The next problem, after they'd yanked the slab out like a dentist extracting a tooth, was preventing it from plummeting to the bottom. The solution was ocean salvage tubes, a fairly new concept. The elongated bags of nylon fabric were designed for salvaging boats. With a lifting capacity up to one and a half tons each they might be able to hoist the entire armored truck to the surface.
The saturation divers used the block and tackle to movethe slab to where they could lash an uninflated bag to each side of the stone. Austin went through and inspected the whole crazy setup, especially the fragile cables holding the truck to the wall, then gave the signal. Using a hose coming from the bell, the saturation divers pumped air into the tubes, which plumped out as quickly as sausages on a skillet. They fed the air in gradually to build up positive buoyancy. The slab lifted like a magician's assistant floating in midair. Keeping the lift line attached in case of an emergency, the divers nudged the slab out of the trick until it floated through the door.
Austin thought this was one of the strangest sights he had ever seen. It was like a painting by Dali, where everything is askew. The black slab floating in space over the abyss like a magic carpet in the immense inkdark chamber. The divers dangling like newborn salamanders from their umbilicals. The seaworn armored truck hanging off the wall at a right angle.
Flanked by Austin and Zavala, who illuminated the way with their lights, the divers swam the slab toward the opening. It was delicate work, especially with the current running through the wreck, but at last the slab was directly under the hole they'd cut in the hull.
“Wish I could talk to these guys and tell them what a great job they're doing,” Zavala said. He tried to signal a “well done” with his mechanical claw, but it didn't quite make it. “Guess we'd better not high-five until we get out of these suits. Which I hope will be damned soon.”
“Shouldn't be more than a few minutes before we can turn the rest of the job over to McGinty. Hear that, Cap?”
The conversations between the Hand Suits were communicated to the deck so the men on the topside could keep tabs on what was going on below.
“Bet your ass,” McGinty harked. “I heard the whole skinny. Got a case of Bud on ice. Get that thing out of the wreck, and we'll do the rest.”
The saturation divers had to stay at depth or they'd come down with the bends. Once the load was out of the wreck, Austin and Zavala would take over and guide it to the surface. When the slab was near the surface they'd tend it until the crane could finish the job.
“What's the weather like up there?” Austin asked.
“Sea's still flat calm; but the Nantucket fog factory has been going full tilt. Fog bank is rolling in with stuff so thick you could fry it up like dough.”
Both Austin and the captain would have been even more concerned if they knew what the fog hid. While Austin and the others had struggled to pull the stone slab from the armored truck and haul it to the surface, a large ship whose gray hull made it practically invisible was approaching the Monkfish, traveling just fast enough to keep pace with the moving wall of fog. The oddly shaped vessel was six hundred feet long, with a deep V shaped bow and wide back, and it was powered by six water jets that could send it skimming over the sea at forty-five knots, an amazing speed for a ship that size.
Austin responded to McGinty's weather report with a “Finest kind, Cap,” borrowing one of Trout's expressions from his fishing days. He signaled the saturation divers to put more air into the lift tubes. Slowly the load began to rise through the hole. The saturation divers stayed with the stone, making sure it didn't oscillate when it hit the stronger current flowing over the wreck Austin and Zavala remained just inside the wreck, off to one side so they wouldn't be under the slab if it came down in a hurry. They had a clear view of both divers, one on either side of the slab, keeping pace with its ascent with slight flutters of their fins. A picture-perfect operation. One for the books.
Until all hell broke loose.
One of the divers jerked in a wild ungraceful dance, his arms and legs flailing like an epileptic in a grand mal. Then he doubled over, clawing at his umbilical. Just as suddenly he regained control of his body, floated in place for a moment, then jackknifed in a dive that took him back through the hole into the innards of the Andrea Doria.
The whole mad sequence took only a few seconds. Austin had no time to react. But as the diver swam closer, Austin saw what had happened. The man's umbilical trailed uselessly behind his suit. The diver had switched to his emergency tank What the hell happened? The hose couldn't have been cut on the ragged edge of the hole. Austin had been watching the whole time. The diver swam toward him, the exposed part of his face white as marble. Austin cursed himself for not insisting on total underwater communication. The man jabbed the water above his head.
Zavala, who had been moving in a slow circle, yelled over the intercom, "Kurt; what's going on?°
“Damned if I know,” Austin said. He squinted up at where the slab was suspended over the opening. “We've got to get this guy into the bell. He's okay on his spare tank, but he'll freeze to death without the hot water feed. I'll give him a ride up and take a look at the same time.”
Austin held out his thick metal arm as if he were escorting a prom date. The diver got the hint and grabbed on to his elbow. Austin activated the vertical thrusters, and they levitated from the wreck. The second diver was nowhere to be seen.
While Austin scoured the sea for him, something stirred in the murky gloom. A fantastic figure moved into the range of the light cast by the diving bell. It was a diver wearing a Hard Suit of burnished metal that reminded Austin of the armor made to accommodate Henry VIII's porcine bulk.
Austin suspected that the stranger had something to do with the saturation diver's problems. That suspicion was reinforced a second later when the newcomer raised an object in his hand. Then: was an explosion of bubbles and the blurred glint of metal. A projectile rocketed past Austin's right shoulder, barely missing him.
The saturation diver took off and swam toward the bell with wild kicks of his flippers. Austin watched him disappear through the bottom hatch, then turned his attention to more pressing matters.
Other silvery figures had materialized and were heading in his direction. Austin counted five of them before he nailed the down control on his vertical thruster and plunged back into the Doria.
Serpent
44
MCGINTY WAS ANXIOUSLY SHOUTING over the radio.
“What the hell's going on? Someone get back to me, or I'll come down there and see for myself”
“Wouldn't advise it,” Austin shot back “Six guys in Hard Suits just showed up for tea, and they're not very friendly. One just took a shot at me.”
McGinty erupted like a volcano. “Jesus Mary Joseph and all the saints at sea!”
Another voice cut in. Near hysteria. “Those sons-of-bitches cut Jack's line!” The missing diver was talking from inside the bell. Austin recognized his Texas drawl.
“Is he okay?”
“Yeah, he's in here with me. Scared brainless, but he's fine.”
“You and Jack sit tight,” Austin advised. “McGinty, how soon can you yank the bell to the surface?”
“I've got my hand on the switch.”
“Then start hauling.”
“It's on its way. D'you want me to call the Coast Guard?”
“A squad of navy SEALS would come in handy, but you can call in the Bengal Lancers for all the good it will do. This thing will be over before help gets here. We'll have to deal with it ourselves.”
“Austin, you watch your ass! Haven't been in a donnybrook in ages. Wish I could get down there and break a few heads.”
“So do I. Don't mean to be rude, Cap, but I gotta go. Ciao.”
Behind the dark plexiglass shielding Austin's face the pale blue-green eyes were as hard as turquoise stones. Most mortals placed in'Austin's situation would have reacted with alarm. Austin wasn't fearless. He could make a good case that
his hair had turned platinum white from the healthy scares he'd received in his career. Had he seen six white sharks bearing down he would have been wishing he'd renewed his life insurance. The forces of nature were unthinking and relentless. Despite the fearsome picture the intruders presented, Austin knew that under their aluminum skins were men, with all their frailties.
A replay flashed through his eyes of the attacks in Morocco. The only difference was the underwater setting. They wanted the talking stone, and the NUMA divers were in the way. Further intellectualizing was dangerous. Thoughts could be like slippery banana peels. What was needed was cunning rather than intelligence. A wolf doesn't think about its prey before it pounces. Austin let his mind slip into its survival mode, letting instincts dictate his moves. A spreading warmth chased away the cold chill that had gripped his body when he'd first seen the attackers. His breathing became regular, almost slow, his heart beat at an even pace. At the same time he wasn't kidding himself. A wolf had claws and teeth.
Zavala had heard the radio exchange with McGinty. “What's the game plan, Kurt?” The words were measured but edged with anxiety.
“We'll let them come to us. We know the territory. They don't. We'll need weapons.”
“My specialty. I'll see what I can dig up.”
Zavala glided toward the back of the armored trick “Cable cutters. What do those guys have?”
“I don't know. I thought it was a spear gun. Now I'm not so sure.”
Zavala brandished the loppers. “If we can get close enough I can cut a few zippers.”
Austin's mind, which had been working at Mach speed, came to a screeching halt. He'd been staring past Zavala at the open door of the armored truck, mesmerized by the bright rectangle of light standing out against the inky blackness. He moved closer. The portable halogen lamps they had used during the slab removal brightly lit up the interior.
“I may have a better idea,” Austin said. “The Venus flytrap.”
Keeping an eye on the hull opening, Austin outlined his plan for Zavala.
“Simple yet audacious,” Zavala replied. “That takes care of one. What about the others?”
“Improvise.”
Zavala raised the loppers like an Indian brave armed with a tomahawk about to do battle with the rifles of the cavalry and melted into the darkness on the far side of the truck, just beyond the engine compartment. Austin pried the lid open on two more jewelry chests.
It was like opening boxes full of stars. Even underwater the glitter of diamonds, sapphires, and rubies was blinding. He arranged the strongboxes neatly in a row just inside the trick where they would be in plain view, propping up their backs. He added a few shills for dramatic effect, then moved away from the truck until he, too, was cloaked by the artificial night within the great ship. He hovered in the vast empty space, glancing back and forth between the truck and the hull opening above. Although the interior of the Hard Suit was dry and cool, he was sweating.
There was a glow near the hull opening, then a pair of divers came into the ship like ferrets entering a rabbit burrow, their twin flashlight beams stabbing the murkiness, probing this way and that. Watching their cautious entry Austin recalled the tentativeness with which he and Zavala had first entered the wreck, their nervousness at the unknown, and the adjustment to a disorienting topsy-turvy world where up and down were no longer useful referents. He was counting on that initial confusion. And on the natural tendency of the eye to focus on the only visible object in the empty void. The armored truck, looking out of place and time.
The divers moved back and forth, probably debating a course of action, whether they were walking into a trap. They approached the truck, staying dose to each other, adjusting to the current, drawing nearer until their burnished suits were semi-silhouetted in the doorway.
Austin cursed. They were shoulder-to-shoulder. As long as they stayed that way his plan was dead, and maybe so were he and Zavala. Then human nature intervened. One diver muscled the other aside. He was framed directly in the truck's doorway, body at a forward slight angle, head bent into the truck. Austin's lips curled in a fierce grin. Pushiness doesn't pay, pal.
He alerted Zavala. Assuming ram speed."
“Cutting started,” Zavala shot back.
Austin kicked both thrusters into lateral full speed and aimed for the back of the truck. The suit accelerated slowly, then gathered momentum as its half-ton weight overcame the forces of inertia and water resistance.
He flew directly toward the truck like a bowling ball trying to pick off the last pin, praying that the diver would stay put. He didn't want an eternity with Zavala reminding him how he spent his last earthly moments imitating an accordion.
His luck held. The diver remained transfixed by the jewels, probably trying to figure out how he could carry them off.
Austin focused on the suit's wide metal butt, just below the hard plastic shell covering the air tanks like a tortoise shell. Damn. He was coming in too low. He gave himself a slight vertical lift
Back on target.
“Now!” Austin yelled, knowing there was no need to raise his voice.
As he hurtled forward he brought his feet up like a boy making a cannonball dive, trying to imagine himself on an invisible bobsled, but the best he could do with the metal joints that restricted his movement was to elevate his knees.
Zavala was working feverishly. The pincher jaws had nibbled away at some of the strands .of the front cable holding the truck.
He was afraid of cutting through too soon. At Austin's shouted command he put all the power of his shoulders, built up over many hours punching a body bag in his boxing days, into the lopper's s long handles. The center of the cable had some life in it, and there was slight resistance at first. Then the beak-like blades cut through the remaining strands as easily as a raptor ripping apart its prey.
Austin fought to extend his feet straight out, but his metal knees slammed into the metal posterior of the diver ogling the jewels. Without the suit Austin would have popped his knee joints like a skier taking a backward spill, but the stiffness of the suit saved him. The diver was launched forward as if he had been tossed by a Brahma bull and flew headfirst into the truck. Austin bounced back and spun out of control.
The other frantically tried. to back out of the truck, but his thrusters were caught on a shelf frame. Austin had his own problems. He tumbled through space trying to figure out the thruster combination that would stabilize him.
He heard Zavala call out: “Bombs away!”
With one cable cut the armored truck had dropped down at its front end and hung precariously off the wall at an angle, its headlights pointing almost straight down. For an instant it seemed to Zavala, who had moved a safe distance away, as if the vehicle would stay that way. Then the full weight of the truck proved too much for the remaining cable. The restraint snapped, and the truck dropped away from the wall. It plunged into the darkness, joining the automotive graveyard in a big explosion of silt, taking with it the bones of its defenders, the jewels, and the struggling diver.
The whole sequence involved only a few seconds. The surviving diver had glimpsed Austin's attack and watched with astonishment as the truck disappeared, but he recovered quickly from his shock. Austin had finally regained stability and was fighting off the dizziness when the bright light from the diver's flash exploded in his fare. He nailed his down thruster, knowing that in the time it took to drop a few yards he'd be an easy target. He gritted his teeth and braced himself against the searing pain he knew would come. The blinding light stayed on him, then shot off at an angle, and he saw the other diver struggling wildly.
Zavala!
Seeing Austin's predicament Joe had come from behind and hooked his arm behind the diver's weapon arm, throwing him off balance. They wrestled in slow motion like two monstrous robots. In his left claw Zavala clutched the lopper, but it soon became clear to him that his opponent was not going to stay still long enough for Zavala to cut a zipper as intended. T
he half-baked arm lock was slipping, and Zavala was just plain weary from his morning's exertions.
Improvise, Zavala remembered.
He jammed the loppers into the gym suit's lateral thruster. The wire cutters were wrenched from his grip. The spinning propeller disintegrated in its housing. Zavala backed off. The diver hit both thrusters to get away, but the unequal thrust of one propeller sent him into an undesired spin. He whirled off into the darkness on a wobbling crash course.
Weighted for neutral buoyancy, the diver's weapon floated until Austin grabbed it in his claw. The device was primitive in design but made of contemporary metals, a deadly instrument of death underwater where firearms were useless. Attached was a cradlelike magazine with room for six bolts. The short bolts had fins at one end and, at the other, four razorsharp blades that could have sliced through his aluminum suit like a can opener. The oversized controls were simplified so that even a mechanical claw could string a bolt in place for firing.
Zavala glided closer. “What is that thing?” he said, panting from his wrestling match.
“Looks like a modern version of an old crossbow.”
A crossbow! Last time it was dueling pistols,“ Zavala said with a combination of wonder and disgust. ”Next we'll be throwing stones at the bad guys."
“Beggars can't be choosers, Joe. Wonder if this thing really works.” Austin held the weapon's butt against his chest and aimed. “Lethal, but my guess is it's not terribly accurate except at close range.”
“You're about to get your chance to find out: We've got bogies at one o'clock.”
Twin gossamer lights floated through the open hull and into the ship. Two more divers, both armed and less prone to ambush than their predecessors.
“I don't think we can sneak up on these guys as easily,” Austin said. “They would have been talking to the others on their radios so they'll have an idea what to expect.”
“We've got a couple of points in our favor. They don't know we're armed. And for now they don't know where we are.”