Fire Ice Page 23

  The ship was a metal cadaver, useless except for the schools of fish that nosed through passageways where humans had once walked. To Austin, who watched the screen with an expression of fascination on his bronzed features, this sad and lifeless hunk of rusty metal was a living thing. Although there were no hands to close the hatches forced open by the pressure of escaping air, Austin could almost hear the creak of the booms and the throbbing engine as the ship plowed through the seas. In his mind's eye, he pictured the helmsman standing with feet braced on a wooden grating, hands on the wheel while crewmen went about their business on deck or fought the inevitable boredom of shipboard life.

  Austin asked Gunn to steer the ROV around to the stem. As Ensign Kreisman described it, the hull was covered with growth that hid the ship's markings. Gunn poked the vehicle into several nooks and crannies, hoping to come across a manufacturer's metal plate, but they found nothing.

  Austin turned to Gamay. “What's our resident nautical archaeologist have to say about this old gal?”

  Gamay pinched her chin in thought as she stared at the ghostly images on the glowing screen.

  “My specialty was Greek and Roman wooden ships, and if you asked me to ID a bireme or a trireme I might be of more help. I'll venture a few guesses, though.” The camera was moving along the midships section, where the rusty steel plating had buckled and was clear of barnacles. “Those are riveted steel plates. By the 1940s, shipbuilders had switched to welding. The booms indicate that she's probably a cargo ship. She's an old-timer, judging from her lines, maybe built in the late eighteen-hundreds or around the turn of the century.”

  Austin asked Gunn to move the ROV around to the damaged side. The ship leaned downhill, and from this angle it looked as if it could come crashing over at any second. Gunn brought the ROV straight in until the hole filled almost the entire screen. The lights probing the ship's innards picked out twisted pipes and steel columns.

  “Damage assessment, Rudi?” Austin said.

  “From the way those edges are curled, I'd say a projectile hit the engine room. Too high for a torpedo. Probably a shell from a big gun.”

  “Who would sink a harmless old freighter?” Zavala asked.

  “Maybe someone who thought she wasn't so harmless,” Austin said. “Let's check out the cabin section that Ensign Kreisman told us about.”

  Gunn tweaked the controls, and the ROV rose abovedecks. It was clear from the grin on his face that Rudi was having a ball. He brought the vehicle around, taking care not to catch the tether in the foremast or booms. The ROV moved past the bridge, then stopped and hovered in front of a dark rectangular opening. Unlike the ragged cavity in the hull, the edges of the hole were relatively even from the cutting torch. Gunn brought the ROV to within a few feet of the opening. The lights picked out the framework of a bunk and the remnants of a metal chair and desk that lay in a tumbled heap.

  “Can we go inside?” Austin asked.

  “I'm getting a side current that could make things tricky, but I'll see what I can do.” Gunn maneuvered the vehicle left and right, then when it was directly centered, he put it through the hole as easily as a seamstress threading a needIe. The ROV was capable of turning within its own radius, and Gunn executed a three-hundred-sixty-degree turn. The camera captured slimy gray piles of debris. Gunn probed a corner with the ROV's manipulator, stirring up a powdery cloud of rust. Then the ROV got tangled and wouldn't, move. Gunn waited for the dust to settle and wriggled the ROV until it broke free of the overhead wire that had snagged a projection of its protective shielding.

  “What do you think?” Gunn said, turning to Austin.

  “I think anything of value has been removed. We'll have to piece together the story from the ship itself, not what's in it.” He pointed to a wall shelf. “What's that?”

  Austin's sharp eye had caught a dark, squarish object. Gunn used the manipulator to clear away a pile of amorphous grayish-brown trash and made several fruitless attempts to grab the object. It kept slipping away like a prize in a penny-arcade game. Gunn set his jaw in determination and pushed the object into a corner where he could get a firm grasp on it, then he backed the ROV out of the cabin and moved the manipulator to put the prize directly in front of the lights. The claw clutched a small, flat box.

  “I'm bringing her up,” he said. He reversed the ROV's direction and sent the vehicle scuttling back to the Argo. Minutes later, the lights of the moon pool appeared on the screen. The captain ordered the ROV's handlers to stabilize the artifact in seawater and send it to the vehicle control room. Soon a technician arrived, carrying a white plastic bucket. Gamay, whose background in nautical archaeology made her the most experienced conservator on board, asked for a soft brush. She removed the box from the bucket and gently placed it on the floor. Then, with soft strokes, she brushed a thumbnail patch of the black patina to reveal the gleam of metal.

  “It's made of silver,” she said, and continued to work until fifty percent of the top was cleaned. The metal was embossed with a double-headed eagle. Gamay examined the clasp. “I might be able to get this open, but I don't dare because I could destroy what's inside when it hits air. It may need intense conservation.” She glanced at the captain.

  “The Argo is primarily set up for biological and geological survey,” Atwood said. “There's another NUMA ship called the Sea Hunter doing archaeological work not far from here. They might be able to help.”

  “I'm sure they can. I did some research on the Sea Hunter a couple of years ago,” Austin said. “She's the sister ship of the Argo, isn't she?”

  “That's right. The two vessels are almost identical.”

  “We should get this box there soon,” Gamay said. “I'll stabilize it in seawater as best I can.” She glanced with longing at the box. “Damn! Now I'm really curious about the contents.”

  “How about running it through the X-ray machine in the infirmary?” Austin suggested. “That might partially satisfy your curiosity.”

  Gamay carefully replaced the box in the bucket, and the technician carried it off. “You're brilliant,” she said.

  “You may not think so after you hear my next idea,” Austin replied. He outlined his plan.

  “Worth a try,” Atwood said, and clicked on his hand radio. Before long the screen flickered into life and the moon pool appeared again. The ROV was being put back into the water. The dive was a repeat of the first, with the diver, bubbling foam and dark water.

  Gunn put the ROV on a direct trajectory to the wreck. Before long, the vehicle was coming from behind the ship. Gunn worked the joystick, and the mechanical arm unfolded and extended to where it could clearly be seen in the glare of the halogen lights. Watching Gamay clean the artifact had given Austin the idea. Clasped in the metal claw was a metal-bristled brush used in preparing the Argo's hull for painting.

  The ROV made several attempts to clear away the barnacles. Newton's law of action-causing-reaction kicked in, and the brushing pushed the ROV away from the hull. The ship did not want to give up its identity without a fight. After forty-five minutes, they had succeeded in clearing away a patch about a foot in diameter. A portion of a letter embossed in white was visible. It could have been an O or any of several other letters.

  “So much for brilliant ideas,” Austin said.

  Gunn was equally frustrated. His forehead glistened with beads of perspiration. He'd been trying to counteract the push by revving up the ROV's thrusters. At one point, he lost control and the ROV slammed into the hull. A layer of gunk a couple of feet across dropped off to reveal an S.

  “There's concretion under the marine growth,” Gamay said. “That's why you can't brush the stuff away.”

  “Can you bang off another chunk?” Austin asked. He turned to the captain. “With your permission, of course.”

  Atwood shrugged. “Hell, I'm as curious about this old hulk as you are. If it takes a few dents in a piece of NUMA equipment to do the job, let's do it.”

  His face flushed as he re
membered that NUMA's second-in-command was sitting at the controls. But Gunn had no compunctions. He gritted his teeth and rammed the ship again and again, as if he were trying to break down a castle door. Pieces of thin brittle concretion began to flake off, to reveal more letters. After one sharp jab, a huge piece of the covering dropped off to reveal the ship's name in Cyrillic letters.

  Austin studied the letters illuminated in the glare of the ROV's lights and shook his head.

  “My Russian is rusty, but the name of the ship seems to be Odessa Star:”

  “Doesn't ring a bell,” Atwood said. “Have you ever heard of her?”

  “Nope,” Austin said. “But I'll bet I know somebody who has.”

  NUMA 3 - Fire Ice

  -22- WASHINGTON, D.C.

  ST. JULIAN PERLMUTTER had spent most of his day researching a twin-hulled Civil War ironclad for the Smithsonian Institution, and the work had made him hungry. But then, practically everything made Perlmutter hungry. An ordinary human faced with this state of affairs would have satisfied his needs by slapping a wad of cold cuts between two slabs of bread. Not so Perlmutter. He indulged his addiction for German cooking with a plate of pig's knuckles and sauerkraut, paired with a light-bodied Reisling Kabinett plucked from his four-thousand-bottle wine cellar. He dined using silver and china from the French liner Normandie. He was sublimely happy. The mood persisted even when his telephone gave off a ring like a ship's bell.

  He patted his mouth and thick gray beard with a monogrammed linen napkin, and reached with a plump hand for the phone. “St. Julian Perlmutter here,” he said pleasantly. “State your business in a brief manner.”

  “I'm sorry. I must have the wrong number,” the voice on the phone said. “The gentleman I'm trying to reach would never answer the phone so politely.”

  “Ah ha!” Perlmutter's voice ratcheted up the decibel scale to a supersonic boom. “You should be sorry, Kurt. What happened to imam?”

  “Can't say I know anyone by that name. Have you tried Istanbul missing persons?”

  “Don't toy with me over such an important matter, you impertinent young snit,” Perlmutter boomed, his sky blue eyes twinkling in the ruddy face. “You know perfectly well you promised to get me an authentic recipe for imam bayidi. Translated loosely as 'the imam fainted,' because the old boy was overcome with delight when he tasted the dish. You did remember, didn't you?”

  Austin kept on Perlmutter's good side by searching out authentic recipes on his travels around the world. “Of course I remembered. I've been trying to persuade one of the finest chefs in Istanbul to part with his recipe and will send it to you forthwith. I wouldn't want you to waste away to nothing.”

  Perlmutter roared with laughter, the belly laugh amplified by the nearly four hundred pounds of flesh adhering to his sturdy frame. “There's not much danger of that happening. Are you still in Turkey?”

  “In the neighborhood. I'm on a NUMA ship in the Black Sea.”

  “Still on your vacation cruise?”

  “Vacation's over. I'm back at work and need a favor. Could you dig up something on an old cargo ship named the Odessa Star? It went down in the Black Sea, but I don't know when. That's all I can tell you for now.”

  “Tracking down your ship should be no problem, not with such a helpful description,” Perlmutter responded with dry humor. “Please tell me what you do know about it.” Perlmuttecr jotted down the sparse information Austin was able to give. “I'll do my best, although I may be weak with hunger, a condition easily remedied by the receipt of a certain Turkish recipe.”

  Austin again assured Perlmutter that the recipe was in the pipeline, and hung up. He felt guilty for shading the truth somewhat. With all that was going on, he had forgotten Perlmutter's request. He turned to Captain Atwood. “Does anybody in the galley know anything about Turkish cooking?”

  While Austin tried to track down the imam, thousands of miles away in his N Street carriage house behind two vine-encrusted Georgetown town houses, Perlmutter was grinning with pleasure. Despite his bluster, he enjoyed a challenge. The Smithsonian would have to wait, although the concept of an obscure twin-hulled ironclad was intriguing. He glanced around the huge combination living room, bedroom and study at the stacks of books occupying every square inch. Although the space looked like a librarian's nightmare, Perlmutter's apartment contained the finest collection of historical ship literature ever assembled.

  Perlmutter had read every volume he owned at least twice. His encyclopedic mind had absorbed a numbing number of facts, each connected like the links of a Web site to related caches. He could pluck a book from a dusty pile, run his finger down the spine and remember practically every page.

  He knitted his brow in thought; something was eluding him, lurking in a shadowed comer of his mind beyond the periphery of consciousness. He was sure he'd heard of the Odessa Star before Austin mentioned it. He would find it in five minutes or not at all. He dug through his piles of books and periodicals, mumbling under his breath. Damned if he could remember. Must be getting old. He rummaged for an hour before giving up. He picked a card out of his telephone number file and dialed the international code for London and a number.

  A moment later, a clipped British accent answered, “Guildhall Library.”

  Perlmutter gave his name and asked for an assistant cataloger he had dealt with on previous calls. Like many English institutions, the Guildhall Library had been around for centuries. The original library dated back to 1423 and was acknowledged worldwide for a history collection that went back to the eleventh century.

  The library also had the finest collection of wine and food books in the United Kingdom, a fact that had not escaped Perlmutter's attention. But it was the Guildhall's extensive maritime records that Perlmutter often drew upon in his research. England's naval tradition, and the wide reach of the British Empire colonies and trade, made the collection a treasure trove of information about practically every sea-girt country in the world.

  The cataloger, a pleasant young woman named Elizabeth Bosworth, came on the line. “Julian. How nice to hear from you again.”

  “Thank you, Elizabeth. All goes well with you, I trust.”

  “Very well, thank you. I've been quite busy indexing agreements of colonial registered vessels dating back to the seventeen hundreds.”

  “I hope I'm not calling at a bad time.”

  “Of course not, Julian. The material is fascinating, but the work does get a bit tedious at times. What can I do for you?”

  “I'm trying to track down some information on an old cargo ship named the Odessa Star and wondered if you could tickle the Lloyd's file for me.”

  The Guildhall Library held all the shipping records for the giant international marine insurance underwriter prior to 1985. Lloyd's of London had been established in 1811 to provide a universal system of “intelligence and superintendence” in all the principal ports of the world. To accomplish this goal, Lloyd's had set up a network of agents. By the turn of the century, the agency had more than four hundred agents and five hundred subagents scattered around the globe. Their reports on marine casualties, shipowners, shipping movements and voyages were contained in the library's files, where they were accessible to historians like Perlmutter.

  “I'd be happy to look into it for you,” Bosworth replied. Her enthusiasm was due only in part to the generous contributions, far and above the usual research fee, that Perlmutter consistently made to the library. She shared his love of sea history and admired his book collection. More than once, she had gone to him with queries of her own.

  Apologizing for providing so little information, Perlmutter relayed the facts outlined by Austin. Bosworth said she would get back to him as soon as she could. Perlmutter hung up and returned to his research for the Smithsonian. With bulldog perseverance, he unearthed a rough sketch of the Confederate twin-hulled ironclad and was typing out a report on his computer when the phone rang. It was Bosworth.

  “Julian, I've found some reference
s to the Odessa Star: I'll fax them to you.”

  “Thank you so much, Elizabeth. In return, the next time I'm in town I'll take you to lunch at Simpson's on the Strand.”

  “It's a date,” she said. “You know where to find me.” They said their good-byes and, a minute later, the fax buzzed and spat out several sheets of paper. Perlmutter examined the top sheet. It was the report of the Lloyd's agent in Novorossiysk, a Mr. A. Zubrin. It was dated April of 1917.

  “This is to report that the Odessa Stat; freighter of ten thousand tons, carrying a cargo of coal from Caucasus, enroute from Odessa to Constantinople 1917, February, did not arrive at its destination and is presumed lost. Have confirmed such with G. Bozdag, Lloyd's agent, Constantinople. No report of ship at any Black Sea port. Vessel owned by Fauchet, Ltd., of Marseilles, France, which has put in a claim. Last survey, June 1916, showed ship in desperate need of repair. Please advise as to claim.”

  The other papers included a three-way correspondence among the agent, the central office in London and the French owners. The French were insisting on full payment of the claim. Lloyd's resisted, citing the perilous condition of the ship, but eventually settled for a third, most of it the value of the cargo.

  Perlmutter turned to a ceiling-to-floor bookcase and extracted a thick volume whose burgundy cloth cover was worn with use. He leafed through the registry of French shipping companies. Fauchet had gone out of business in 1922. Perlmutter grunted. Small wonder, the way they neglected their ships. He replaced the registry and picked up another document Bosworth had sent him. It was a copy of a book review from the London Times dating to the thirties.

  The headline read: VETERAN SEA CAPTAIN REVEALS SECRETS OF THE BLACK SEA. He put the review aside and turned to the note from Bosworth.