The Girl Beneath the Sea (Underwater Investigation Unit #1)(77)

I don’t protest. Clearly, I’m on driving probation for the foreseeable future.

Dad takes the raft on a due-south heading. Figuring out exactly where the Kraken went down is tricky. We could be a half mile away and search in the wrong direction if we don’t try to pinpoint the signal.

After a minute, the beep fades. “Losing it,” I call to Dad, who aims us due west.

The beep grows louder, and Dad steers the boat toward the point where we first heard it. I get the loudest ping yet. Dad cuts the motor and drops anchor.

By triangulating the point of origin, we’ve narrowed the area from a square mile to a football field.

I help Dad strap on his tank and check his equipment. It’s a little past midnight, and the moon has already set. Clouds are thickening overhead, and the light drizzle is beginning to come down heavier.

“Watch for lightning,” he says as he slides into the water.

“Watch for Kraken,” I tell him over the radio.

“Always do.”

A few minutes go by as he descends, following the anchor line.

“Here,” he says over the radio.

“Kraken?” I reply excitedly.

“No. I’m at the bottom.”

I don’t radio my disappointment.

“Heading south for three minutes,” he says.

This is so I can keep track of him underwater if we lose contact. By giving me a time and a direction, he’s enabling me to retrace his path.

While I wait, I write down the GPS location of the signal and text it to George on the sat phone.

A minute later he responds:

No sign of our friends. Be careful.

“Nothing this way. Saw our tugboat. Starting due west for three minutes,” radios Dad. His voice is breaking up, and I have trouble making his words out.

“Affirmative,” I reply.

A rogue wave splashes over the Zodiac, and I turn on the little electric pump to bail out the water. I check the weather computer to see how Baker is doing.

Not good. The storm is starting to head up the Florida coast. In a few hours, we’ll have to bring the Fool into port or else sail somewhere safe and try to ride it out.

We’ve outrun storms before, going up the coast. Sometimes that backfires when the storm keeps going and you realize that there’s no place left to go except Nova Scotia.

“Going due north,” says Dad.

“Affirmative.”

This will put him three minutes west of the Zodiac. I’d use starboard or port, but I’m being flung around so much my only point of reference is the distant glow of the coastal cities to the west.

The satellite phone starts to ring.

“Hello?”

“It may be nothing, but I thought I saw the Vader again,” says George.

“Damn it.”

“That’s not all. I have your dad’s scanner set to search, looking for anyone talking out here. I picked up a half second of chatter.”

“You mean like another boat?” I reply.

“Yeah. I think the Vader was talking to someone.”

I look around the Zodiac, straining to see over the waves.

“Where does your dad keep the weapons?”

I tell him where to find the shotgun. George already had his pistol on board, but an extra gun isn’t a bad idea. I look around the raft and wish I’d brought one as well. I didn’t even pack a speargun.

I get ready to call down to Dad to tell him we need to go, only to be interrupted by him calling to me.

“Found it.”





CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

BULKHEAD

“It’s bigger than the blueprints. Longer. More hydrodynamic,” Dad says over the underwater radio, his voice barely audible.

“We have a problem. George says he may have seen the Vader, and he thinks there’s another boat out here. And the storm is getting worse,” I explain.

“Of course. Stand by. Let me check this out.”

Several tense minutes go by as I wait for Dad to check back in. I hear a couple of bursts of static and respond to him to repeat that. All I hear are the same unintelligible words.

As long as Dad’s saying something, I assume he’s okay.

It’s a dangerous assumption, but I have little choice. I’m ready to dive in and get him if the need arises. My tank is already set up and by my feet.

I’m at the end of my patience when he speaks again.

“Coming up.”

A few minutes later, Dad bubbles up from the churning sea. It’s a struggle to get him over the edge of the Zodiac, and we almost flip in the process.

After he’s caught his breath, he stows his mask in a pouch and shakes his head. “Unbelievable.”

“What? Was the cargo in there? What did you find?”

“How’s George?”

“I’m still waiting for an update. What about the Kraken?” I demand.

“Winston was a damn genius. It’s sleek and camouflaged. I almost missed it. It’s more gray than black and has smooth lines, not that angular crap he and I had planned. Of course, we weren’t trying to build a stealth boat. The skin is something interesting too. I think it’s designed to reflect back a smaller target, maybe look like a fish. We’d have to see what the Fool’s sonar says.”

“What about the cargo? Could you see inside?” I ask.