Into the Black (44 page)

The leak in the raft posed no immediate danger.  The inflatable hull was divided into several independent cells; the loss of pressure in a single one would not cause the craft to sink.  But as the air escaped, the boat began to lose rigidity and allowed seawater to splash onto the passengers.

It took about two minutes for them to reach the sub.  The sailor at the helm drove the rubber boat up onto the deck of the vessel, just aft of the sail.  Through the salt spray in her eyes, she could barely distinguish the shapes of two men waiting near the sail, but there was no mistaking their uniforms: Russian naval officers.  Her blood ran cold when she heard one of the men speak in heavily accented English.  "So Kismet. 
Vee
haf
you, at last."

Kismet sounded merely irritated as he replied:  "Cut it out, Lyse.  Those Russians are shooting at us."

His tone confused Irene.  She couldn't reconcile what she was seeing and hearing with what she thought she knew.  Why was Kismet's friend Lyse an officer on a Russian submarine?  Irene looked at both figures, and then faced the remaining officer.  

"Hello, Irina." The man took off his hat, revealing the smiling face of her father.

Irene was paralyzed.  Nothing made sense any more.  Kismet took her elbow and guided her to the ladder that ascended to the top of the tower.  Below, the sailors manning the forward gun fired off the last of their ammunition then abandoned the gun and joined the retreat to below decks.  The men that had piloted the raft drew long knives and slashed the remaining cells, then pushed the shapeless mass into the sea and joined their comrades in boarding the submarine.

As they passed through the narrow hatch, a bottleneck that permitted only one person to descend into the submersible vessel, a siren blasted from the interior of the vessel.

"That's the dive warning," Lyse explained.  "We have to hurry."

Irene was still confused.  "We're going underwater?"

"It's already started," Lyse said, sliding off the ladder and stepping away.  "We've all got to be inside and get that hatch shut.  Move it, people!"

Kismet was next.  The interior of the submarine was dark and claustrophobic.  The electric lights were spaced far apart, offering minimal illumination, especially after daylight on the surface.  Nevertheless, this metal cave beneath the waters was their salvation. 

The top hatch clanked shut and was sealed.  The sailor atop the ladder shouted the 'all clear' message, and then made his descent.  Kismet thanked each of the men for risking their lives to rescue Irene and himself, but the sailors seemed uncomfortable with his gratitude.  "Just doing our duty sir," one of them shrugged.

"Would someone please tell me what's going on?" Irene finally complained.  "Father, why are you wearing that uniform? And what are you doing on a Russian submarine?"

Kismet's friend laughed at her confusion.  "Let's go meet the captain.  Then we'll explain everything."

A distant explosion rocked the sub as they moved through the cramped corridor toward the control room.  "That was close," Lyse remarked.

An upright column dominated the center of the room.  One man, a tall figure with wavy black hair, lightly peppered with gray, stood with his face pressed against the periscope viewport, slowly turning in a complete circle.  Finally, he straightened and addressed the newcomers.  "Not really," he said, contradicting Lyse's observation.  "They're shooting in the dark.  They have no idea where we went, and they're in no shape to pursue.  Our first fish took out their screws, and I think the second might have knocked out the whole engine room."

Kismet was struck by the tall man's green eyes, which were oddly contrasted with the bright orange face of his diver's wrist chronometer.  He had the unmistakable feeling that he had seen him before.  "I guess we have you to thank for getting us out of that mess."

"No more than I have you to thank for giving me this little job.  A fishing trip to get me out of the office was just what the doctor ordered."

Irene was still looking around in confusion, turning first to Kismet then to the rugged looking captain.  The latter shook her hand.  "My goodness, you're shivering."

He shrugged out of his jacket and draped it around her shoulders.  Kismet felt an almost adolescent twinge of jealousy at the man's act of kindness toward Irene, but Lyse distracted him.  "I see you found it.  The Golden Fleece."

He glanced down to the sheepskin on his shoulder, and then slipped it off to examine it more closely.

"One of them," Irene intoned.  "Nick, would you please tell me what happened down there? How many Golden Fleeces are there?"

He knelt and spread the Fleece out on the metal deck.  His fingers brushed through the damp wool, revealing an occasional auric glimmer, but that was all.  Most of the metal had been rinsed away during the ascent from the galley.  What gold remained neither glowed nor tingled with any discernible electric current.  He estimated that the sodden sheepskin now weighed less than ten pounds.

A steward brought them steaming mugs of coffee and Kismet drank deeply before attempting to explain.  "Here's what I think happened:

"Three thousand years ago, after the story of Jason and the Argonauts was already a legend, a group of adventurers, probably Greeks, decided to seek out the land of Colchis.  Perhaps they knew something about the true nature of the Fleece, or maybe they were just crazy treasure hunters.  In any event, they certainly believed in the legend, because they sought the protection of the witch Medea, Jason's lover in the myth, by erecting a shrine to her on their galley.  When they arrived at the kingdom of Colchis, they headed up into the mountains.  They weren't looking for the Golden Fleece; they were just looking for gold.

"An ancient Greek geographer, Strabo, speculated that the gold on the Fleece was the result of a mining technique called ‘gold washing.’  Ancient prospectors would lay a sheepskin in a gold bearing stream, and when the silt passed through the wool, the heavier gold particles stayed in the fleece.  Well, that's what these adventurers did.  They set out dozens of fleeces, and harvested a lot of gold dust.

"But it wasn't ordinary gold.  For some reason, this gold could store, or under the right circumstances release, electricity.”

“How is that possible?” inquired Lyse.  “Gold is just gold.”

“Maybe it came from somewhere else,” Kismet speculated.  “According to the legend, the Golden Fleece was the skin of the flying ram Chrysomallus.  Maybe instead of a flying ram, Chrysomallus was a gold meteorite that crashed in the Caucuses.”

Lyse raised an eyebrow.  “Sounds like something from a comic book.”

Kismet shrugged.  “Regardless of where it came from, those ancient explorers harvested a bunch of it.  Then they abandoned their mining camp and prepared to sail home with their treasure, but the electrical field created by the huge quantity of this extraordinary gold caused an atmospheric disturbance.  A storm arose that sunk the galley, taking its cargo to the bottom, only a few miles from shore.

"Over the centuries, the electrical field stayed active underwater, drawing more solvent gold particles out of the water.  I know that sounds far-fetched, but the sea is full of dissolved metals and minerals.  I think atoms of gold were pulled out of the water and gradually accumulated on the surface of the ship.  Maybe the water itself perpetuated the reaction; I'm not a chemist, but there seems to be a connection."

"So when we raised the ship," Irene observed, "The electricity stopped."

"Not entirely.  It was still powerful enough to blow out the lamp.  I think what really happened was that it changed its manifestation.  I think it created that storm with a massive electrical field." He took another sip of coffee.  "When Anatoly's bomb went off, the kinetic energy was absorbed, recharging the gold."

"We can test your theory on this Fleece," suggested Lyse.

Kismet looked down at the gray wool on the deck.  "I doubt you'll get any kind of reaction.  Most of the gold has washed out of it.”  He had mixed feelings about that.  No ubergold meant no EMP bomb, and on balance, that seemed like a good thing.  “But maybe what we learned about the ancient wanderings of the Greek adventurers is more valuable to the scientific world than this Fleece would have been.  There are enough witnesses to document the existence of the galley and its cargo."

"Ah, Nick, I don't think you'll be able to tell anyone about this."

"And why not? This has nothing to do with your military secrets, Lyse.  This is about history and culture."

"I think what the lovely Ms. Lyon means," the captain supplied,  "is that your presence here, and for that matter our actions today, are illegal.  We did just shoot up a Russian destroyer, you realize."

"But as far as they know, that action was carried out by a Russian submarine.  There will be no contesting that identification.  And since the Russians have sold off several of their older subs, there'll be no shortage of possible suspects."

The captain shook his head.  "If you were to go public with your discovery, their government might be more scrupulous in demanding an accounting, both of the attack on the destroyer, and your presence in Georgia to begin with."

"You can't tell the world Nick," Lyse stated.  "Not yet, at least.  We can't afford to have Russia pissed off at us right now."

Kismet sighed.  He knew she was right, but it irritated him to have worked so hard for nothing.

"Nick, there is yet one thing I do not understand." Kismet turned to hear out Peter Kerns.  "I can accept your theory of the gold being drawn out of sea water, and accumulating on the ship.  But the relics I found were not on the ship itself, but in the silt nearby, unaffected by the electrical field.  The altar stone, for example, must have broken off when the ship went down.  It did not have any gold on it.  But the helmet fragment did.  How is that possible?"

He reflected on the day Harcourt had brought the bronze and gold fragment to his office, nearly two weeks before; a dented and torn shard of a helmet that had been forged for a smaller head than his own..."It must have been plated prior to the sinking of the galley."

"Maybe the helmet really did belong to Jason," Irene suggested, unknowingly voicing Kismet's own wild speculation.  "Remember that Medea used her magic to protect him when he slew the serpent that guarded the Fleece.  And when he sowed the serpent's teeth, and fought the champions that grew out of the ground, her magic guarded him.  If the gold was the source of her magic, perhaps she used it on his armor somehow.  I seem to recall that at one point, Jason threw his helmet into the midst of the champions, causing them to turn on each other and kill each other in the confusion."

Kismet couldn't remember if the last part of her recollection was really part of the Argo legend, but he didn't contradict her.  Her hypothesis was no more elaborate than his own.

"Then the helmet shard you spoke of was something the Greeks brought back with them," offered the captain.  "Perhaps it was hidden beneath that altar stone; a sacred relic from the time of the real Jason."

"I guess we'll never know," Kismet concluded.

"Okay, I understand all of that." Irene faced her father again.  "Now, why are we on a Russian submarine?"

"That was my idea," Kismet hastily supplied, trying to prevent the captain from grabbing any more glory.  "When I first decided to go after Harcourt, both to rescue Peter and maybe find the Fleece, I made a deal with Lyse.  She would back us up secretly, from a submarine, so that when we succeeded, we could sneak out unobserved."

"Almost sinking the
Boyevoy
isn't exactly my idea of stealth."

"It sure beats the alternative."

"You may have suggested using a sub, Nick, but it was the Colonel here—" Lyse nodded to the sub's pilot—"that gave us the K-322."

"Air Force, retired," explained the captain.  "Nowadays I earn my pay with a certain maritime agency that disavows any knowledge of this little jaunt.  After the end of the Cold War, the Russians sold off a few of their older boats, and this one found it’s way into the hands of a drug cartel.  The Navy sank it in about four miles of water, and then the CIA asked my agency to help salvage it so they could use it for...well, for days like today.”

"They’ll be wise to the deception now,“ Kismet intoned.  “What's next?"

"Well, now the fun really begins.  The captain of that destroyer will have already sounded the alarm, so the entire Black Sea fleet will be after us.  Unfortunately, there's only one way out the Black, through the Bosporus."

"Can we get there before they blockade the strait?"

"Officially, they can't blockade it. But that won't stop them.  And the answer is: probably not.  In any event, we won't be trying.  We're now heading south, toward the Turkish coast.  Once we get there we'll scuttle this boat, and make landfall.  Then we'll break up into smaller groups and make our way home."

"They'll be looking for Irene and me."

"It would probably be best for you two to split up.” Lyse supplied.  “Eventually, when you've made it back to the States, you can concoct some story about escaping from a rogue Russian military group with their own submarine."

"Wonderful," said Irene, sarcastically.  "I thought all this insanity was finally over."

The captain smiled.  "Well, I can promise you a few hours of peace.  No one's using the officers' quarters.  Why don't you grab some shut-eye? You look like you could use it."  He proffered a hand, which, after a quick glance in Kismet's direction, she accepted.  Kerns raised an eyebrow, and then moved to follow them.

Lyse threw a wry grin at Kismet.  "Better watch out, Nick.  He moves pretty fast with the ladies.  Speaking as one, there is something...irresistible about him."

Kismet hefted the Fleece, avoiding her eyes.  "Lyse, what makes you think that I would even give a damn?"

"Uh, oh.  Things not working out between you and Svetlana?"

He considered matching her barb for barb, but thought better of it.  "No.  I guess there's not much room in my life for romance."