Unearthly Power (9 page)

Tori was caught between her own laughter, helping to make sure Dee was in fact okay, and looking at the reaction of her father. After she addressed all three things, she gave him a look of warning. If it was meant to change his behavior, it served no more than to have the opposite effect.

“Your mother is an actress?” Professor James asked.

“Mostly she was in commercials advertising suppositories and VD medications.”

“Sean!” Dee yelled. “That’s enough already. Don’t you take anything seriously?”

“Actually, I take both suppositories and VD very seriously,” he replied in mock sincerity.

Alex couldn’t control his laughter, while Dee and Tori were doing their best to show their disapproval through a series of easy to read looks. Feeling out of place, and a little uncomfortable, Professor James excused himself and returned to his room.                

“You are making such a fine impression on my father,” Tori said to him with the intended sarcasm.

“I think he likes me,” he said with a smile.

“You’ll have to excuse my brother. He isn’t nearly as clever as he thinks he is and he often embarrasses himself before he realizes it.”

Sean decided to let the comment pass. Tori redirected her question to Dee. Once they were engaged in a discussion of their childhood, Sean and Alex excused themselves from the room.

Even when
morning came there was little evidence that the day would be any less gloomy. The ocean swells had subsided and the readings from the underwater currents were not optimal, but were manageable if they didn’t get any stronger. Today, Marcel and the professor came out early to see if a dive would be possible. They were all wearing lightweight windbreakers because of the chill moisture rising from the water. They originally anticipated sunny skies and calm waters in this part of the ocean, but their experience was proving otherwise. Sean agreed to a test dive, but said he would go alone. The other two men were not happy with that announcement, but Sean left little room for debate—it was his ship and his rules regardless of who was paying the bill. Sean agreed to it himself only because of the rising disappointment among his guests over their lack of activity.

The excitement of someone finally going into the water had spread to cause everyone on board to watch with anticipation and offer help where they could. That excitement quickly diminished when they realized there was nothing more to do, or see, once he disappeared from the surface. Sean had a miniaturized radio in his mask and this allowed contact between him and Alex while he was underwater. One by one, the others returned to attend to other diversions.

Sean initially followed the anchor line. Once he attained a depth where he could barely make out the bottom with his high powered flashlight, he leveled off and started a search pattern. In the depths he would be working, he decided to stay as far from the bottom as he could for his general search. This allowed him more time underwater, and better coverage of the bottom itself. Sean decided to work with the current. He quartered it as a ship would quarter a stiff wind; this kept him from being swept along too far in one direction and interfering with the effectiveness of his search pattern. He looked at the GPS device attached to his wrist and started the program.

It was slow going as he fought the current and the low visibility. While his GPS helped him keep his sense of direction, he also had a GPD tracking device installed in his diving suit which was monitored by Alex. This was the main tool they used to ensure proper coverage of an area. Alex annotated time and location at three minute intervals. Normally they would go as long as five or ten, but the conditions and depths they were working required finer measurements to ensure nothing was missed.

When Alex saw his tracking device was reversing course, he knew Sean was returning. He was standing by when Sean surfaced. He lifted his face mask and held it for Alex to take. He used his hands to lift himself onto the platform at the rear of the boat and twisted his body at the same time so that he could sit down.

“Anything?” Alex asked.

“No. It’s still a little too strong to cover it effectively.” He said while removing his gear.

“Maybe tomorrow.” Alex replied.

“Yeah, maybe. We could be out here for a month in these conditions and never find it . . . Did you chart the readings?” he asked his partner.

“Yep. You didn’t do too bad, actually.”

“Well,” he said as he was finally able to slip out of his suit. “I’ll compare what we got today with what I have from the last time we were here. Maybe I can get us dialed in a little closer for the next dive.”

Alex nodded his head in agreement. 

At dinner that evening, talk centered on the next dive. While the five members of their charter were sure of success, Sean had a more ‘wait and see’ attitude. He didn’t want to put a damper on their enthusiasm. If they were excited, they were easier to manage. When people are dispirited, it tends to infect others quickly, making time on board more difficult with each successive day.

He didn’t get any time
to spend alone with Tori that evening. Nobody, it seemed, was willing to leave the galley; even Marcel and his men remained and he could find no plausible excuse for calling her away. The casual glances they gave each other were playful, but not very gratifying. He excused himself, having decided on a good night’s sleep while praying for favorable conditions in the morning. He knew he could not keep the others out of the water for long. Eventually, they would insist on going, despite concerns for their safety, and he would have more to deal with than he would by going alone. If they proved to be less than competent underwater, he would be lucky to cover half as much area as he did today.

I
t was still dark outside when he opened his eyes. His dreams had disturbed him all through the night. Deciding it was a waste of time to lie in bed any longer, he pulled on his wrinkled shorts and a button down shirt over his T-shirt before quietly leaving the room so as not to disturb Alex. As he made his way to the wheelhouse, he tried to recall the dreams. They seemed so real and vivid just minutes ago, but he only remembered scattered fragments of them now. Thinking it over, he recalled now that his sleep had been disturbed the few nights they had been on site. Normally, he slept soundly no matter where he was. He acquired that ability from his time in the Navy. But this time it was different. He shrugged his shoulders, brushing away his own unanswered questions, and moved his thoughts onto other things.

After narrowing down their present location as well as he could while fighting with the direction finding equipment, and comparing his previous notes to the readings they had recorded yesterday, he decided to move the boat. He estimated that they were nearly one mile from where they were supposed to be. One mile didn’t seem like such a far distance on land, but underwater, with lowered visibility and
the extra effort needed to fight the currents, it might as well have been one-hundred miles. He waited as the members of his charter filed into the galley one by one.

The professor looked his normal self and Tori looked amazing. Well, even
after a few days out to sea without the conveniences to pamper oneself, as she was probably used to, she still looked good. He offered her a smile when she looked at him.

As the others took their seats, Professor James asked, “How are we looking today?”

Once he knew he had everyone’s attention he said, “Don’t know yet. I recalculated our position using the readings we took yesterday. We’re gonna pull anchor and move about a mile northeast of here. Once we’re there we’ll check the currents and see what we have.”

When no
body replied, indicating that they accepted what he had said, he walked out of the room to get them underway. Tori followed him.

“Mind if I come and watch? I’ve been on lots of boats before, but never one like this.”

“Yeah, this one is pretty fancy. Just watch so that you don’t damage anything.” He said in a serious manner.

She looked at him as if he was joking and realized that he was. She thought the Cantankerous II was built more like a tug boat than any diving platform she had worked on before. She wasn’t about to criticize his boat, however, as she knew captains could be
sensitive about such comments, even with a vessel such as this.

She sat on a bench seat and watched as he went through the motions of getting them underway. When she left to follow Sean, Alex evidently left shortly thereafter. She now saw him through the front window standing near the anchor line. Once he had it secured on board he disappeared again and Sean started the craft.

After he tapped the compass with his forefinger and smacked the direction finding equipment with his hand, he settled on a course he believed to be true. He motioned for her to come over and let her take control of the wheel while he explained what she was supposed to do. She already knew from previous experience, but she listened anyway as that gave them an excuse to be near one another. Just when the thought had entered their minds to steal a moment between themselves in a shared embrace, they heard someone walking through the passageway.

“I hope I’m not disturbing anything. I
s it okay if I come in here?” Professor James asked.

Tori smiled and kept her eyes on the instruments, while Sean
was starting to believe that there really were unknown forces working against him on this excursion.

“No, not at all,” Sean said with as much believability as he could muster. He didn’t actually approve of his being there uninvited, but he didn’t think it would ever cross the professor’s mind as to why that might be. The wheelhouse was the captain’s domain. It was even more exclusive when he was entertaining a beautiful woman. But since that beautiful woman just happened to be his uninvited guest’s daughter, he decided to let it go.

The professor took a seat on the bench which left Sean to stand.
I just can’t win
, he thought to himself.

When it was apparent
that all he wanted was to spend time someplace new and didn’t come by to start up a conversation, Sean took the time to do a little fishing of his own.

“What exactly do you expect to find on this wreck, Professor James?”

He looked at him in alarm for a second before gaining control over his reaction to the question. Sean noticed the change in demeanor the instant it happened. When he composed himself he said, “Treasure; what else?” He then got up to stand next to his daughter, effectively ending the conversation before it even began.

Sean wasn’t buying it. A lot of things could be considered treasure. He wanted to know what was so interesting
about this site that had generated such a generous flow of money on short notice. He thought about it as he studied the backs of the pair before him. He really had no reason to be suspicious. Everyone had deferred to him up until now and they were the model of courtesy when considering the other three passengers.

He decided there was nothing to worry about;
it was probably just Alex’s overactive imagination working on me.
They were tallying up a healthy fare and if they did recover any valuable treasure, the boat received an automatic percentage along with the notoriety of discovery. It would pay off dividends in the future.
All they had to do now was find one wreck, probably no more than one-hundred and ten feet long, if it was still in one piece, in about three-hundred and fifty feet of water; with the weather, electronic instruments and water conditions working against them. What could be difficult about that?

When he was as close to the original position of discovery as he thought he could bring them, Sean shut down the engines. His electronics were completely useless by now. Even the tried and true method of smacking the outside of the components failed to achieve any change in operability. The sea was agitated and it appeared as if the immediate area was in a constant state of expectation for a brewing storm. While they could easily see that the surface water was choppy, they had no way to measure the underwater currents, currents that could swiftly take them a great distance away from their boat in a short span of time. He had Alex tie a two ounce weight at the end of a heavy line. He let out lengths of twenty feet at a time to see how quickly the line moved with the current. Surprisingly, it was not as severe as it had been at their previous location; at least as close as they could estimate.

Sean, Tori and Finley all suited up to go in the water. Sean noticed with appreciation that neither diver appeared concerned over the conditions. When they made their final equipment checks, they all agreed to remain near to one another for this dive. Alex adjusted their breathing gas for the depth they would be descending to. He explained the Trimix 10/70/20 mixture to both Tori and Finley. Tori was already familiar with it; Finley didn’t seem to care. Sean waited until they were ready as he would lead the way.

They went into the dark blue water, one by one, as the others looked on. They had to fight the current as they plunged into its depths. Tori kept to his right, just a little behind him, and Finley to his left. Visibility was fair, so Sean decided they would do a wide sweep in the hopes of discovering the wreck.