Serpent (61 page)

"Wish I could talk to these guys and tell them what a great job they're doing," Zavala said. He tried to signal a "well done" with his mechanical claw, but it didn't quite make it. "Guess we'd better not high-five until we get out of these suits. Which I hope will be damned soon."

"Shouldn't be more than a few minutes before we can turn the rest of the job over to McGinty. Hear that, Cap?"

The conversations between the Hand Suits were communicated to the deck so the men on the topside could keep tabs on what was going on below.

"Bet your ass," McGinty harked. "I heard the whole skinny. Got a case of Bud on ice. Get that thing out of the wreck, and we'll do the rest."

The saturation divers had to stay at depth or they'd come down with the bends. Once the load was out of the wreck, Austin and Zavala would take over and guide it to the surface. When the slab was near the surface they'd tend it until the crane could finish the job.

"What's the weather like up there?" Austin asked.

"Sea's still flat calm; but the Nantucket fog factory has been going full tilt. Fog bank is rolling in with stuff so thick you could fry it up like dough."

 
Both Austin and the captain would have been even more concerned if they knew what the fog hid. While Austin and the others had struggled to pull the stone slab from the armored truck and haul it to the surface, a large ship whose gray hull made it practically invisible was approaching the Monkfish, traveling just fast enough to keep pace with the moving wall of fog. The oddly shaped vessel was six hundred feet long, with a deep V shaped bow and wide back, and it was powered by six water jets that could send it skimming over the sea at forty-five knots, an amazing speed for a ship that size.

Austin responded to McGinty's weather report with a "Finest kind, Cap," borrowing one of Trout's expressions from his fishing days. He signaled the saturation divers to put more air into the lift tubes. Slowly the load began to rise through the hole. The saturation divers stayed with the stone, making sure it didn't oscillate when it hit the stronger current flowing over the wreck Austin and Zavala remained just inside the wreck, off to one side so they wouldn't be under the slab if it came down in a hurry. They had a clear view of both divers, one on either side of the slab, keeping pace with its ascent with slight flutters of their fins. A picture-perfect operation. One for the books.

Until all hell broke loose.

One of the divers jerked in a wild ungraceful dance, his arms and legs flailing like an epileptic in a grand mal. Then he doubled over, clawing at his umbilical. Just as suddenly he regained control of his body, floated in place for a moment, then jackknifed in a dive that took him back through the hole into the innards of the Andrea Doria.

The whole mad sequence took only a few seconds. Austin had no time to react. But as the diver swam closer, Austin saw what had happened. The man's umbilical trailed uselessly behind his suit. The diver had switched to his emergency tank What the hell happened? The hose couldn't have been cut on the ragged edge of the hole. Austin had been watching the whole time. The diver swam toward him, the exposed part of his face white as marble. Austin cursed himself for not insisting on total underwater communication. The man jabbed the water above his head.

Zavala, who had been moving in a slow circle, yelled over the intercom, "Kurt; what's going on?°

"Damned if I know," Austin said. He squinted up at where the slab was suspended over the opening. "We've got to get this guy into the bell. He's okay on his spare tank, but he'll freeze to death without the hot water feed. I'll give him a ride up and take a look at the same time."

Austin held out his thick metal arm as if he were escorting a prom date. The diver got the hint and grabbed on to his elbow. Austin activated the vertical thrusters, and they levitated from the wreck. The second diver was nowhere to be seen.

While Austin scoured the sea for him, something stirred in the murky gloom. A fantastic figure moved into the range of the light cast by the diving bell. It was a diver wearing a Hard Suit of burnished metal that reminded Austin of the armor made to accommodate Henry VIII's porcine bulk.

Austin suspected that the stranger had something to do with the saturation diver's problems. That suspicion was reinforced a second later when the newcomer raised an object in his hand. Then: was an explosion of bubbles and the blurred glint of metal. A projectile rocketed past Austin's right shoulder, barely missing him.

The saturation diver took off and swam toward the bell with wild kicks of his flippers. Austin watched him disappear through the bottom hatch, then turned his attention to more pressing matters.

Other silvery figures had materialized and were heading in his direction. Austin counted five of them before he nailed the down control on his vertical thruster and plunged back into the Doria.

44 MCGINTY WAS ANXIOUSLY SHOUTING over the radio.

"What the hell's going on? Someone get back to me, or I'll come down there and see for myself"

"Wouldn't advise it," Austin shot back "Six guys in Hard Suits just showed up for tea, and they're not very friendly. One just took a shot at me."

McGinty erupted like a volcano. "Jesus Mary Joseph and all the saints at sea!"

Another voice cut in. Near hysteria. "Those sons-of-bitches cut Jack's line!" The missing diver was talking from inside the bell. Austin recognized his Texas drawl.

"Is he okay?"

"Yeah, he's in here with me. Scared brainless, but he's fine."

"You and Jack sit tight," Austin advised. "McGinty, how soon can you yank the bell to the surface?"

"I've got my hand on the switch."

"Then start hauling."

"It's on its way. D'you want me to call the Coast Guard?"

"A squad of navy SEALS would come in handy, but you can call in the Bengal Lancers for all the good it will do. This thing will be over before help gets here. We'll have to deal with it ourselves."

"Austin, you watch your ass! Haven't been in a donnybrook in ages. Wish I could get down there and break a few heads."

"So do I. Don't mean to be rude, Cap, but I gotta go. Ciao."

Behind the dark plexiglass shielding Austin's face the pale blue-green eyes were as hard as turquoise stones. Most mortals placed in'Austin's situation would have reacted with alarm. Austin wasn't fearless. He could make a good case that his hair had turned platinum white from the healthy scares he'd received in his career. Had he seen six white sharks bearing down he would have been wishing he'd renewed his life insurance. The forces of nature were unthinking and relentless. Despite the fearsome picture the intruders presented, Austin knew that under their aluminum skins were men, with all their frailties.

A replay flashed through his eyes of the attacks in Morocco. The only difference was the underwater setting. They wanted the talking stone, and the NUMA divers were in the way. Further intellectualizing was dangerous. Thoughts could be like slippery banana peels. What was needed was cunning rather than intelligence. A wolf doesn't think about its prey before it pounces. Austin let his mind slip into its survival mode, letting instincts dictate his moves. A spreading warmth chased away the cold chill that had gripped his body when he'd first seen the attackers. His breathing became regular, almost slow, his heart beat at an even pace. At the same time he wasn't kidding himself. A wolf had claws and teeth.

Zavala had heard the radio exchange with McGinty. "What's the game plan, Kurt?" The words were measured but edged with anxiety.

"We'll let them come to us. We know the territory. They don't. We'll need weapons."

"My specialty. I'll see what I can dig up."

Zavala glided toward the back of the armored trick "Cable cutters. What do those guys have?"

"I don't know. I thought it was a spear gun. Now I'm not so sure."

Zavala brandished the loppers. "If we can get close enough I can cut a few zippers."

Austin's mind, which had been working at Mach speed, came to a screeching halt. He'd been staring past Zavala at the open door of the armored truck, mesmerized by the bright rectangle of light standing out against the inky blackness. He moved closer. The portable halogen lamps they had used during the slab removal brightly lit up the interior.

"I may have a better idea," Austin said. "The Venus flytrap."

Keeping an eye on the hull opening, Austin outlined his plan for Zavala.

"Simple yet audacious," Zavala replied. "That takes care of one. What about the others?"

"Improvise."

Zavala raised the loppers like an Indian brave armed with a tomahawk about to do battle with the rifles of the cavalry and melted into the darkness on the far side of the truck, just beyond the engine compartment. Austin pried the lid open on two more jewelry chests.

It was like opening boxes full of stars. Even underwater the glitter of diamonds, sapphires, and rubies was blinding. He arranged the strongboxes neatly in a row just inside the trick where they would be in plain view, propping up their backs. He added a few shills for dramatic effect, then moved away from the truck until he, too, was cloaked by the artificial night within the great ship. He hovered in the vast empty space, glancing back and forth between the truck and the hull opening above. Although the interior of the Hard Suit was dry and cool, he was sweating.

There was a glow near the hull opening, then a pair of divers came into the ship like ferrets entering a rabbit burrow, their twin flashlight beams stabbing the murkiness, probing this way and that. Watching their cautious entry Austin recalled the tentativeness with which he and Zavala had first entered the wreck, their nervousness at the unknown, and the adjustment to a disorienting topsy-turvy world where up and down were no longer useful referents. He was counting on that initial confusion. And on the natural tendency of the eye to focus on the only visible object in the empty void. The armored truck, looking out of place and time.

The divers moved back and forth, probably debating a course of action, whether they were walking into a trap. They approached the truck, staying dose to each other, adjusting to the current, drawing nearer until their burnished suits were semi-silhouetted in the doorway.

Austin cursed. They were shoulder-to-shoulder. As long as they stayed that way his plan was dead, and maybe so were he and Zavala. Then human nature intervened. One diver muscled the other aside. He was framed directly in the truck's doorway, body at a forward slight angle, head bent into the truck. Austin's lips curled in a fierce grin. Pushiness doesn't pay, pal.

He alerted Zavala. Assuming ram speed."

"Cutting started," Zavala shot back.

Austin kicked both thrusters into lateral full speed and aimed for the back of the truck. The suit accelerated slowly, then gathered momentum as its half-ton weight overcame the forces of inertia and water resistance.

He flew directly toward the truck like a bowling ball trying to pick off the last pin, praying that the diver would stay put. He didn't want an eternity with Zavala reminding him how he spent his last earthly moments imitating an accordion.

His luck held. The diver remained transfixed by the jewels, probably trying to figure out how he could carry them off.

Austin focused on the suit's wide metal butt, just below the hard plastic shell covering the air tanks like a tortoise shell. Damn. He was coming in too low. He gave himself a slight vertical lift

Back on target.

"Now!" Austin yelled, knowing there was no need to raise his voice.

As he hurtled forward he brought his feet up like a boy making a cannonball dive, trying to imagine himself on an invisible bobsled, but the best he could do with the metal joints that restricted his movement was to elevate his knees.

Zavala was working feverishly. The pincher jaws had nibbled away at some of the strands .of the front cable holding the truck.