Mysteries within mysteries, David thought now, awaiting Swigart’s final determination of who among them would be first to step foot on
Kelly had inched alongside David and whispered in his ear. “Look up just slightly.”
He did so to see Dr. Entebbe, the ship’s medical man, staring down over the noise of the divers and Swigart. Dr. Entebbe called down to them. “We think it a bad idea to risk everyone at once.”
“And besides!” added Captain Forbes who nervously paced alongside the ship’s doctor, “Lou, it’s rather late in the day; why not take down one of the teams at first light?”
Swigart looked a bit deflated at this, but he called up to Forbes and the doctor, saying, “The dive team’s my full responsibility, Captain.”
“Aye, I leave it in your hands, then Commander Swigart.”
Dr. Entebbe shouted down at Swigart, “Captain Forbes is thinking of the safety of your men, Mr. Swigart— that’s all.”
At the doctor’s side Forbes now seemed intent on examining the sky and clouds that warned of an impending storm in tandem with the growing whitecaps at sea, the clouds moving in like ships adrift. Darkness was coming on fast. Without looking back at Swigart, Captain Forbes announced, “Looks like rain overnight… maybe tomorrow.” Then he abruptly said, “Lou, you’re perfectly within your rights to do as you please with your team. I stand by you… I trust your judgment.”
“Good… good thing, sir,” replied Swigart. “’Preciate your confidence.”
“Well then… ready your divers, Captain Swigart, for whatever you decide is best. What will you do?” he asked in the end.
Swigart looked his divers up and down, feigning a grimace that turned to a smirk, and then he loudly announced, “I think Dr. Irvin has an excellent idea, and like I said, it’ll make a fine PR moment; it’d please William Kane to no end seeing the live feed we have in mind.” He gave a nod to the cameraman and news guy, Craig Powers, who waved back. David could see they certainly thought they had negotiated a sweet deal and the best lay ahead of them.
“Sooooo,” began Bowman, “does that mean what I think it means?”
“Sooooo,” mimicked Swigart, “everyone gear up for the dive of your life, and be seated in Max in ten minutes or you forfeit the moment!”
A cheer went up among the two dive teams, during which Kelly said to David, “Not like Swigart to change plans on the spur. Watch him down there.” They both knew that Swigart would be piloting the submersible and calling the plays below.
David still had his doubts about everyone aboard, including Kelly, but he kept silent council for now as all the divers rushed for their waiting gear hanging in the central equipment lockers below deck.
Ten minutes wasn’t time really to fully gear up and be seated inside the magnetically propelled Max. It was every diver for himself as they all rushed to get back into their gear. Every diver knew that he and she had some time to finish gearing up inside the submersible on the way down—but not more than minutes.
Mad Max ran through water on a system that ushered in ocean water before her, swallowing it whole and blasting it out her stern from either side, creating a propulsion effect like that of a squid, gliding through the depths at enormous speeds. Once lifted off
Behind him, David noticed that Swigart was throwing open the top hatch to the MHD sub, spinning its handle like a top. For the first time since learning of the horrors in the pages of Declan Irvin’s damnable journal, David felt a wonderful wave of excitement wash over him again. This was why he was here; this was something he had always been willing to die for; this he understood. Going to ‘war’ with the sea felt so much better than being at war with some unseen enemy. Indeed true, but even more so, this feeling of anticipation and knowing he could beat the ocean, this faith and fight he loved. He so anticipated the dive going into full swing, and was about to disappear for the central storage area to grab his gear when all of them were stopped by a scream coming from all places Lou Swigart’s throat.
The scream sent the Albatross diving from the crow’s nest as it pierced the silent world they found themselves in, while the same scream sent Kelly, David, and the others racing back to where Swigart pointed at the interior reaches of Max.
David assumed some additional sabotage had been discovered, but on following Swigart’s finger, he saw the mummified body of Houston Ford inside the small sub. In fact, Houston’s body had been encased in the submersible the entire time. The TV cameraman had somehow gotten atop Max to shoot down through the open hatch to get a live feed of the body just as Swigart moved to block him. In the same instant, Bowman tripped, sending David headlong into the sub a second before Swigart slammed the hatch closed against the news men.
From inside the sub, David found himself shut off from the others, inside with Houston Ford’s mummified body. He hardly knew how he had wound up inside here, but he cursed Bowman for his bumbling awkwardness.
He rushed to the forward glass portal—a huge wide crisscross of what they termed Gorilla Glass—the wide viewing window consisting of an aluminosilicate glass—clear aluminum—which was held together with carbon nanotube fiber that permeated and reinforced the whole of it against the external pressures of the deepest depths of the ocean floor.
And from behind the Gorilla Glass cross, David raised his arms, looking like a martyr. He banged for help but the only noise created bounced around the interior, the only one to hear it him and the dead man on the floor of the sub.
Still he gesticulated for attention back of the aluminum glass, looking out on Kelly, the others, and Swigart, who was shouting orders that David could not hear, while Bowman and Kelly pointed him out to Swigart, whose back was to him. While he could not hear any of them, he could read their body language which in a word said chaos. Swigart’s body language was screaming for the cameraman to back off.
“Damn fool,” David told himself, turned and stared at the desiccated corpse.
David felt as if all the air had been let out of him. Just when the dive was about to go into full swing—now this. “Damn… damn… damn,” he muttered to himself while staring at Ford’s body and then admonishing himself mentally for thinking Alandale’s death and Ford’s death were such an inconvenience to him even as the heightened emotions he’d felt over the impending dive evaporated.
On being arrested and placed in chains by Sergeant Quinlan, Declan Irvin had grabbed his leather carry bag typically slung across his chest from the left shoulder and after the sergeant searched the bag, had been allowed to keep it with him in his cell. Now from his bag, he’d dug out a journal that he’d been keeping and began writing. In fact, he’d been writing for hours.
Alastair Ransom, who’d been placed in a separate but adjacent cell than that of the two interns, watched Declan now as he jotted notes into the book that appeared like a ledger. When Alastair finally asked Declan about the journal, the young man explained that he kept detailed notes on all that’d happened, and that he’d begun the diary when he’d first become fascinated with the huge ship Olympic,
“Fascinated?” Thomas snickered, where he sat on his bunk, twiddling his thumbs. “Obsessed is what I call it.”
Ignoring this, Ransom asked Declan to read an entry. “I need some distraction; going crazy here.”
Declan flipped back to an earlier section of the journal. He read aloud notes that spoke of a Captain Edward Smith who had taken Olympic out for her initial sea trials—and he laughed aloud, adding, “Smith rammed the newly built Olympic into a naval vessel called the Hawke. Of course, some say the Hawke’s captain was at fault, but most go with Smith being in the wrong. What’s significant is that Captain Smith is to be made captain over the
