“It was filled in with rubble. We only stayed there a minute. They were more interested in the other side. They had fitted out the manipulator arm with a cutting torch. We touched down on the slanting deck. It was pretty dicey putting the sub down at an angle. We had the feeling the ship could roll over at any time. Then they told us to cut a hole in the superstructure.”

“Not in the hold?” Austin said with surprise. “That's where the cargo would be.”

“You'd think so, but we weren't in a position to argue. We made an opening around ten by ten feet. It wasn't too hard - the metal was old and rusted. We had to be careful, though. It was like a surgical operation. One nudge and the ship would drop off into the deep; we were all aware of that. We could see the old bunks and mattresses. Pulaski and his buddy got real agitated. They started to jabber over some diagrams of the wreck that they had with them.”

“In Russian.”

“Sounded like it. Apparently, they'd had us cut through the wrong spot. We tried two more times before they found what they wanted. It was a fairly big cabin filled with metal boxes the size of those old steamer trunks you see in antique shops.”

“How many boxes?”

“About a dozen, jumbled every which way. Pulaski told us to grab them with the NR-1's manipulator arm. We had a tough time moving them. They were obviously heavy and strained the manipulator to capacity. We pulled the boxes to the opening and called the surface ship and told them to lower some lines with hooks on the ends of them. We attached the lines, stood off and let the ship winch the stuff up with its superior lifting power.”

Austin, who had been trained in deepwater salvage, nodded. “Exactly the way I would have handled it.”

“Captain Logan's idea.” Kreisman smirked with embarrassment. “We were like the British soldiers in that movie, Bridge on the River Kwai. We really got into it. Professional pride, I guess.”

“Don't feel bad. They probably would have killed you if you hadn't done the job.”

“That's what the captain said. We worked round-the-clock shifts. There were a few of the hitches you'd expect with a job that complicated, but we got all the stuff they wanted off the ship.”

“Did you see what was in the steamer trunks?”

“That was a funny thing. They shoved us around the corner, but we could hear them prying the boxes open with a crowbar. They sounded pretty excited. Then there was this silence, and next we heard them yelling. It sounded like an argument. Then Pulaski appeared and started shouting at us in Russian, like whatever happened was our fault. He looked real angry, but I think he was a little scared.” Kreisman glanced around the room and got nods of agreement from the other crewmen.