The Girl Beneath the Sea (Underwater Investigation Unit #1)(69)

While it’d make sense for criminals to wipe their GPS history every chance they get, coast guard and customs require that they keep records going back several months.

I’m sure they have a wipe switch in case they thought they were being investigated for smuggling; otherwise they’d keep only the current data or remove data for specific trips.

I shove the thumb drive on my key chain into the port and download the raw data file. It takes two seconds to transfer, but closing the window trips me up.

I hear footsteps on the deck outside and the sound of men talking in another language.

Damn. Earlier this afternoon, news broke about a tropical storm forming in the Atlantic. The crew could be coming back early to prep the ship.

I check the screen again, trying to find a “Close” button. Nothing.

They’re climbing the stairs.

Think . . .

I reach behind the KVVM and find the power switch.

Screw it.

I flip it off, then on again.

The screen displays a boot-up sequence.

Ugh. It’ll have to do.

I grab my scanner from the chair, flip it back on, and stare at it, ignoring the captain and a crew member as they enter.

“Alo?” says the captain.

I hold up a finger, asking him to wait a moment, and hold the radio scanner to my ear. I figure it’s better to pretend I own the place than act afraid.

Another set of footsteps, these running to the bridge. Irro bursts in with George behind him.

Irro exchanges rapid-fire Finnish with the captain, who looks at George and me suspiciously.

George returns the stony gaze with a “you’re in serious shit” expression. He’s playing the part of bad cop extremely well.

“We’ve had our radar checked extensively,” says the captain. “I insist that we call in our own technician if you’re going to persist in this matter.”

I covertly turn the dial of the scanner, and the beeping stops. “Is your radar still on?”

The captain walks over to the console and stares at the screen. “Yes.”

“Huh,” I reply. “Mr. George, I think it must be something else.”

“Let me see that?” He grabs the scanner and makes a dramatic show of changing the frequencies, with no effect, then thrusts the device back at me. “Fine.” He pushes past a crewman as he heads toward the door.

“Captain, I’m sorry for the inconvenience. We’ll get this matter sorted out.”

I follow George down the steps and gangplank. The sound of the captain yelling at Irro reaches us all the way to the dock. I’d feel bad, but he knows who he works for.

George points to dark clouds in the distance. “That doesn’t look good. Get what you need?”

“I hope so.”





CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

LOGBOOK

“It looks like they spent about nine hours offshore near Hobe Sound,” Dad says over the speakerphone.

George and I are in the hotel room overlooking the Morning Sun. We don’t want to leave until we’re sure we have the data that we came for. Sending it to Dad seemed the best way to make sense of it, and he didn’t let me down.

“Can you give me the coordinates?” I ask.

Dad calls them out, and I put an X in the location, then draw a line from it to the submarine tunnel on Turtle Isle.

George turns from the hotel-room window. “Does that help?”

“It’s twenty-one miles from Turtle Isle to there. So . . . um, there’s that,” I reply.

“How about if we use sonar and retrace the route? Could we pick up the sub?” asks George.

Dad makes a snorting sound on the other end of the line. It’s the same problem I face doing a dive search—I’m limited by how far I can see and how fast I can swim.

I explain the problem to George. “Assuming only a one-mile drift on either side of the route—and that the Kraken followed a straight line—the sonar on the Fortune’s Fool can only cover a band about five hundred feet wide. And the Fool has the best sonar you’ll find on any vessel of that size anywhere,” I hastily add, because Dad is listening.

“That’s twenty passes to search a two-mile-wide corridor,” George says after doing the math. “And a twenty-mile route means four hundred miles to cover.”

“Assuming no false positives,” my dad says over the speakerphone. “You’re looking at a six-day job. And that’s assuming it followed a straight line. Which it didn’t, it being the ocean and all and not space or whatever. Without looking at tide tables and currents for the time, I’d call it a six-mile-wide corridor, which means twelve hundred miles of seafloor to search. So basically it’s like finding something between here and New York City.”

“I get it,” says George. “So, what do you suggest we do?”

“Figure out where Raul wanted to sink it,” I reply.

“I’m sure he told Bonaventure before they killed him.”

“And I’m sure he only had a rough estimate of the spot.”

“That’s the part I don’t understand,” Dad interjects. “How was Raul going to find the submarine after he sank it?”

“Good question,” George replies, then turns to me.

“Maybe a short-range transmitter beacon? Something only good for a couple of miles?”