The Einstein Papers (17 page)

Whoever they are, they’re sharp, Taft thought. “Roger that, I will attempt to bypass.”

Taft returned to the stern and spent twenty minutes doing nothing to the fuel filter.

Satisfied that he had taken long enough, he straightened up. Returning to the helm, he turned the key and the engine roared to life. Then he closed the hatches, engaged the drives, and set out toward the Deep Search. As the fishing boat drew near, several men quickly ran onto the deck of the salvage ship and waved him away. Taft observed the men carefully to see if they were wearing any type of uniform or patches that might identify them. He noticed nothing.

The radio on board the fishing boat barked. “Pull back,” the voice ordered.

Taft backed off the throttles and idled the fishing boat alongside the Deep Search, looking carefully to see if he could determine what work the crew was performing. He could not. The Deep Search appeared to be a catamaran, but no trawl nets or work gear could be seen. After marking the long-range navigation system-or LORAN-coordinates, as well as the GPS numbers, so he could find the site in the future, he reached for the radio.

“Just wanted to thank you. I’m running fine now.”

“You are most welcome. We are doing some very precise environmental work that you are disturbing. Could you please leave this area?” the voice on the radio asked politely.

“Roger, Captain, I’m leaving for port,” Taft said finally.

Taft cranked the wheel of the fishing boat hard to port and engaged the throttle. He pulled away, leaving the crew of the Deep Search slowly shaking their heads. Bringing the boat quickly on plane, he dialed up Martinez on the secure phone.

“I didn’t see anything unusual,” he said as soon as Martinez answered. “They claimed they were doing environmental work. I didn’t see anything to suspect they weren’t, but I recorded the position on my charts just in case.”

“Sounds good,” Martinez agreed. “I’m still working on tracking down the registered owner of Deep Search. Once I do I’ll get back to you.”

“Can I go home yet?” Taft asked.

“Not just yet.”

“You’re starting to annoy me,” Taft said as he hung up the phone, locked the cabinet, and steered the fishing boat back toward Montauk Point.

Later that same night a light drizzle began falling on the salvage ship Deep Search. Her twin catamaran hulls allowed the vessel to ride smoothly on rough seas and she barely rocked as she anchored atop the Windforce. Inside the recovery bay of the Deep Search, a yellow glow from the lights overhead bathed a pair of salvage technicians who were busy checking the slings and winches in preparation for the job ahead.

Captain Holtz paced nervously as he spoke into the satellite telephone. “Yes, we are certain of the identity. Shall we proceed to salvage the wreck?”

Over eight thousand miles across the globe the Chinese prime minister and a small group of men conferred. At last, their spokesman acknowledged Holtz’s question.

“Yes, bring it up, then make your way to Boston as quickly as possible.”

“We can only recover nine-tenths of the boat easily. What little is left of the stern section is broken into too many pieces to raise.”

“It’s only a small section of the stern, right?” the spokesman asked.

“Correct, only a few feet. What little there is left is not worth the intense effort necessary to raise it,” Captain Holtz answered.

“That’s fine. Leave the stern pieces and raise only the main section.”

“Very good,” Holtz said.

Holtz replaced the phone and turned to First Officer Dietz.

“Let’s do it,” Holtz said quickly.

In the recovery bay the remote-operated vehicle was dropped down into the water. When it touched bottom, the operators directed jets of water to bore tunnels under the hull.

The ROVs pincer arms held wide canvas straps that trailed behind the jets of water and wrapped around the hull. Maneuvering to the other side of the hull the ROV grabbed the end of the straps poking from beneath the wreck, then propelled to the surface with the straps in its arms. The straps were returned to the recovery bay and the ends were taken by the salvage crewmen and fed into electric winches.

Engaging the motors on the winches the straps were slowly tightened. As Captain Holtz monitored the progress from the pilothouse with the underwater camera, the sailboat was winched upright on the bottom.

Once upright and stabilized, the Windforce, a battered hulk containing the greatest scientific discovery of all time, began to make its way slowly to the surface.

Twenty minutes later, the Windforce broke through the water in the recovery bay and was winched into the open air. Almost immediately, the doors of the bay slid closed underneath and the sloop sat in slings, above water once again.

In the recovery bay the intercom blared: “Stations please, we will soon be under way.”

The noise emanating from the engine room increased as the Deep Search set a course for Boston at twelve knots. While the salvage ship made its way north, the salvage technicians immediately began to probe the interior of the old sailboat. The salvagers showed little respect for the skeletal remains of Ivar Halversen. The bones forming his skeleton were yanked free from where they were trapped and tossed into a corner of the bay. They formed a crude pile of what appeared to be bleached driftwood. The barren pile was unceremoniously crowned with the skull, which had been picked clean by crabs.

Like grave robbers in an ancient tomb, the salvagers on the Deep Search showed little respect for history. To them, the Windforce, a boat that belonged in a museum, was little more than an assemblage of planks. It was merely a rotting, soggy pile of junk sheathing a package they had been paid handsomely to plunder.

First Officer Dietz led the efforts to find the package’s elusive hiding place. First, the wooden slats that formed the Windforce’s berth were ripped out, revealing nothing. Next, crowbars in hand, the technicians began to rip apart the interior panels of the once proud little craft.

The pile of rotting boards mounted on the inside of the sailboat.

As the galley was being disassembled, a technician stopped and motioned to Dietz. The first officer walked over and peered through a crack in the interior wood. His eye caught a glimpse of a black package attached to a side wall below where the alcohol stove had resided. Dietz quickly reached for the crowbar a nearby technician held in his outstretched hand. Then he stopped himself.

“You better hand me the instant camera,” Dietz said flatly.

After shooting a series of photographs, he picked up the crowbar once again and pried the panel carefully away. The slats that formed the wall came apart one by one, the tongue-and-groove work cracking as Dietz bore down on the crowbar. Once the wall was removed, Dietz reached in and wrenched the package from inside.

It came away easily and Dietz retracted his arm with the package in his hand. Standing up from his crouch, Dietz hefted the package and stared.

Inside the package, wrapped in oilskin and covered in a black rubber wrap, was what felt like a bundle of papers. The outside of the package was covered with numbers and symbols in a distinctive scrawl. Dietz quickly took an instant photo of the outside, then climbed from the Windforce and made his way topside to report to the captain.

One of Einstein’s legacies had been unearthed.

Early the next morning in a room in a motel on Long Island, Taft’s mental alarm clock woke him from a dead sleep. As he rose with a start to his elbows, the digital clock sitting on the nightstand was flashing 4:30 in bright red numerals.

It was time to go fishing.

Taft rose silently. Quietly slipping out the sliding glass door of the room, he made his way in the darkness to the dock. The sky over the Atlantic Ocean was just beginning to show the light of day. The air in the cove was still as Taft started the fishing boat. The smoke from the exhaust at start-up hung low on the surface of the water. After a brief warm-up period, Taft engaged the drive and pulled away from the dock. With winter approaching, the morning was cool and he pulled on a pair of leather work gloves.

Just to be safe, Taft walked fore and aft and checked his running lights to make sure they were working properly. The surface of the ocean was black, reflecting only the red and green from his running lights. He blew his chilled nose into the wind.

Once free of the channel from the marina, Taft pushed the throttle forward to the stop and steered through a cluster of small islands that rose in the darkness from the depths of the sea. Taft navigated the fishing boat up the back of Long Island toward Block Island. His sleep had been uneasy, and as if his actions were on autopilot he was returning to the position for the Deep Search he had marked on his chart the day before. As the fishing boat got nearer to Block Island, Taft scanned the sea with his binoculars.

The ocean was a dark placid pool, quiet and lonely. Taft looked for the required navigation lights the Deep Search should be displaying. He listened for noise from the ship’s horn or engines. No luck. It was as if the Deep Search he had seen yesterday had been a mirage, a ghost vessel that had never really existed.

Taft strained his eyes against the darkness, checked his chart again, then put the throttles into neutral and climbed below into the cabin. As the fishing boat bobbed gently on the ocean surface he called Martinez in Maryland.

Though it was just past 5:00 a.m., the phone was answered on the first ring. “You’re not going to believe this shit. I’m on the site, the Deep Search is gone,” Taft said without preamble.

“What are you doing up so early?” Martinez asked sleepily.

“I’m a fisherman, remember. It doesn’t matter why I’m awake-you kept me from a night of unbridled passion, so don’t expect me to worry if you’re getting enough beauty sleep.”

“Sounds fair,” Martinez said with a yawn. “You sure you’re at the right site?”

“I have a GPS on the boat. It marks the area to within a few feet.”

“That’s strange they left during the night,” Martinez said. “My last report had them still there at eleven last night. The satellites should have picked up the movement. I’ll call and check.” Martinez paused as he thought. “Since we’re not sure the Deep Search was even tied to the Chinese, what do you think we should do now?”

“Call General B. and ask him. Whatever the case is, I’m here now and can find out.” Taft paused, staring at the depth gauge on the boat’s dashboard. “I’m within dive depth. I think I’ll go down and look around.”

“Do you have gear?”

“The agency stocked this boat with everything but a Taco Bell,” Taft noted.

“You’re diving alone? Without a buddy?” Martinez said quietly.

“I’ve done it before.”

“That’s not very safe.”

“I could cruise back to Long Island and wait for a dive shop to open,” Taft said, laughing. “But then I’d be dragging some innocent civilian into this mess if I found anything interesting.”

“You’ve got a point.”

“Then we both agree it’s just me?”

“Yes. But if I don’t hear from you in an hour, I’m sending out the Coast Guard.”

“For what?’

“So they can drag for your body.”

“Thanks for the pep talk, old buddy, but you’ll hear from me within the hour,” Taft said as he hung up the phone.

After rechecking the GPS and moving the fishing boat’s position slightly, Taft dropped anchor from the bow and made sure it was set and holding. He returned to the stern and donned a wet suit that was a size too small. Next he checked to make sure the tank of air on board was full. Hooking the buoyancy control device and regulator to the tank, he strapped the set to his back, then slipped on fins and a mask.

Satisfied his equipment was ready, he flopped backward over the side into the cold water. He checked his dive light to make sure it was working properly, then swam to the anchor line. After making sure there were no other boats on the water, he slipped below the inky black surface.

The depth gauge on the fishing boat had put the bottom at just over seventy feet. Taft descended slowly through the murky water, stopping often to equalize his ears. It was a strange sensation being alone in the cold void and he fought off the creeping fear of the unknown.

As he moved downward in the water, he peered out into the blackness. When he was just feet from the ocean bottom, he checked his compass, then tied a line to the anchor and began to swim around the line in ever-widening circles.

The water that surrounded him was like a shroud, lit only by the portable dive light he clutched firmly in his hand. The bottom was silty and Taft swam just above the murk, careful not to disturb the sediment into blinding clouds. His safe bottom time passed quickly, and after glancing at his dive console for a readout, he realized he would soon have to begin his ascent.

There’s nothing down here, Taft thought to himself. Probably never was. But at least now he’d seen for himself. Taft was swimming back to the anchor line to ascend when the dive light caught something to his left. He swam slowly toward it.

Like a wraith materializing in the gloom, the broken wooden stern section of a sailboat grew out of the darkness. He reached out with his gloved hands and touched the wood, rotten now after its long immersion in seawater. The sloop’s small diesel motor had detached itself and lay rusting on the ocean floor. A large red snapper seemed to enjoy swimming around it. Kicking back to the transom of the sunken vessel, Taft rubbed the peeling paint with his gloved hand. As the muck cleared he could just make out the boat’s name in his dive light. Windforce.

He swam back to the anchor line and began his ascent.

When Taft surfaced, the yellow glow of daylight was fast approaching. He switched off the dive light and tossed it inside the boat. Next he climbed onto the rear platform of the boat and removed his tank. Then he stood and peeled off his wet suit. Dressed only in his shorts, he balanced on the platform, unbuttoned his fly, and urinated into the ocean.

After he had stowed the gear in the proper compartments, he went to the cabin below to phone Martinez.