A Death in Geneva (14 page)

He lifted the weights on his hips, let them settle again. “Tell you what, Skipper; I'll have the boys on the
Octagon
fit you out as soon as we can bring the ketch alongside; same-day service, everything imaginable in those hulls.”

She continued to brief him without acknowledging the offer. “Once you are aboard the sled, I will watch for your signal. We will make three runs over the site. When we come about each time, you will surface with the loss of tow, but you will be able to dive again in less than a minute. Signal if you are having trouble. You can, of course, always swim to the surface, but that should not be necessary given your experience.”

“I'm shooting for at least three gold chalices, figure you'll claim one as the captain's share. What's your cut, Paul?”

Head had not been following the conversation. “Cut? What the hell do you mean, cut?” His eyes narrowed at Tooms; a hand, in reflex, ran down the front of the T-shirt which concealed his damaged side.

“Settled, one-tenth share; at least a sculpted handle for the helmsman. Over we go!” Tooms again brought the mask over his face and, with one hand against the glass, took an exaggerated parade step into the sea, legs spread to keep his head above water. His fins carried him back in a quick flutter kick to the orange sled. Tonasi, in the water waiting for him, forced the stern down. Tooms mounted; the young Italian pulled himself hand over hand to the ketch. Tooms raised an arm, thumb down, ready. The
Matabele
fell off, filling her sails until Tooms, splashing in wake, engaged the planes and disappeared beneath the surface.

Leslie took the helm, checking her course against the Gozo landmarks.

“Cut the line. I'll pick him off when he blows, the bloody bastard!”

“Likes to hear himself talk, like you, Zulu.”

“Keep your eyes on the tow”—her voice was with them—“learn to love him.” She laughed ruefully, “Our new partner.” The braided white line stretching down into the sea trembled against the strain of its cargo.

After three long passes, Tooms was back aboard, towel around his neck, shaking his head with pleasure. Tonasi placed a chilled Hopleaf ale in his wrinkled hand.

“You folks; you're quite a team, much to be admired. I've done diving enough for three men in my day, but this afternoon was something mighty special. That sled, under sail power, the clarity”—he rubbed the towel vigorously through his hair—“and, the sightseeing, first rate. How long was I down?”

“Not quite one hour, deck to deck.”

“Not nearly long enough . . . a dandy sensation . . . like a twenty-foot ray surveying his realm.”

She encouraged his enthusiasm. “What would you say the Maltese have down there?”

“Captain, several hulls by the looks of them, broad o' beam, what's left beneath the limestone growth . . . broad o' beam, cargo ships, ordinary merchantmen back when Caesar's crowd was in full sway.”

“It has been well picked over. Fortunately, the Maltese have now acted to preserve the site as a national trust. It is officially a crime to remove anything or to disturb the site in any way . . . like the rest of the sea, abused by the selfish few with no respect of the past, no regard for the present, except their own pockets, no thought to the future. . . . Well, Oats; do have another ale. The ice chest is on the starboard side.”

Tooms collected her words. There was a purity that went beyond the ancient hulls, beyond Malta; a dedication and
purity
in that half-naked young woman that would hang a veritable halo over the bay research project taking form in his mind. “Damned Maltese! Haven't learned screw-off caps. Where the hell's the grog wrench on this able craft?” He followed this bellow with another. “Got it! Sorry, crew.”
He half-emerged from the cabin. “A beer, a wine, some medicinal spirits, Captain? A salute is in order.”

“Right at home. Very good, Oats. The Algerian would taste very nice. You will find some cups over the chart table.”

The
Matabele
was running home, now, coasting along on a following sea, her running lights lit. Tooms handed out the wine, tossed his cigarettes and lighter to Head, and growled happily in the evening air. “To the
Matabele,
her master, and those who serve on her.” He drained the ale and reached behind him for the opened replacement on the cabin sill.

Leslie watched the fat scientist relax. He was propped against the cabin, heavy legs straight out on the cockpit bench, with arms alternating in the delivery of smoke and ale. She prompted him again. “The great Thomas Starring seemed quite keen on some research in America the other night, Oats. I suppose that was no more than the show for that night's guests?”

“You caught me daydreaming, if that's possible at this hour, Captain.” He lurched higher into a sitting position and pulled on his bottle. “Today's adventure had me thinking about an earlier dive, a dive ashore—and that relates to your question, which I was about to raise myself. Paul, Filippo, what's the deepest you've been off this ketch?”

They both looked to Leslie, silhouetted in the twilight. “Last year, one hundred and twenty-five feet, off Greece wasn't it Paul? Yes. We had to rig a new decompression line—”

“A hundred and twenty-five feet.” Tooms scratched a shin. “About five atmospheres, real diving . . . takes skill. I took a team of four down to sixteen hundred feet a few years back, sixteen hundred feet in a chamber built to my specs at Towerpoint—part of Starring's thrust into deep ocean engineering.”

He had them listening. “It's a strange world at that depth. You suck in the helium and oxygen. The human body is flexible, tough, but it's mighty easy to screw up. It's rough at that depth, hard to do the easiest tasks. You get the shakes, your stomach goes, head hurts, can't sleep worth a damn. Then you start the decompressing, not minutes—day after day, a week goes by. You think you'll go nuts with the boredom, but you're fighting fear at the same time. You have to make constant checks, keep the nitrogen from boiling over in the blood, turning you into a burnt-out kettle of mush—”

“Ease the main.” Leslie uncleated the mizzensheet, allowing the line to slip through her fingers until both sails trimmed to the shift in wind.

“—that, too, was diving. Thinking about that dive, I was thinking about the three of you. You're a good looking bunch, young, smart, able divers—the skipper a card-carrying member of the Oceanic University crowd.

“You asked about Tommie Starring. I've been hopping, deadline of the Fourth of July. You three ever been to the United States?” There was only the gurgling of the
Matabele
and the sea, the glow of cigarettes. “Well—here goes—I want you all to come to the States, to work for me, for Starring, and it'll happen, on my say-so, if you want to do it.”

Tonasi toured the cockpit with the plastic liter, sloshing another round of wine into the cups.

“The Chesapeake Bay, Filippo, one of the greatest estuaries . . . the greatest estuary in the world, runs in from the Atlantic up through Virginia and Maryland two hundred miles, three hundred kilometers—”

“And, what does Starring have in mind, Oats?”

“Nothing . . . everything. I haven't laid it out for him, yet, Skipper . . . research with impact . . . good science, good coverage in the media at the same time the big ships are making their runs—”

“What ships?”

“Ships? The big combo-hybrids he's got on the new Mexican run—eighty percent gas tanker, twenty percent float-aboard barges, everything nice all wrapped in one.” The chrome lighter gave a metallic click, illuminated Tooms's squinting face. “Tomorrow, one of the company containerships departs the U.K., diverts to Valletta before picking up her regular trans-Atlantic run—my doing. She'll have an underseas habitat aboard, a pretty piece of work we've had in pier-side storage since the mid-seventies, . . . primed and ready to go. She'll be here early in the week; we'll sling her aboard the
Octagon.

“The bay's shallow, no more than two hundred feet at its deepest, main channel, thirty to forty feet most places. My thought, and bear with me, is that you three—and Oats Tooms—form Starring's bay research team. We'll have it mapped out before we're in U.S. waters—it's why I want
you
now. We'll mate the catamaran's submersibles—
and I'm talking about the work chariots, not the deep machine—we'll be
in situ,
you know
in situ,
Filippo, by the Fourth.

“I see it as a two-season exercise. We'll fan out early across a broad research front, baseline measurements, shellfish beds, pollution—a broad front. The locals will want to help, and we'll fit them in. But, that won't work for day one, got to have the three of you, got to launch at flank speed.”

“You want the three of us to ship with you on the catamaran for America this month.” Her tone established a benchmark rather than posing a question.

“About ten days from now, Skipper, ten days. One more data bit and I'll have another Hopleaf to keep me quiet. First, Towerpoint will cover storage of this handsome ketch.” He slapped the coaming to confirm the point. “Second, you'll find the pay's mighty impressive by any standard. Stick it out and you'll have enough for a second
Matabele
. Third, if you don't like it, you can be on your way in two months, pay in your pocket. Once we're in the bay working and the media lets the public know it, I'm ninety percent home: two months. Fourth, return passage will be first class, courtesy of Towerpoint.” His lips squeaked on the spout of the bottle.

“You are proposing a total, if intriguing, uprooting, Oats. We will talk it over, and I will call you in two days.”

Tooms was standing, a hand on the cabin steadying him. “Just in time; we're coming up to Marsamxett. You give me that call, Skipper, and”—he chuckled—“if it'll close the deal, I'll throw in a sack of chestnuts for that dandy iron fireplace in the main cabin, be back with my fur trunks for the
Matabele
's winter cruise.”

Chapter 7

P
ierce Bromberger cocked his head against the heavy mist blowing through the gardens of the Rodin Museum. The shorter man keeping to the slow, strolling pace beside him was faceless beneath the downturned brim of his waterstained suede hat.

“They didn't argue with dear old John the Baptist, eh, did they? We don't argue with people like you now, do we Pierce. We shoot you.” The brim turned toward the taller man, the smiling face still hidden. Their shoes splashed through the puddles forming on the empty paths, paused before the great bronze of
The Thinker
dripping in his contemplation, continued on another measured round.

“The years have treated you kindly, Stuart. Even your hearing has improved—a sign of rank, I suppose. You have your lieutenants to run your parcels for you now?”

“Bombings, eh? No need, Pierce, no need, not for the moment at any rate. There's a war; that's clear, but not the Jubilee Riots. London and Dublin have taken over, are doing our work for us—colossal great mess. The people of Ulster, the working people, have never been more depressed. Even their wildest dreams reveal only despair. Your information is good, Pierce. If nothing else, you have always had good information. There is to be no settlement without Sinn Fein. The tide is leaving the barren flats of the negotiating tables, turning to us again. Young men, eh, and women, coming in marvelous new numbers.”

“And, you have left the field for the import-export business in Paris?” There was a trace of amusement in Bromberger's voice. “Stuart Lynch, proprietor, entrepreneur, risen from the ashes of gelignite, shuffling invoices, sampling rare imports from the north shore of Africa—Paris your residence full time, Stuart?”

Lynch poked at a bottle cap with the toe of his shoe, kicked it to one side. “Here and there, Pierce, here and there as the business requires—quite a bit of travel these days. We're not the xenophobes some would make us out to be, eh.”

“And, business is good?”

“Adequate.”

“The imports have slowed from my side of the Atlantic?”

“A source of no little satisfaction to you, eh, Pierce? The way your government fumbles around, you can't be having a hand in it. We're patient. Needs are being met. Washington will lose interest, but your Irish will not, Pierce. For them, a united Ireland is not a proposition, eh, not a problem. It's a certainty, as fundamental as belief in Jesus Christ. Now, that's my part of the Royal Inquisition over. Why are we out here tromping amidst this lifeless metal and stone?”