Chapter 18 - The Phantom of Georges Bank
The wind howled down from the Canadian Maritimes as the submersible bay beneath *The Mara* opened to the churning sea.
Down in the moon pool—a reinforced internal wet-well that allowed submersibles to be launched directly through the center of the ship’s hull, sheltered from twenty-foot surface waves—Mara adjusted her communications headset. Beside her, Dominic was checking the telemetry links on the high-resolution heads-up display.
The *Nereus* was a masterpiece of deep-sea engineering: a three-person titanium submersible rated for six thousand meters, equipped with high-torque robotic arms, laser-scanning photogrammetry cameras, and a secure internal suction-recovery vault.
"Mara," Dominic said, stopping her as she prepared to climb into the command capsule. His large hands caught her shoulders, turning her to face him. "The *Caspian Tide* is maneuvering aggressively. They have a secondary heavy-lift ROV on their aft deck. It’s possible they intend to drop their umbilical lines across our search perimeter to foul our thrusters."
Mara looked directly into his eyes, showing not a flicker of hesitation. "Dominic, for three years Grant told me I was too weak to handle real pressure. He told me I had to hide behind a desk because the world belonged to men who shouted. But my mother gave me an archivist's heart and a survivor's backbone. That ship down there holds your father’s name. It holds the definitive proof that the Bell and Thorne families orchestrated the 1994 sabotage that ruined your family."
She reached up, touching his jaw with a steady, fierce tenderness. "We are going down together. And we are bringing it up."
Dominic stared at her, a profound admiration burning in his gaze. He pulled her in, kissing her hard on the mouth, his arms crushing her close before he released her with a proud, wolfish smile. "God help anyone who ever tries to stand between you and the truth, Miss Bennett."
"They'll need more than God," Mara smiled back. "They'll need an admiralty lawyer."
Ten minutes later, the hatch of the *Nereus* sealed with a definitive pneumatic hiss.
Dominic sat at the primary pilot controls, his hands fluid and instinctive on the dual thruster joysticks. Mara occupied the sensor and archivist station, her fingers dancing over the sonar and photogrammetry array. Between them sat Owen Pike, monitoring external pressure and life-support telemetry.
The hydraulic clamps released. The dark, emerald-green waters of the moon pool swallowed them whole.
The descent was an descent into primeval silence. As the light faded from brilliant green to cobalt, then to ink-black velvet, the external pressure indicators climbed steadily: one hundred atmospheres, two hundred, three hundred.
Outside the six-inch acrylic viewports, bioluminescent creatures flickered like fallen stars in the endless abyss.
"Three thousand two hundred feet," Mara announced quietly, her eyes glued to the forward multi-spectral camera feed. "We're entering the sediment canyon. Sonar shows the primary hull ninety meters dead ahead."
Dominic eased the forward thrusters. The *Nereus* drifted into a deep underwater ravine.
Then, the exterior 50,000-lumen halogen lights flared to life.
Mara gasped.
Rising from the abyssal silt, untouched by sunlight for more than three centuries, lay the magnificent, coral-encrusted skeleton of the *Nuestra Señora de la Concepción*. Her massive oak ribs stood proud against the current, her sterncastle rising like a cathedral from the sand. Rows of heavy bronze cannons lay aligned along her gun decks, their muzzles choked with sea fans and golden anemones.
"Look at the sterncabin bulkhead," Mara whispered, pointing toward a collapsed section of the deck. "The copper reinforcement bands. That was the private vault of the colonial governor. That’s where the 1698 manifest said the Black Astrolabe was stored."
"Wait," Owen interrupted, his voice dropping into a harsh whisper. "Look above us."
Through the overhead viewport, two blazing halogen beams were descending rapidly through the black water. A massive, industrial robotic vehicle—the heavy ROV from the *Caspian Tide*—was descending directly toward them.
Attached to the bottom of the rival ROV was a heavy steel hydraulic claw, swinging like a pendulum in the dark.
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And it was aiming straight for the fragile ancient timber of the *Concepción’s* primary vault.
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