radio broadcasts, and we’re holding our breath, wondering if they’re aware of the explosions. But, hell, you been in gales. You know how noisy it is inside a ship that’s being hammered by rough seas. And each charge by itself is nothing big. Anyway, they don’t say jack about it over the airwaves. The ship, she don’t seem to show any effects. Just keeps right on moving. Everybody’s getting nervous, except the dude who planned the whole thing. He’s telling us all to be patient. And sure enough, about twelve hours later, just as the storm’s starting to let up, that big-ass freighter folds in half and goes to the bottom in a couple miles of ocean. Nothing in the final transmissions says anything about sabotage. It looks like a terrible accident caused by structural flaws and the fury of Mother Nature. Fucking ingenious.”
During the whole story, LePere had been staring at his hands, which were gripping the top of the bar. “You’re saying somebody sank the Teasdale?”
“I’m only saying it’s been done before because I did it. And just think for a minute, Chief. That old scow was due to be scrapped. How much does the Fitzgerald Shipping Company get for a few hundred tons of scrap metal versus insurance on an ore carrier fully loaded? The difference is probably enough to tempt anybody to commit murder. I’d bet my left nut on it.”
That evening, LePere had stumbled from the bar in a daze not due to the boilermakers. He spent a sleepless night reliving the sinking of the Teasdale, dredging up every detail, examining it with bitter care. He thought about the boom that awakened him, that had made the ship pitch so that he’d been thrown from his bunk. He thought about Pete Swanson, the coal passer they’d picked up in Detroit, a man he’d never worked with before, a man whose dying words were “I blew it.” LePere had always thought Swanson was simply delirious. But maybe there was more to it. Maybe he was trying to make a confession before he died, before he went to hell for his treachery. By the time a dingy morning light crept through his bedroom window, LePere had decided.
After his shift the next day, he found Wesley Bridger at a twenty-dollar blackjack table. In front of Bridger were several hefty stacks of green chips.
“I want to talk,” LePere said.
Bridger waved him off. “Later, Chief. I’m on a roll.”
“Now.”
“Okay, okay.” He gathered his chips, tossed one to the dealer, and stuffed the others in his pockets. He followed LePere to the bar.
“Why’d you come to Aurora?” LePere asked.
“Like I told you, Chief. Just kicking around. Doing a little gambling, that’s all. I like the casino here.”
“There are other casinos. Why here?”
Bridger signaled the bartender. “Jack Daniel’s, on the rocks. Anything for you, Chief?”
LePere shook his head.
The whiskey came. Bridger knocked it back.
“Ever since I left the SEALs, I’ve been a gambler. Small-time stuff. Never had the kind of stake it takes to play in the big games. One day I’m in the dentist’s office. Got me an impacted wisdom tooth. I’m in the waiting room, waiting for my turn in the chair, reading this magazine. Great Lakes Journal. I find that story about you and the ore boat that went down. It gets me to thinking about that freighter I had a hand in sinking. I figure if you were to find that wreck, at the very least you could probably prove negligence. But maybe you could prove murder. In either case, a jury is gonna give you a shitload of money. I figure it’s worth the gamble. So here I am.”
“To do what?”
“This is the deal. I stake you, Chief. I outfit that old boat of yours-we fix ‘er up, make her seaworthy, give her some good sonar. I teach you how to dive and supply the equipment. When we find the wreck-and I guarantee you we will-and when we get the evidence to nail those bastards to the wall, you give me a percentage of whatever the jury awards you.”
LePere looked at him and said nothing.
“Aren’t you going to ask what kind of percentage?”
“You help me find that wreck, you help me prove the Fitzgerald Shipping Company murdered Billy, you can have it all.”
Bridger laughed. “That’s okay, Chief. I’m not greedy.” He shoved his hand at LePere. “Deal?”
“Deal,” LePere said. And they shook on it.
A half mile east of Outer Island, LePere approached a buoy and cut the engine. Bridger woke up, stretched, and yawned. He stepped to the gunwale of the Anne Marie, where he stood a while, studying the lake.
“Tie her up to the buoy,” LePere called as he maneuvered the boat near.
Bridger grabbed the bowline in one hand and a gaff in the other. He hooked the buoy with the gaff, drew the boat up next to it, and secured the line. LePere shut off the engine, and the quiet of the lake settled over them.
“Damn fine day for a dive,” Bridger declared. He threw off his hat and began to undress.
The water of Lake Superior was far too frigid for a wet suit. The men donned dry suits of insulated, vulcanized rubber that kept the water from touching them. The suits had boots and hoods, and under the rubber the men wore sweats to fight the cold they’d encounter one hundred and fifty feet below the surface. LePere strapped his knife to the inside of his lower left leg. He buckled weights about his waist. From his belt hung a nylon bag for collecting things and a powerful Ikelite to illuminate the depths. He hefted his air tank onto his back. An extra hose hung from the regulator, and this LePere plugged into a valve on the front of his dry suit. The hose would feed a layer of air under the rubber to help insulate the suit and keep him dry. He pulled on his mask and, last of all, a pair of insulated gloves. He was left with only a small area of exposed skin on his face between his mask and the edge of his hood. He glanced at Bridger, who’d held off putting on his mask and was staring at a boat anchored a few hundred yards away.
“Third time, Chief,” Bridger said, sounding unhappy.
“Third time what?”
“Third time that white launch has been anchored there when we dive. I thought last time it was just coincidence. Got your field glasses?”
LePere climbed up to the flying bridge and grabbed the binoculars from beside the wheel. He came back down and gave them to Bridger, who put them to his eyes.
“Too far away. Can’t read the name or registration. I don’t like it. Maybe we should hold off diving.”
“I’m not getting this close and turning back. Come on, Wes. So what if they’ve been there before. They haven’t done anything.”
“Doesn’t mean they won’t. Look, Chief, if it’s the Fitzgerald Shipping Company, and you can bet your ass it is, they’ve killed before. Adding a couple more dead men to the roster wouldn’t mean anything to those greedy bastards.”
“Do whatever you want. Me, I’m diving.” LePere lifted the new video camera, a Sony DCR-VX1000 in a Gates aluminum housing. The camera and deepwater housing had set Bridger back more than two grand, but it was absolutely necessary to gather the evidence they needed. “Come on, Wes,” LePere said.
Bridger hollered toward the launch, “Fuck you!” He lifted his hand and gave the distant boat the finger. “All right. I’m ready now.”
LePere went over the side. A minute later, Bridger followed.
The previous summer, Bridger and LePere had begun the search for the Alfred M. Teasdale. Bridger had paid to equip the Anne Marie with sonar and they’d carefully swept the area northeast of the Apostle Islands where LePere believed the Teasdale might have gone down. It took them weeks. Then they found the bow. Unfortunately, it lay in over three hundred feet of water, too deep for scuba. They were forced to abandon the hunt for the stern when the foul weather of November set in. They began again in April. Two months later they finally found the rest of the Teasdale, all in one piece. The propeller had still been turning when the aft section of the ore boat headed off into the storm, carrying Billy away. The stern had traveled more than five miles before it finally sank, coming to rest at a steep angle on the rocky bottom off Outer Island. On the first dive, they’d attached a steel cable to the propeller shaft and spooled the cable to the surface, where they set the buoy to mark the site.
On this dive, LePere could feel how the hot, dry summer had warmed the upper layer of water, but he knew that in the darkness where they were going, warmth never penetrated. He followed Bridger down the cable. At ten feet, they passed a yellow marker that indicated the place where, when they surfaced, they had to hold for ten minutes while they decompressed. LePere was already beginning to feel the growing pressure of the water on his
