Into the Black (32 page)

Severin smiled and turned away, walking to the stern gunwale and peering into the water.  "Apparently you are the only fisher in your city who believes there are fish to be caught here."  He faced Anatoly once more.  "There is an FSB informant in the city who overheard your call for a weather report.  He thought it curious that you would fish here, where no one ever goes.  He also told me how you and Kismet spent the morning loading equipment onto your boat.  So you will understand if I tell you that your answers thus far have not impressed me."

He took a step closer, his smile drawing into a menacing sneer.  "You will cooperate."

"I have grown weary of threats," sighed Anatoly, unmoved.  "If you wish to torture me, do so.  I have nothing to say that I have not already said."

"Perhaps I will—torture?—ha! Perhaps Irina Petrovna will be more cooperative.  Or perhaps, for her sake, you will leave off your posturing, and tell me where I can find Nick Kismet."

As he spoke, Severin moved closer, increasing his pitch and volume.  His last words were shouted, though he was less than a hand's breadth from her face.  She tried to shrink deeper into Anatoly's embrace.

"She told you!" the fisherman roared, equally stentorian.  "Kismet isn't here."

The Russian captain turned away once more, walking in a slow circle around them.  "Indeed.  My men have searched your vessel and Kismet quite obviously is not here.  But that does not answer the question of why you are here, in these waters where no one ever fishes."

He paused, standing directly behind Irene and Anatoly so that they could not see him.  "What is this?"  Severin's tone was mockingly inquisitive.  "It looks like an engine, but there is hose of some sort that goes into the water.  Is this also part of your unusual fishing technique?"

The Russian naval officer did not wait for an answer.  He barked an order to one of the seamen, who strode forward and started reeling in the cable with the winch.  At least seventy-five yards of the twisted metal line had been played out and it took the burly sailor almost five minutes to wind it in.  Severin leaned over the stern, eyeing the cable hungrily, eager to see what he had caught.

Abruptly, without any disturbance of the surface, the end of the cable popped up.  A gated carabiner was secured to a loop at its end, but nothing was connected to that hook.

"
Nyet
!" raged Severin.  He pushed the sailor away and snatched the air line off the deck.  Furious, he began pulling it in.  As the rubber hose piled up around his knees, two of the sailors, acting on a cue from the XO, stepped in and took over for their superior.

Irene gazed at the empty carabiner in mute terror.  That cable was Kismet's only lifeline.  The hose connection wasn't strong enough to lift Kismet and his heavy suit off the bottom.  The rubber tubing might withstand the strain, but the brass fittings of the helmet would surely crack before he could be brought up.   Even if they didn't break off altogether, the rupture would certainly fill the protective suit with seawater, drowning him before he could be lifted to the surface.  In his rage Severin either failed to conceive this possibility, or simply didn't care. 

Then the sailors stopped pulling in the hose, and Irene turned to see why.  She couldn't hold back a low cry when she saw the ragged end of the hose in their hands.  Severin's face twisted with rage, then slowly relaxed.  After a long silence, he began laughing.

* * *

Kismet was in a cold, dark place.

Immediately after his fall, the torpedo rays had relented.  Perhaps satisfied with having repelled the intruder, they retreated to their defensive perimeter.  It was also possible that the colder water and harsher extreme of pressure at the depth where Kismet now found himself was disagreeable to the electric fish.

He couldn't see anything.  The golden illumination from the wreck was gone.  Gone also was the ground beneath his feet.  He was hanging in the water suspended by the cable leading to the surface.  Why that line had suddenly gone taut was a mystery, but he knew that the interruption had probably saved him.  He had no idea how far he had descended, but was certain that the atmospheres weighing upon him had more than doubled.  He sucked greedily at the air that was being pumped down from the surface, trying to calm his racing heart.

He fumbled in the dark to find the net bag tied to his belt, intent on sending up one of the orange floats.  One ball was the signal to begin the gradual ascent, allowing for decompression at certain intervals.  Releasing all three of the floats would indicate an extreme emergency, dire enough to supersede the risk of the bends.   Terrifying though it had been, he didn't think his encounter with the electric rays or the subsequent tumble into darkness justified such a drastic measure.

It was clear now what had happened.  Blinded by the attack, he had wandered off of the submerged shelf that formed a perimeter along the coast of the Black Sea.  The Caucasus didn't really stop at the water's edge, but plunged more than a mile below sea level.  No diving or exploration, at least not with the antiquated equipment he was using, was possible in that dark beyond where the combined mass of water would crush his diving helmet like an eggshell.  That the ancient ship had sunk so close to that shelf without going over was a coincidence that verged on miraculous; had it gone down just fifty yards further to the west, the secret of the Golden Fleece would have been lost forever. 

His fingers closed around one of the floats, but before he could withdraw it, he found himself unable to draw breath; the air refused to enter his lungs.  Concentrating on his chest, he tried again to inhale.  He could feel the resistance, like trying to suck the air out of a bottle and a breath was grudgingly granted.  Intuitively, he realized his air supply had been cut off; the compressor was no longer pumping air down to him. 

Kismet immediately tried to reassure himself; the mechanism had simply stalled.  He envisioned his companions on the boat frantically trying to restart the motor, and was confident that they would succeed and that at any moment precious air would resume flowing into his helmet.  But thirty seconds passed, then a minute, and his ability to restrain the growing panic was diminishing with every heartbeat.  Every inhalation was an effort.  Each strained breath was using up his precious reserve of good air, and each exhalation further poisoned his environment with useless carbon dioxide.  He closed his eyes, willing himself calm, and drew another shallow, labored breath.  His hands once more sought out the floats in the net bag.  He debated sending up all three, but thought better of it.  Anatoly and Irene certainly must have recognized that restarting the compressor was an emergency.  There was no need to compound his peril by signaling for a hasty extraction from the depths.  But why were they taking so long?

Before he could release a float however, he felt a tugging across his back.  A tremor vibrated along the length of cable connecting him to the boat and he slowly began to ascend out of the pit.  The flow of fresh air, however, did not resume. 

Instantly, the panic returned.  Had the compressor failed, breaking down beyond Anatoly's ability to repair?  If so, was there sufficient air remaining in his helmet to make the ascent?  Even without the requisite decompression stops, the upward journey would take several minutes.

He arched his back, tilting his enclosed head to get a look at the surface.  Very little illumination could penetrate the thickness of the water, but he was able to pick out the oblong shape of the trawler.  He squinted at the keel, trying to estimate the depth to which he had plunged and how long it would take for his friends to draw him up.  As he stared at the boat, steeling himself against the inevitable moment when he would feel the painful cramps of the bends, he became aware of a smaller boat, orbiting the trawler like a satellite. 

No
, he realized.
  The second shape is the trawler
.

There was another vessel right next to Anatoly's boat; a craft much larger than the tiny fishing vessel. With equal parts intuition and dread, Kismet realized that it was not another fishing boat but a ship.  It could only be the
Boyevoy
.  The Russian captain and his armed sailors were undoubtedly already aboard the trawler and probably knew that Kismet was in the water.  They had likely cut off his air supply, intending to bring his lifeless body up as evidence against Irene and Anatoly.  Kismet imagined the delight they would take in watching his agonizing struggle to readjust to topside pressurization, provided he did not suffocate during the ascent.

Neither fate was one he could accept.  The secret of the Golden Fleece was so tantalizingly close he could not die without knowing the truth. 

A few seconds later, feeling the faint delirium of hypoxia, Kismet rose to the level of the shelf where the golden ship rested on its side ablaze in supernatural glory.  As he swung toward it, he knew what he had to do.

He twisted around until he could reach the clip that secured his harness to the cable and popped the hook free.  As soon as he let go the cable shot away, continuing the ascent without him, while he plummeted to the sea floor.

His sudden reappearance startled the mass of briny creatures surrounding the wreck.  They immediately shifted, circling close to drive him off once again.  He did not balk; too little time remaining to be slowed down now.

Heedless of the silt cloud he was stirring up, he raced toward the sunken vessel.  His helmet suddenly resounded with a loud noise; the sound of an unseen fish striking at him.  At almost the same moment he felt a blow to his abdomen, but neither collision was sufficient to slow his charge.  Yet, despite expending all his energy, he could barely move through the fluid environment faster than a jog.  He began swinging his arms to ward off the aggressive marine life but his movements were hampered by the thickness of the water.

Larger fish descended on him; bulky sturgeon, moving fast enough to knock him off balance and spiny dogfish, nearly as large as Kismet himself, flashing their menacing teeth.

He ignored them all.

The nest of electric rays reawakened as he approached the sunken shrine and the doorway behind the colonnade.  Their shocks stung, but he blindly pushed them aside, refusing to be driven from the precipice a second time.

Seizing the threshold of the portal, he pushed the gilt door open and threw himself inside.  Gasping for a breath that would not come, he fell against the door, shutting out the sea and the defenders of the golden ship.  

The door refused to close.  Kismet struggled with it for a moment before realizing that his air hose was the obstruction.  He stared at the rubber tube, wondering what to do, vaguely aware of how stupid the predicament made him feel.  The lack of fresh oxygen was clouding his ability to think.

He finally gave up trying to secure the door.  The attack by the sentry fish had ceased as soon as he had gained the safety of the structure, making his efforts to shut them out unnecessary.  He turned away and surveyed the enclosure.  Though the ornate exterior had suggested a ritual significance, the interior appeared to be nothing more than a cargo hold.  Rope webs held chests in place in two long rows, one on either side of a center aisle, the entire length of the enclosure. 

Although the ship now rested on its side, creating a top and bottom aspect to the cargo arrangement, the ropes remained secure.  The cargo had barely shifted in spite of the wreck.  It took Kismet a moment to realize that, as with the exterior, the interior of the hold as well as the rope nets and the cargo casks were covered in a layer of brilliant gold, preserving everything intact despite centuries of exposure to salt water.  He had no difficulty discerning any of the details in his surroundings because the covering of gold in the cargo bay of the wreck was brilliantly aglow.

There were more than three feet of clearance between the cargo above and below, plenty of room for a man to walk through, even carrying a heavy load in his arms, when the ship was in an upright position.  But with the ship keeled over ninety degrees, Kismet was forced to crawl on his hands and knees along the crates resting on the starboard wall of the enclosure.

With so many casks to choose from, he simply selected one at random.  He slashed his
kukri
at the gilt ropes, slicing through metal and ancient fibers with relative ease, releasing the first crate on the port wall.  It tumbled down, sinking through the water like an anchor, and landed on its side.  When he tried to maneuver the oblong case, he found it impossibly heavy.  Though he was unable to lift it, he managed instead to push it over.  He pierced the gold overlay with the edge of his blade. It separated easily from the wood, allowing him to peel it away like the soft lead on a bottle of wine.  Beneath was unfinished white wood.

There appeared to be no hinges or latches securing the lid, leaving him to wonder the was box upside down.  Rather than attempt to turn it over, he chose instead to cut through the wood with the knife.  Working along the edge, he found the seam where the rough-hewn boards were joined and began prying them apart.  Immediately upon breaking the internal sanctity of the cask, a flood of air bubbles rose up, tickling at the faceplate of the helmet before gathering above him in a small air pocket.  Golden rays also shone from the gap he had created, stimulating him to work faster.  Once the board was loose, he laid his knife aside, wedging his fingers under the wood and wrenching at it until it broke free.  Through the hole he could see gold.

Bubbles of gas continued to trickle up through his fingers, obscuring his view of the prize within.  He yawned, vaguely aware that the periphery of his vision was starting to go dark, and went to work breaking another of the boards free.  The panels had been assembled without fasteners, utilizing a tongue-and-groove method, and after he had loosened one segment, the rest popped free with very little effort.  In a matter of seconds, the contents of the box were plainly visible.