Chapter 2: Off the coast of Comoros
Richard was looking down at the sonar scope on the salvage/tug Savior. She might have been a civilian ship ever since her first hull metal was cut in a dock yard on the East Coast. But in reality, she was a clone of the USRN Safeguard and that ship had at least been a reserve US Navy ship and not sold on the open market before she had been sunk due to Soviet weapon’s fire. Now they were off the island of Comoros and trying to see if Richard had found a gold mine or a shaft. The larger of the ships of the convoy that had left Mombasa were a full day out from this little splinter fleet. One of those ships could have been very useful in today’s tasks.
Richard would have loved to have used the Patriot for this kind of work, after he had been given a tour of the minesweeper two days out from Mombasa. She was a mine hunter of the Avenger class, and besides having a better sonar system to look under the waves than any other ship currently at the port of Mombasa. It also had a set of powerful underwater cameras that would cut down on the need to use a diver to physically go down in the water column and take images to identify what had been found on the sea floor.
That was all water under the bridge, as they say. All Richard could do was work with what he had been able to get out of the resource starved US Navy currently stationed in East Africa. Richard now knew that he would learn a thing or three from this mission, and one of them would be about the Avenger class mine hunter/ light escort vessel. He could always claim later that he was an army guy and didn’t know the ins and outs of navy ships. After all there were very few Navy personnel that could ID the parts and capabilities of an Abram’s class MBT.
The Savior and the LCU working with her were currently only about 1km off the coast near the inland town of Singani, on the coast of an island called Comoros. The town/city of Singani had been wiped out by a lava eruption from a nearby volcanic vent a few years ago. It was telling that there were so many nuclear explosions going on that a major volcano eruption that killed over a few thousand people was not noticed by most governments or press reporters on the planet. Now there were no lights or fires of any of the unnatural kind that could be seen from the deck or from the small crow’s nest in this area of the island. Every soul on the ship was awake and working at their “normal” ship’s jobs or looking for any sign of humans on the close by island.
It had not taken the salvage ship but a few hours to find the first target, but it had taken almost half of the rest of the day to get her “localized” so that they could get a diver into the water. But soon it was confirmed that they had found the M/V Nordland on the data that Richard had first provided, and she was setting in “only” 300 feet of water. Now it was time to move to the next phase of the operation. A phase that was thought to be more dangerous than being shot at by a whole soviet motorized rifle battalion.
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The M/V Nordland had been built in West Germany and launched sometime in 1966. The M/V Nordland had an uneventful career, which was not that common for most bulk cargo carriers of her type at this point in time. She was saved from the scrap heap and brought back into full service after the first year of this bloody war had started in China. All of the books had her listed as being right at 7562GT, 8800DWT, and still being only 127 meters long. She also was fitted with five heavy cranes to help with the loading and unloading of her cargo in some of the less developed ports or to use smaller cargo facilities still common around Europe.
It was those cranes that had been very helpful in the Nordland’s later career visiting the smaller and less developed ports around the world. In the mid 90’s she was officially modified so that she could have a maximum deck load of 580 TEUs, and she still could move at a steady speed of 16knots without damaging her powerplant. To get to this number of cargo carrying vans, some deck changes were made on the old hull that were judged to be worthwhile. Now the four largest deck cranes were missing from the oldest file image they had on the vessel. These now missing cranes had made it easier for the divers to ID her today. Sonar systems had said that the right number of cranes were missing on the wreck below them, and that it was the right size for the Nordland. But the salvage tugboat didn’t know if they just might have fallen off to the side or otherwise were lost due to damage.
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The old ship was quickly bought up by a US transportation firm to help with the shipping issues that the Sino-Soviet war was causing around the world. That first run under the US flag had been in 1996, and then she kept running supplies to smaller ports around the world. Where the larger ships were being pulled into supporting the war efforts with weapons needed at the major battle fronts around the globe. The Nordland carried cargos that those now re tasked ships had in the past, and many times she had finished the legs of her journey without the benefit of having an escort vessel assigned to her. Her life changed again when the war went hot in Europe. All cargo ships now fell under the US Navy even if they were flagged in another country. She seemed to have a charmed life as she ran supplies into and out of Latin and South American ports.
Then she made her first run to Africa under a US flag in September of 1997. To many within the Navy and Merchant marine had thought that her smaller size would help keep her safe when larger cargo ships were hit by radar guided weapons. She again just missed being hit a death blow when two 200kt nuclear weapons airbursted over Diego Garcia. After helping as best she could in the recovering of that base and the local area from the nuclear strike. The Nordland made one more trip to Africa to pick up cargos to take back to the US. That was where she stayed as her USNR crew was pulled for other and more important ships. But as the number of those ships were reduced due to sinkings and other battle damage, a crew was slowly regathered for the old girl and before too long she was at sea again carrying the life blood of war.
The Nordland had been part of a UK/US small supply convoy made up of four smaller cargo ships being sent to the RDF in early 1999, after making a stop in Kenya and offloading some of her cargo for the locals to use. This ship was supposed to be arriving in May of 1999 in Kenya to off load about half of her cargo. After passing the country of South Africa and the Cape of Good Hope, she had taken a hit from an underwater mine. It had been after making it most of the way from the east coast of the United States to the first schedule cargo transfer in Mombasa. Now some of you might think that she had been unlucky, being sunk and all. Only her luck held, at least for the version of luck that she had remaining to call on.
The sea mine was old even before it had been put into the ocean by a passing soviet raider, and its magnetic detonator had fired into the explosive package before the cargo ship had been directly over the rusting device of war. This had meant that she had not gone down that night at a rapid rate when the explosives detonated way to close to her age thinned metal hull. Her captain was an old hand at almost 80 years old. He had been able to get his ship close to this island before the crack in the hull had finally sent his ship to the bottom. The old cargo ship had been sinking slowly until her engine room had finally held too much water for her engine to provide power so that the water pumps could work. Without those water pumps buying them minute after minute, the ship was doomed. As her crew made for the lifeboats, she had settled deeper in the water on an even keel at an increasing rate.
The mine’s detonation had caused a crack to form near her keel by the forward most cargo hold, and it slowly ran all the way back to the main hull frame of the deck house. It was not a wide crack in the hull, and the vessel had more or less settled in the water until her hull was fully under the ocean waves. She had gone down by the bow soon after the top of the deck house had just slipped below the surface. But due to the shallow water in this location and without any engine power pushing her along against the currents. The Nordland had come to a rest flat on her keel on the rocky and sand covered ocean floor. The crew of this vessel had mostly successfully taken to the lifeboats, but they had not been seen or heard from again. Some of the last KH-11 images sent to Kenya had been of areas that the ship might have gone down. If someone had been looking at the right photo, they would have noticed that there was a shadow, where there should not have been. Much later the shadow was found and noted as “something”, but it was Richard that had noticed and put two and two together to maybe come up with 3.5.
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Karl Fischer had been a member of the Kampfschwimmer of the West Germany military, but not a “real” member in the eyes of many of the fully active Kampfschwimmer. Karl had only made it through Hell Week before the war broke out and training had more or less come to a sudden stop. He had not been sent to a combat unit, but he had been held back with some others that were not “fully combat qualified”. That label didn’t take away that he had already been certified to be a diver by the West Germany government. After that surprising assignment, Karl had been put to work more as a salvage diver than a commando as he had wanted. There just was not time for him to get trained up in “real’ combat skills. The West German military needed divers almost as much as they needed other combat skills like commandos. Divers were a high skill group, and they were hoarded accordingly, even if the divers were not thrilled with this hoarding.
A US Navy recruiter had found the 23 year old diver working to repair some of the damage done to the harbor of Bremerhaven. He was in the water for almost 10 hours a day and at least 5 days a week of the cold and wet work. By now, he had not been happy with his life for some time. Karl had wanted to be a commando, but all he did was move in the dark, in very cold water, all while dodging Russian mines, crashed cruise missiles, and the odd missed fire friendly weapon. On most nights, he only returned to the barracks to take a cold shower to get the fuel oil and funk off of his skin. Then he would have to do the same thing for 10 more hours the following day. The only high spot in his work week? It was that they had good beer in stock, and on average two days out of the week he was not forced to go back into the icy waters of the harbor.
When a senior US Navy NCO had found the young German drinking to the level of being past numb and going deeper as fast as the young man could lift the bottles, he had taken advantage of the situation. This drunkenness had been after the finding of a nuclear warhead from a SS-20 Saber class IRBM. Karl had found the 150Kton weapon in the mud by just happening to trip over it with his dry suit’s heavy metal covered boot. That had not made him very happy when his handheld light had played over the half mud covered device. To add insult to injury, it had been when Karl had been ordered to help recover the damn thing the next day.
And by helping in this recovery of a nuclear weapon? It was that higher command had made sure that Karl had been the only person in the water with the weapon until it had been pulled out and landed on the pier for someone else to deal with. Karl had told the old American in-between drinks of his bottle of hard alcohol that he was looking for a change of scenery, like Norway or maybe someplace a little warmer. Karl had awakened the next day on a boat that had long ago made it out of port, but it was close. Shanghaiing had not only had been revived, but it also had been turned into a true art form even before the Thanksgiving Day Massacre. After that day? It was brought up to undreamed of levels of skill and Karl was only the latest victim.
One Karl Fischer had been given “papers” and a uniform …..of a sorts, that said he was now in the US Navy as an NCO. After Karl availed himself to the ship’s head to void his stomach, he went looking for answers. Karl was told that he was off to Kenya as part of Operation Omega. He was confused but he knew what Omega was with his work in the port that was supporting the Americans return home. He also knew that Kenya was a lot warmer than Northern Germany, and there had been a lot less use of nuclear weapons on the African continent than in Europe. So, he went back to his shared cabin and tried to sleep off his headache.
Karl’s lack of English skills had been a major issue after he had arrived in Mombasa, among a few other things that came up to bite him on the ass. Very quickly Karl Fischer was assigned to one of the repair ships, but he spent a lot of time working with the Marines to get his Kommando fixation worked out. And that was where Richard had found him, working with the US Marine beach teams. Now Karl was the senior diver for this mission.
Karl was a lot happier now that he was out of the waters around the wreckage of his home, Germany. The water was warm, and he also did not have to worry about the odd nuclear weapon hidden in the harbor mud just waiting for him to trip over it…again. Karl Fischer had used his time in Mombasa to learn more recovery skills, along with improving his fighting and weapons skills that he was picking up. Karl also had picked up more skills with the ground forces, and not just from the Americans. He had been going on missions that he never would have been allowed, if he had stayed up North. By now he was not so “gung-ho” but he had enjoyed the time with the Marines and other special missions he had supported already. Besides, at least some of them spoke enough German for him not to be homesick, and they could handle the weak beer that the locals made.
##
Karl had started checking out his diving rig as he sat near the bulwark of the salvage ship. As he let the deck diving support team check out his suit, Karl reflected on the only down sides of this mission. The whole support crew spoke some English and something local to only Kenya. Karl tried one more time to work on his last remaining mental issue that he felt that needed to be addressed before he went into these unknown waters.
Karl looked over to the man running his mixed gas supply for his diving suit. This dive had him going down to about 300 feet, and he needed that Helium/oxygen gas mix to keep him alive. He had to pitch his voice to carry over the air pumps. “No Bulls, right?”
The man running the mix gas generator and air tanks was not good with the language that Karl could understand. It had taken this tech a decade to get what he thought was passible English. German was still way over his head, but he thought that he understood the hash of words coming out of the diver’s mouth in a mix of German and English.
”No Bulls. Zambezis, yes.” The tech repeated himself twice more, and for some reason the diver just gave a huge toothy smile and a thumbs up to the tech. So, the tech dropped it, and Karl went back to work on getting ready for a long tethered dive.
Karl was glad he had made himself understood by the tech. Karl HATED bull sharks. He had two bad run-ins with them in his short life already. The last run-in with Bull Sharks had cost his diving partner his right arm past the elbow. To find out that there were not any Bull Sharks in this area was great news for Karl, but he had no idea what a Zambezi was. But if he didn’t know about them while being a professional diver? Then they must not be too bad. There was no way that they could be like tiger sharks, or great whites, that he had heard about after getting to Kenya or the other divers in Germany. Karl had never seen a tiger or a white, and he was sooo okay with that experience gap. If they were worse than Bull Sharks? He could live without running into one of them.
When Karl was ready, he gave the signal and spoke in pigeon English, or as they used to call it bedroom English, he called for the helmet to be passed over to him. When the spun brass helmet was turned just right, it was locked into place and sealed him away from the cold water and pressure of going deep into the ocean water. Karl did an awkward turn of his head to face the back of the bridge of the salvage ship. He could see three people on the aft part of the higher deck area looking down at him. He had no idea who they might be, but they had to be officers if they were in that location. So, with a pumping thumbs up over his head, Karl went off the bulwark plate and into the deep blue waters of the Indian Ocean.
Karl had a lot to do as he made his way down the water column after first entering the water, this was listed as a very technical dive. He had only done about a dozen dives like this in his life, but he was very well trained for this kind of business. Karl made his way down through the water column as he followed down the dive line that one of the deck crew had set up while he had been getting ready for his part of the dive. Each spot marked on the diving line was where he needed to do a safety stop. Karl had made sure to double check the measurement himself after leaving port. After all it was his life on the line.
After a set time that also was marked on that dive line, he could go deeper. It would have been hard to miss those safety stops, they held half a dozen smaller air tanks that he could use in an emergency. Karl had a hose running from his helmet going to the gas generators and emergency support tanks on the support ship’s aft deck. But it was always good to plan in case he had some kind of an air emergency on the dive. It was not just for this dive. Those tanks would be there in case of an emergency during the whole mission.
The sun overhead pushed its powerful beams deep into the clear water, but soon they started to lose their influence. Karl activated the three small but powerful white lights that were mounted on three sides of his helmet. He really didn’t need those powerful lights just yet, but it helped with close up work on the dive line that he was following down. After doing a safety check at the last stopping point, he did one more check out of his gear. Only then did Karl start looking for the target of his mission below his short flipper covered weighted boots.
Soon the deck house at the aft part of the vessel started to come up below him like some kind of long-lost monster common in horror movies. The diver was casting his helmet around making sure that nothing was coming up on him from his blind side. Fishing nets could just show up, and that was it, and you were going to die. Very quickly you would be dead right along with the fish in those old nets. One of the good things about this war was that the loss of fuel production had cut way down on the number of boats that could fish this deep or further out from the coastlines. It still happened, but those ships were getting to be even rarer with each passing month. Then there were the issues of finding replacement nets, it was not like by now that those massive things were still being made anywhere in the world. This was bad news for the closer to the coast fisheries, but the deeper waters were starting to rebound. It only took the starving or nuclear death of a few billion people for that rebounding to happen.
The rope tag or dive line was connected to the bow of the sunken vessel by a grapple that the deck crew had been able to drop in a show of skill that should have been shocking. This one had been cast down by the support ship, and it was only luck that the hook had connected with the bow of the wreck while it was pulled behind the salvage ship after only the third try. As long as that thick rope line was connected to a part of the sunken ship, it would do its job as a diving safety line. The last task on this mission would be to cut and then retrieve that line with all of those impossible to replace air tanks and emergency supplies.
With the ship in sight to the diver, he noted that the water column was very clear from his point of view. Karl made his way to the fore most part of the ship with slow gliding motions only possible while moving underwater. With a few quick motions made by Karl, the dive or tag line was more securely attached to the deck of the sunken cargo ship. Now the line would not come lose without being cut from above the waves or near the knot Karl had just put into it. Karl then uses the deck railing to move from the bow to just where the vessel’s “normal” maximum beam would be all the while looking around almost fast enough to give him whiplash. Diving alone was very dangerous and would not have been done before the war. But now with the loss of so many people with his skill set, there was not another option.
Without looking, he reaches for a heavy line and pulley that was part of his diving kit. With his other hand Karl brings around an underwater ramset with spare attachments and devices. With a shot of “air” supplied by the same line that was letting him breathe. A heavy bolt is shot into the metal deck of the sunken ship so hard that Karl felt it through his dive boots. In no time, the line and pulley are now securely attached to the ship after six heavy bolts were “shot” threw the flat metal of the mounting bracket at the base of the pulley and the vessel’s deck. This heavy line and pulley would be the base for the “diving platform” that would be sent from topside.
This cage-like platform was like an open sided elevator to better support the underwater mission. It would be helpful to use this device instead of the divers needing to keep forcing their way down using muscle power alone. The cage also would speed up the diver getting to the vessel and in bringing up or down supporting items for the salvage of this wreck. The bow line was now the back up in case there were some….. issues. When diving, you always wanted redundancy, it was just a case of it being life and death.
Now it was time for Karl to look around the top of the Nordland. He had already met the minimum requirements for this dive, but Karl still had time and he was not going to waste his remaining dive clock on this dive. The areas that should have held the deck cargo of 20 or 40 foot long TEUs were clear of those metal rectangles. This was not a surprise, but it would have been nice to pull them up in the early stages of this salvage. Still, it did give clear access to the forward deck hatch with them being clear of sea/land vans or other shipping containers. That open access would be very helpful for the other key parts of this mission.
Karl plays his lights across the cargo hatches and sees that Plan A will not work. This cargo hatch was of the hinged type and not the lift off type that had been expected in the planning phases of this mission. With this noted on his diving pad, Karl floats over to the edge of the ship to look down the side to see what he could see off of the wall of steel he was standing on. One thing that civilians could not understand was just how big your average ocean-going ship was. From the right point of view, they were like metal mountains only they moved.
For the first time, Karl notices that there are very few fish larger than his hand in the general area of this wreck. Karl thought that he had seen more and larger fish when he had first “landed” on this ship midway through this dive. He still has one more item to do and moves this fish data point to a different part of his brain. Karl checks his dive watch, and he is shocked to discover that he has been into this dive for over 90 minutes already. Karl knows that he has to start up to the surface in less than 30minutes, or he was going to have to skip the first “working” dive tomorrow out of a measure of safety for his health and the long term mission.
With a hand full of rope lines, airlines, and communication lines, and his all-important safety line. Karl moves over to the port side of the vessel. He has to check the hull of the vessel now that it was known that the ship was more or less level. The report from this vessel’s crew that had been given over the radio before they had left the safety of the convoy, had said that the mine had been taken mostly on the port side of the vessel. Karl sees that the reinforced bulwark and hand railing is intact at this main deck level of the wreck. He could have just “jumped” over the side of the vessel, but something made him want to look before he leaped into the dark of the deeper ocean. One of the hardest things for a diver was learning to listen to your gut.
As Karl leans his head over the side of the bulwark, he has to jerk it back as a long open mouth full of teeth shoots by his diving helmet at what seems like a few inches. Karl moves so fast and so hard; his knees are driven into the short metal wall. But this had a fortunate effect that kept him from launching up off the top deck in an uncontrolled roll. This short metal wall on the edge of the vessel also keeps him from going over the side of the vessel in his distress. At the sudden appearance of all of those teeth makes Karl shriek aloud, and it is carried up the comms line to the speaker on the work deck of the salvage ship above his head.
“Dive Master to Diver 1. Are you okay?” The voice was static filled and spoken very slowly but it was clear enough for Karl to understand what was being said.
Karl felt something warm moving down the right leg of his wet suit. After the first shriek, he did not say anything. But now that his heart rate was coming back down, and he could breathe without panting. Karl could chuckle at the fright, and he even planned to stay down long enough for the urine to leach out of his suit into the water around him. “Dive Master this is Diver 1. Good to go. I just got buzzed by what looked like a 1.5m long Great Barracuda. It was coming up the side of the ship’s hull while I was doing a damage check.”
As Karl was talking, he turned back to start to go over the railing one more time. Just as he was about to go over the side again. He finds out what had made the larger fish, and the meter and half long Barracuda want to leave the general area that a diver called Karl was in.
All that the team top side heard was Donald Duck having a Category 5 freak out coming through the ship mounted speakers. Oh, and there was not a Category 6, and Karl was speaking in rapid fire German that no one understood more than a hand full of words. The dive team just shot looks around the aft deck of the Savior and went about their work as if it was just another day. About the only thing that was understood by the support team was “coming up.” That was a lot shorter than what their training told them that should be said when a diver was done with his dive. Then again only Americans worried about sticking to a detailed check list like it had come from the word of God.
The deck support team was just lucky that it would take a few hours for the diver to make it back on to the ship by coming up the dive line. That was due to his need to stop and decompress along the way to help counter the bends. It would not help prevent them, but the stops would buy the needed time for the diver to safely get into the decompression tank mounted on the aft deck. When diving, every little bit of extra safety margin was helpful.
When the dive master tried to find out what was wrong and got very little in reply. He was sensing that his diver was under some distress. Karl was known to use every second of a dive that he could, and not coming up when he had this long of bottom time lift was odd. Karl would just give a one word reply to any questions that he was asked by the dive master. He kept up this odd behavior until after his helmet was removed. Two of the deck support team took a few steps back when the diving suit was unzipped, and the smell hit them like a brick to the head.
Karl shot the support team a threatening look before they started helping him in finishing stripping off his suit and leaving the brown stain device on the deck along with his equally stained diving shorts. Surprisingly Karl carried his diving helmet into the decompression room with him. That was the only thing that the now naked diver had on, was that brass helmet in his hands. At least Karl would not have to see the people he wanted to throw over the side while he was in the decompression unit. He also would have time to clean himself up over the next day with the supplies found in the decompression chamber designed for long term habitation for four people. It had ended up that Karl had come up just a little too fast for safety, but what was safe after what he had just been through? He blew through his safety margin, but thanks to cutting his dive short, it was not that much of an issue now that there were not any IG inspectors to keep happy.
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Richard looked into the clear round glass at the main hatch to the pressure chamber. He had already checked with the doctor on duty before activating the two way intercom between him and the diver. Something was wrong, and it was his job to find out what was wrong. He was the current mission commander, and the buck stops with him.
Richard had his bossman’s voice on and switched to his best northern German accent when the static broke. “Okay Karl what happened?”
It would have taken a lot for someone to put a brown load into their dive suit, and Richard knew that tripping over a nuclear weapon had not done that to this diver. So, what was hairier than tripping over a live nuclear weapon with your metal covered boot? The thought was enough to make Richard sweat even more, and it was not about having to abandon this mission. That was just part of the game he played, sometimes you roll snake eyes and sometimes you don’t.
Karl was totally nude when he walked over to pick up the ringing phone on the inside of the decompression chamber. After so many years of diving, Karl automatically looked at the nearby glass porthole to see who was going to be talking to him. The Diver is not surprised to see the mission commander, and the years of being in the German military kick in before Karl could think. The naked man stands back straight near the glass window, as he listens to North German being spoken with a slight American accent.
Karl feels his eyes try to cross and the rest of his face loses control, and he starts to yell. “What happened? I was told that there were not any Bull Sharks here!! I ran into one down there, and the Frau was not friendly! No, she was very friendly. She wanted me for dinner!!”
Richard bit his inner lower lip and he had to fight down a smile. He knew about Karl’s issues with Bull sharks. Dealing with a maybe live nuclear weapon was not an issue, but a bull shark scared the crap out of him. Richard knew that there was more to this story than those few sentences yelled into his ear. “Okay Karl, calm down. Now tell me what happen down there.”
A nude Karl deflated a little and took a seat in a metal chair that was set so that someone could sit down and still both use the phone and see out the port hole. “At first, I got a close flyby of a Great Barracuda. It was just when I was going to check the lower hull for holes, cracks, or other types of damage. I remember thinking that it was odd that all of the larger fish were gone that had been down there when I first arrived. They were there when I had tied off the emergency dive line. I don’t know if they were still there when I started to put in the anchor line for the elevator. Now I know why they were gone. They did not want to be around with a 4m long female bull shark that was looking for something to eat.” Karl puts the hand not holding the phone on his forehead and he starts to slowly rub it. Karl had started sweating massively at remembering what he had lived through 300 feet below the surface.
Richard let Karl sit, now thankful he was not getting the full frontal of the nude diver. “Okay, you had a close up of a Bull Shark. I didn’t know that they got to be 4 meters long. But how do you know it was a female, or do you call all sharks Frau?”
Karl jumped out of his chair like someone had put a bolt of electricity into the seat. He quickly grabbed his scarred diving helmet and slammed it into the porthole so fast Richard was not able to move. “Because when I looked over the bulwark? She tried to rip my head off my head with her bloody teeth. Then when she figured out that I was not the Cuda? She opened her mouth enough so I could get my head out of her jaws!! I can tell you that you will not get a kiss that deep in any Red Light Districted!! When she spit me out? She hit me in the head with her Caudal fins as she went after the Cuda again. That is how I know she was a she!!!! I was that close to her ovaries, and I did not get smacked with a set of claspers. How about one of you go down and ask her out for a date? My dance card is going to be full for the next decade or so.”
Richard was looking at the scarred diving helmet a few inches from his nose but not closer thanks to the thick glass of the port hole. Richard knew that Karl’s deep diving helmet was brand new before this dive. He had been the one who had to find one to fit Karl’s big melon and then pay for it. Now it had at least five large and long scratches running across the front of the helmet to include the visor glass. That was good enough for Richard, but now he was glad that they had picked up a second one despite the cost of the handmade helmet. Richard was amazed that Karl had not risked the bends and came up through the water column as fast as his legs could push him with a damaged visor. You know the only thing that was keeping him alive and not trying to breathe water. Richard knew that if it would have happened to him? After he reached the surface, he would have tried to do his own interpretation of Christ and walked on water until he reached the support ship.
Richard now could explain to the deck crew that any jokes about Karl’s loaded suit was not going to go over that well with Karl or the mission commander. In fact, if they do or say anything? He was going to make sure that one of the jokers were the ones to go down and ask the bull shark out for a date, without a spear gun.
Richard looked into the frightened eyes of his primary diver. “Okay, Karl. Recover as long as you need. Do you think you will be able to dive again?” If Karl said no and didn’t want to dive, there was nothing that Richard was going to do about it. This mission was going to be over, and the little convoy would have to head back to port. There would be hell to pay when they got back to Mombasa, for both Karl and him. Then again, that helmet was a good way to stop many issues. Richard could not think of a single person that would want to be a dentist for a shark large enough to hold your whole helmet covered head in its mouth.
Karl was about to tell the mission commander to drop him back off at Mombasa, but the other part of his brain kicked in that was more hormones than gray matter. That was the part of Karl’s brain that still wanted to be a Kommando. That shut the weak part of Karl’s brain down so fast it should have made his head hurt. “Sir! I will be ready to go back down again, but I will not go alone. I also will be bringing down Helga with me, and every diver will have at least one spear gun with them. How many spare bolts for their spear gun that they are going to be packing is going to be up to them. I just want someone to be covering my back and the other divers with some kind of weapon.”
Richard nodded his head as his lead diver spoke and he kept his face fixed with a tight lipped look. It had always been his plan to send one of the other divers down when they were recovering any items from the wreck. But Karl was the only “safety” diver that had worked at these depths before that Richard could find in such a short turn around that this mission required. The other four were local divers on the ship, but they had “worked” at this depth at least on one mission. Still, they were not certified, and they were not rated as a safety diver. Yes, this worried Richard. For all he knew, the local divers could have been making those documents up just to get the job he was advertising. It would not have been the first time that something like that was reported to have happened in the Ports rumor mill.
To know that Karl was willing to go down into these waters again, after almost having his face and head ripped off was showing huge amounts of guts or a bad case of the dumb asses. That Karl wanted to take his most prized possession down with him on this next dive was also not a surprise to Richard. Richard had no idea where Karl had gotten the Russian made 4 smoothbores barreled 4.5mm specialized underwater pistol. Richard had asked Karl and he only had gotten a sly smile from the younger man but nothing else. It that was going to make the diver feel safer, Richard was not going to get in the way. Finding any replacement rounds would be ugly with a capital U G L Y. By contract, if Karl used that SPP-1 while on the job? Richard would be on the hook to find any replacement ammunition that was used on the job. It was not a suicide packed in the contract, but it would be costly if Richard could not find something to placate Karl with.
Robert tapped the metal frame of the decompression chamber that was heard inside the metal can. “Okay, but only when the doc says you’re okay? You come up with a plan with the Dive Master. You’re the safety diver. Whatever you and the Dive Master come up with is fine with me.”
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