Odessa Sea (Dirk Pitt 24)

“So, ancient Viking ship or Norwegian cruise liner?” Dahlgren asked.

“Neither, methinks,” Dirk said. “The online records are pretty sparse for shipwreck data in this region. I couldn’t find any record of a commercial vessel lost near here, so if it’s a freighter or fishing schooner, it might be a challenge to identify.”

Summer looked over her shoulder at Dahlgren. “But we don’t think it’s a commercial ship.”

“That’s right. The sonar passes show what look to be gun turrets at several locations around the ship. I also found one historical reference to a warship that was presumed lost in the area.”

“What was that?” Dahlgren asked.

“The Canterbury. A Royal Navy C-class light cruiser built in 1915. She was presumed lost at sea in February 1917, but postwar records indicated she was torpedoed by a German U-boat, the UC-29.”

“This is a long ways from Jutland,” Dahlgren said. “What were they doing squaring off way up here?”

“The Allies were running guns and munitions to the Russians via Archangel,” Dirk said. “Once the Germans got wind of things, they tried to intervene as best they could.”

“So the Canterbury was an escort ship?”

“Possibly. She was on a return voyage from Archangel, though the records didn’t indicate whether she was accompanied by any other vessels.”

Dirk eased their descent as they approached the bottom at two hundred meters. Almost directly below them, a long dark shape materialized on the seafloor. Too small for a ship, Summer identified it as a ship’s funnel. Lying dented in the sand, it pointed toward a towering black shape at the fringe of their view.

Dirk engaged the thrusters and glided toward the object, scattering a deep school of mackerel. The ship materialized moments later, a forest green mass of steel engulfed in cold deepwater encrustation. Dirk held up a photo of the Canterbury he had culled from his research.

Dahlgren glanced at the slab vertical sides of the ship in the image and compared it to the mass in front of them. “Looks like the spitting image.”

They approached the wreck from its starboard flank, noting the ship rested on its keel at a slight angle. Moving up the side of its hull, Dirk turned to his right, guiding the submersible toward the forward deck. He could already tell from the size and limited open decking that the wreck was neither a freighter nor a fishing vessel. As they hovered above the starboard rail, he spotted the first indication of the ship’s true intent, a corroded light machine gun mounted on a stand. As they moved toward the bow, the submersible’s bright lights cast a shadow over a large gun and turret.

“Certainly looks like one of her six-inch guns,” Dirk said.

“We need to roll video.” Summer reached to a control panel and activated an exterior-mounted camera.

“I’ll try to cover as many features as I can,” Dirk said.

He slowly crisscrossed the length of the ship, allowing the camera to record the three additional six-inch gun turrets, a stack of torpedoes and launching tubes near the stern, and one remaining funnel. On the port flank, they found a large hole in the lower hull, the handiwork of the U-boat. After filming the damage in detail, Dirk guided the submersible to the Canterbury’s forward superstructure, rising to bridge level.

Approaching the top-level bridge, they peered through the empty window frames into the control station. Though the wooden ship’s wheel had long since vanished as a feast for marine organisms, the remnants of the brass binnacle and telegraph stood erect near the helm.

Dirk eased the submersible around the side of the bridge until its propulsion fans kicked up a cloud of sediment that obscured their visibility. He descended a level and moved aft, finding a short bank of cabins whose doors had been jarred open by the ship’s sinking. Poking the nose of the submersible into each room, he let the camera film until the sediment again flew. He continued moving down and aft until the submersible reached the stern rail.

“That’s almost an hour of video.” Summer shut down the camera. “If that’s not enough detail to document her as the Canterbury, I don’t know what will.”

“I bet there are some descendants of her crew that will appreciate a viewing,” Dirk said.

She nodded. “I’ll make sure a copy gets sent to the Royal Navy Association.”

Dirk took another high-level pass, the ship appearing forlorn in the dark depths. As the submersible began its slow ascent, a silent rumination fell over the NUMA crew, their thoughts on the young sailors who died on the ship a century before.

Their quiet reflection ended when the submersible broke the surface to find a modern Russian oceanographic ship commanding the seas barely a hundred yards away.

26

“They’re on it.”

Viktor Mansfield grimaced at the words. He looked to the ship’s captain, who stood beside a sonar operator’s console.

“Are you sure it is the same wreck?” Mansfield asked.

“Our hull-mounted sonar array shows a one-hundred-and-thirty-five-meter steel wreck, possibly mounting guns. We’re within a half mile of the German submarine’s coordinates of the sinking, in an otherwise remote section of the Norwegian coast. Come see for yourself.”