Night Diver: A Novel (16 page)

Volkert stared at Holden as if he had a flower growing out of his nose. “You Brits are running the show. If you couldn’t be arsed to get a better survey to us, then you’re going to get what’s coming to you.”

Holden stiffened, shirt tightening across his shoulders. He had had enough of the insufferable Afrikaner.

Kate decided that her peacekeeping act was in order now. After all, they had deprived Volkert of his noise cocoon. “What Holden meant to ask is if the divers had done informal surveys based on this original scan. In other words, is there better information in the digital file?”

Holden flexed his lean fingers, but kept quiet.

Volkert stared at both of them with eyes that were almost lost in the curves of his face. “One of the advantages of being a fungus is that I sit in the dark and am fed bullshit. I see what the divers are doing when the cameras are running. That’s it. If you want, I can get you an overlay of everywhere the divers have gone and you can put it over whatever other information you can pull out of the files. But it will take a time.” He turned back to the screen. “I should be watching the divers and taking notes.
Someone
has suggested that we tighten up.”

“Someone who is your boss,” Kate reminded him tightly.

“You didn’t hire me.”

“You can bet your next bag of cookies on that. But I can fire you.”

He ignored her.

Holden started forward.

Kate beat him to it. She leaned over and got right in Volkert’s face. “Listen, you miserable pile of grief, you will look at me when I’m talking to you and
do your job
.”

He glanced at her blazing turquoise eyes and shrank back against his seat. “I’ve been here less than two weeks. It’s not my fault the people before me were incompetent.”

“Check the records for the most recent metal scan,” she said flatly.

“All I have is what I was given. The guy before me told me to do it the same way he had—no instructions. I’ve barely learned the system.”

“Not good enough. If anyone has been waving a metal detector around on that grid, the findings are recorded somewhere. Ferret them out.”

“Well, yah. I guess. If they wrote them down or entered them into their dive boxes.”

“Go through all the reports that you’ve gotten and search for anything about metal deposits. Send the result to me.” Kate stood up, having had enough of the smell of his sweat. “Got that?”

Volkert nodded rather sullenly. “When do you need those records?”

“Before you open your next sack of chips.”

“It will be at least an hour, probably two. Mingo’s been streaming up data faster than I can chew it down.”

“Pretend the data are cookies and get me that report.”

Holden watched as she pushed away from Volkert and walked closer to the bank of monitors. For a moment she was a stark female silhouette against a shifting glow. Her shorts and shirt were stuck to curvy parts of her by the heat and humidity.

“Anything else you need?” she asked Holden.

Oh, love, I want you to ask me that question again in the dark.

Volkert glared into the monitors and hammered his fingertips over the keyboard. Noisily.

“Some of the files are ready now,” he said, looking at Holden. “Do you want them in your inbox?”

“Just leave them in a public folder. Mark them clearly.”

More clicks. “Done and done. But I can’t promise the information isn’t shite. This isn’t what I would call a tight ship.”

“Then do what you can to tighten it up,” Kate suggested.

Holden watched the screens where the divers were working their way through the decompression stages.

“Looks like they have full bags,” he said, referring to the mesh bags divers used to carry small finds.

Silence, then openmouthed crunching as Volkert chewed.

“What did they find?” she asked.

Volkert chewed and looked at her, giving a great view of a mouth full of mush. His expression said he knew how little she liked it.

Holden waited, understanding that Kate had to live in a man’s world on board the ship. If he stepped in, it would be worse for her the next time she gave orders to a crew member.
Now, if I could just stop imagining how delightful it would be to mash that fat toad’s mouth all over his face . . .

“Gold jewelry,” Volkert said, the words almost buried in half-chewed chips.

“Intact?” she asked.

He swallowed. “A few small pearls left. They’re junk.”

She wasn’t surprised. Once a pearl left the oyster’s protection, it began degrading. Salt water acted like a slow acid on the natural gems.

“A collector or a museum will overlook that,” she said, “if the piece is unusual enough. Anything else?”

“Such as?” he mocked.

“Emeralds,” she said, “diamonds, sapphires, rubies, money chains, coins, ingots of gold or silver. The usual stuff of a treasure diver’s dreams. But then, you wouldn’t know, would you? You aren’t a diver. Tell me about significant finds or I will fire your ass right now and run the dive center myself.”

Volkert looked at Holden.

“I hear she’s quite good at your job,” Holden said, his voice indifferent.

Volkert turned to Kate. “Some coral that grew around a purse of coins, silver. Five earrings, no stones.” He looked down at the notes he had made in Afrikaans. “In fact, it looks like Bloody Green pulled out almost every gem and stored it separately. If he was true to type, he had some chest or chests locked in his own quarters.”

“Translate your notes and put them in my inbox,” she said. “Farnsworth will debrief the divers.”

She and Holden headed out, followed by the blare of the Techno beat as Volkert crawled back into his cocoon.

U
NDER KATE’S WATCHFUL
eyes, the small, valuable goods from the dive had been touched, photographed, packed, taped, and signed across the tape by her so that any opening would breach her signature. The temporary high from seeing the artifacts faded when she sat at the galley table, her computer running on battery power because she felt guilty about every bit of energy she took from the engine’s expensive heartbeat.

Grandpa had gotten the generator going twice, and twice it had died, so everyone was working on batteries or sleeping. Or sitting, like her, staring at a screen, hoping somehow to change the figures, but they were what they were.

Bad.

Soon Larry would have to buy more of the expensive compressed gas, especially helium, or chance running out in a few days. Assuming the generator worked and the divers were in the water and the weather didn’t go to hell.

I can’t control the weather,
she told herself.
So concentrate on what I can control.

Dutifully she focused on the screen, staring at the list of what the divers and siphon had brought up:

It was moments like this that she understood the appeal of gold on an almost physical level. Submerged in water for centuries, yet it still gleamed, tears of the sun, always bright, always valuable, heavy with the weight of time and human adoration.

“There you are.” Larry’s voice, too hoarse.

He sat heavily next to her.

Kate turned. “You look terrible.”

“Thanks,” he said around a yawn. “Way to make me feel good.”

“I’m serious. Go get some sleep and shake off whatever bug has you so hollow-eyed.”

“Sinuses are clear. So are lungs. I’m good to dive. And quit trying to change the subject.”

“What subject?” she asked.

“Cameron.”

“Were we talking about him?”

“Yeah.”

“What were we saying?” she asked.

“Volkert’s a pig, but that’s no reason to take Cameron’s side against a crew member. Morale is bad enough without that.”

At first she thought her brother was joking. Then she realized that he was serious.

And seriously wrong.

“Volkert’s attitude toward me needed adjusting,” Kate said distinctly, “and I adjusted it.”

“In front of Cameron.”

“Volkert was being a dick because I turned down his charming offer of sex the second day I was aboard. Holden and I needed information directly related to Volkert’s work and he wasn’t cooperating. He got exactly what he deserved.”

“Holden and you, huh? How chummy.” Then, before she could say anything, he was talking again. “The Brits have been asking for ridiculous levels of documentation. Check it yourself. Volkert didn’t need you jumping in his shit on Cameron’s behalf. And if they think I’m stealing, they should just come out and say it. They’ve got me looking over my shoulder so much my neck aches. I’m diving my ass off and all I get is grief. Grandpa says the treasure is down there and then he starts yelling about how these idiot Brits have us looking in the wrong place. I’m tired of being on the hook for their opium dreams.”

Kate leaned over and gave her brother a hug. After a moment he returned it.

His bones are too close to the surface,
she thought.
He’s pushing himself too hard. He knows it as well as I do.

And we both know he’ll keep pushing because it’s all he can do.

She tightened her arms around him, wishing she had something besides red ink and gloom to give him.

“From what I’ve seen of the dive records,” she said, “they match up to the early metallurgical surveys, and they are consistent when looked at in the aggregate. The divers have gone over areas that showed hits, and sometimes those hits paid off.”

“And sometimes they didn’t,” he said hoarsely. “Those are the times I hear about.”

“Maybe I can get Holden to push for someone to come in and run a close survey over the wreck.”

“We’ve been doing that on the fly when we had an extra diver who happened to be sober. Problem is, just because you get a hit doesn’t mean the goods are at the surface or that we have the equipment to dig down to the metal. The Brits knew it was a crapshoot from the start. That’s what they paid us—crap—and that’s what they give me.” He gave a broken laugh. “The idiots think that holes in the sand we suction out of the wreck don’t fall back in on themselves the moment we look away.”

She rocked slightly, holding him, trying to comfort him. “I remember watching Dad. As soon as he’d manage to suction out a hole, the sides would dissolve and he’d have to start all over again.”

“Yeah. When I sleep, sometimes I wake up in a cold sweat, thinking of what will happen if the salvage is a bust.”

Kate knew what that kind of waking was like. “Hush. You’ve brought up plenty of stuff.”

“But no treasure chest of jewels. None of the staggering weight of gold Bloody Green’s ship carried.”

“We don’t know what was aboard when
Moon Rose
sank. History is as much lies and brags and wishes as truth. Anyone who’s in the salvage business knows that.”

“Our bosses are bureaucrats,” Larry said with tired savagery. “They’re button pushers and box checkers looking to blame me for their own stupid orders and inflated promises of wealth.”

She held him, trying to tell him silently that she loved him and supported him.

“I’ve had about all I can take,” he said roughly. Then he released her and stood up, using the chair as a prop. “I need to know for certain that you’re on my side, okay? You can’t be sticking up for Cameron if he goes pissing off the crew. We have enough trouble keeping crew as it is. Word ashore is that we’re cursed.”