Piranha

“Something about that looks familiar,” Murph said.

“I know what you mean. See if you can clear away some of the debris.”

Murph used the ROV’s small manipulator arm to pull away an encrusted piece of steel.

The needle on the Geiger counter jumped.

“Wi

They waited for the swirling debris to settle and saw that more of the glass had been uncovered, enough to identify it.

“That’s a lens,” Murph said.

“Perfectly circular and convex. Like one you might find in, say, a turn-of-the-century camera?”

Murph traced the zigzag outline of the metal next to it with his finger on the screen. “That’s the collapsible articulation frame for a high-end camera of the time. You know, the thing they would use to move the lens in and out of the box? The canvas accordion material must have rotted away decades ago.”

“There couldn’t have been too many passengers with a camera like that one in 1902.”

Murph rotated the ROV around the cavity. Three shattered glass jars lay in one corner. The needle on the Geiger counter moved again. Not enough radioactivity to be harmful but more than would be expected from natural background radiation.

“You said Gunther Lutzen developed his own photos in his cabin. Those look like chemical jars that would hold developing fluids.”

The rest of the room was buried under debris. If they were going to see what else was there, they’d have to go through it by hand.

“I think we’ve found our spot,” Max said. “Now we have to dig it out.”

—

As soon as David Pasquet stopped the truck next to the isolated dock on the south end of Saint-Pierre, men poured from the back and began unloading the plastic shipping barrels stacked inside. The scuba equipment would come last.

Pasquet might have missed his targets when he was sniping the Oregon in Montego Bay, but he vowed to make up for the embarrassment with this mission. Bazin had put faith in him to carry it out and Pasquet had no intention of letting his mentor down.

Like most of Bazin’s officers, Pasquet had received some of his training overseas before returning to Haiti. In his case, it was with the French Navy. The grunts were all locally recruited and trained in Haiti, with the understanding that they were to be completely loyal to Bazin. If there was any hint of betrayal, their entire families would be wiped out. Although most of the men didn’t need such incentives because the money was so good, examples had to be made from time to time.

This mission had been hastily pla

On the ocean, they were no match for the weaponry aboard such a ship, which was why an improvised solution had to be conceived. With the Doctor’s unmatched surveillance skills, the plan had come together quite nicely.

After arriving in Martinique on the second private jet at the disposal of Bazin’s company, they proceeded to a warehouse in Fort-de-France, where they stole twenty empty shipping barrels, plastic ones used to transport coffee and sugar. Then they raided a warehouse used by a company that was about to start drilling a new road tu

Their last stop was at the dock of Vue Sous Tours. Tied up alongside the dock was the company’s pride and joy, a white SC-30 diesel-electric passenger submarine. The unique design was perfect for Pasquet’s purposes.

On most days, the sub was used to carry thirty tourists around Saint-Pierre Harbor so they could look at the dozen or so wrecks without so much as getting their feet wet. The main, tube-shaped cabin where the sub’s passengers sat was perched atop twin flat-topped pontoons like a catamaran, with a large platform at the back that could host parties when the sub was on the surface. The pontoons were flared at the front and back, reminiscent of a Formula 1 race car down to the blue racing stripes that flowed along the fins.

Passengers sat facing the large windows on either side while the sub was piloted from the large glass bubble at the front. Unlike most pleasure subs that needed to be towed to their observation spots before being powered by batteries for the limited underwater portion, the SC-30’s diesel engines let it motor out to the wrecks under its own power before diving.

As he dismounted the truck and put up his slicker’s hood, Pasquet got a text that the jet had landed on the island of Dominica twenty miles to the north in preparation for their operation. Given how messy the operation was going to be, taking off from Martinique would be a problem once the mission was over. The safer solution was to steal a speedboat and take it to Dominica, where leaving the island by air would be considerably easier.

Two men were inside the submarine swabbing the deck in preparation for the day’s tourists, the earliest arriving in fifteen minutes. Both of them wore white uniforms with epaulettes, the better to impress upon visitors that this was a professional operation.

The older of the two, who Pasquet recognized from the website as the owner and captain of the sub, set aside his mop when he saw half a dozen men unloading a truck by his dock. He put on a rain jacket and ducked through the hatch. His crewman followed suit. Pasquet smiled as they approached.

“Bonjour, Capitaine Batiste,” he said, and continued in French. “We are interested in using your vessel.”

“I’m sorry,” Batiste replied, “but we are fully booked today. And with the seas this choppy, we will have to postpone our first trip.”

“What a shame. No matter. We will take it anyway.”

Pasquet drew a pistol and pointed it at the captain, who automatically raised his arms. He was alarmed, but the old seadog wasn’t terrified. His crewman, however, was shaking so badly that Pasquet thought he might throw up.

“What do you want?” Batiste said.

“I told you, we want your sub. And you’re going to pilot it for us.”

Batiste eyed the heavy plastic barrels that Pasquet’s men were rolling onto the rear deck and pontoons of the sub. “What if I don’t?”

“I will kill this quivering excuse of a man.”

Batiste’s implacable façade crumbled. “Please, don’t! He is my son.”

“Then do as I say and no one will be harmed.” He turned to one of his men. “Take them inside. Make Batiste tie up and blindfold his son.”

Pasquet supervised the placement of the barrels, distributing them evenly, before lashing them down. He had the last one taken inside the sub. He opened it and inspected some of the dynamite that had been destined for the tu

His men carried scuba gear onto the sub’s pontoons. They would be staying on the deck during the underwater cruise to tip the barrels over the side when it was hovering over the wreckage of the Roraima. All of them had the latest bone conduction headphones that could receive their vocalizations even with masks and regulators on. The transmissions were sent ultrasonically through the water to headsets attached to the straps of their masks.

“Bring me Batiste,” Pasquet said to one of the men.

Pasquet showed him the barrel and the contents inside.

“This dynamite will be inside the sub with you and your son.” Pasquet held up a device that he clamped to the submarine’s hull with a magnet. “This is an acoustic transceiver that uses the metal as a speaker. I will remain outside on the sub’s pontoon broadcasting my instructions to you as you pilot the sub. If you deviate from my directions in any way, we will simply swim away and set off the explosives. Do you understand?”