Deep Fathom (6 page)

“S-Samo sent us,” Karen said in broken Japanese.

“I know,” the old man answered in English. “The American.”

“Actually, I'm Canadian,” she corrected him.

“Same thing. I must get the ship going. I wait too long already.”

Karen nodded and unslung her bag. She and Miyuki were guided to a stained wooden bench beside a folded mat of net. The reek of fish entrails and blood from the wooden planks of the boat almost overpowered her.

Around her, the two-man crew had freed the ropes from the dock and jumped on board. At the wheelhouse, the ship's captain barked orders. The motor roared. Water began to churn, and the boat slowly edged forward. The crewmen
took up posts near the bow, one on the starboard, one on the port side, watching the waters ahead. Sunken debris made the bay treacherous.

It was clear why the captain insisted on leaving with the dawn. As the morning tide receded, these waters would become even more treacherous.

Past the pier's end, they sailed toward the center channel of the bay and slowly edged by a pole sticking crookedly up from the water, a flag flapping at its tip. Karen glanced over the rail and realized it was the mast tip from a submerged sailboat. The fishing boat with its shallow draft cut around and over the debris.

Across the bay, the United States military base lay burning. Fires still glowed from the refinery blaze, set off during the quakes as underground tanks had been ripped open. A smudge of oily smoke climbed high into the morning sky. Helicopters circled the area, hauling dredges of seawater and sand in an attempt to stanch the fires. So far with little luck.

A thick-bellied transport plane, military gray, passed low over them, its engine roaring. The fishing boat's captain shook a fist at it. The United States presence here, especially this base, still rankled the locals. Back in 1974 it had been agreed that the land would be returned to the islanders, but that transition had yet to be realized.

Finally, the fishing boat sailed free of the bay and headed toward open water. Clear of the smoke, the breeze freshened. With the open sea all around them, the captain nodded for his first mate to take the wheel, then sauntered over to them. “My name is Oshi,” he said. “I take you to Dragons. Then we come back before sun go down.”

Karen nodded. “Perfect.”

He held out his hand, awaiting payment.

Karen stood and pulled a wad of bills from her jacket's inside pocket. She noticed the fisherman eye her holstered gun. Good. Just so things were clear. She counted out the appropriate number of bills, half the prearranged fee, then returned the rest to her pocket. “The other half when we return to Naha.”

The man's face remained hard for a heartbeat, then flashed a quick scowl. He mumbled something in Japanese and shoved the bills into his jeans.

Karen sat back down as he left. “What did he say?”

Miyuki wore a grin. “He says you Americans are all alike. Never stick to your own agreements, so you don't trust anyone else.”

“I'm not American,” she said in an exasperated voice.

Miyuki patted her knee. “If you speak English, have blond hair, and carelessly throw that much cash around, you're American to him.”

Karen tried her best to sulk, but she was too excited. “C'mon. If this American is paying for this excursion, I want better seats.”

She stood and led Miyuki toward the bow. They crossed to the forward rail as the boat rounded the southern tip of Okinawa and passed the tiny island of Tokashiki Shima. The Ryukyu chain of islands spread south in an arc almost stretching to Taiwan. The Dragons were located near the island of Yonaguni, an hour's journey but still within Okinawa's prefecture.

One of the sailors bowed his way into their presence. He placed two small porcelain glasses of green tea and a small plate of cakes on a nearby bench.

“Domo arigato,”
Karen said. She took the tea and let the hot cup warm her hands. Miyuki joined her, nibbling on the edge of a cake. They stared in silence as green islands drifted slowly past. The coral reefs colored the nearby shoals in shades of aquamarine, rose, and emerald.

After a time Miyuki spoke, “What do you really hope to find out there?”

“Answers.” Karen leaned on the rail. “You read Professor Masaaki's thesis.”

Miyuki nodded. “That once these islands were part of some lost continent, now sunk under the waves. Pretty wild conjecture.”

“Not necessarily. During the Holocene era, some ten thousand years ago, the ocean levels were three hundred feet
shallower.” Karen waved an arm. “If so, many of these separate islands would have been joined.”

“Still, you know from your own research that the islands of the South Pacific were populated only a couple thousand years ago. Not ten thousand.”

“I know. I'm not saying you're wrong, Miyuki. I just want to see these pyramids for myself.” Karen gripped the ship's rail tighter. “But what if I can find proof to support Professor Masaaki's claim? Could you imagine what this revelation would mean? It would change the entire historical paradigm for this region. It would unite so many disparate theories—” She hesitated, then continued. “—even explain the mystery of the lost continent of Mu.”

Miyuki crinkled her nose. “Mu?”

Karen nodded. “Back in the early 1900s Colonel James Churchward claimed he had stumbled upon a set of Mayan tablets that spoke of a lost continent, similar to Atlantis, but in the central Pacific. He named this sunken continent Mu. He wrote a whole series of books and essays about the place…until he was discredited.”

“Discredited?”

Karen shrugged. “No one believed my great-grandfather.”

Miyuki's brows rose, her voice shocked. “Your great-grandfather!”

Karen felt a blush blooming. She had never explained this to anyone. She spoke softly, embarrassed. “Colonel Churchward was my great-grandfather on my mother's side. When I was a child, my mother used to tell me stories of our infamous ancestor…even read sections from his diaries to me at bedtime. His stories first drew me to the South Pacific.”

“And you think the Dragons might prove your relative's wild claim?”

Karen shrugged. “Who knows?”

“I still say this is all a wild goose chase.”

Karen shrugged. Wild goose chases? They ran in her family, she thought sourly. Twenty years ago her father had
left his wife and baby girls to chase the dream of oil and wealth in Alaska, never to be heard from again—except for a sheaf of divorce papers arriving in the mail a year later. After his disappearance, hardships drained the life from the remaining household. Her mother, abandoned with her two young daughters, had no more time for dreams and worked herself into a dull job at a secretarial pool and an even duller second marriage. Karen's older sister, Emily, had moved to the small town of Moose Jaw after graduating from high school, her belly full of twin boys.

Karen, however, had inherited too much of her father's wanderlust to settle down. Between tips as a waitress at the Flying Trout Grill and a few small scholarships, she was able to put herself through an undergraduate program at the University of Toronto, followed by graduate work in British Columbia. So it was no particular surprise to those who knew her that Karen Grace had ended up on the far side of the Pacific. Still, she had learned from her father's abandonment—each month she mailed a chunk of her paycheck back home to her mother. Though she may have inherited her father's blood, she didn't have to accept his cold heart.

A call from the wheelhouse drew her attention.
“Yonaguni!”
the captain yelled above the motor's roar. He pointed off the port side to a large island. The fishing boat made a wide turn around the isle's southern coast.

“This is the place,” Karen said, shading her eyes with a hand. “The island of Yonaguni.”

“I don't see anything. Are you—”

Then from around the high cliffs of the island, they appeared, no more than a hundred meters off the coastline, shrouded in morning sea mists: two pyramids, towering above the waves, their terraced sides damp with algae. As the boat drew closer, details emerged. Among the pyramids' steps, white cranes clambered, picking stranded urchins and crabs from the debris.

“They're
real
,” Karen said.

“That's not all,” Miyuki said, her voice full of awe.

As the small boat continued to circle around the island, the deeper mists parted and the view opened wider. Past the
pyramids, rows of coral-encrusted columns and roofless buildings rode above the waves. In the distance a basalt statue of a robed woman stood waist-deep in the sea, draped in seaweed, a stone arm raised as if calling for their aid. Farther yet, piles of tumbled bricks and cracked stone obelisks marched deep into the Pacific.

“My God,” Karen exclaimed in shock.

Along with the Dragons, an entire ancient city had risen from the sea.

On the bridge of the
Deep Fathom
, Jack lounged in the pilot's chair, sprawled out, his bare feet propped up on a neighboring seat. He wore a white cotton robe over a pair of red Nike swim trunks. The morning had started warm and had only grown warmer. Though the pilothouse was equipped with air-conditioning, Jack hadn't bothered. He enjoyed the moist heat.

As he sat, one hand rested on the wheel of the ship. The
Fathom
had been on autopilot since it left the site of the sunken
Kochi Maru
yesterday, but Jack felt a certain comfort with his hand on the wheel. A twinge of mistrust for automated equipment. He liked to keep things in his immediate control.

As he sat, he chewed on the end of the cigar hanging from his lips. A Cuban El Presidente. The smoke trailed in a lazy circle toward the open window nearby. Behind him, Mozart's Clarinet Concerto in A Major wafted gently from a
Sony CD player. This was all he wanted: the open sea and a handsome ship to travel her.

But that was not to be. Not today.

Jack glanced at the reading from the Northstar 800 GPS. At their current cruising speed they should arrive at their destination in another three hours.

Exhaling out a stream of smoke, he stared out the windows across the upper deck of his salvage ship. He understood why his ship had been summoned to aid the search for the wreckage of Air Force One. The
Fathom
was the closest salvager with a deep-sea submersible on hand, and they were contractually obligated to lend the sub's services during an emergency.

Still, though he knew his duty, he did not have to like it. He spit out his cigar and ground its fiery end into the ash tray. This was
his
ship.

Twelve years ago, using money from his settlement against General Dynamics after the shuttle accident, Jack had purchased the
Deep Fathom
from a shipyard auction house. The eighty-foot
Fathom
had originally been built as a research ship for the Woods Hole Institute back in 1973. In addition to the purchase price, he had been forced to take out a large loan to convert the aged research vessel into a modern salvage ship: adding a hydraulic cargo crane, upgrading to a five-ton capacity A-frame, and overhauling the Caterpillar marine diesel engine. He had also updated the navigation equipment and outfitted it so the
Fathom
could operate without outside assistance for weeks at a time. He added Naiad stabilizers, a Bauer diving compressor, and Village Marine water makers.

It had cost him his entire savings, but eventually the
Fathom
had become his home, his world. Over the years, he had gathered a team of scientists and fellow treasure hunters to his side. They became his new family.

Now, after twelve years, he was being called back to the world he had left behind.

The door to the pilothouse squeaked open behind him and a fresh cross-breeze blew in. “Jack, what are you still
doing here?” It was Lisa. The doctor from UCLA scowled at him as she entered. In shorts and a bikini top, she did not look the part of an experienced medical researcher. Her limbs were deeply tanned, and her long blond hair had been bleached white by the months under the sun. She looked like she belonged on a beach, hanging on the arm of a muscled surfer. But Jack knew better. There was no sharper doctor on the high seas.

Lisa held open the door to let in another member of the crew. A lanky German shepherd loped inside the cabin and crossed to Jack's side for a scratch behind the ear. The dog had been born aboard the
Fathom
, from a litter whelped during a storm in the South China Sea. Underweight and sickly, the pup had been abandoned by the bitch, and Jack took him in, nursing the pup back to health. That had been almost nine years ago.

“Elvis here was worried about you,” Lisa said. She sidled to the chair next to him, shoving Jack's feet off.

Jack patted the large dog's side and pointed to the cedar pillow in the corner. “Bed,” he ordered. The old dog crossed and collapsed into the thick pillow with a long sigh.

“Speaking of bed,” Lisa said, “I thought you were supposed to be relieved at sunrise. Shouldn't you be trying to catch a nap?”

“Couldn't sleep. Thought I might as well be useful.”

Lisa pushed away the ashtray to make room for the mug she brought in with her. She glanced at the navigation array. After five years on and off the
Fathom
, she had become a fairly skilled pilot herself. “Looks like we'll be at the rendezvous site in less than three hours.” She faced Jack. “Maybe you should try to get some sleep. We've a long day ahead of us.”

“I've still got to—”

“Get some sleep,” she finished with a frown. She shoved her mug toward him. “Herbal tea. Try it. It'll help you relax.”

He leaned over the steaming mug and sniffed. The medicinal tang was sharp after smoking his cigar. “I'll pass.”

Lisa pushed the mug closer. “Drink it. Doctor's orders.”

Jack rolled his eyes and picked up the cup. He took a few sips to placate her. It tasted as bad as it smelled. “Needs sugar,” he said.

“Sugar? And taint my healing herbs?” Lisa feigned shock and nudged the ashtray. “As it is, you have enough bad habits.”

He took another sip and stood. “I should check on Charlie. See how the tests are going.”

Lisa turned, her lips firm, her eyes hard. “Jack, Charlie and the gold aren't going anywhere. Go to your cabin, shut the drapes, and try to sleep.”

“It will only—”

She held up a hand. Her expression softened, as did her words. “Listen, Jack. We all know what's got you so anxious. Everyone's been walking on eggshells around you.”

He opened his mouth to protest.

Lisa stopped him with a touch. She stood, parted his robe, and raised a hand to his chest. Jack did not flinch at such casual intimacy. Lisa had seen him naked many times. On such a small ship, privacy was limited. But more than that, years ago, when Lisa first arrived onboard, the two of them had played at being lovers. Eventually it became clear their feelings were more physical than heartfelt. Without a word, their trysts had eventually ended, settling into a warm companionship. More than friends, less than lovers.

“Lisa…”

She traced a finger down from his collarbone, trailing through the coarse black hair on his chest. Her finger was warm on his skin. But as it moved below his right nipple, the feeling vanished. Jack knew why. Across the middle of his chest lay a swath of trailing scars. Old burns. The scars were pale against his bronzed skin. Numb and dead.

Jack shivered as he felt Lisa's touch return, past the scarring, just above his navel. Her finger traveled still lower and crooked into the waistband of his trunks. She pulled him nearer. She whispered, “Let it go, Jack. The past can't be changed. Only forgiven and forgotten.”

Gently pushing her hand away, he stepped back. Those were easy words for Lisa to say, a girl who had led a
charmed life in Southern California.

She stared up at him, her eyes slightly wounded. “You weren't found at fault, Jack. You were even offered the goddamn Medal of Honor.”

“I turned it down,” he said, swinging away. He headed toward the door. The shuttle accident was a private matter, a subject he did not want to share and discuss. Not with anyone. He had enough of that from the Navy's psychiatrists. Free of the pilothouse, he hurried down the steps to the boat deck.

 

Her heart heavy, Lisa watched the large man retreat out the door.

In the corner, Elvis had lifted his head from the bed, and watched his master storm out. The big dog grumbled under his breath, a throaty complaint.

Lisa settled into the pilot's seat, still warm from its previous occupant. “My words exactly, Elvis.” She sagged into the chair. Though their fiery relationship had died to ash, Lisa could still touch the warmth of her old feelings: Jack's hard body holding her tight, the heat of his mouth on her breasts and neck, his lovemaking both rough and tender. He was an attentive lover, one of the best she had ever experienced. However, strong hands and legs couldn't build a relationship by themselves. It took an even stronger heart. Jack loved her. She never doubted this, but there was a part of Jack's heart that was as dead and numb as the scars on his chest. She had never found a way to heal this old wound—and doubted she ever could. Jack would not let it heal.

Lisa reached for the mug of herbal tea and dumped its contents into the trashcan. She had spiked the tea with Halcyon before climbing up here. Jack needed to sleep, and the sleeping pill hidden in her elixir should help him relax.

At least, she hoped. She had never seen Jack this bad before. He was normally outgoing, quick to smile and joke, full of an energy that shone from his skin. But there had been times in the past when he would sink into a funk, drift away from the others, hole up in his cabin or pilothouse.
They had all learned to give Jack the space he needed during these times. But the past twenty-four hours had been his worst.

The door on the opposite side of the pilothouse suddenly crashed open. Lisa jumped at the noise, caught off guard by her reverie. From his corner, Elvis let out a warning bark.

Lisa swung around as two people shoved their way inside, still in mid-argument.

Charlie Mollier's face was darker than its usual Jamaican mocha. The geologist's eyes were lit with an inner fire. “You can't be serious, Kendall. Those gold bars weigh fifty stone each. They're worth a half-million U.S. easy.”

Kendall McMillan simply shrugged, unimpressed by the larger man's tirade. McMillan was an accountant from Chase Manhattan Bank, assigned to be present here when the wealth of the
Kochi Maru
was brought to the surface, to watch after the bank's investment. “Perhaps, Mr. Mollier, but as your laboratory results proved, the bullion is full of impurities. Not even sixteen carat. The bank has offered a good deal.”

“You're a bloody thief!” Charlie sputtered angrily. The geologist finally seemed to see Lisa. “Can you believe this
mon
?”

“What's going on?”

“Where's Jack?” Charlie answered. “I thought he was up here.”

“Gone down below.”

“Where?” Charlie crossed to the opposite door. “I need to tell him—”

“No, you don't, Charlie. The captain has enough on his plate right now. Let him be.” Lisa glanced at McMillan.

Where Charlie was dressed in his usual deckwear—a baggy set of trunks hanging down to his knees with a floral Jamaican shirt—McMillan wore Sperry deck shoes, khaki slacks, and a smart shirt buttoned to the top. The middle-aged accountant had been on board the
Fathom
for almost two months now, but he had yet to relax into the casual routine of the ship. Even his red hair was carefully trimmed and
combed.

“What's this all about?” Lisa asked.

McMillan drew himself straighter under her gaze. “As I was explaining to Mr. Mollier after reviewing his laboratory analysis, there is no way the bank will pay current market price for the gold. The old bullion is full of impurities. I've used the satellite phone to confirm my own estimates with the bank's experts.”

Charlie threw his hands in the air. “It's high seas piracy.”

McMillan's face tightened. “I take affront at your allegation that I'd—”

“I can't believe you two,” Lisa finally interrupted. “The entire Pacific Rim is trying to recover from a day of horrible disasters, and you two are arguing over pennies and percentages. Can't this wait?”

Both men hung their heads. McMillan pointed toward Charlie. “He started it. I just gave him my numbers.”

“If he hadn't—”

“Enough! Both of you get out of here! And if I hear that you dump any of this on Jack, you'll be sorry you ever stepped on board the
Fathom
.”

“I'm already sorry,” McMillan grumbled under his breath.

“What was that?” Lisa asked fiercely.

The accountant backed up a step. “Nothing.”

“Get off my bridge,” she demanded, pointing toward the door.

Both men retreated quickly.

Quiet returned to the pilothouse. The German shepherd settled back to his bed, eyes closing. Soft classical music returned to fill the space. Lisa combed her hair back with her fingers.
Men!
She had enough of all of them.

Swiveling in her seat, she popped out the classical music CD.
Why does Jack like this stuff?
She shuffled through the stack and found one of her own. After inserting the disk, she hit the Play button, and the all-girl band, Hole, blared from the speakers. Backed by a strident guitar and a mean drum riff, the lead singer's harsh voice echoed through the cabin, singing of men's inadequacies and faults.

Lisa sank back into her seat. “That's more like it.”