for size, Doc.”
Kane, who was about five foot eight, hung his jacket on the bathysphere’s frame, then poured himself headfirst into the sphere, doubled his body with the skill of a contortionist, and poked his head out the circular opening.
“It’s roomier in here than it appears from the outside.”
“The original bathysphere was four feet nine inches in diameter, and had walls one and a half inches thick made of fine-grade, open-hearth steel,” Zavala said. “The divers shared their space with oxygen tanks, filter trays, a searchlight, and telephone wires. We’ve cheated a little. The portholes are polymer instead of fused quartz. The tether is Kevlar rather than steel, and we’ve replaced the copper communications link with photo-optic fiber. We miniaturized the bulkier instruments. I would have preferred a titanium sphere, but the costs were higher.”
Kane easily exited the sphere and stared at it with near reverence. “You’ve done an amazing job, Joe. Beebe and Barton were aware they were risking their lives, but their boyish enthusiasm overcame their fears.”
“That enthusiasm must have rubbed off on you to come all this distance,” Austin said. “I understand you were in the Pacific Ocean.”
“Yeah. Contract work for Uncle Sam. Pretty routine stuff. We’re about to wrap it up, which is fortunate because there was no way I would have missed this opportunity.”
The third mate was making her way across the deck toward the bathysphere accompanied by two men and a woman carrying video cameras, lights, and sound equipment.
“That’s the NUMA film crew,” Austin said to Kane. “They’ll want to interview the intrepid divers on camera.”
A look of horror came over Max Kane’s face. “I must look like crap.
“Joe will fill them in while you clean up. I’ll see you in the bridge after you’re done with the interview,” Austin said. “We’ll go over the plans for tomorrow.”
As he headed for the bridge, Austin reflected on how Beebe’s books had stirred his own imagination when he was a boy growing up in Seattle. He recalled one story in particular. Beebe described standing at the edge of an underwater precipice at the limit of his surface air supply, looking down with yearning into the deep water beyond his reach. The scene crystallized Austin’s own tendency to push to his limits.
Born and raised in Seattle, Austin had followed his boyhood dreams, studying systems management at the University of Washington. He also attended a prestigious deepwater diving school, specializing in salvage. He worked a few years on North Sea oil rigs and put in a stint with his father’s ocean-salvage company, but his spirit of adventure needed freer rein. He joined a clandestine underwater-surveillance unit of the CIA that he led until it was disbanded at the end of the Cold War. His father hoped he would return to ocean salvage, but Austin moved over to NUMA to head up a unique team that included Zavala and Paul and Gamay Trout. Admiral Sandecker had seen the need to create the Special Assignments Team to investigate out-of-the-ordinary events above and below the world’s oceans.
After completing the team’s last assignment, the search for a long-lost Phoenician statue known as the
Austin persuaded the NUMA brass to let Zavala design a state-of-the-art bathysphere. The diving bell would be launched from the agency’s research vessel,
Dirk Pitt had taken over from Sandecker as NUMA’s director after Sandecker became the Vice President of the United States, and Pitt was equally interested in creating favorable public awareness of the agency’s work. The bathysphere’s pressure sphere would be recycled after the expedition as the heart of a new deep-sea submersible. The diving bell was nicknamed the B3 because it was the third pressure hull using the Beebe-Barton design.
Trailed by a cameraman and sound technician, Zavala and a freshly scrubbed Kane climbed to the bridge after being interviewed in front of the bathysphere. Austin introduced Kane to the captain, an experienced NUMA hand named Mike Gannon, who spread a chart out on a table and pointed to Nonsuch Island off the northeast tip of Bermuda.
“We’ll anchor as close as possible to Beebe’s original position,” the captain said. “We’ll be about eight miles from land with just over a half mile of water under the ship’s keel.”
“We decided on a shallower location than the original so we could film the sea bottom,” Austin said. “How’s the weather looking?”
“There’s a gale expected tonight, but it should blow out before morning,” Gannon said.
Austin turned to Kane. “We’ve been doing all the talking, Doc. What do you hope to get out of this expedition?”
Kane gave the question a moment’s thought.
“Miracles,” he said with a mysterious smile.
“How so?”
“When Beebe reported hauling phosphorescent fish in his trawl nets, his fellow scientists didn’t believe him. Beebe hoped the bathysphere would vindicate his research. He compared it to a paleontologist who could annihilate time and see his fossils alive. Like Beebe, my hope is to dramatize the miracles that lie beneath the surface of the ocean.”
“Biomedicine miracles?” Austin asked.
Kane’s dreamy expression vanished, and he seemed to catch himself.
“What do you mean, biomeds?” Kane’s voice had an unexpected edge to it. He glanced at the video camera.
“I Googled Bonefish Key. Your website mentioned a morphine substitute your lab developed from snail venom. I simply wondered if you had come across anything similar in the Pacific Ocean.”
Kane broke into a smile. “I was speaking as an ocean microbiologist . . .
Austin nodded. “Let’s talk miracles and metaphors over dinner, Doc.”
Kane opened his mouth in a yawn.
“I’m about to hit the wall,” he said. “Sorry to be a bother, Captain, but I wonder if I could have a sandwich sent to my cabin. I’d better get some sleep so I can be fresh for tomorrow’s dive.”
Austin said he would see Kane in the morning. He watched Kane thoughtfully as he left the bridge, wondering at his edgy response to a routine question. Then he turned back to confer with the captain.
THE NEXT MORNING, the NUMA ship followed the course Beebe’s expedition had taken, heading out to sea through Castle Roads, passing between high, jagged cliffs and old forts, past Gurnet Rock and into the open sea.
The gale had petered out, leaving a long, heaving swell in its wake. Plowing through low mounding water, the ship traveled for another hour before dropping anchor.
The diving bell had been put through dozens of tank tests, but Zavala wanted an unmanned launch before the main dive. A crane lifted the sealed bathysphere over the water and allowed it to sink to the fifty-foot mark. After fifteen minutes, the B3 was winched back onto the deck, and Zavala inspected the interior.
“Drier than an eye at a miser’s funeral,” Zavala said.
“Ready to take the plunge, Doc?” Austin asked.
“I’ve been ready for nearly forty years,” Kane said.
Zavala tossed two inflatable cushions and a couple of blankets through the door. “Beebe and Barton sat on cold hard steel,” he announced. “I’ve decided a minimum of comfort will be necessary.”
In turn, Kane produced two skullcaps from a bag and handed one to Zavala. “Barton refused to dive unless he wore his lucky hat.”
Zavala pulled the cap down on his head. Then he crawled through the bathysphere’s hatch, taking care not to snag his fleece-lined jacket and pants on the steel bolts that surrounded it. He curled up next to a control panel. Kane got in next and sat on the window side. Zavala turned the air supply on and called out to Austin, “Close the door, Kurt, it’s drafty in here.”
