Don Jordan
Chesapeake Bay, May 8, The Present
Don Jordan loved being a dive boat captain, and he owed his happiness and self-employed status to Dex McCauley, who’d urged him to take the risk in the first place.
Don knew Dex’s story from lot’s of nights and lots of beers in the local bars. At forty-two, Dex had already done a whole lot of living. After joining the Navy at eighteen, he’d pulled a twenty-year hitch in Naval Underwater Rescue and Recovery. He retired with a Master Sergeant’s pay and an expert-rating in every kind of diving you could imagine. While he’d been with plenty of women, he’d ended up marrying one that hated him pretty quick and took off with a slob who had a normal job selling car insurance. Thankfully there’d been no kids. Not much family—that he ever talked about anyway. He’d been an independent sort most of his life, and with his Navy pension in place, he didn’t really care if he did any business or not. Which is probably why he’d prospered with his little dive shop called Barnacle Bill’s—where he met Don.
And it didn’t take him long to make friends with a lot of his customers because most people were attracted to his easy smiles and his totally relaxed manner. He was tall and rangy, with deeply set eyes and a face that was all angles and planes. Going gray a little early didn’t show much in his buzz-cut, and it made him look as tough as he was. Dex was the kind of guy who spoke softly, but with a confident authority in his voice. When he talked to you about a subject—whether it was history, politics, travelling, or even something dopey like the history of art—you knew he was going to give you the straight scoop.
In fact, when Don thought about it, Dex was one of those guys who knew a little bit about just about everything.
And, it wasn’t long before his customers started bugging him to offer diving classes. Dex liked the idea, and when he set up a whole slate of classes for every level of experience, he asked Don to be his captain.
Don jumped at the opportunity. Adding diving classes and expeditions to his charter business would jack the profits to another level, and it promised to be more interesting than trolling lines around the Bay for six hours at a clip. He dumped the Maine Coaster for a real “crew boat,” which he and Dex found during a trip to the Gulf Coast to find the ideal craft.
The Sea Dog had been built to take crews out to offshore oil rigs and had sported a steel 54-foot hull, reinforced superstructures, and two big, 872 Detroit diesels. She had a bold bridge and flying bridge in the foredeck and a long, open aft section that could be outfitted with a dive salon, machine shop, winches, or anything else they might need.
When he took the Dog out for dive work, the guys from the Deep Six would all take up the slack and share any Mate’s duties. They all loved the boat, and they all felt at home on her.
And he trusted them to do her up right.
Funny thing about the dive club, though—as tight as they were, there couldn’t be a more different bunch of guys. As he sat by the Divelink base station, vicariously inspecting the wreckage just by listening in, he wondered how each of them would handle the discovery.
Other than Dex, Don figured Kevin Cheever would be the coolest with it. Kevin had spent all his post-college days with electronics companies who fed regularly at the government contract troughs, packing the latest cyberware into fighter planes and warships. That was how he picked up cheap, obsolete surplus gear.
Kevin was one of those smart guys with a real quiet, confident manner. He always reminded everybody there was only one thing that can go right when you’re diving—staying alive—and a hundred things that can go wrong.
And as much as Kevin was always hammering that thought home, that’s as often as Andy Mellow seemed to ignore it—or at least chose not to think about. In his mid-forties, Andy was the principal at the high school in Newport, Maryland—a smallish Eastern Shore town where everybody knew him and he knew all of them. He was big, happy-go-lucky kind of guy looking for something pick up the pace from his auto-pilot job in public education.
“What’s the latest down there?” said a voice from behind him. No need to turn around, Don recognized Larry “Doc” Schissel, who’d come from the other cabin in the bridge where he’d been tapping out queries on the laptop computer’s wireless satellite modem. He was wearing the top of a bright orange drysuit and a Speedo. Larry was tall and gangly, going gray but avoiding the middle age paunch that was rapidly pushing Don from a size 36 to 38 and beyond.
“Dex’s on his way up with Mike,” said Don. “Should be on deck any minute now.”
“Guess I better finish suiting up,” said Doc.
“Yeah, I bet you wanna get down there and take a look.”
Doc smiled. “You just wouldn’t understand, Donnie, but you’re right.”
Don shook his head. “No, no, this time I’m not kidding around. I get what you guys’re talkin’. I can feel it. This time it’s…different.”
“Yeah,” said Doc. “I think you’re right. I feel it too.”
“How’s Tommy? He ready?” said Don, referring to Doc’s dive-buddy for the day.
Doc had this way of smiling, and chuckling through his teeth kind of at the same time. He did it as he shook his head slowly. “Yeah, he’s twisted up tighter than an old clockspring. He’s been down there pacing the deck in full gear.”
“I know. I saw him.” Don paused. Then: “Doesn’t it bother you a little bit that Tommy’s not exactly…oh, I don’t know…the, ah…safest guy you want to be down there with?”
Doc looked thoughtfully at him, stopped grinning. “Just between you and me—sure it bothers me, but I figure I’m never going down depending on the other guy anyway—even if it’s Dex. I gotta make sure I take care of myself.”
“Yeah, I think you got that one right.”
“Hey, I better get going…”
Doc checked his watch, waved before he turned and left the bridge, heading down to the main deck where all their gear was stowed. Don liked Doc Schissel a lot. He was one of those very smart guys who was so shy, it took a while to realize what he was thinking and how much he knew about things. Sometimes, when Dex and the math-genius Bielski and Doc would start talking about something weird like cryptozoology or the Big Bang theory, Don wouldn’t have any idea what they were talking about, but it was still fun just listening to them.
Larry Schissel had become one of the most popular family doctors in the town of Newport where Andy’s high school was situated. They’d gotten paired up at a charity golf event, started talking as they carted around the course and became friends. Andy started talking about scuba offhandedly, and the more he talked, the more intrigued Larry had become. By the time the golf-round was over, Andy had convinced him to stop in at Barnacle Bill’s Dive Shop and check things out, maybe even show up at one of the club meetings and meet the guys. Larry took him up on it, and it didn’t take long for him to realize he liked the chance to inject a little adventure into his life.
“You can only diagnose so many cases of the flu before it starts to lose its challenge,” Larry had said with a wry smile.
And Don remembered how Dex had been so excited to enlist a real doctor into the dive team. He never tried to soft-pedal the dangers of diving, and the need for every advantage you could chisel out of what he called “the Fates.” Life was like the ultimate casino, where you played your chips, taking chances every day. And Dex always said we all needed every extra chip in our stack we could grab. When you were underwater, that just gave you that much more of a chance to be coming back up for air.
New equipment and always-improving technology was great stuff, but none of it could replace a trained physician in an emergency. So it was no surprise Dex fell all over himself to personally train Doc Schissel—who proved to be a quick study. Within a few months, he was the sixth guy on the team, and that’s when they started calling themselves The Deep Six.
Sure, it was dopey. But they liked it that way.
Don wondered what they’d call themselves if anybody else joined the club. Not that it mattered. They were a good bunch of guys and Don liked them all—except maybe for Tommy Chipiarelli.
Well, that wasn’t exactly right.
It wasn’t that Don didn’t like Tommy, it was more like he’d never been able to understand why he was so…so wired all the time. Transplanted from New York to the Baltimore City Fire Department, he was only thirty-two and like most guys just out of their twenties, believed he was going to live forever.
Which was his biggest problem—he acted like it too. He drove a retro muscle car with big wide tires, and he was well-known throughout the BCFD. Tommy wore a silver ID bracelet from the Department which said: To Thomas A. Chipiarelli—For Heroic Service Beyond the Call of Duty. He’d racked up a ton of commendations in his ten years of service, but also had a pretty fair collection of reprimands for recklessness and a tendency to bend orders from his captain.
Yeah, Tommy could be kind of a jerk.
Couple years back, when Tommy signed up for diving lessons, Dex really took him under his wing, and invested tons of time in him. Don figured it was the old story of a guy looking for the son he never had.
Yeah, Dex—with no wife, no kids. Nobody to worry about. To care about. And then, along comes Tommy Chipiarelli—single, hard-drinking, and way too fearless. Dex said one night, when they were all drinking at The Cat’s Eye, that he needed to save the kid from himself.
If the rest of the team shared Don’s opinion, they kept it to themselves. Probably because they all loved and respected Dex so much. With him treating Tommy like his prodigal son, none of the rest of the guys wanted to say anything that would upset him.
That had to be it.
Don shook his head slowly as he mulled that one over…but was interrupted by the sudden burst from the Divelink unit.
“We’re just about up, Sea Dog.” The speaker on the base station approximated Dex’s voice.
“Got you,” said Don. “Doc and Tommy’re ready to go. Base unit’s on stand-by for a couple minutes, guys.”
Pushing back his chair, Don got up and headed down to the main deck to help Mike and Dex off with their tanks. Since they’d found their target, they’d be wanting to charge the tanks and get back down there for a couple more dives. Which meant Don would be cranking up the compressors for refills the rest of the day.
Doc in orange, holding UW videocam, and Tommy in (what else?) firetruck red. They stood on the little retractable gangway, waiting to tumble in as soon as they saw Dex and Mike break the surface. Don stood next to them, scanning the chop, until he saw their masks catch a little reflection of skylight.
“Take care, guys!” He saluted them as they fell backwards into the Bay, then reached out to help Mike up the gangway. Dex floated until it was clear for him to pull himself aboard.
“Thanks,” said Mike, removing his mask and Divelink headgear carefully. Sunlight danced off his prematurely balding head as he flipper-waddled out of Dex’s way.
“Looks like we fell into something this time, huh?” said Don.
“I don’t want to jump to any conclusions,” said Dex. “But it sure looks like we found something pretty weird. That’s a hell of a big sub. Bigger than anything we ever knew they had.”
They all nodded as they slipped out of the tanks so Don could start recharging them. As he watched Dex head up to the bridge to spell him, Don wondered where all this was going to take them.
Nazis.
Funny thing about those guys. All this time and they still had a way of making you feel kind of weird…