“Of course,” Gamay said. They shook her hand and moved off, making their way down the hall far more easily than Paul had come up minutes before.
Gamay eyed them. “Leaving a site because of a storm that will blow over in a few days?” she said suspiciously.
“Seemed a good excuse to give our guests,” Paul replied.
“What gives?” she asked. “And don’t lie to me, you’ll sleep alone tonight.”
“You know that tanker that went down the other day? Kurt was there when it happened, even rescued the captain’s wife.”
“Of course,” she said. “Trouble finds him.”
Paul laughed. Trouble did have a way of looking Kurt Austin up and coming to visit. Paul and Gamay had often been part of whatever followed. Seemed like this would be no exception.
“Well, there’s more to the sinking than the press has been told,” he explained.
“Like?”
“Pirates killing the crew and deliberately scuttling the ship,” Paul said.
“Doesn’t sound right, does it?” Gamay said.
“Nope,” he said. “Not to Kurt or Dirk, or even the insurance company. With their permission, Dirk has asked us to take Rapunzel over and take a look.”
Gamay took her robotic gloves off and sat down to undo her boots. “Sounds simple enough,” she said. “Why do you look concerned?”
“Because Dirk told me to be concerned,” Paul said. “He figures someone went to great lengths to hide whatever happened on that ship. And that being the case, whoever they are, they might get a little upset with the likes of us poking around.”
She reached out and took his hand.
“Do you think you can get Rapunzel inside a sunken ship?” he asked.
“Would have liked to finish the test,” she said, “but yes, I think we can get her inside.”
12
AS IT RACED THROUGH THE WATER a hundred feet below the surface, the Barracuda looked more like a manta ray with stubby wings than a submarine — or even a barracuda, for that matter. About half the size of a compact car, her wedge-shaped snout narrowed, both horizontally and vertically, with a slightly bulbous expansion at the very tip.
This was a hydrodynamic feature that got the water moving smoothly around and over the vessel, reducing the drag and increasing both her ability to accelerate and her top-end speed.
In addition, her stainless steel skin was covered in microscopic V-shaped grooves, too small to be seen from a distance except as a sort of haze on the finish. The grooves were similar to the coatings used on the hulls of racing yachts, and they too added speed by reducing the drag.
Because she was eventually expected to do salvage work, an enclosed bay in the root of each wing held assorted equipment: cutting torches, grappling claws, and other tools. In truth, the Barracuda had been designed more like a stealth fighter than a submarine. The question was, could she fly like one?
With Kurt and Joe sitting in tandem, Kurt at the controls and Joe just behind him monitoring all the systems, the Barracuda surged through the water at 34 knots. Joe insisted she could make 45, but that would rapidly drain the battery. To make two laps around the race’s fifty-mile course, 34 would be the best they could do.
“Coming up on a depth change,” Joe menti
oned.
The race was not just a horizontal affair, where the submarines could run at top speed and come home. It required maneuvers to be fulfilled: depth changes, course changes, even a section that required them to weave through a group of pylons, charge forward to a certain point and then back out, before turning around and racing off to the next buoy.
The competition itself was a three-stage process, with a hundred-thousand-dollar prize being offered to the winner of each stage and a cool ten million to the overall victor.
“Can you believe these guys are offering ten million to the winner?” Joe said excitedly.
“You realize NUMA gets that money if we win,” Kurt replied.
“Don’t depress me,” Joe said. “I’m dreaming. Gonna get a ranch in Midland and a truck the size of a small earthmover.” Kurt laughed. For a moment, he considered what he might do with ten million dollars, and then he realized he would probably do exactly what he was doing right now. Work for NUMA. See the world. Sometimes save an ocean or two.