A Touch of Death Ch. 10

"Three hundred feet," Damien said. "How are you feeling down there?"

"Just peachy. I think I see something on the bottom off to my left."

"Stand by." Damien peered at a smaller screen beside the radio. "We might be a little off the side," he admitted. "Shout out when you can see either the ship or the lake bed."

"Roger."

My guts felt like someone had stuck a fork through my belly button and were twisting my intestines like spaghetti. I forced myself to sit still and breathe slowly and deeply. Panic wouldn't help anyone.

"I see the bow of a ship off to my left." The camera twisted around until the silt-covered bow of a ship seemed to materialize out of the darkness. Even with a spotlight it seemed unspeakably dark down there. "Confirm on the ship. You'll have to move me if you want the best view."

"Got it. We're going to halt you there and start relocating the ship," Damien told him before he grabbed the handset to the bridge. "Cat, we need to be about forty feet to the southeast. Bring us around and reposition."

Damien sat down next to me. "This will take a little time. We don't want to swing him all over God's creation but he has to be roughly in position before we can use the gantry to move him around."

"I feel like I'm soaked in sweat," I confessed quietly. I didn't want Ty to hear this. "I didn't expect to be so nervous. I thought it would be like watching an astronaut during a spacewalk but it's not."

He clapped his hand on my shoulder. "It's natural to feel that way when someone you care about is doing something like this. Once we get him in position and can use the gantry and the ship to take him up one side and down the other it will go by much faster and you won't feel so torn up. Would you like another soda?"

I shook my head and smiled weakly. "Don't mind me. I'm fine. Get this wrapped up and pull Ty back out."

He bowed his head. "Your wish is my command."

It only took ten minutes before Ty was hovering above the sunken ship. Its white hull was long and narrow, vanishing ahead into the gloom like an arrow pointing the way down a darkened set of stairs.

"I'm in a good location," Ty said at last. "Move me to the side and we can start up one side and back down the other."

The team worked with him and shortly he was moving slowly along the side of the ship. The upper decks seemed mostly intact, though some areas had collapsed. The hull itself seemed intact. Ty and Damien called back and forth about where lift bags could be secured. I was both amazed at how intact the ship was and dismayed at the devastation local collapses had caused.

After Ty had made the sweep around the bottom of the ship, he had them raise him higher and made another run over the top of the ship. He had them pause beside the boiler stack. It was stove in but amazingly still upright.

"Looks like sinking really did a number on this," Ty said. "I saw an open hatch ahead. I want to take a peek inside."

"Negative," Damien said. "We don't have any idea what kind of shape the superstructure is in."

"And if we don't take at least one look we never will," Ty retorted. "I'm not talking about going in and searching the passenger cabins. I'm just talking about you lowering me inside an open hatch and taking a quick look around.

"Right," Damien said with a snort. "You don't fool me, Mister treasure hunter. You just want to look for goodies."

Ty laughed. "It's the pirate in me."

Damien stalked back and forth on the deck but finally nodded. "Okay. But only under my rules. We lower you straight in and pull you right back out after you take a 360. No haring off in search of buried treasure."

"Deal," Ty said. "Bring me a few feet forward and start me down."

The monitor showed a hatch in the deck laid open. The interior of the ship was shrouded in inky black. I longed to beg him to stay out of there but I somehow managed to hold onto my tongue.

The wide interior of the hold came into focus as Ty was fully immersed into the ship. Silt and small pieces of flotsam floated through the clear water but the forward part of the hold was empty. Ty slowly turned in place until he was looking aft.

The rear of the hold wasn't empty. A silt covered lump of something lay not five feet behind where Ty floated.

"Hello," Ty said. "What have we here?"

We all leaned forward and stared at the monitor.

"Damned if I know," Damien muttered, glancing at me incredulously. "Maybe there's buried treasure down there after all."

"Lower me down and I'll wipe some of the gunk away."

Damien nodded and lowered Ty until his feet were on the deck. The silt swirled into the water obscuring the view.

"There must be quite a bit of silt on the bottom but I have a good footing," Ty said confidently. "I'm walking to the object."

The level of silt rose until I couldn't see a damn thing but dirty water. I hoped the view on scene was better.

"It looks uneven but that might only be the silt," Ty said at last. "I'm wiping off a part of it and then I'll wait for water to clear a little."

After a few minutes, the level of crap in the water subsided enough to make out what Ty was looking at. I frowned. That looked like rotted canvas.

"It's a cover," I blurted out. "Rotted canvas."

Everyone turned to stare at me before looking at the monitor again.

Damien rubbed his chin. "It just might be," he conceded. "Ty, could that be an old canvas sheet stretched over something?"

Ty poked his hand into the surface of whatever it was and it tore apart. "That might be exactly what it is. Good call up there," he congratulated us. "Let me see if I can see what it's covering. Damien, I thought the ship was stripped before being sunk."

"So did I," Damien admitted. "Take a peek and then we're pulling you out. I don't want to disturb this area too much."

"When we lift the ship it's going to be yanked all over the place," Ty said. "Still, you pay the bills."

Ty pulled the canvas with his thick-fingered gloves and tore a wide hole in the cover, coincidentally throwing up a cloud of silt. "I see something loose inside. Stand by." He reached inside and pulled something out into the light. Even with the nasty water it was recognizable enough to make us all suck in a deep breath.

"Well, well," Ty said. "A gold nugget."

The men stared at one another in shock. Damien shook his head and stared at me. "I'll be double damned. You were right all along."

I smiled in elation. This was it. I had Jake Wallace and Edward Stanton by the balls now. Motive in pure gold, and not tied up with me lifting it from someone's house.

"Now there is a motive for murder," I said with a smirk.

"You can say that again," Ty answered.

On the monitor, covered in rotten canvas and silt was a fleshless human skull grinning out at us.