Marauder (Oregon Files 15)

Max spoke over his shoulder from his cockpit seat. “I’ve gotten you as close as I can while still giving you room to open the belly hatch. You’ll have to swim about twenty yards. I’m releasing Little Geek now.”

A compartment on Nomad’s exterior opened, allowing Eric to guide the remotely operated vehicle from the sub’s underside using its battery-powered propellers. The ROV, connected to the sub by a fiber-optic control cable, was the size of a suitcase and had been specially outfitted with a mini-sonar. Juan and Linc would swim beside it, and the echo reading would be displayed on their augmented reality glasses through additional fiber-optic lines linked from their suits to Little Geek.

With the full-face masks on, Juan and Linc would be able to talk to each other and to Nomad through the comm link in the ROV.

Once they had their heavy gear on, Juan and Linc entered the airlock. Linc’s bulk made the fit a tight squeeze, but they were only inside long enough for it to cycle and fill with water.

When it had equalized with the river water, Juan opened the hatch and lowered himself through the opening. His feet touched the muck of the riverbed before his head was out of the airlock, which meant the depth was no more than fifteen feet. He inflated his buoyancy vest so that he could float. Otherwise, the chain mail suit would anchor him to the bottom.

He grabbed a handrail on the side of Little Geek and attached his fiber connection. As soon as Linc was on the opposite side, Juan said, “We’re ready to go.” The ROV whirred into motion, dragging them along.

As they’d expected, visibility was poor, even with the headlamps. Juan could see Little Geek and make out the shape of Linc next to him, but they were hazy. The sonar signal sent out by the ROV was too high pitched for the human ear to hear, but it seemed to be working because Juan could clearly see the contours of the river bottom rendered on his glasses as if he were looking at a movie special effect.

“There’s the bow,” Linc said.

A remnant of the Salacia’s prow jutted out of the silt. Its ram had broken off, but the wood was surprisingly well preserved after two thousand years. The floodplain’s clay that had covered the ship obviously did a fine job of protecting it from rot.

They passed over a large cache of ancient weaponry that Juan would have loved to examine if they had more time. Swords, spears, and arrows were exposed, and Juan was sure there were more artifacts still to be uncovered.

They continued on to the center of the ship, and Juan could now see the pile of amphorae that poked out of the silt. It looked like they had been painstakingly dug out to minimize damage to them as they were prepared for collection.

“Okay, Stoney,” Juan said. “You can stop here.”

Little Geek came to a halt and settled onto the riverbed. They would have to search carefully now by hand, making sure not to puncture the beeswax lids on the ceramic jars.

“You start on that side,” Juan said, “and I’ll begin over here.”

Using his dive light, he peered at the first amphora, but there was no lid on it. Same with the second one. The third had a lid, but it said “HERBIS.”

The next three containers were shattered, as if they’d been hit by something heavy during the recent flooding. Their contents were long gone, swept away by the current.

He picked up the necks of each one. The second one had a beeswax seal. It read “N V L.”

“Great,” Juan said.

“Did you find something?” Linc asked.

“Yeah. A broken amphora with the label we were looking for.”

“That stinks. Since they took one of the amphorae away, there’s only one left down here.”

“Right. Keep your fingers crossed it wasn’t damaged like this one was.”

Juan dropped the piece, which stirred up the silt, exposing something that glinted yellow in his light. He momentarily paused his search to brush away the mud to reveal more of the object.

He was astonished to see a gold eagle’s head sticking out of the muck. He levered it loose of the silt that had piled up around it and plucked the weighty relic free. It must have been the item that crushed the ceramics.

Juan didn’t bother examining it further and placed it into a small mesh bag on his belt. There would be plenty of time to look at it once they’d found the container they were searching for.

In addition to the noise of the bubbles emitted by his mask’s regulator, a new sound penetrated the gloom. It was like the muted crackle of static on the radio.

It was rain. There was a downpour up above.

* * *

—

We got the fun part of the job, didn’t we?” MacD said as huge droplets pounded him and Raven while they stood watch atop Nomad. Water sluiced down his hood and rain jacket.