Ghost Ship (NUMA Files 12)

Five hours’ worth. Plus what’s left in the cabin.

“Should be plenty of time,” Elena said.

Gamay agreed. All they had to do was get a cable down here and they could use the Condor’s winch to haul Duke back to the surface.

“Good thing Paul didn’t join him,” Gamay said. “He’d have half as much air.”

“And you’d be twice as worried.”

That was true, though Gamay was worried enough for Duke as it was. She tapped out a new message.

We’re going up. Hope you can stand being rescued by a couple of girls.

If it means I get to see the sunlight again, I’ll wear a women’s lib T-shirt for the rest of the trip.

“That, I’d like to see,” Elena said, putting her hand on the release valve. “Prepare to blow tanks.”

Good luck, Gamay signaled.

You too.

With that, Elena turned the valve. A turbulent hissing sound followed as high-pressure air forced its way into the ballast tanks. As the water was forced out, the submersible slowly began to rise.

There was a brief pause and some odd metallic clangs as they untangled from Duke’s sub, and then they were free and ascending.

A few more flashes of light from Duke came forth. If you spot a waiter, send me down a drink.

Gamay laughed and turned her attention upward. For now, it remained black up above, as dark as a night without any stars or moon. She couldn’t wait f

or the first hint of grayish green that told her the surface was not too far away.

A minute went by. And then another. Gamay began to feel a little dizzy. “I feel like I’m in a sensory deprivation tank,” she said.

“My thoughts exactly,” Elena said.

Gamay decided to keep her head level. Looking up was messing with her inner ear and giving her vertigo.

She glanced at her watch. “Ten minutes.”

“Fifteen more to go,” Elena said.

It was a smooth ride until suddenly they were jarred by an impact. Gamay was thrown forward and whiplashed back into her seat.

“What was that? Did something hit us?”

Elena was looking up as if they’d crashed into the bottom of a ledge or the hull of the Condor or something. Gamay didn’t think so. She’d felt the impact come up through her feet and her lower back like it did when she and Paul went four-wheeling.

She pulled the flashlight from her pocket and flicked it back on. Holding it against the window, she saw clouds of silt and then the featureless gray-brown of the seafloor.

“We’re back on the bottom,” she said.

A light flashed on and off, perhaps thirty yards away.

Missed me that much?

Gamay released her belt and climbed halfway out of her seat. She twisted around and held the flashlight against the rear section of the canopy. Thin streams of bubbles were flowing from the ballast tanks on the Scarab’s back. It looked like someone had opened a whole box of Alka-Seltzer.

“You don’t even have to tell me,” Elena said, “I already know. Duke holed our ballast tanks with that saw.”