Deep Sea One (22 page)

"Quick! Get that object out of the ROV's grappler, Liam! Before the ocean reclaims the thing again!" Darwin called to his friend. Liam raced to the docking bay and locked down the submersible in the violent little waves around it, rocking it wildly. From the damaged compartment he cautiously dislodged the wooden chest, which he took into the control room while the staff secured the ROV and quickly closed in the docking area. Mr. Purdue could take a look at it and decide what to do with it.

"Call Mr. Purdue, Darwin," Liam panted, as he placed the chest on the table. Darwin's eyes fell on the wet, dark texture of the antique and at once he could feel the hair on his skin stand erect. It had a presence to it.

"Darwin," Liam urged, and Darwin snapped out of his insidious trance, abandoning the chest from his sight as he turned to call Mr. Purdue on the intercom. Liam heard his colleague calling the boss on the radio, but Darwin's voice began to fade away, as if he was speaking from a distant dimension tucked away in the back of his soul. The mechanic's eyes beheld the intricate symbols carved in the wood a hundred lifetimes ago and in his heart he felt a snaking terror possess him. He did not want to know what was inside, yet he could not resist the urge to pry it open. Outside the ocean was furious for relinquishing the chest and raged in the company of the rain clouds. Thunder spoke its secrets in the faraway place where Liam stood fixed on the object.

"Geez, did you notice how quickly it got cold?" Calisto asked Nina, as the two women fled from the onslaught of the cold wind on the steel balcony where they had been having their tea. For the first time Calisto decided to wear her hair loose and then the wind had to disrupt it.

"Yeah, I don't think I was prepared for that. Look at my nipples!" Nina joked, as she put her hands over her breasts. On the intercom they heard the control room summon Purdue. It did not sound like the usual monotonous announcements they normally heard. There was a shiver in the announcer's voice, denoting that something profound was about to be revealed. Sam emerged from his room, having loaded all his pictures and arranged them accordingly. He stepped out in the corridor behind them. Purdue's sexy bodyguard had her long black tresses free and it snaked over her back and shoulders like a regal fur coat. It softened her considerably and he actually observed her as a beautiful woman now, instead of a wayward mercenary.

"Ladies!" he exclaimed, as he trailed them closely, "What are you running from?"

"Jesus, Sam, don't you take note of anything when you work with your pictures?" Nina snapped. "We are being hammered by another storm."

"I had my earphones in, Dr. Gould," Sam retorted, "that way I don't have to remember that I am stuck on an oil rig in the middle of nowhere with you." He smiled sweetly, as Nina gave him the finger.

"Don't worry, laddie, I'll make sure your time here is A-grade excitement, all right?" Calisto winked from the other side of Nina.

Sam was about to call her bluff when the announcement came, "Dr. Gould, please come to the control room immediately. Dr. Gould to the control room."

Nina looked very surprised. She looked at Sam, who shrugged, and then she gave Calisto her cup before she hastened to the office where she was summoned.

"I wonder what that is about." Sam said.

"Maybe Mr. Purdue wants her alone," Calisto purred.

Sam would not be surprised. He still remembered the advances Purdue had made numerous times toward Nina and suddenly he almost considered the possibility.

"You are sweet on her. We can see that," the bodyguard smiled without looking at Sam.

"What gave you that idea?" he asked, feeling a bit vulnerable and inept at concealing the fact that she was correct in her assumption.

"In case you have not noticed, I am very perceptive. And you are easy to read," she replied as they turned into the kitchen where she rinsed out the two mugs.

"Do you always read men this well, sergeant?"

"Yes, in fact, I do," she smiled. It was a suspicious little grin that felt more like a warning.

It turned him on in a twisted way, but he played into her hand.

"So, when are you leaving? Tuesday?" he asked, with a less-than-subtle scratch in his throat.

"My contract was for the trip to Nepal this time. I am still waiting to hear when I am leaving," she said, as she dried her hands. "Are you going to miss me?"

Her onyx eyes glinted with confidence as she stared him down intently. She rested her hip against the table and tapped her fingers seductively on the wooden surface. Sam felt his body grow warm at the thoughts she instilled in him and he smiled slyly.

"Of course, I'll miss you. Who else is going to save my ass from the maniacs?" he smiled suavely, and felt compelled to move closer to her. He could smell her hair and her skin. It was intoxicating.

"Hmm, yes, that ass," she remarked, as she cocked her head and had a look as she had done before. "Going to miss that especially."

Sam could not put his finger on it, but Calisto possessed something that made him delightfully uncomfortable, ultimately making him feel that awkward teenage excitement he used to enjoy when schoolgirls flirted with him. She was somehow unattainable, just like those girls, but she was kind enough to entertain him with her wiles. Had she not been so dangerous he might well have trusted being alone with her in a toilet cubicle.

"Sam!" Nina exclaimed loudly from the doorway, catching the two in the middle of an intense moment she did not like one bit. She composed herself and hoped that she was making unfounded assumptions at what she had just interrupted.

"You need to see this! They found something amazing in the minisub," she continued and grabbed Sam by the hand to lead him away. It was the instinctive thing to do. And around the likes of Calisto, it paid to have your instincts on alert.

☼

Chapter 28

Dave Purdue stood in the control room when Nina and Sam entered. He was pacing up and down, fingers rubbing his chin in deep thought over some conundrum in his brain.

"Mr. Purdue?" Sam said.

Purdue snapped out of whatever thinking war he was engaged in and seemed excited to see them.

"Ah! Mr. Cleave, Dr. Gould! They found an object in the recovered minisub. An interesting looking object, at that. I was hoping you could have a look at it?" he said hastily and stepped aside to show them. His hand extended with great display as Nina beheld a chest on the table. It was a sublime piece of antiquity that immediately piqued her interest. At the control board stood one of the engineers she had seen before. Seemingly terrified, he stood as far as he could from them, leering at the piece. She frowned. The other staff member had the same countenance and both men appeared to be very wary of the chest they could not look away from.

"Everything all right, gentlemen?" Nina asked them. They both suddenly acted as if nothing was amiss and smiled with a nod, but she knew better. She had seen such expressions before and she took it as a sign.

"How old do you reckon this is?" Sam asked, as he set his camera settings to fully capture the details on the chest. Dr. Gould slowly approached it and bent down to scrutinize the symbolism and the design. It was the size of a cinder block, carved from a few variants of wood, from dogwood to rosewood, pine insets and pewter for decoration.

Nina's eyes grew wide in silence and Purdue fiddled impatiently to wrench an answer from her.

"No way," she said. "I could be mistaken, but I don't think I am. It's from the time of the Roman Empire, I'd say."

Purdue got excited.

"How do we open it?" he asked eagerly, ready to send Liam for the proper tools.

Nina took a while to fully study the lock. It was set inside the wood,
made of granite and steel.

"How odd? Look, this lock is made of stone, not steel. The
steel is used to fix the granite
to it and to keep the corners intact, almost like a bumper guard," she pointed for Sam to get a few close-up shots.

"How do we open it?" Purdue asked again. He only had one goal in mind, to see what was held inside. While waiting for Nina he had picked up the chest and found something decidedly weighty inside.

"Well, clearly this is not a lock you just pick with a nail file and a hair clip," she said, as she stood up and stepped back to observe the full size of it.

"Please just remember that it could contain something harmful. You should not just go and bust into it," Sam remarked. Liam and Darwin both vocalized their wholehearted agreement with that. Nina and Purdue looked at them with question.

"I'm not gonna lie, sir, that thing gives me the jeebers," Liam said seriously. Darwin nodded.

"What do you suppose is in it?" Purdue asked, folding his arms with interest.

"I'm sure I dunno, sir. But I know when I am in the presence of somethin' intelligent," Liam answered. Purdue found his choice of words quite odd, but he understood what the mechanic was trying to say. He could not argue that he had the same foreboding feeling when he fiddled with the thing, but he thought it best not to perpetuate the notion, for fear of procrastination on account of superstition.

"Hmm," was all he uttered in return and pinned his attention back on the chest.

"What symbols are these, Nina? Looks like those they found in the caves outside Jerusalem," Sam noted.

"These here are Runic. Norse. I would have to look it up, but it looks like a spell—a containment spell," Nina declared.

The two men on the other side of the room passed one another a suspicious look riddled with fear.

"What would need magic to be contained?" Sam asked. Nina stood in deep thought, her eyes fixed on the object. Many accounts of cursed boxes raced through her mind, but she dared not reveal such things here and now. She realized that chests inscribed with incantations or symbols usually had valid reasons to be so.

"I'm not sure, Sam. Runic magic was practiced in the second century by Germanic tribes. I wouldn't take it lightly, Mr. Purdue," she reported, but she could see he was not pleased with her discouraging theory. Nina knew Dave all too well. He was not going to accept her advice on leaving the container in its present state, that she knew, but she had to admit that her own curiosity was busy getting the better of her. He looked at her with eyes stiff in their sockets and then he lifted the thing for them to hear that something was thumping inside when he turned it.

"Do you hear that? I want to know what that is," he smiled.

"Yes, Dave, I am well aware of your eagerness to pry your way into it," she said in her most civilized tone of impatience. "Give me a while to figure out what to do with a stone lock and we'll see what's inside."

"You have an hour," he decided, "and after that, I'm opening this lock the old fashioned way."

"Sledgehammer?" Sam asked with a wry smile.

"Damn straight," Purdue said. He tapped his watch at Nina and winked at Sam. Liam and Darwin, though, did not share the amusement.

After setting the chest in one of the vacant rooms sublevel, Sam waited with Purdue. Nina came back a while later after going to her cabin to collect the medieval book the Nazi corpses were so kind as to bestow on them. It had so far been invaluable to them in locating clues and deciphering codes. With a bit of searching she knew there had to be something written in there pertaining to the object now before her. Purdue hovered like a vulture, pacing and suggesting to the point of annoyance.

"For fuck's sake, Dave, can you give me some room here?" Nina snapped after a half an hour of his forceful prying, which amounted to nothing but noise in her ears.

"I am giving you room. I am giving you time to do it your way, aren't I?" he said casually. Sam knew her body language. Now she was pulling back her shoulders constantly, a clear sign of irritation he knew all too well. It was a mannerism she had when she was vexed and under stress, and it was best not to say anything when she began to flex her shoulders. It reminded him of a bird flapping its wings in a defensive gesture when threatened.

"Mr. Purdue, I was wondering about the permanent skeleton staff you have here," Sam said suddenly, distracting Purdue from Nina with a bit of a casual confrontation. He was good at those, as any award-winning journalist would be.

"What about it?" Dave asked.

"I just notice that you never have a full crew working. And oil drilling is a substantial practice, not something you can run with just a few men," Sam remarked.

"What I produce on my oil rig and how much of it turns out is categorically none of your business, Mr. Cleave, as is my crew count," Purdue retorted, with a superior sneer at the blatant accusation of mismanagement on his platform.

Nina was pleased that the two men were engaged in conversation, no matter what the nature, because it kept Purdue off her back and gave her time to page through the more indecipherable pages of the handwritten book. As they bantered behind her she focused sharply on the information supplied by various scribes entered in several languages. Finally she came to a paragraph written upside down from the others, as if it was added in haste. In Latin it reported on the granite lock of the curse box and what was needed to undo its hold.

"It's a Roman system," she declared and smiled at the two men who stopped abruptly in midsentence. Purdue's face lit up. He never realized that Sam had been deliberately engaging him to help Nina find the solution.

Nina applied what she had learned from the book to unlock the chest. As she was about to lift the cracked lid that was slightly ajar under her hand, Purdue lurched over the table as if he would see whatever was inside first. She lifted the lid and found inside an elongated object wrapped in leather. From it emanated a putrid whiff that took them aback. The three of them stared in fascination, but none of them moved. Again, there was a feeling of foreboding, a sensation of warning as if they were intruding on something much too potent. Nina, especially, having opened it, felt the distinct unpleasantness of a cornered cat burglar about to be discovered. Vulnerable, uninvited and disrespectful she felt.