Depth Charge by Jason Heaton (best way to read ebooks TXT) 📕

the line had rubbed through on the gunwale or something, but now I don’t know.”

“I make sure to replace anchor lines regularly, and Roland would know to run it through a cleat,” Sebastian said. He himself was a former navy man and ran a tight ship at the Deep Blue. He shook his head.

“Well, there’s only one person who can tell us what happened, and that’s Roland,” said Sam. “We saw him on our way up here, in Pasikudah. He was with another man, a suddha, sorry, a white man—tall, silver haired—in a swank Land Cruiser. Rausing is his name. Tusker has met him.”

“I managed to take a photo,” Tusker said. He set down his cup and fished his phone from his cargo shorts. “Here it is. Sorry, it’s a bit blurry. We were in a hurry to get out of there.”

He handed the phone across the desk to Captain Fonseka, who pinched the screen to zoom in and studied it for a moment, then handed it back across.

“Yes, that’s Rausing all right, the chap who’s managing the harbor diving project in Batticaloa,” he said matter of factly. “Nice enough gent, if a little odd.” He took a bite of his biscuit, then wiped crumbs from his uniform. “Doesn’t say much. I’ve only met him a few times, at the planning meetings for the project. We’re providing security at the harbor.”

“He owns the dive support vessel Depth Charge” Fonseka continued. “His company was contracted to handle the diving end of the harbor dig. Laying cable and such.”

It was all making sense now, thought Tusker. The dead diver inside the Vampire, the sinking of the Taprobane, Roland disappearing.

“You think Rausing is somehow behind your diving accident?” the captain looked over the rim of his cup as he took a pull on his tea.

Tusker hesitated. Could Fonseka be trusted? He guessed he could, and proceeded to fill him in on the story so far—their dive to the Vampire, the bomb, the rescue by the fisherman, the hole in the Taprobane’s hull, the helmet, the ROV footage and the stolen laptop.

Fonseka shook his head in disbelief and sat in silence for a full minute before he spoke. “I can’t offer divers for a bomb disposal, I’m afraid,” the commander said quietly. “We don’t do much of any mixed-gas diving here.”

Tusker nodded. “I understand completely, sir. A hundred meters is the outside edge of what’s safe for anyone on scuba.”

“What I can offer is surface support, and a boarding party for the Depth Charge,” Fonseka continued. “They are in our territorial waters, conducting a known act of terrorism on a war grave. Our commando team is in Colombo at the moment, but I can have them here the day after tomorrow.”

“Two days’ time will be too late. And what if Rausing has connections inside the government?” Tusker fondled the handle of his empty tea cup. He cleared his throat and looked around the desk at Fonseka, Sebastian, and finally, Sam.

“What I propose is that I do the dive myself. And I have one favor to ask of you, Captain. It may require a visit to your armory.”

Looking for a Ship

Bay of Bengal, eight nautical miles east of Batticaloa. The next night.

As soon as the faint glow coming from the otherwise dark Depth Charge was visible, Sebastian eased back on the throttle. They were counting on the dive vessel’s crew not seeing their small dinghy riding amidst the dark swells a hundred yards astern.

“Take a bearing on that ship and then swim towards it at around ten feet deep before descending to the wreck. Sam will swim with your two deco cylinders and hand them off to you.” Sebastian was whispering, taking no chances.

They’d hatched this plan back at the naval base with Commander Fonseka, after Tusker announced his intentions to do the dive alone. Now, in the black night, with a looming adversary and a long swim, Tusker was second-guessing it.

“Right. Let’s get on with it then,” he said coldly, pulling on his fins.

Sam had pleaded with him to let her come along but Tusker insisted it would be easier to do this by himself. He knew that if she was along and anything went wrong, the distraction of worrying about her would keep him from doing the job. But that’s not what he’d told her. “One can dive stealthier than two…”

He wore a six-millimeter hooded wetsuit that Sebastian had pulled out of the back of his workshop. The suit was badly worn and frayed at the cuffs, but would keep him warmer at depth. He shivered, remembering his last freezing decompression. The thicker suit meant more buoyancy, which required more weight to descend. Tusker leaned forward, bracing his feet wide in the tossing skiff, and cinched a belt of lead weights around his waist. Sebastian and Sam helped him don the double tanks and a small “travel” bottle of air from which he could breathe for the swim and the descent. He strained under the additional 150 pounds of weight.

Sebastian opened a large black Pelican case in the bottom of the boat and carefully lifted out the limpet mine, a Russian made Ulitka model, that Fonseka had gotten from the naval base’s armory for Tusker the night before. Sebastian handed the unwieldy device to Tusker, who clipped it to two D-rings on his harness with carabiners. The skiff listed dangerously to one side as he sat on the gunwale. Sam and Sebastian countered it by hiking out opposite him.

“I’ll splash in and wait for you, Sam,” Tusker said. He spat in his mask, wiped and rinsed it, strapped it over his hood, and tumbled into the water. The splash sounded loud. Sebastian looked warily at the black silhouette of the Depth Charge in the distance. Sam quickly shouldered her single cylinder and rolled off the other side of the boat. Sebastian handed the deco cylinders over the side to her, one by one, and she clipped them to her own harness.

Tusker was bobbing