The mine tender was unrecognizable as a ship. The glow from his headlamp and his dive light revealed the ship had been blown into scrap by the first Russian torpedo, and a lot of its remains had been buried under a blanket of sand kicked up by the second. Chunks of hull plating lay strewn across the seafloor. He identified part of the ship’s funnel only because of its distinct stovepipe shape. He saw no sign of the cage Tesla had enshrouded the ship with or the strange machine he’d discovered in the vessel’s hold.

It was a miracle that the net had remained snagged on what little of the superstructure survived the explosion. He found a spot in the lee of a ruined boiler and settled to the bottom, finally able to take a proper rest.

Because the submersible acted as a relay for their communications, he knew it was pointless to try to raise the Oregon. The distance to the surface was just too great for his gear, but the main problem was that the mini-sub’s hull section became deaf and mute once it detached from the propulsion sled.

He powered down his helmet light to conserve the battery. He was trapped on the bottom of the sea, as unable to change his predicament as an astronaut who becomes separated from his space capsule. Juan could do nothing but rely on his crew to save him. His faith in them was boundless, but rescues take time. They would need to recover the submersible first, and only then would Max discover that he was still down here. Next they would need to organize recovery gear and send down either Little Geek or the Discovery 1000, the second, smaller mini-sub the Oregon carried. It all took time.

The vast ocean crushed down on him from above, a lone man sitting on the seafloor among the rusted ruins of a dead man’s dream, a lonely pinprick of light in a stygian darkness as vast as the cosmos. Juan, feeling the cold start to seep into his skin, finally looked at his remaining trimix supply, nodded grimly, and put out his dive light so that the black crushed up against his dry suit.

He had ten minutes to live.

Chapter Seventeen

Max Hanley continued to issue orders while Eric adjusted their heading once again.

“Mark, I want you and MacD down in the boat garage ready to launch a RHIB at a moment’s notice. That means I want the outer door open and the engines warmed.” He keyed in the intercom to reach the techs in the sub bay. “This is Max. Prep the Disco for SAR, and make sure Little Geek’s ready as well.”

The Oregon tore across the sea at a near-racing-boat’s pace, driven as much by her engines as by Hanley’s determination to rescue his people.

Mark Murphy was swinging out of his chair when he spotted something on his console.