Thirty minutes later, Pitt headed to the stern deck cradle of the Starfish but was stopped along the way.
“Mr. Pitt?”
Pitt turned to find Kamala Bhatt stepping out of a side lab carrying a binder. “We just pulled a water sample when the ship stopped. I ran a quick test to check for methyl mercury.”
“What did you find?”
Pitt didn’t have to ask, he could see the answer in her eyes.
“The numbers are off the charts.”
37
Clad in a blue jumpsuit, Pitt crawled through the hatch of the deepwater submersible. Squirming into the pilot’s seat, he was surprised to find his daughter at the copilot’s station. “You nudge Al out of riding shotgun?” he asked.
“Why should he have all the fun?” she replied. “Of course, it will cost me a box of cigars when we make port. On top of that, I had to tell Dirk that you weren’t deploying for another hour to get him out of the way.”
“What kind of a daughter do I have?”
She smiled. “One who likes to get wet.”
They completed a predive checklist, then radioed the bridge that they were ready to deploy. Giordino activated a crane that lowered the Starfish into the water. With lights ablaze, the submersible sank slowly beneath the surface.
Pitt eyed his daughter as she reviewed the readouts on the console and radioed the ship that they were proceeding to descend.
“I don’t think we’ve taken a ride together,” he said, “since I taught you how to double-clutch my ’33 Packard.”
“Thank goodness submersibles don’t come with clutches.” She shook her head at the memory. “My left leg was sore for a week.”
When the bottom came into view, Pitt adjusted the ballast and engaged the thrusters.
“Is the wreck south of us?” she asked.
“Unless it crawled away. Maybe we can spot it on the sonar. Al said he configured a new system on the Starfish.”
Summer reached to an overhead panel and triggered a handful of switches, beating her father to the punch. “It’s a forward-looking, multibeam system with a range of three hundred meters,” she said. “Dirk and I tested it in the Mediterranean last month and it worked quite well.”
A small monitor began showing a multicolored image of the seabed in front of them. Summer adjusted the sonar’s frequency to increase the range.
Pitt shook his head. “I knew I’ve been spending too much time in Washington.”
He adjusted the thrusters and sent the submersible skimming over the seafloor. As they traveled south, a dark smudge appeared at the edge of the monitor. A minute later, the Alta rose up before them. Her bow was crushed from colliding with the seafloor while her topsides were charred from fire.
“Al and I saw the tracks off her opposite side,” Pitt said as he guided the submersible down the length of the wreck.
“She sank due to the fire?” Summer asked.
“An explosion in the forward fuel bunker sent her to the bottom. There’s a mystery as to what, or who, set it off.”
He slowed the Starfish as they approached a hole in the lower hull a few feet back from the bow.
“Pretty sizable blast,” Summer said. “Internal or external?”
“Interesting question. I’m sure the insurer will be asking the same.”
He maneuvered the submersible around the bow and across an undulating stretch of sand. The Starfish’s lights soon illuminated the set of tracks Pitt had seen on the earlier dive.
“Do they look like the same tracks you saw by the thermal vents?” Summer asked.