost the entire breadth of the ship. So far, they had remained dry, thanks to tightly dogged hatches and servo-controlled louvers on the ventilation system that sealed it nearly airtight. It was their buoyancy that aided in keeping the survey ship from free-falling into the depths. While Juan was scrutinizing the door, one of the tightly closed vents began to buckle under the increasing pressure of water that was bottled within the ventilation ducts behind it. A flat jet of water sprayed from a gap between two of the louvers. It fell in a fine mist almost all the way across the hold. The slit between the louver’s metal fins was tiny, and only a few gallons per minute entered the hold—but every second saw the gap widening, and it was only a matter of time before the louver failed entirely, and a three-foot-square column of water roared into the hold.

  The door, Juan noted, was a solid slab hinged from the outside. He could turn the handle freely once he’d removed a steel clamp that had been locked to prevent anyone from escaping during the initial raid. Only the pressure of the surrounding water kept him from drawing it open. To do that he needed to equalize the pressure on both sides. And to do that, he had to flood the antechamber on the other side with Tory trapped inside. It was a straightforward concept, and while Tory was in for the fright of her life as the room filled with water, Juan would have her out and breathing off a spare scuba tank before she was in any real danger.

  He motioned over one of his divers and wrote what he needed on his slab. This man wore a full helmet with an integrated communications system that allowed him to talk with the dive master aboard the Oregon. Juan tapped the beat of “Shave and a Haircut” on the door while he waited for both Tory and his delivery from the ship. Waiting for either was interminable, but when the basket of tools and dive equipment was lowered from above and Tory still hadn’t arrived, Juan began to fear the worst.

  Being trapped anywhere with the bodies of her friends littering the hallways was bad enough. Adding to the psychological stress was the fact that her prison was a hundred feet underwater and continuing to sink. It was amazing Tory hadn’t gone catatonic days ago. She was frightened, near hypothermic, and now soaking wet. Did she have it in her to reach the antechamber and remember to seal the room from the rest of the ship?

  Cabrillo had his doubts. But there was no other way. Her cabin door would have burst and flooded the ship had they cut their way into the room. She would have drowned long before they could have made a hole big enough to even pass her a regulator. No, he thought, this was the only plan that could work.

  He tapped his rhythm against the steel with his light again and again. Then he thought he heard something from within the ship. He tapped again, “Shave and a Haircut,” pulled off his hood, and pressed his ear against the door.

  There. The unmistakable reply. Tap tap. Two bits. She’d made it.

  He reached into the basket of tools he’d requested from the Oregon. First, he checked that the spare scuba tanks were ready. Next came the drill, which fed off two compressed air cylinders slung under the wire-mesh cage and attached by a long hose. The tip was specially hardened and at the RPMs generated by the air tanks would cut through the door in seconds. Cabrillo looked around. The divers at the stern must have finished securing the cable sling to the Avalon. A pair of them went to help those working at the bow while another two came over to help him.

  Cabrillo braced his back against the heavy basket, pressed the drill bit near the bottom of the door, and pulled the trigger. The piercing whine was like actually standing on a tooth while a dentist went after a particularly nasty cavity. It drove spikes through his ears that met in the middle in a blinding point of pain. He ignored it and watched silver slivers of metal curl away from the drill point. In just a few seconds the tip bored through, and Juan carefully removed the drill from the hole. Water and bits of the shavings were sucked into the ship. He didn’t know the size of the antechamber and couldn’t guess how long it would take to fill, so all he could do was wait until the pressure had equalized enough for him to open the door.

  He used a metal pry bar to tap at Tory and tell her he was with her. Her reply came instantly and angrily. She hadn’t expected that this was how she’d be rescued.

  After four minutes, Juan pulled at the door with the pry bar, but it remained sealed tight, so he drilled two more holes and tried again every minute afterward with the same result. He was about to drill a few more to hurry the operation when something happened.

  A sudden gush of bubbles exploded from someplace ahead of the superstructure. The louver in the fore hold had given way, and thousands of gallons a minute poured into the derelict. The quick rise in pressure had popped an inspection hatch on the main cargo hatch. The six divers working at the bow appeared from over the Avalon’s squat funnel, fighting their way through the maelstrom of bubbles and surging water. One of them made a cutting gesture across his throat as soon as he was within the circle of light cast by the undersea lamps. They hadn’t completed securing the forward sling.

  In moments the Avalon began to drop by the head. And then she started to roll to port. The divers had managed to secure only the starboard side of the sling. The Avalon was held to the Oregon by three cables, two aft and one forward. For a few moments the ship appeared to stabilize, but her off-kilter angle allowed water to enter from other places. The crane operators on the Oregon, no doubt supervised by Max, gamely tried to hold the ship steady for as long as they could, but it was a losing battle.

  Cabrillo had floated free from the deck in those first frantic seconds but quickly dropped back to the door. The basket of tools had slid all the way to the scupper. He motioned for one of his men to retrieve it while he hauled on the unyielding hatch.

  Tory would have been tossed around inside the antechamber when the ship torqued over, and her new angle meant she’d have to tread water until he could get the door open. It was a race against the clock, and time had just accelerated.

  The cable sling at the bow was looped to one of the ship’s mushroom-shaped cast-steel bollards. The free end was caught in a jet of air bubbles and danced around the rigging holding the Avalon’s forward mast. Because of the uneven load, the cable pulled at the top of the bollard and started to slip off. The steel strands rasped as they were drawn over the top of the bollard, a pitiable cry like a mountain climber at the moment his grip slips from a rock face.

  With water gushing into the forward hold, the cable remained taut for a few seconds more before sliding off the bollard. The Avalon’s bow plummeted, tilting the ship through ninety degrees until she dangled nose down from the straining crane aboard the Oregon, her knife-edged prow pointing into the abyss. Rated for sixty tons, the crane was probably fighting to hold three times that weight, and every second increased the strain.

  Because of water resistance, the ninety-degree rotation had taken a few seconds, long enough for Juan to clutch the door as the deck became a wall and the aft bulkhead became the floor. Then there came a scraping sound, one that tore through the water and seemed to come from every direction. Juan frantically looked around for the source. The light towers his crew had erected were still tumbling across the deck, creating a nightmare effect of glare and blackness. The sound grew louder. Juan glanced up to see a lifeboat that had pulled free from its davits hurtling down the length of the ship. He dove to the side as it raced past, its momentum pulling at him like a whirlpool. The davit cables trailing the lifeboat were a thick tangle of inch-thick rope that caught him just as he looked back to see if his people had avoided the speeding projectile. The knot of rope slammed into the back of his head, tearing off his face mask.

  He fought the pain and disorientation, groping for the mask as it swirled in the black eddies. He opened his eyes, the sting of salt worse than any he’d ever felt. But there, just beyond his fingers, the
orange mask was slipping into the depths. He grabbed it, snapped it back over his face, purging it by tilting his head and allowing air from his regulator to expel the water. He swam back to the door, checking his wrist computer. The Avalon was sinking at ten feet a minute and accelerating. He knew Max would run out every foot of cable on the Oregon to slow her descent, but there were limits to how deep they could breathe off compressed air.

  The other diver had been thrown violently when the ship upended. It took him a few moments to clear his head and find the tool chest where it had lodged against the rail near the ship’s jack staff. He didn’t bother with the drill and instead concentrated on taking the spare air tank and a dive bag up to the chairman.

  Together they heaved against the door with the pry bar. A curtain of bubbles exploded around the seam for a second. They’d managed to open it a crack, but pressure slammed it closed again. They pulled harder. Juan felt as though the muscles of his back were being stripped from his bones, and black stars exploded behind his tightly closed eyes. Just as he was about to stop and shift to a new position, the door swung open, instantly flooding the last of the interior space.

  The powerful lights they’d set on the aft deck had either smashed themselves to pieces or were lost over the fantail, so all he had was his trusty dive light. He swung the beam around the antechamber. The space was cramped, painted a drab white. A set of metal stairs dropped to a solid-looking hatch that had once led to the bridge deck. Another door to the right that gave access to the interior of the main deck had also been secured. Then he saw Tory, a dark drifting shape of sodden clothes and loose limbs. Her hair fanned around her head like an anemone on a tropical reef.

  In two swift kicks Juan was at her side. He slid his regulator past her slack lips and upped the airflow, trying to force the precious gas into her lungs. The other diver joined him and ripped open his dive bag. As fast as he could work, he plucked fistfuls of chemical warming packs from the bag, shook them violently to start the reaction, and stuffed them under Tory’s clothes. They had several decompression stops to make on their ascent, and this was the only way Juan could think of to protect her from the biting cold.

  He took back his regulator to take a quick breath before again feeding it to Tory. A third diver joined them. A knot was forming on her head from where she’d struck it against something, most likely when the ship rotated, and a fine feather of blood stained the water around the welt. He had the spare tanks and a dive helmet. Juan placed it over Tory’s head and gave her sternum a sharp rap. Tory coughed into the helmet, a small amount of water pooling around her neck. Her eyes fluttered open, and she retched again. Juan used his regulator to purge the water from her helmet and kept his eyes locked on hers as she slowly came back. He knew she was going to be okay when she realized a stranger had his hand down her pants.

  Other divers appeared. They guided Tory and Juan out of the room. One checked Cabrillo’s tanks. He’d been down the longest and working the hardest. He was okay for now but would need fresh tanks during the decompression. Once they had swum far enough from the dangling survey ship, one of the men sent word to the Oregon that they could release the doomed vessel. A moment later, her slow downward plunge turned into a runaway plummet, and the Avalon slipped from view. The severed ends of cable trailed behind her like steel tentacles.

  The team ascended in a tight group centered around Tory and Juan. The dive master shaved as much time as he dared from their stops, but it was still ten minutes before the freshest divers could guide Tory up into the moon pool and another fifteen before Juan and the others allowed deckhands to drag them onto the metal deck plating.

  Juan stripped off his mask and dive hood, taking great gulps of air. The moon pool smelled of machinery oil and metal but tasted as sweet as a clear mountain morning. Max appeared at Juan’s side, handing over a mug of steaming coffee. “Sorry, old friend, no booze until all the nitrogen has dissolved out of your blood.”

  Cabrillo was about to tell Hanley he would risk it for the worst case of bends in history, but he tasted the coffee and savored the sting of Scotch Max had laced it with.

  He let Max help him out of his gear. Then he tried to get to his feet. “How is she?” he asked, his voice weak and thin from the cold.

  Max put a restraining hand on his shoulder. “She’s with Julia. We’ll know for sure soon, but I think she’s going to be okay.”

  Juan sagged back against an equipment rack with a tired and satisfied smile. At least they’d snatched one of the pirates’ victims from certain death. Then he noticed several deckhands eating premium ice cream from pint containers. He knew why. Julia needed room in the big freezer for the victims they were too late to save.

  8

  CONSCIOUSNESS slowly congealed for Tory Ballinger through the haze of pain. She first became aware that every inch of her body ached, but it was a shin and her head where the agony appeared centered. The rest was low-grade throbbing. She levered open her eyes, blinking rapidly to clear them of sleep. Above her a fluorescent light shone with indifferent intensity. More light streamed through a nearby porthole. Three people were leaning over her. She didn’t recognize them but somehow knew they were not a threat. The woman wore a doctor’s white coat, and her dark eyes were filled with compassion and competence. One of the men was older, early sixties, and looked kindly. His features were weathered, and his bald head was blotchy, as though he’d spent a great deal of time outdoors. The unlit pipe at the corner of his mouth reminded her of her grandfather, Seamus. It was the second man who held her attention. The lines etched into the corners of his eyes and along his wide mouth weren’t the inevitable effects of age. They had been chiseled into his skin by hard-won experience. They were the marks of someone who had struggled with life, someone who treated it as a day-to-day battle. Then she noted his eyes, blue and bottomless, with just a hint of humor, and she knew he won more of life’s battles than he lost.

  She felt as though she knew the man or should know who he was. He wasn’t an actor. Perhaps he was one of those billionaire adventurers who flew hot-air balloons around the world or paid to be launched into space. He certainly had that roguish presence about him, a confidence born out by a history of success.

  “Welcome back,” the female doctor said. She was American. “How do you feel?”

  Tory tried to speak and managed only a hoarse croak. The older gentleman produced a cup and tenderly held the straw to her lips. The water soaked into her tongue like the first rain on a desert. She sucked greedily, relishing at how the liquid sluiced away the sticky coating in her mouth.

  “I think—” Tory began but started to cough. When she was finished, she cleared her throat. “I think I’m okay. Just cold.”

  For the first time she realized she was under a mound of blankets, and the one closest to her body was electrically warmed. It made her skin prick.

  “When you were brought here, your core temperature was about two degrees colder than the charts say you can survive. You’re very lucky.”

  Tory looked around.

  “This is a shipboard infirmary,” the doctor answered her unasked question. “My name is Julia Huxley. This is Max Hanley and our captain, Juan Cabrillo.” Again Tory felt she knew the man. His name seemed so familiar. “It was the captain who rescued you.”

  “Rescued?”

  “Do you remember what happened?” the man named Hanley asked.

  Tory thought hard. “There was an attack. I was asleep. I heard gunfire. That’s what woke me. I remember hiding in my cabin. Then I…” She lapsed into frustrated silence.

  “It’s okay,” Captain Cabrillo said. “Take your time. You’ve been through a hell of an experience.”

  “I remember wandering around the ship after the attack.” Tory suddenly buried her face in her hands, sobbing. The captain placed a hand on her shoulder. It steadied her. “Bodies. I remember seeing bodies. The whole crew was dead. I don’t recall anything after that.”

  “It’s not surpris
ing,” Dr. Huxley said. “The mind has defensive mechanisms that act to protect us from trauma.”

  The captain spoke. “After your ship was attacked, the pirates scuttled it. We happened along before it sank too deeply for us to rescue you.”

  “It was a near thing,” Max Hanley added. “A couple of days had passed since the attack. Your vessel was held steady in a highly saline band of water.”

  “Days?” Tory exclaimed.

  “Think of yourself as Jonah,” Juan Cabrillo said with a warm smile. “Only we had to rescue you from the whale’s belly.”

  Tory’s eyes widened. “I remember you now! I saw you in my porthole. You swam down to get me.”

  Cabrillo made a self-deprecating gesture as if to say it was no big deal.

  “It was you who told me to go to the aft hatchway and close the watertight doors. And it must have been you who drilled holes into the hatch. I thought you were going to kill me, and I almost ran back to my cabin before I realized you had to equalize the pressure so you could get me out. That was the worst. The water level rising inch by inch. I climbed the steps up to the bridge deck to stay out of it for as long as I could, but then there was no place to go.” She paused as if feeling the agony of the freezing water all over again. “I waded in when it was already up to my chest. It took forever. God, I’ve never been so cold in my life. I’m surprised my teeth didn’t shatter from chattering so hard.” She looked up at the trio standing around her bed. “The next thing I knew was just now, waking up here.”

  “Your ship began to sink much faster, and it tilted in the water as the bow section flooded. You must have been tossed against a railing or pipe and hit your head. When I finally got the door open, you weren’t breathing, and you had a gash in your scalp.”