Depth Charge by Jason Heaton (carter reed .txt) 📗

But he wouldn’t have long. These tanks were only good for about 15 minutes, less with exertion and panic.

He pulled against the pipes that trapped his ankle. It was no use. The boot was stuck fast in the gap. Stay calm, Gus, stay calm. They’ll come to help you soon. A hacksaw to cut the pipes, yes, that’s what he needed! Rory wouldn’t just leave me.

Three hundred fifty feet above him, the diving bell surfaced in a great cascade of water, the crane pulling it aboard through the moon pool. The sun had finally poked above the surface of the Indian Ocean to the east, and on the horizon the first fishing boats were motoring in with their night’s bounty to sell at the market in Batticaloa.

The bell would be mated to the onboard habitat chamber, where the divers would transfer for their decompression. It would now be even more comfortable with one less diver in the cramped compartment. The big diesels of the Depth Charge came to life and the ship swung around to sail west, towards the coast.

Sound carries well underwater, far better than in air. Gus McElroy could hear a distant rumble and wondered for a moment what it was. An engine? It couldn’t be! He had only a few minutes of gas left in his bailout bottle, maybe less with his fast, panicked breathing. His booted foot remained stuck in the piping. He had a sudden idea. If he could wriggle out of his dive suit, he could pull his foot free and swim out! In the dark, he felt for the latches for his helmet and unsnapped them. The cold ocean flooded in, causing him to gasp, inhaling water. He resisted coughing and held his breath while he unzipped the suit and struggled out of it.

He felt his foot pop out of the suit’s integrated boot and the tangled suit fell away. He was free! His lungs were burning now with the buildup of carbon dioxide and the saltwater burned and blinded his eyes. He smashed into something hard—the bomb—which was knocked off of its neutrally buoyant perch beneath the lift bags and crashed down past him. He paid it no attention. He had to get out of the ship! He hadn’t considered how he’d make it to the surface. His fight or flight instinct was in full bloom.

McElroy swam in a wild, flailing butterfly crawl inside the dark tomb. His diaphragm spasmed and he fought against the urge to inhale until, in a final primal human reflex, he opened his mouth and took a deep breath of cold sea water. His body drifted down, settling next to his empty dive suit and helmet. The Vampire had claimed its tenth victim.

The Taprobane

Bay of Bengal, eight nautical miles east of Batticaloa, Sri Lanka. The same day.

In the morning, before dawn, Upali Karuna and his small team—a boat captain, a sonar expert, and a young intern—loaded up a small dive skiff from Sebastian de Silva’s Deep Blue Resort and motored out to the R/V Taprobane where she was anchored offshore, beyond Batticaloa’s shallow lagoon. There they hefted a sonar device, hundreds of feet of coaxial cable, and a rather expensive remotely operated vehicle aboard and set off to search for a shipwreck.

The research vessel Taprobane was a 46-foot former navy patrol boat, with a wide aft deck, a broad forward cabin, and plenty of storage below deck. When the Ministry of Culture, History and Archaeology had acquired it from the Sri Lankan Navy after the end of the civil war, they’d refitted it for use as a sonar boat that could serve as a platform for divers. Its camouflaged hull had been painted white and adorned with MOCHA’s official seal, the Sri Lankan flag on both sides of the bow, and her name emblazoned across the low stern.

Upali stood on the forward deck of the boat, enjoying the predawn breeze and a flask of hot milk tea he’d brought from the Deep Blue. The sky was just starting to turn orange on the horizon. Upali wanted to get an early start, since launching the ROV off of the transom was heavy work that would only be made worse in a blazing midday sun. They’d reach the search coordinates by about 6:00.

“Hold up, Ranjith!” Upali called over his shoulder to the captain. “We’ve got a vessel in our grid area. Toss me those binocs.” The Taprobane slowed to a crawl, its twin Mercury Marine diesels reduced to a loping rumble. Looking through the binoculars in the dim light, Upali made out a massive ship with no running lights. It looked out of place there, a huge slab of steel where, at most, he might have expected to spot a wooden fishing trawler. Upali squinted. He could just make out two figures in the pilothouse, silhouetted against the eerie green light of navigation instruments. From their stance, they were clearly looking back at the Taprobane.

As he scanned the ship from bow to stern, Upali recognized the distinctive high superstructure at the front and the low-slung rear deck pierced by the tall skeleton of a powerful crane. It was the dive support vessel he’d seen in Batticaloa harbor, the Depth Charge. But what were they doing out this far? He’d only seen the ship in the gouged-out basin of the forthcoming deep-water port, where its divers were presumably at work fitting pipe or electrical cabling. Otherwise it had always been tied up along the makeshift pier overnight, its crew staying aboard. Were they in trouble? Some sort of power outage causing them to drift and lose their lights? He’d better raise them on the radio.

“DSV Depth Charge, this is R/V Taprobane, do you read?”

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By 6:00, the Depth Charge had moved off. Upali watched it aim for Batticaloa harbor, exhaust trailing behind. “Fresh air…” he murmured, shaking his head. Ranjith guided the Taprobane into position for their search, his eyes on the GPS screen, hands on the wheel and throttle.

Shipwreck hunting