"Flooding ballast tanks," Qin Shang replied.

Chen Jiang was too experienced an officer to allow his employer to override his responsibilities as captain of the Jade Adventurer. He turned to an officer and issued an order unheard by Qin Shang. "Have the Sea Jasmine prepared to launch as a safety precaution."

"Do you expect trouble, sir?"

"No, but we cannot allow harm to come to Qin Shang."

The Sea Lotus quickly slipped out of sight beneath the waves and began her slow fall to the bottom of the lake. Qin Shang stared through the viewing window into the dark green water as it magically went black and he saw his reflection inside the pressure chamber. His eyes were cold, his mouth was in a tight line, unsmiling. Within the brief span of an hour he had gone from a man of supreme confidence to someone who looked sick and tired and baffled. He did not like what he saw in the nebulous face staring back at him, seemingly outside in the depths. For the only time in his life that he could remember, he felt a growing surge of anxiety. The treasures had to be somewhere inside the broken hulks, he told himself over and over as the submersible sank ever deeper into the cold waters of the lake. They had to be. It was inconceivable that someone had come before.

The descent took less than ten minutes, but to Qin Shang the seconds passed like hours. He gazed into pure blackness before switching on the exterior lights. It was also becoming cold inside the chamber, and he set a small heating unit to seventy degrees. The echo sounder indicated the bottom was coming up fast. He allowed a small amount of pressurized air to flow into the ballast tanks to slow his descent. On deep-water dives beyond one thousand feet, he would have dropped weights attached to the keel of the submersible.

The flat, barren lake bed emerged under the lights. He adjusted the ballast and stopped five feet from the bottom. Then Qin Shang turned on the electric thrusters and began banking in a wide circle. "I am on the bottom," he called to his support crew above. "Can you see where I am in relation to the wreck?"

"The sonar shows you only forty yards west of the starboard side of the main wreckage," Jiang answered.

Qin Shang's heartbeat raced in anticipation. He banked the Sea Lotus until it was moving parallel to the hull, and then brought the sub upward until it passed over the railing along the edge of the forward cargo deck. He saw the cranes looming out of the black void and banked to miss them. Now he was over one of the cargo holds. Hovering the submersible and tilting its stern upward so the lights beamed down, his eyes strained into the darkness as he stared into the gaping cavern.

With indescribable dread, he saw that it was empty.