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

plate on each end. Aitkens had intentionally left these retaining tabs in place so the heavy section of hull wouldn’t fall inwards too quickly and crush what lay below it.

“I’m about done,” he announced. “Another couple of cuts and she’ll collapse in.”

“What are you waiting for?” came Rausing’s voice over the radio, sounding impatient. Rausing had lured the dive team to Sri Lanka with the promise of an easy job and good money: $25,000 each for this one night’s work, plus a bit of decompression time. And for their silence.

Aitkens was about to reply with something snarky but then thought better of it. No point in pissing off the boss. By next Monday he’d be in Bangkok’s red light district, where the girls were prettier and they washed your dick when they were done.

Aitkens lit the torch again and slowly sliced through the last small tabs of steel. The 75-year-old metal shrieked in one final protest, then hinged on itself and disappeared down into the black hold of the Vampire. A cloud of silt billowed up from inside.

“Still pretty silty,” McElroy said a minute later, shining his headlamp into the eerie cloud, “but I’m going in.” The view through his helmet faceplate reminded him of driving in a blizzard during a Scottish winter, with visibility barely the length of his outstretched arm.

McElroy tentatively climbed down into the maw. Dive Control could only hear his breathing become rapid as he struggled among the debris. Most of it was unrecognizable as anything from a warship from its seven decades decaying underwater. The bulkhead to his right had partially collapsed in and with it, what appeared to be a shelf unit or rack that had spilled its contents into a jumbled pile that McElroy slipped on as he made his way. Artillery shells? Pipework? Bottles? He tried to discern by the cylindrical shapes he felt with his booted feet. It occurred to him that it might be unexploded ordnance and tried to tread lightly on the debris.

After a half-minute of heavy breathing, McElroy finally spoke. “I don’t see the cargo,” his Scottish-accented, helium-distorted voice came through. “It’s a mess in here, shit everywhere.”

“Whatever it takes,” came the reply. It was Rausing’s voice. McElroy could picture him standing in Dive Control, arms folded. “Given its size, it’s most likely fallen to the very bottom of the room.”

Easy for you to say. McElroy picked his way down, further into the jagged, twisted obstacle course that conspired to entangle him. He knew what he was looking for. Rausing had prepared them for this, with archival photos, ship’s plans, and sketches.

Then he saw it, lying on top of what used to be a stack of wooden crates, now long since disintegrated into rubble that would crumble at the slightest touch. It looked like a cartoon drawing of a bomb, with a bulbous nose and tail fins. It was about the size of his prized 1972 Mini Cooper back home in Dundee, McElroy thought, momentarily amused. Probably weighs as much too.

He located two lifting rings on what would have been the top of the bomb, unfurled two large yellow JW Automarine lift bags, and clipped one to each ring. Then he held a pneumatic hose underneath the bags’ open ends. He carefully puffed gas into each one until they evenly inflated, lifting the heavy, bulbous cylinder from its resting place. As it rose from the bottom, it dislodged a cloud of silt that rendered McElroy blind. According to plan, Aitkens was waiting outside the wreck, ready to secure the lift cable that snaked down from a powerful hoist onboard the Depth Charge.

“Ach, I’m having trouble seeing in here,” came McElroy’s voice. He sounded rattled.

“Calm yourself, McElroy.” Rausing’s voice again, with no measure of reassurance, only a command. He abhorred incompetence and fear, especially if either got in the way of his goals. Then, to Aitkens: “Can you reach the cargo yet?”

“Negative,” Aitkens replied, “It’s still too deep inside.”

Before Rausing could reply, there was a muffled cry and McElroy’s panicked, helium-inflected voice cut in. “I’ve slipped down the hold and somehow wedged my foot in something.”

The bomb was now above him, slightly buoyant under its lift bags. McElroy looked around through the settling silt, trying to get his bearings. The funhouse effect of the tilted shipwreck played tricks with his perception and he tried to slow his breathing to reorient himself.

He'd lost traction on the loose debris in the steeply pitched bilge and slid 15 feet to what had been the far bulkhead of the bomb room. How did I fall so far? He felt his heavily booted foot wedged between a row of pipes that somehow had remained mounted to the bulkhead. His umbilical was stretched taut, fouled on something, making his maneuvering more difficult. He gave his foot a twist, first one way, then the other. The boot didn’t budge an inch.

Aitkens peered through the gap in the ship’s hull. The interior of the wreck was now zero visibility, the silt McElroy had dislodged billowing out of the hole in the hull in a slow moving cloud.

“I need to go help McElroy,” Aitkens said, now also in a mild panic.

“Don’t concern yourself with McElroy!” Rausing’s voice was pitched now. “Your job is to secure the cargo!”

But by now there was no chance of finding either the bomb or McElroy in the whiteout. Aitkens perched, paralyzed by indecision and growing fear, listening to McElroy’s struggling through the radio in his helmet. It sounded as though he was hyperventilating, dangerous at this depth, breathing heliox.

“Get a grip, Mac!” Aitkens shouted to his partner. “You’ve got plenty of gas, so just calm down and figure it out.” No reply, besides more tortured breathing and grunting from McElroy.

At the surface, dawn was showing itself on the horizon. Malcolm Rausing looked out the port side window of the Depth Charge’s Dive Control station and frowned. The big Rolex on his wrist read 5:15. The delays at the bottom had pushed them towards