Clive Cussler - Arctic Drift

“But you have it all wrong, Captain. The loss of the barge was quite accidental.”

The captain simply stared at Zak with a look of dismay.

“It’s very simple,” Zak continued. “You shall write in your log, and report to the authorities back in port, that the American research ship inadvertently collided with our barge in the fog and both vessels sank. We, of course, were most fortunate to release the towlines in the nick of time and suffered no casualties. Regrettably, we were unable to find any survivors in the water from the NUMA ship.”

“But the NUMA ship has not sunk,” the captain protested.

“That,” Zak replied with a snarl, “is about to change.”

A thousand feet below the surface, the intervening hour had been one of complete frustration for Pitt and Giordino. While guiding the Rover aft along the lower deck, Giordino watched as the ROV jerked to a standstill and refused to move forward. Retracing its trail of cable, he found the power cord had become tangled in some debris at the head of the galley. Matters only got worse when the ROV’s thrusters kicked up a huge cloud of silt around the snagged area. He had to wait ten minutes just for the visibility to return before he could see enough to free the cable.

The interior of the submersible had finally grown hot, and sweat dribbled down Giordino’s face as he tensely guided the ROV back through the crew’s quarters and down the main passageway toward the stern of the ship.

“Where’s the lounge on this boat? I think Rover and I could both use a cold beer about now,” he muttered.

“You would have needed to break into the Spirit Room belowdecks, where the rum was stored. Of course, if this is the Erebus , then you might be out of luck, as Franklin was a teetotaler.”

“That seals it,” Giordino said. “No further proof required. My present state of luck dictates that this has to be the Erebus .”

Despite the minutes ticking down on their bottom time, neither man was ready to give up. They pressed the ROV onward, striking down the single aft passageway, past the cramped officers’ cabins, until finally arriving at a large compartment at the very stern of the ship. Called the Great Cabin, it stretched from beam to beam, offering the one truly comfortable haven for the men of the ship, or at least its officers. Stocked with a library, chess sets, playing cards, and other sources of entertainment, it was also a potential repository for the ship’s log. But like the rest of the vessel, the Great Cabin offered no clues to the ship’s identity.

Scattered across the deck and around an upturned table was a knee-deep pile of books. Lined on wide shelves across each side of the cabin, the large collection of books had smashed through the glass cases during the sinking and been strewn everywhere. Giordino slowly flew the ROV back and forth across the cabin, surveying the wall-to-wall mess.

“Looks like the San Francisco Library after the great earthquake,” Giordino said.

“The ship’s library contained twelve hundred volumes,” Pitt replied, studying the mess with disappointment. “If the ship’s log is buried in there, it will take a couple of fortnights and a good rabbit’s foot to find it.”

Their frustration was interrupted by another radio transmission from Dahlgren.

“Sorry to break up the fiesta, but the big hand on the clock says it’s time for you to begin your ascent,” he said.

“We’ll be on our way shortly,” Pitt replied.

“Fair enough. The captain says to tell you that our shadow has closed to within four miles and is sitting pretty again. I think the captain would feel a whole lot better if you boys got yourselves aboard pronto.”

“Understood. Bloodhound out.”

Giordino looked at Pitt and noticed a look of concern in his green eyes.

“You think that pal of yours from the Miners Co-op is aboard the icebreaker?”

“I’m beginning to wonder,” Pitt replied.

“Let’s try the captain’s cabin and then we’ll skedaddle.”

The captain’s cabin was located off the far side of the Great Cabin and represented a faint hope for containing the ship’s log. But a small sliding door to the cabin was locked and no amount of bumping or cajoling by the ROV would shake it loose. With less than an hour of battery power left and a twenty-minute ride to the surface, Pitt called the survey off and told Giordino to fetch Rover back home.

Giordino steered the ROV back to the galley and toward the entry gap in the bow, as a take-up spool reeled in the power cable. Pitt powered up the submersible’s thrusters, then gazed out the view port at the Bloodhound ’s electronic pod while waiting for the ROV.

“How did the mineral sensor test out?” he asked, pointing at the pod.

“Seems to work like a champ,” Giordino replied, his eyes glued to the overhead monitor as he threaded the ROV through the forward debris. “We won’t be able to gauge its full accuracy until we can assay our samples back at headquarters.”

Pitt reached over and powered on the sensor, watching a nearby monitor as it computed the mineral readings. Of no surprise to Pitt, the screen registered a very large iron concentration nearby, along with some trace elements of copper and zinc. The iron made perfect sense, as the ship was loaded with it, from the anchors and anchor chains directly below them to the locomotive engine in the hold. But it was one of the other trace elements that caught his eye. Waiting until the ROV snaked out of the lower deck, he engaged the thrusters and elevated the submersible. Moving slowly, he brought the craft to a hover over the damaged section of the bow while keeping one eye on the sensor’s output.

“If you can find us some gold on this tub, it would redeem an otherwise forgettable dive,” Giordino said.

Pitt danced the submersible over the debris area, gradually focusing on a small section near the ship’s centerline. Easing to a stable section of the deck, he again set the submersible down. Giordino had pulled the ROV’s cable slack and was preparing to drop it into its cradle.

“Hold on,” Pitt said. “Do you see that broken timber standing upright about ten feet in front of us?”

“Got it.”

“There’s a covered object near its base, a little to the right. See if you can blast it off with the ROV.”

Giordino had the Rover in place within seconds. He cut the power and let the ROV sink to a small pile of debris covered in silt. When the ROV made contact, he applied full power to its tiny thrusters. The little ROV shot upward, kicking up a thick cloud of silt in the process. The steady bottom current that rippled over the ship quickly cleared away the murky water. Both men could see a curved object with a gold luster lying in the debris.

“My gold bars,” Giordino said facetiously.

“Something better, I think,” Pitt replied. He didn’t wait for Giordino to fly the ROV over the object, instead propelling the submersible over for a close-up look. Peering down through the view port, they saw the unmistakable shape of a large bell.

“Holy smokes, how did you pick that out of the muck? ” Giordino asked.

“The Bloodhound ’s sniffer did it. I noticed a small reading of copper and zinc, and remembered that they’re the two components of brass. I figured it was either a cleat or the ship’s bell.”

They stared down at the bell, observing an engraving on the side, which they couldn’t quite make out. Pitt finally backed off a few feet and let the ROV zoom in for a closer look.

The bell was still caked with silt and crustaceans, but a close-up view from the Rover’s camera revealed two of the engraved letters: ER.