The Bone Hunters (19 page)

29 May

Aboard
Island Time

Harbour Island

North Eleuthera

Bahamas

“From what I can see, the ship broke in two right after it took the torpedo,” said Macaulay through the ultrasound voice communicator. “The cargo in the forward hold spilled out of her on the way down. It's scattered across the whole area.”

While Mike and Carlos prepared for their descent, Macaulay and Lexy briefly explored the forward section of the ship. Its interior bulkheads were completely gone, carried away by the shifting mass of engines and machinery. The cargo hold was a hollow, cavernous hole, its steel ribs supporting only a bent and twisted deck. If the Peking Man crate had been stowed inside the forward hold, it was now part of the debris trail lying on the seabed.

Macaulay swam along the main deck in case the crate might have been lashed down there. There was nothing left on it but the ghostly remnants of a cargo boom, an electric winch with its steel cable extending over the side, two ventilation intakes, and scattered rigging, all of it coated with mossy green sea slime.

Macaulay called out on the voice communicator for the others to join him on the stern section of the
Prins
Willem
. Unlike the forward hulk, it was sitting almost straight up in the sand. As he swam closer, he saw that one of the steel hatchway doors leading down below from the main deck was wide-open.

He waited for the others to join him near the hatchway. When they were assembled, he had them check the gas pressure in their tanks. Mike and Carlos had enough to stay down for another twenty minutes. He and Lexy had less than ten minutes left before they would have to begin making their ascent.

“There are only the two decks above the engine room and the bilge to explore,” he said. “Some of the compartments were blown wide-open when the ship came apart. Carlos, you search the ones up forward. We'll try to get to the other compartments through this hatch. If you don't see the teak crate, look for objects that might be enclosed in airtight glass containers.”

The ambient light at the bottom had gotten progressively darker as the sun faded above them on the surface. It was now an almost impenetrable black, but their powerful Maglites illuminated everything within twenty feet.

While Carlos headed off, Macaulay led Mike and Lexy into the open hatchway. Except for a drum of coiled hawser, the first passageway was entirely unobstructed, and he slowly followed it along. About thirty feet farther on, it intersected with the main passageway that ran along the ship's spine. In the glare of the Maglite, he could see a series of compartments heading back toward the stern.

The first compartment Macaulay came to had a wooden door with a brass plate affixed to it that read
CAPTAIN
. He motioned the others to move on to search the next two compartments as he tried the knob. It
wouldn't budge. He shoved his gloved hand against the upper door panel. It came apart in a sodden mess.

Pushing halfway through the opening, he shone the Maglite into the cabin. It was an eight-foot-square steel cave. Whatever personal things the captain might have owned had all disintegrated. A steel bunk had been built into one wall and now held only the mattress springs. There were metal drawers underneath and above it. The empty wooden frame of an easy chair took up one corner. He saw the collapsed remains of a wooden desk along the far wall.

He moved back into the main passageway. From the glow of other Maglites, he could see that Lexy and Mike had already searched the next two compartments and were moving on to the last three. None of them yielded a teak crate or glass containers. Mike pointed to a steel gangway that was bolted against the far bulkhead and led down to the next deck below. He disappeared into the void and they followed him deeper into the bowels of the ship.

The first set of compartments along the passageway of the lower deck had no doors. They had been crew quarters. There had once been curtains across the openings to provide a measure of privacy, but only the metal rods that once held them in position were still in place.

The last compartment on the lower deck had another steel door. Macaulay wondered if it might have been a storage room for important cargo. The door's metal handle was turned to the open position. Mike braced himself against the opposite bulkhead and tried to force the door open with his legs. It wouldn't budge.

Macaulay removed an iron pry bar from his utility belt
and slid the end of it into the narrow space behind the metal handle. Pulling back on it with slow, steady force, he felt the door slowly give way under the pressure.

When it was opened far enough to slip past, he swam inside. His Maglite illuminated the murky darkness of what had once been the radio compartment. An array of moss-covered electronic equipment was bolted to the bulkhead wall.

A metal desk holding the radio operator's transmission keys sat underneath it, the operator's chair wedged under the desk. Still balanced in the chair was the upper half of a human skeleton. The lower half of it had fallen away. The man's skull rested alongside his transmission key. Like everything else in the ship, it was coated by green slime. Macaulay swung around and finned back into the passageway.

One more steel ladder led down to the engine room. He watched as Lexy followed Mike down the small black hole. There was no point in going down there, decided Macaulay. The captain would not have stored the teak crate in the engine room. He checked his watch and tank pressure.

“It's time to go,” he called out, and took another breath of air.

There was no air. Nothing but the taste of rubber. It was as if the tank had been turned off at the source. He reached over his shoulder to check the air flow valve above the tanks. It was wide-open. Then it had to be the regulator. He remained calm. He had already expended precious air in talking. He was not about to panic.

“I'm in trouble,” he said calmly into the voice communicator.

He sank back down along the side of the bulkhead until he was sitting on the slimy deck. He remembered once holding his breath for three minutes in a YMCA pool when he was fifteen. But he had filled his lungs with air before he went under. He glanced along the passageway toward the steel ladder leading down to the engine room. There was no sign of the Maglites.

Someone had once told him that drowning wasn't actually a bad way to go. Just remove the mouthpiece, open your mouth, and breathe in the water. It would all be over in a few seconds.

He felt his brain shutting down and knew there were only seconds before he lost consciousness. The radio operator's compartment across the passageway was still lit up in the glare of his Maglite. The radio operator's skull shone at his transmission desk.

Make the call,
thought Macaulay as the light faded away.

28 May

Aboard
Island Time

North Eleuthera

Bahamas

Macaulay was floating free, breathing again, slowly and normally. The temperature of the seawater around him was definitely rising.

“You be okay, boss,” came a disembodied voice at one point through the ultrasound communicator.

He opened his eyes to the gaunt face of Carlos peering at him from behind his face mask just a foot away. He was holding the mouthpiece of his regulator between Macaulay's lips while at the same time buddy-breathing off Mike McGandy's tank.

Macaulay regained full consciousness in the forward cabin of
Island Time
as they sped back toward Dunmore Town. Lexy was sitting on the edge of the berth, clasping his right hand in both of hers.

“It's about time,” she said with a worried grin. “You can't sleep all day.”

“It was almost the big sleep,” he said.

“Carlos saved your life, Steve,” she said, pouring two inches of sour mash whiskey into a plastic mug. “He found you in the passageway. For some reason, your voice
communicator didn't reach us inside the engine room. We never heard you.”

Macaulay tried to remember what had happened. “Was it my regulator?”

She nodded. “Mike took it apart . . . something to do with the O-ring, whatever that is.”

Macaulay downed the whiskey. “I take it you're planning to get me drunk and ravish me on the way in.”

“That's for later,” she said. “Barnaby is waiting for us to brief him before he decides whether to bring in reinforcements from Ira Dusenberry.”

It was dark when they got back to the harbor and slowly headed for the
Trader's Bluff.
Several of the superyachts were lit up like casinos. On one of them a full orchestra in formal dress was assembled on its deck and playing Gershwin's “Rhapsody in Blue.”

Coming alongside
Trader's Bluff
, Carlos assisted Macaulay in climbing the gangway. The others went aboard behind them. Chris Kimball settled Steve in one of the deck chairs while Carlos ran
Island Time
over to its mooring before rowing back again in the dinghy.

The others were gathered in the dining salon when he got back. Macaulay was resting in one of the salon's overstuffed chairs with another drink in his hand. Lexy stood next to him taking his pulse.

Barnaby offered a toast with his wineglass.

“You do good, Mr. Lugo,” he said as Carlos went to the coffee urn and poured himself a cup. “Thank you for bringing General Macaulay back to the land of the living.”

Carlos saluted him with his mug and said, “We all be celebrate tonight.”

“Not yet,” said Barnaby. “So, where are we, Steve? Did you finish the search?”

Macaulay briefly described what they had seen on the last dive.

“It all comes down to where Captain DeVries would have stowed the crate,” he concluded. “The stern section of the
Prins Willem
is relatively intact and we searched every compartment. The crate isn't there. If it was lashed somewhere on deck, it isn't there now. If it was stowed in the forward hold, it has been scattered all over the seabed. I suppose we could bring a full recovery team down here to organize a comprehensive search. Otherwise I doubt we could ever find a trace.”

“He's right, sir,” said Mike McGandy. “I've been diving on wrecks down here for the last ten years. It would require a huge undertaking to comb the marine bottom for small objects. You would also need the cooperation of the prime minister and the ministry of security.”

“I'm not sure we have that mandate from Washington,” said Barnaby.

Chris Kimball came in from the pilothouse to tell him that Tommy Somervell was calling on a secure line from Germany. Barnaby took the call at the wet bar.

“June and I are in Koblenz,” said Tommy. “You wanted to know if that U-boat captain might have picked up survivors after torpedoing the ship.”

“Have you located his log?” asked Barnaby, refilling his wineglass.

“Not yet,” said Tommy, “but from what we have learned so far, the captain wasn't the type to pick up survivors. His name was Kaspar von Bulow and he was a true believer. He was tried and convicted in absentia after the
war by the Russians for ordering that survivors from two torpedoed ships be machine-gunned.”

“It doesn't sound like his logbook is worth pursuing,” said Barnaby.

“June still thinks so,” said Tommy. “Von Bulow was also accused of looting valuables off ships before sinking them. He died here in Koblenz in 1969, but June has found records here of a woman who may be von Bulow's daughter. She apparently inherited a fortune and moved to Uruguay.”

“Montevideo is beautiful, they say,” said Barnaby.

“I'm not sure she'll last that long,” said Tommy, “but she thinks the log is worth going after.”

When Barnaby returned to the dining salon, Chris Kimball was showing several pages of weather data to Mike McGandy.

“I don't mean to literally add any more rain to this parade,” said Mike, “but it looks like a Cat-Three hurricane is brewing in the Lesser Antilles.”

“Just what we needed,” said Barnaby. “You'll have to monitor it, Chris. For now, it's time to honor Mr. Lugo. While you were down in the grip of Neptunus, I prepared a ten-pound standing rib roast that I discovered in the meat locker.”

“What about some girls?” asked Carlos.

“No girls,” said Barnaby. “Just prime rib.”

•   •   •

Chris Kimball removed the Heckler & Koch .40-caliber semiautomatic pistol from the chart drawer in the pilothouse and fed a round into the chamber from the magazine. Gently
depressing the trigger, he placed it in the hip holster behind his back under his loose-flowing shirt.

Before heading up to the foredeck to begin the first watch, he went to the array of switches in the captain's lounge, turning off all the exterior lights and then the wall sconces and overhead lamps in the lounges and dining salon. Heading to the stern, he checked to make sure that all the compartment hatches were locked and bolted. He checked his watch. It was a few minutes before midnight.

Two decks below, Carlos sat and waited in the engine room. He was familiar with the nightly routine. He knew Chris would now head to the tiny galley off the pilothouse to pick up his first mug of coffee before heading up to the foredeck.

Even if the others on the boat were too tired to celebrate, Carlos would do so on their behalf. He had spent a week in the Bahamas and hadn't even seen a pretty girl, much less talked to one.

Kneeling at the rear bulkhead of the engine room, he slid open the emergency escape hatch and crawled into the fiberglass storage locker built into the stern. Raising its cushioned cover, he climbed out onto the transom and untied the boat's dinghy.

Using two hand towels, he cushioned the oars before silently rowing beyond the nearest yacht and then turning back toward the public dock at Dunmore Town. By then, he was well outside Chris's visual range.

He tied up the dinghy alongside all the others at the public wharf and headed into town. The two-lane macadam road was dark except for the lights from the small
wooden-frame cottages along the way. Exotic plants and wildflowers filled the air with a fragrant smell.

He walked until he came to a crossroad that was lit by streetlamps. Several blocks down, he saw what looked like the beginning of a commercial district, with lit buildings and the distant sound of live music.

He passed the stores and offices and small restaurants that lined both sides of the street. They were all closed. In a couple of places, he saw cleaning people at work. Carlos couldn't read any of the names on the buildings. He had never learned to read and write, but he did know a bar when he saw one and figured at least one still had to be open.

He found one on the next block. It was set back from the street and had a wide veranda where people were smoking and enjoying their drinks. From inside he could hear loud music. He went inside.

The place reminded him a little of Lana's bar in Belize, where there was always a mix of local people and tourists of all different skin colors speaking all kinds of strange languages. Carlos loved all the colors as long as she was clean.

Inside, he passed through a crowd of young men and women all dressed the same. They had to be the crew of one of the big yachts out in the harbor. All of them wore the same starched blue short-sleeve shirts with white shorts and white socks that came up to their knees. The name of their boat was stitched over the breast pockets of their shirts along with what looked like little basketballs.

There was a long wooden bar with a mirror behind it along one wall, but it was packed with people. The rest of the room was taken up by small pine tables and chairs, all
of them filled. Ceiling fans stirred the air above them, carrying away the cigarette smoke.

Through the open glass doors at the back of the room, Carlos saw another section of the bar that extended outside. It had a thatched chikee hut and a lot of tables around it. He went outside and found the last remaining stool by the chikee hut.

“You be make a Goombay Smash?” he asked.

“Mon, we invented the goddamn things,” said the old black bartender.

“I try one.”

It tasted as good as any that Lana had mixed for him. It tasted as good as anything he had ever drunk. He cupped his big hand around the glass. It felt just right, frosty cold and smelling like the citrus grove behind his shack in Dangria.

He ordered another one and drank it down as quickly as the first. Opening a fresh pack of cigarettes, he lit one and exhaled the smoke. As it spiraled up into the darkness, he wondered how Lana was doing back in Dangria. And that new girl at the air charter service with the melonlike breasts.

He could hear a small band tuning up for another set after their break. When he turned around to look at the musicians, a girl was there standing behind him. She was maybe twenty-five with skin the color of butterscotch and a nice tight body.

She smiled up at him and said, “My name is Timaria. You buy me a drink?”

She was wearing a peach-colored dress that was fastened around her narrow waist with a white silk sash. Her
black hair was tied with a red ribbon and her hair smelled of soap.

“Yeah, sure,” he said, grinning down at her.

She ordered tequila and Carlos told the bartender to put it on his tab. She took one of the cigarettes from his pack and he lit it for her.

“Where you stayin'?” she asked with the Bahamian lilt of a local girl.

“On one of the boats out there,” he said, pointing to the harbor.

“Big boat?”

“Not so big,” he said, starting his third Goombay Smash. “We fish.”

After the fourth one, he knew he wasn't speaking as clearly as usual. The words sort of ran together. He had been with far prettier girls. Her black eyes were a little too small and her face was too rounded, but she had a sweet smile and she was clean.

“I be celebrating,” he said.

“Celebrating what?”

“I save my friend today. . . . We diving.”

“I'll drink to that,” said the girl, holding up her glass of tequila. “Here's to . . . What's his name?”

“She be Steef.”

“That's a funny name for a girl.”

“She a guy . . . a great guy,” said Carlos.

The girl was looking at him as if she didn't know whether to believe him. Carlos thought she might be lacking in the brains department. He found himself telling her about his life in Belize and then Steve.

“He sounds like quite a guy,” said the girl.

“Steef be a general,” said Carlos.

“A general?” she said. “Like in the army?”

“The air army,” said Carlos. “Steef a pilot.”

“I have to go to the loo,” she said, putting down her glass.

He lit another cigarette and thought of everything that had happened that afternoon. He had done good. The band began to play music he had never heard before, some kind of Caribbean hip-hop combined with calypso and reggae. He thought about dancing with the girl when she came back.

She didn't come back. Through the open glass doors that led into the other part of the bar, he saw her sitting at one of the tables, talking to an older man with scars on both of his cheeks. He was nodding as she talked into his face. Then she stopped talking to the man, got up from the table, and walked back to the chikee hut.

“I live very close,” she said. “You want to come with me?”

Carlos checked his watch. It was almost two o'clock. Mike McGandy would be coming back to the boat soon to take over from Chris. He might see that the dinghy was missing. Somehow the girl didn't look as clean as she had seemed when he first met her.

“I be go,” he said. “Maybe tomorrow night.”

He staggered a little when he got up from the bar stool, but held himself steady as he walked through the rest of the bar. The crew people in their blue-and-white sailor suits with the basketballs on them were gone. The place was almost empty.

He walked through the veranda doors and out into the dark, cool night. He headed up the street that led back to the dock. At one point, his left sneaker got caught
in a cleft in the sidewalk and he stumbled and fell. Laughing, he got back on his feet again. He could see the wharf in the cone of the dock lights.

Something slammed into the back of his head. He was on his hands and knees and tasted blood between his teeth. Two men grabbed his arms and hauled him to his feet. He opened his mouth to call out for help and felt the side of his head explode. He fell from the light.