Swigart handed Forbes a stack of reports on each diver. “Each diver’s well known for their ability in the water and experience now with the liquid air, sir. Each has been thoroughly tested on all the equipment in multiple simulations.”
“But not at two and a half miles below.”
“Well… no but the science says, given the circumstances, it’s the same at two miles as it is two hundred feet. The effect’s the same. It’s why—”
“—why squids don’t implode at such depths, spare me.” Forbes had heard the exploding squid joke a hundred times.
“Yes, sir.”
“Thanks, Lou.”
“Captain, you oughta get some shut-eye.”
“Me? Hell you were up all night.”
“Same as you.”
“Both of us pacing.”
“Like a couple of expectant fathers, eh?” They laughed in unison at this.
“Worried how things might so easily go bad for us at the launch,” said Forbes.
“Maybe we both oughta turn in for some R&R.”
“Perhaps I can sleep now… now that we’re underway.” Forbes slapped Lou on the back.
Lou smirked. “You left strict orders to get us out of port the moment you stepped back on board. Just followin’ orders.”
“Can’t tell you how good it feels, Lou, to have that kind of loyalty from the bridge and pit crew.”
“Some kinda show Kane gave ’em back at Woods Hole.”
“You saw that, did you?” Forbes laughed.
“Caught a glimpse of it from the bridge, yes, and later on my Mac.”
Forbes grimaced and nodded, studying Swigart’s rugged Arkansas drawl closely enough to follow what he was saying. Unlike Forbes’ professorial appearance, Swigart looked and dressed Navy issue—in fact, he was the sort of navy man who wore a cap to his brow, one with the insignia of his ship that read: USS Nimitz. It was where he’d done most of his time.
The ex-naval officer’s skin shone brown from years in the sun, but it was peppered with freckles, and his thinning red-to-brown hair and Irish grin or grimace as needed, marked him as a seaman. He sported a pair of big Irish ham-hocks for hands, and the muscled arms were wider round than Forbes’ calves. Most important of all, Lou believed in discipline and knew how to enforce it evenly and at all times.
Forbes held the files up and away as if to signal something, and then he asked, “Lou, how is it all going to come off, really?”
“Whataya mean?”
“Any doubts? How is this thing shaping up? Do you have any doubts at all—hand to fire.”
Swigart looked uncomfortable with the question, almost squirming. “No doubts, sir.”
“When you have your team down there at those depths, Lou, and inside the walls of the wreck, tell me—tell me that everything will be as controlled as we can humanly make it.”
“I have every confidence in my divers, Captain.”
“Even though you wanted current naval officers, Lou?”
“Even so, yes.”
“Thanks to Warren Kane’s getting us the largest contributors we’ve ever imagined, we have an expedition. Hell, Lou, we’re talking billions here.”
“Yeah, I give ’im that.”
“And he was the one who insisted on no Naval involvement other than use of naval technology and you, Lou! He put me onto you. He had his research team scour for the best man for the job.”
“He also lost us a significant grant from the government funneled through the Navy.”
Forbes pulled at his beard. “I need to trim this damn thing,” he thoughtlessly added. “But you know, Lou, there is one thing we must absolutely have in our dive team.”
“What’s that, sir, loyalty to us and not the US Navy?”
“Loyalty goes without saying, Lou, but what we truly need is every confidence. Confidence in our people. And confidence in their aptitude and skills. Barring any unforeseen accidents inside the hull of
“Yes, sir! Barring an opportunity to train for another six months to a year, yeah, we’re as ready as can be! We’ve the people with the ‘right stuff’, Juris.”
Forbes took a deep breath of sea air and stepped to the rail to feel the ocean spray against his skin. “I’m feeling home at last, Lou.”
Swigart had already sensed this when joining him at the railing. Both men stared off into the horizon for the distant prize out there.
“You know, Lou, I came to this place in rather a roundabout manner.”
“From the galley, I know… to stay out of sight of another reporter—to make your way up to the bridge and the control room.”
Juris Forbes laughed. “No, Lou—I meant to this place in my life; it has been a dream for so long, you know… so very desperately, damnably long.”
“Oh… I thought you meant…” Lou laughed now at his misunderstanding. “Still, Juris, best place to be aboard
Forbes turned and leaned his back to the brass railing; he took in the entire ship at a glance, from bow to stern and the up to the bridge. “She is an electronic marvel.”
“She’s certainly that.”
“So I’m gonna keep heading that-a-way.” Forbes pointed up a ladder leading to the control room and bridge. “Thanks for everything, Lou.”
“Think I’ll catch some winks, Captain. Suggest you do likewise, sir.”
They parted company, and Forbes thought about the media circus again; it’d taken Warren Luther Kane three years to amass the fortune required to “raise” the
The primary drive on the sub was technically termed a Magnetohydrodynamic propulsion system, abbreviated as MHD. Basically it worked not by moving the water itself, which was a simplistic way of explaining it to the press and public in general, but by moving the suspended particles in the water which creates a directed current inside the drive, which in turn creates thrust, with no moving parts.
As amazing as that sounded, Juris believed the average citizen incapable of understanding that sea water was chockfull of dissolved salts, various ions, and of course single-celled organisms whose bodies contained various elements, some of which were affected by magnets and magnetic fields. Mad Max utilized these principals beautifully to propel herself through the water as efficiently as a squid but with beauty and grace and the maneuverability of a Chinook helicopter, capable of moving on a dime in any direction and hovering in place as a cargo chopper might in the air.
In other words, it was some submersible and its two areas of entry, over the top and at the airlock-cargo bay offered more possibility for treasures found to be brought up safely as it had a built-in immersion tank in the hold. It meant safety features heretofore never dreamed of for salvaged artifacts, not to mention the lives of everyone aboard Max, the away teams that Lou was in charge of.
It was all a gigantic undertaking—one team to investigate the aft section, the other the bow section a mile away. Lou’s chosen divers meant to go inside the shipwreck to retrieve the remaining intact treasures aboard. With the new technology, they could plunder the ship as quickly and efficiently as any pirate endeavor on the high seas of
