An ardent fan, Nimec thought.
He watched the balladeering skipper approach his table and take a chair.
“Gentlemen,” Gunville said, still slightly breathless from capping off his set. “I do hope your reviews will be lenient.”
Scull looked up from his soup.
“You can lay it on me anytime, mister,” he said.
Nimec wondered if murdering a colleague in public would disqualify him from his position at UpLink.
“It was nice listening,” he said, and paused. “As long as we’ve got you out of the spotlight, though, I wonder if we could get right to some things that apply to our immediate business.”
“Of course,” Gunville said. “And these would involve the cable inspection you plan to launch from the
“Some,” Nimec said. “If you don’t mind, I also want to ask you about the accident back in May. I’m sure it isn’t a subject you much like talking about—”
Gunville raised a hand.
“A difficult affair anyone would choose to leave in the past, but I can certainly understand your concerns,” he said. “Permit me a moment to order a drink, and I’ll try to answer as many questions as possible.”
Nimec gave a nod. Gunville motioned over a waiter, asked his two visitors whether they might care for anything. Nimec declined. Scull ordered a Courvasier. Gunville got himself a scotch on the rocks.
“What occurred was no less unexpected than tragic,” Gunville said after the drinks were served. “Cedric Dupain was the lead diver and one of our best. I believe he had more than two decades of experience between his military and civilian careers, and I’d worked with him in the waters of three continents. He was the first aboard my ship to be trained at piloting single-operator deepwater submersibles—”
“They’re what’s known as hardsuits in the trade, right?”
Gunville nodded.
“Remote vehicles are more often used these days. Machines do not share our susceptibility to the hazards of the deep, and there can be no comparison between losing a piece of hardware and losing a human life should some misfortune occur. But our perception, judgment, and manual dexterity remain irreplaceable qualities that robotic craft cannot share. And the hardsuit’s safety record is impressive in calm conditions. I’ve heard of only a single critical incident before the tragedy that took Cedric and his partner, Marius Bouchard.”
“Was Bouchard as good a diver?”
“He lacked the seasoning, but was a trustworthy professional. We send no one down to work at seven hundred meters without comprehensive training and stringent certification.”
“The day those men were lost,” Nimec said. “What went wrong?”
Gunville drank some scotch, lowered his glass to the table.
“A freak calamity,” he said. “They were troubleshooting for the source of a partial system failure and discovered a fault in the cable, a segment that runs along the bottom of an underwater ridge primarily composed of mud and sediment. We believe the damage had been done by sharks. Soon after they tracked it down, there was the apparent submarine equivalent of an earth slide.”
“Anything like that ever happen before? I mean, without your divers getting hurt?”
Gunville shook his head.
“It is what made the incident so shocking. Had it been a massive collapse, I might have perhaps reconciled myself to their deaths… gotten my mind around it as you Americans say… more easily. When you know someone is in a building that has collapsed, you immediately prepare for the worst. But imagine learning a person has been killed after being struck by a few crumbled bricks or something that has fallen from a construction scaffold. In this case two people. The slide was confined almost to the precise area where Cedric and Marius were working.”
“I wonder what touched it off,” Scull said. He raised his eyes from his soup bowl. “Reports I’ve seen all say the fan’s tectonics are real stable.”
Gunville looked at him.
“That is correct,” he said. “Our best guess is that it was progressive erosion. There are natural interactions that can change the features of the undersea landscape even in salutary conditions. Tidal flows, gravitational effects, storms, scavenging or colonizing creatures. This creates nonconformities. Areas of deterioration that may go undetected, particularly if they are small. Over a long period of time an overhanging portion of the shelf was undermined, fractured, and simply gave.”
Scull grunted. He ran his spoon around the inside of his bowl to clean off the last of the
“Did you have any seismographs taken afterward?” Nimec said. “Would’ve helped rule out any chance there was a minor quake.”
Gunville shook his head.
“Planetaire Systems saw no reason for it,” he said. “Frankly neither did I. The event was localized. Its causes were apparent from subsequent inspection by divers and ROVs. And we were confident of the seismological data already compiled.” He reached for his drink. “You must also understand my own immediate priority was recovering the bodies of my crewmen.”
“Sure,” Nimec said. “We’re not trying to second guess anybody.”
“Still makes sense to do a comparative geological work up,” Scull said. “With all the offshore rigs popping up in the Ogooue, you want to be sure the drilling hasn’t moved things around, loosened them like people sticking their toes into sand castles.”
Gunville looked at him.
“I agree with your suggestion. If Planetaire hadn’t pulled out of the region, it is likely a new survey would have been conducted by my employers at Nautel. Unfortunately, without their finances…”
“UpLink will get one ordered,” Nimec said.
“Excellent.” Gunville sat quietly a moment, then glanced over at the stage. “I hope you will forgive me, but I must prepare for my next set.” He offered the men a courteous smile. “I’m certain we’ll be talking again over the next several days.”
Nimec nodded.
“You bet,” he said. “We’re very grateful for your time.”
Handshakes around the table, and then Gunville was off across the room.
Nimec saw him move toward the blond at the foot of the stage, dawdle there to speak to her.
“Hot stuff,” Scull said, following his gaze. “If I could sing like him, I’d be picking up broads left and right, too.”
“Don’t remember you having trouble on that score when you were married.”
“Which time?”
“I could probably take my pick.”
Scull shrugged.
“That was all before I lost my boyish good looks,” he said.
They were silent a bit.
“Okay,” Nimec said, and pointed his chin in the direction Gunville had gone. “Give me your impressions.”
Scull pointed to Gunville’s half-full scotch glass. “Didn’t finish his drink.”
“I noticed.”
“Sort of left me feeling he gave us the bum’s rush.”
“Yeah.”
“Meanwhile, he’s over there talking to the blond, plenty of time for
“Yeah.”
Their eyes met.
“Can’t figure what it might be, but I think our fucking crooner Romeo’s got something to hide,” Scull said.
Nimec nodded.
“You and me both,” he said.
Port-Gentil. Headquarters Police Gabonaise. Forty-seven minutes past midnight. His shift long concluded,
