“After we spotted it, we immediately did our rapid emergency rescue response to check for survivors. There was no one in the tail part. Then we saw that the sunken front portion was within diving range, so I had one of our rescue divers go down for a peek. Six aboard it, including the two pilots. All dead.”

“That’s terrible. Where are they now? Below deck?” she said.

“Who?” Martin said.

“The deceased,” she said, blinking at him.

“No,” Martin said, looking at her. “We didn’t do the recovery yet. I got a call from my base commander to stand down and let you guys take care of it.”

She gave him a funny look.

“Is that right?” she said.

“What’s the problem? Is that not protocol? With the bodies, I mean?”

“No, it’s not,” she said. “I’ve never heard of the deceased being left in place before. We usually get brought in after all remains are recovered from the wreckage.”

Martin squinted, puzzled.

“He was pretty insistent about us not going near the aircraft again until you guys showed,” he said. “He said a navy salvage vessel is en route.”

“My boss didn’t tell me that. I thought he was waiting to hear from me first,” she said.

“Well, looks like somebody’s getting their wires crossed, I guess. What else is new,” Martin said.

A burly older man in a bosun’s mate uniform came out of a door on the other side of the ship’s glowing control boards.

“Hey, Lieutenant, you got a call,” he said.

Martin looked at him then back at Ruby.

“Give me a sec,” he said.

10

Ruby went to the window. As the Dolphin lifted off, she looked down and saw a diver in a wet suit talking to a seaman along the main-deck starboard rail.

“Hey, guys. I’m Lieutenant Everett from Naval Safety investigating the crash,” she said as she arrived in front of them. “Did you go down and see the wreckage?”

The diver nodded. He was a cute kid, lean and blond and green-eyed with a fresh green tattoo of a shamrock on the webbing of his right hand. He was short, about five foot five or six. Sitting gracefully in his Body Glove suit, he could have been a teen surfer resting between waves.

“How far down was it?” Ruby said.

“About a hundred and twenty feet,” the blond diver said.

“Can you go deeper?”

“You’d be amazed,” said the older deckhand with a wink as the kid blushed.

Ruby glared at the joker, a thick-featured, dark-haired thirtysomething with a goatee. She looked at his deckhand’s green hard hat. What was the navy term for green hats? Oh, yeah. Deck apes.

“We’re trained to go up to two hundred or so or even more, but you need special tanks with added helium,” the young diver said.

“Were the deceased in uniform? Air force personnel or navy? Could you tell?” she said.

“Lieutenant?” called a voice from above.

Ruby turned around to see Lieutenant Martin at the pilothouse rail above, waving.