Fire Ice (NUMA Files 3)

"So they moved you into the big sub?"

"Correct. They locked us in a bunk room. Not enough beds for all of us, so we took turns sleeping. They brought food from time to time. We submerged for twenty-four hours. When we surfaced again, it was night. The ocean was different from the Aegean. The air didn't have the saltiness we'd been used to. More like one of the Great Lakes."

"Tell them about the ship sounds we heard before that," one of the submariners said.

"Sorry, I forgot about that. It was a while before we surfaced. The bunk room was as quiet as a grave. Some of the guys in the bunks said they could hear the sound of ship engines through the bulkheads. We all put our ears up to the hull and listened. It was true."

"You were in an area of heavy ship traffic?"

"That's what we figured. Eventually, the noise died out. Several hours later, we came up next to a surface ship. It must have been waiting for us. They hustled us onto the ship and into another bunk room. That was our home sweet home for three days."

"They kept you there all that time?" Gunn said.

"Hell, no! Early the next morning, we were assembled on the deck. Guys with guns kept us covered, and the big sub was nowhere to be seen. Pulaski was there. He gave us that creepy smile of his. 'Good morning, gentlemen,' " Kreisman imitated Pulaski's accent. " 'In return for this delightful cruise, we are going to ask that you do a little job for us.' He said we would be salvaging material from an old ship. Pulaski and another thug were going with us. So we piled into the NR-1 alongside the ship, which was acting as our tender, and down we went."

"How deep?"

"Four hundred feet plus. No big deal for the NR-1. We noticed the water buoyancy was different. We needed less ballast to bring us down. The sea bottom was mud for the most part, sloping before it abruptly dropped off into the deep. The wreck sat on the bank of an underwater canyon or valley that ran at right angles to the cliff face."

"Was there a name on the ship's hull?"

"None that we could see. The vessel was covered with seaweed and barnacles. The bow was more up-and-down than raked, like those pictures you see of the Titanic." He used his hand to demonstrate.

"What was its position on the bottom?"

"The ship sat on the slope, leaning over at a sharp angle. It looked as if a good shove would tip it over. We saw a big hole in the starboard side."

"Could you see inside the hole?"

"It was filled in with rubble. We only stayed there a minute. They were more interested in the other side. They had fitted out the manipulator arm with a cutting torch. We touched down on the slanting deck. It was pretty dicey putting the sub down at an angle. We had the feeling the ship could roll over at any time. Then they told us to cut a hole in the superstructure."

"Not in the hold?" Austin said with surprise. "That's where the cargo would be."

"You'd think so, but we weren't in a position to argue. We made an opening around ten by ten feet. It wasn't too hard – the metal was old and rusted. We had to be careful, though. It was like a surgical operation. One nudge and the ship would drop off into the deep; we were all aware of that. We could see the old bunks and mattresses. Pulaski and his buddy got real agitated. They started to jabber over some diagrams of the wreck that they had with them."

"In Russian."

"Sounded like it. Apparently, they'd had us cut through the wrong spot. We tried two more times before they found what they wanted. It was a fairly big cabin filled with metal boxes the size of those old steamer trunks you see in antique shops."

"How many boxes?"

"About a dozen, jumbled every which way. Pulaski told us to grab them with the NR-1's manipulator arm. We had a tough time moving them. They were obviously heavy and strained the manipulator to capacity. We pulled the boxes to the opening and called the surface ship and told them to lower some lines with hooks on the ends of them. We attached the lines, stood off and let the ship winch the stuff up with its superior lifting power."

Austin, who had been trained in deepwater salvage, nodded. "Exactly the way I would have handled it."

"Captain Logan's idea." Kreisman smirked with embarrassment. "We were like the British soldiers in that movie, Bridge on the River Kwai. We really got into it. Professional pride, I guess."

"Don't feel bad. They probably would have killed you if you hadn't done the job."

"That's what the captain said. We worked round-the-clock shifts. There were a few of the hitches you'd expect with a job that complicated, but we got all the stuff they wanted off the ship."

"Did you see what was in the steamer trunks?"

"That was a funny thing. They shoved us around the corner, but we could hear them prying the boxes open with a crowbar. They sounded pretty excited. Then there was this silence, and next we heard them yelling. It sounded like an argument. Then Pulaski appeared and started shouting at us in Russian, like whatever happened was our fault. He looked real angry, but I think he was a little scared." Kreisman glanced around the room and got nods of agreement from the other crewmen.

"No indication what the dustup was all about?"

He shook his head. "They put us below, and when they brought us on deck again it was night. The monster sub was back. There was a ship nearby, too. We couldn't see in the dark, but it sounded like a big one. They loaded us aboard the sub, except for the captain and pilot-same first-class accommodations. We traveled underwater, a shorter time than before. When we were allowed out, we were in a place as big as an airplane hangar."