CHAPTER 96
The moment the submarine’s hatch was sealed, Thomas regretted getting in. It was tiny, about ten feet long, eight feet wide, and almost as high, with a bulbous acrylic cockpit that made the whole thing look like a diving helmet. It was stocked with basic survival equipment including a knife, flare gun, and minimal food rations, and was equipped with a sonar system, life support, and remote-controlled arm. It was yellow.
Predictably, Parks met Thomas’s claustrophobic unease with song.
“Sky of blue and sea of green,” he sang, “in our yellow submarine . . . All together! We all live . . .”
Thomas did not join in.
“You sure this thing works?” he said.
“State of the art, my friend,” said Parks, overly chipper. “State of the Goddamned art. Will take us six hundred meters down if we want it to.”
“We don’t, do we?”
“Shouldn’t need to,” said Parks. “I’d be surprised if these things live more than a couple of hundred meters down. If they get much deeper than that, I don’t see how they would adjust to the surface. Too much of a change in pressure. You ready?”
He wasn’t, but he nodded anyway and managed to smile at Kumi, who was watching them through the thick glass nose of the craft. One of the crew gave them a thumbs-up, and the submersible was winched up and out over the side on the Nara’s A-frame. Thomas felt cramped and out of control as the vessel turned slowly on the winch, but he said nothing. Parks had started to sing again, in his element and loving every second of it.
The two men were sitting next to each other surrounded by the clear acrylic bubble of the cockpit canopy. Visibility was excellent, with only the rear and ventral regions obscured by the rest of the craft, and Thomas found himself feeling oddly exposed as they broke the plane of the water and dipped into its shifting bluish depths. He gripped his armrest and stared at the fish that darted past, flashing in the filtered sunlight that rippled and shifted in columns from above. It took him almost a minute to realize that he was holding his breath. He sucked the air in as Parks disengaged the winch automatically and the vessel suddenly became weightless in the swell.
The Nara had moored a thousand yards from the rocky shore. Though the island was edged with idyllic sandy beaches, they were interspersed with piers and cliffs of dark volcanic rock that extended well out into the sea. Taking the boat in closer would be suicidal, so to explore the rocky outcrops underwater—searching for the caves Parks thought were the habitual lair of the fishapod—they had to make the journey in the sub, cruising at a leisurely two knots.
They were diving too, and as the light outside lowered slowly, Parks flicked on the sub’s lamp array, which included two halogen-bright spots facing forward on a rectangular frame. They barely made a difference here, but if the sub kept going down, they would be invaluable. Parks snapped a switch.
“Nara,” he said, speaking loud and clear. “Come in.”
“This is Nara,” said a Japanese crewman, his English heavily accented. “Is everything okay?”
“Hunky-dory,” said Parks.
There was a moment of silence, presumably given over to one of the foreigners translating, and then the crewman was back.
“Very good,” he said. “All is . . . er . . . hunky-dory here too.”
“Well, isn’t that just dandy,” said Parks. “Sonar is picking up a steep rock face ahead. Slowing to half speed, continuing dive, and commencing search.”
Thomas shifted in his seat.
“Watch out for the giant octopus,” said Parks.
“There are giant octupses round here?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Parks grinned. “And it’s octopi. Didn’t they teach you anything in school, or was that day given over to how God made the little fishies?”
“I’m pretty sure there was one day when they told me never to go underwater in a plastic bottle with a guy who has tried to kill me,” said Thomas.
“Still harping on that?” said Parks. “And I thought we were buds. How’s our depth?”
“Fifty meters and falling.”
“Good,” said Parks. “I figure we’re still five hundred yards from the cliff. On the beach side there’s a coral reef—if the locals haven’t dynamited it to get at the tuna and mackerel— but over here it just drops all the way down to sand. The sonar says we can go down another seventy meters. Don’t be surprised if the cabin starts making odd noises. She’ll hold.”
Thomas shifted again and stared out into the shifting darkness. He had expected teeming fish, brightly colored and curious, maybe even a shark or two sliding past, but nothing was down here at all. No plants, no coral, no fish, just vague blue light.
What if there’s nothing down here after all? What if Ed got it wrong and the whole thing has been a wild-goose chase?
“I’m slowing us down some more,” said Parks. “We’re getting close. I don’t want to spook anything.”
“Or run headlong into the rock,” suggested Thomas.
“That too.”
He checked the cascading stream of green lines on the sonar monitor.
“Should be entering visual range soon,” he said. “Keep your eyes open.”
They sat in silence for several minutes, the soft whir of the sub’s five hydraulic motors the only sound in the deep. Thomas was getting antsy.
“You sure this sonar system is working?” he said.
“Shh,” said Parks. “Keep looking.”
“I’m just saying . . .” Thomas began. “Wait. Look there.”
The infinite blue expanse in front of them had darkened and hardened in the floodlights.
“That’s it,” said Parks, cutting their speed to nothing. The craft drifted on, slowing, still diving, till they could see the pale seabed and the foot of the cliff. Thomas looked up and saw the black rock rising up in a wall all the way to the surface, well beyond the reach of their lights.
“Now what?” he said.
“Now we get as close as we dare,” said Parks, “and we look.”