Medusa (NUMA Files 8)

“Drier than an eye at a miser’s funeral,” Zavala said.

“Ready to take the plunge, Doc?” Austin asked.

“I’ve been ready for nearly forty years,” Kane said.

Zavala tossed two inflatable cushions and a couple of blankets through the door. “Beebe and Barton sat on cold hard steel,” he announced. “I’ve decided a minimum of comfort will be necessary.”

In turn, Kane produced two skullcaps from a bag and handed one to Zavala. “Barton refused to dive unless he wore his lucky hat.”

Zavala pulled the cap down on his head. Then he crawled through the bathysphere’s hatch, taking care not to snag his fleece-lined jacket and pants on the steel bolts that surrounded it. He curled up next to a control panel. Kane got in next and sat on the window side. Zavala turned the air supply on and called out to Austin, “Close the door, Kurt, it’s drafty in here.”

“See you for margaritas in a few hours,” Austin gave the order to seal the bathysphere.

A crane lifted the four-hundred-pound hatch cover into place. The launch crew used a torque wrench to screw ten large nuts over the bolts. Kane shook hands with Austin through a four-inch circular opening in the center of the door that allowed instruments to be passed in and out without having to move the cumbersome cover. Then the crew screwed a nut into the hole to seal it.

Austin picked up a microphone connected to the bathysphere’s communications system and warned the divers they were about to become airborne. The winch growled and the crane hoisted the B3 off the deck as if the fifty-four-hundred-pound steel globe and its human cargo were made of feathers, swung it over the side, and kept it suspended twenty feet above the heaving ocean surface.

Austin called the bathysphere on the radio and got Zavala’s go-ahead to launch.

Through the B3’s windows, the divers caught a glimpse of the upturned faces of the launch and film crews and slices

of ship and sky before the portholes were awash in green bubbles and froth. The B3 splashed into the crystal clear waters and slipped beneath the surface in the valley between two rolling swells.

The crane lowered the diving bell until it was just under the surface.

Zavala’s metallic-sounding voice came over a speaker mounted on a deck stand. “Thanks for the soft landing,” he said.

“This crane crew could dunk this doughnut in a cup of coffee,” Austin said.

“Don’t mention coffee and other liquids,” Zavala said. “The bano is located on the outside of the bathysphere.”

“Sorry. We’ll book you a first-class cabin next time.”

“I appreciate the offer, but my main concern is making sure our feet stay dry. Next stop . . .”

The winch let out fifty feet of cable, and the bathysphere stopped for the final safety inspection. Zavala and Kane checked the bathysphere for moisture, paying close attention to the watertight seals around the door.

Finding no leaks, Zavala made a quick run-through of the B3’s air-supply, circulation, and communications systems. The indicator lights showed that all the bathysphere’s electronic nerves and lungs were working fine. He called up to the support ship.

“Tight as a tick, Kurt. All systems go. Ready, Doc?”

“Lower away!” Kane said.

The sea’s foamy arms embraced the bathysphere like a long-lost denizen, and with only a mound of bubbles to mark its descent the hollow sphere and its two passengers began the half-mile trip to King Neptune’s realm.

CHAPTER 5

THE B3’S PASSENGERS WERE SEALED OFF IN A STEEL PRISON that would have defied Harry Houdini, but their images freely roamed the globe. A pair of miniature cameras mounted on the interior wall transmitted pictures of the bathysphere cabin up a fiber-optic cable to the Beebe’s mast antenna, where the signals were bounced off a roving communications satellite and instantaneously beamed to laboratories and classrooms around the world.

Thousands of miles from Bermuda, a red-and-white communications buoy bobbing in a remote section of the Pacific Ocean relayed the pictures to a dimly lit room three hundred feet below the surface. A row of glowing television screens set into the wall of the semicircular chamber displayed green-hued pictures showing schools of fish darting past the cameras like windblown confetti.

A dozen or so men and women were gathered around the only screen that did not display the sea bottom. All had their eyes glued to a blue-and-black depiction of the globe and the letters NUMA. While they watched, the logo vanished to be replaced by a shot of the B3’s cramped interior and its two passengers.

“Ya-hoo!” Lois Mitchell yelled, pumping her arm in the air. “Doc’s on his way. And he’s wearing his lucky hat.”

The others joined in her applause, then the room went silent as Max Kane began to talk, his words and mouth slightly out of synchronization. He leaned toward the camera, his eyes and cheeks bulging from lens distortion.

“Hello, everyone. My name is Dr. Max Kane, director of the Bonefish Key Marine Center, broadcasting from a replica of the Beebe-Barton bathysphere.”