Electra, page 5
“No worries,” Maddock said, seeking to placate Spinney. “We’re aware of this whale now, and tomorrow we’ll know to watch out for it. Right, Keith?” He gave Bones a hard stare.
“You bet. It’s just a small whale trained to kill us, anyway. Not a big one.”
The group laughed and Spinney gave a half-smile before glancing at his dive watch. “And on that note, I’m calling it a night, gentlemen. I suggest you do the same. Long day tomorrow.”
Chapter 6
The next morning, soon after sunrise, Maddock and Bones rode in the Zodiac with Bruce Watanabe, this time his only passengers. The two SEALs each sat on one of the inflatable boat’s pontoons, riding out to the marker buoy in silence. They would have the first dive of the day on the plane to themselves. They knew this would be a huge opportunity to further their mission agenda before they were working in close contact with Spinney’s men.
Once anchored on the site Maddock and Bones strapped their gear on and splashed into the water. “Comm check, you hear me?” Watanabe’s voice in their facemask headsets was a reminder that although they were alone, what they said to each other was being monitored.
Maddock responded, “Loud and clear,” and then he and Bones dropped down along the buoy line. They followed the same path they’d swum with Bugsy and within a few minutes were staring once again at the sunken plane.
Maddock spoke inside his face mask. “Topside, we are on the plane, going to have a look around, over.”
Watanabe’s reply was instant. “Copy that.”
Maddock and Bones had already discussed their plans for the dive in secret last night after the campfire, and the two of them headed straight for the opening Maddock had seen in the ledge. The water was clear and it was easy to see where they were going. They flicked their dive lights on, rounded the plane’s tail and swam under the wing. Maddock pointed up into the opening in the ceiling. Bones nodded.
“Topside, we’ve located a possible opening in the coral wall. We’re going to see if it might lead anywhere.”
Watanabe’s voice came back immediately. “Topside here: copy that. Be advised that we may lose communication if you get deep into a tunnel, over.”
“Copy.”
Maddock finned upward to the ceiling of the cavern where the cockpit of the plane disappeared into the coral wall. Bones was right behind him. They swam up over the lip of the entrance and into an irregular chamber. They were greeted with a solid wall only a few feet in front of them, but rough passages led off to the right and left. Colorful sponges and tubeworms covered the walls and ceiling. Maddock played his light around the confined area for a few seconds before pointing left.
“Plane’s that way, so let’s check this tunnel first.”
“Right behind you.”
Although it was fairly high—a tall man could stand inside with headroom to spare—the tunnel wasn’t wide enough for both divers to swim side-by-side. Maddock moved slowly into the passage, shining his light in a slow arc as he went. Ahead the tunnel curved to the left and they followed it, only to have it jog back right. It also became a little lower and more narrow.
“Good thing I’m not claustrophobic, Bones said. “Right about now I wish I was your puny size. If this thing gets any smaller I’m gonna be like a cork in a bottle.”
It was a thought that gave him pause. One negative about diving this deep and in a confined space without the rest of the team meant that if anything went wrong they were on their own. Sure, Watanabe would know what happened, but it wouldn’t do them any good. By the time anyone from the team got all the way down here, they’d have run out of air.
“Up here it forks,” Maddock said. “The passage we’re in leads down while another one goes off to the right. Let’s take the low road.”
“I usually do. Low road, copy that.”
Maddock continued along the tunnel down until it flared out and ended abruptly—opening into a large space below.
“Dropping into a room....” Maddock wanted Bones to have a heads up. They could not afford to get separated. Another thing he found alarming was that without their lights it would be pitch black in the tunnels. Besides their main flashlights, they each carried a small backup light clipped to their vests, but still, being lost in a pitch black maze two-hundred feet underwater wasn’t something he liked to contemplate.
Maddock allowed himself to drift to the floor of the cave. He stood there with his fins flat on the bottom. A medium-sized fish gave him a start as it came face-to-mask with him and then darted off. As soon as he saw Bones’ light beam sweep the chamber, he took off again, swimming slowly and cautiously around a large coral protuberance.
There, occupying almost the entire enclosed space, was the cockpit of the old airplane. Maddock stared up at it in wonder. When they were first told they were looking for Amelia Earhart’s airplane he’d pictured a small craft, perhaps a rickety old wooden plane befitting the 1930s. However, from the briefing he learned it was, of course, metal—a Lockheed Electra. And he’d been given the approximate dimensions, too, but seeing it down here right in front of him gave him a whole new perspective. It was a big aircraft, towering above him. In his mind’s eye he envisioned skinny Amelia climbing up into the cockpit from the ladder steps, giving a last wave to the crowd gathered on the runway.
The main body of the plane was on the other side of the coral wall. He could see now that much of the wall above had crumbled and broken in on the craft, trapping it here. It would not be easy to extricate, if possible at all.
But that was Spinney’s problem. He and Bones just need to see what was in it and get it out. Presently the large Indian swam up beside him, illuminating the aircraft.
“Nice! You see that?”
He held his beam in one place—the cockpit window.
Maddock nodded. “All the glass has been busted out.” They watched as a fish swam out through the broken windscreen.
He consulted his pressure gauge. This was not the place to run out of air.
“Let’s hurry up and get it done.”
Maddock pressed the button on his BCD to add air to his vest, creating a soft pfft, and then he pushed gently off the bottom, rising to the level of the windscreen.
“Looks like it popped out completely.” Maddock positioned himself to swim through the opening. He played his light into the plane, getting the first look inside the cockpit at what might very well be the most sought-after missing aircraft in the world.
Bones echoed his thoughts as he leveled out next him in front of the windscreen. “No bodies that I can see.”
“Right. Shall we?” Maddock extended a hand into the cockpit.
“Ladies first.”
It was a tight squeeze, but Maddock floated through the opening into the Electra’s cockpit, descending between the two steering wheels, one in front of each of the two cockpit seats. Looking down as he passed over, he saw that the instrument console was encrusted with growth, although mostly still readable. Looking aft, toward the tail of the plane, he found he could see all the way to the end of it as it passed through the coral wall on the outside. Jumbles of gear and debris littered the interior of the fuselage. He could see right away that it would take some time to sort out.
“Man, they weren’t much for legroom back in the day, were they?” Bones settled in between the pilot and co-pilots’ seats on the floor of the plane, right behind Maddock.
“Amelia was quite a bit shorter than you. Better looking, too.”
“You got me there. Plus the navigator guy, Noonan—he sat in back with all his equipment, so this front seat was unoccupied.” He tapped the rim of the seat, sending a puff of silt wafting into the water.
“Hey, somebody read up on their history. I’m impressed!” Maddock was careful not to reference their briefing documents. “Now let’s get to work. Serial number. Should be a small brass plate up here. Pilot’s side under the console.”
Bones turned around and positioned himself so that he could look underneath the instrument cluster. “Looking...” He directed his beam along the growth-covered surfaces. There was only room for one of them in that area of the plane so Maddock played his light around the rear cargo area while he waited. He saw two globe-shaped objects on either side of the floor. He kicked off and floated gently over to them like an astronaut inside a space station.
“Think I’ve got it.” Bones lay sideways in the cockpit, his head wedged beneath the pilot seat, facing forward. One hand held him in position while the other held his light.
“Think I’ve got something back here, too.” Maddock settled onto his knees next to one of the globular objects. He fanned a gloved hand over it, clearing some of the silt that had accumulated there. Near the base of the object was an opening. He slipped his fingers inside it and lifted. At first nothing happened but he sure it was supposed to be a sliding dome cover, so he pulled again, more forcefully this time, and he was rewarded with a snapping sound as the dome’s cover slid open. Beneath it was the other half of the spherical shape—containing a large camera. He could see that, although now nearly opaque with marine growth, the dome was some sort of plastic that was set through the plane’s body, enabling pictures to be taken looking straight down.
Odd that if this is Earhart’s plane, she would have had it modified to accommodate these kinds of cameras. The extra weight and expense, compromising the integrity of the fuselage...
“Metal plate!” Bones’ excited tone shook him from his thoughts.
“Can you read it?”
“Hold on. Let me see if I can scrub it off . Cross your fingers.”
Maddock turned around to see Bones in the cockpit. His light was held steady on one spot.
“Yes! Serial number. I can read it. NR—”
“Wait. Hold on, let me write it down.” Maddock picked up the writing slate and pencil clipped to his vest. “Go.”
“NR 16020.”
Maddock wrote down the numbers with mounting excitement until the string was complete. He recognized the serial number from their briefing materials.
They were inside Amelia Earhart’s lost airplane!
A flash of light going off up front indicated that Bones took a photo of the plate.
“How’s it going back there?” Bones extricated himself from beneath the instrument console and turned around to look at Maddock.
“Found some—” Maddock cut himself off, aware that Watanabe would probably be able to hear him. “Found some stuff back here, not sure what it all is,” he settled on. Visually, he made an exaggerated pointing motion toward the dome camera he sat next to. Bones nodded his understanding and swam over. He looked at the camera, then frowned, wagging a hand back and forth as if to say, it was iffy that it was worth anything. The dome port was completely flooded and although it was clear that the object inside had been a camera, it was now little more than a rusted mass of parts fused together. Maddock went to the camera on the other side and examined it. Same thing. When he looked up from it, Bones was pointing at something in the rear of the plane.
A couple of boxes, taking up a fair amount of space. That’s what they looked like to Maddock from his position at the ruined dome camera. He and Bones swam through the plane to the rear-most cargo area, passing over what was obviously navigation equipment—brass devices that looked like sextants, a small telescope, a chronometer and a ruler of some type. They ignored them, heading for the boxes. Maddock went to one and Bones the other. Constructed of metal, they were each about two feet on a side. They had stout buckles and looked like they might still have watertight seals. Maddock cleared some twisted metal off his until he could heft its weight. He set it back down after realizing that it would not be easy to move.
He motioned to Bones to get his attention and held a finger over his lips outside his mask, warning him not to mention the boxes over the comm line. Bones nodded and looked at his air gauge, reminding Maddock to do the same. In their excitement of finding a way inside the plane, both had forgotten to check their air for a while.
The numbers were not encouraging.
“Time to go.” Maddock immediately dropped his crate and wrote on his slate, showing it to Bones: NEXT TIME.
Bones nodded.
Maddock quickly took some digital snapshots of the plane’s cabin—without showing the boxes—and then he and Bones swam out through the Electra’s windshield.
Chapter 7
Maddock and Bones climbed into the Zodiac and removed their dive gear while Watanabe motored back to shore. They had seen no signs of the whale despite their wariness. The swim back to the boat had been thankfully uneventful. To their surprise, Watanabe asked them how the dive went, saying that he lost radio contact with them for most of the time they were in the plane, probably because the cave blocked the radio signals. This meant that he didn’t yet know they had found the plane’s serial number and confirmed it to be that of Earhart’s plane. There was no way they could have a conversation in the small boat without Watanabe hearing or at least becoming suspicious, so Maddock thought things through to himself.
He and Bones could keep the discovery of the serial number to themselves and actually fabricate a story that they found some other serial number, meaning it was not Earhart’s plane, in the hopes that Spinney would take their word for it and leave the island. Maddock had to suppress a laugh as he realized how unlikely that was. Spinney would never take anyone’s word for it when it came to the identification of the plane which had become his life’s obsession. They might as well tell the truth and get in Spinney’s good graces, then keep diving the site in the company of the EARHART team. They would just have to deal later with how to snoop around the plane without Spinney’s divers being any the wiser.
“It’s Earhart’s plane!” Maddock told Watanabe, who actually slowed the boat to make sure he’d heard him right.
“What?”
Maddock repeated himself, adding that they had found the serial number. Watanabe let out a howl of joy that would have made a werewolf jealous. Then he picked up the radio and broke the news to base camp. When they got to the pier, the whole team was waiting for them.
Spinney was the first one to the boat. “Pictures? Did you get any pictures?”
Maddock was surprised to feel a twinge of anger for not being taken at their word, but then realized it was probably for the media. He looked over at Bones and saw that it rankled him, too. But they did in fact have pictures, so the hefty Indian turned on his digital camera and brought the shots of the brass number plate up on the screen, then handed it over to Spinney.
Maddock watched as a grin consumed the EARHART leader’s features. The bearded man nodded in exaggerated fashion, as if convincing himself it was real before mentioning it to anyone else.
“We got it!” he said, handing the camera off to his researcher.
Carlson stared at the miniature screen intently. “These are the winning lotto numbers! You know, it’s funny. Electra was a prophetic model of plane for Earhart. It was named by Lockheed, as all of their planes of that era were, after a constellation. In this case, for the lost star in the constellation of Pleiades. But now it is lost no more!”
He passed the camera to one of the divers, everyone wanting to see it for themselves, to somehow be a part of the historic event even though they weren’t in the water to personally make the discovery. Maddock supposed the fact that the two newcomers had made the big discovery might even become a source of irritation for the divers, and he made a mental note to be aware of that. Their objective was difficult enough without making enemies along the way.
As Maddock passed the camera to one of the divers, he saw the man’s eyes look down, to Maddock’s waist. Once he took the camera Maddock looked down and realized that the man had been staring at what he had written on his underwater slate during the dive: NEXT TIME. By itself it wasn’t incriminating, but it did expose the concept that they were communicating outside of the facemask comm units. Maddock mentally kicked himself for the lapse. He had to remember to erase whatever he wrote before they got back to the boat.
Spinney motioned to Carlson. “Let’s get back to camp. What do you think about a press conference announcing we found it?”
Carlson stared past the pier to the dive site beyond while he spoke. “It would have so much more impact if we also found their bodies...” He trailed off while he turned to face Maddock and Bones.
“I assume you didn’t find any bodies? No bones?”
The two undercover SEALs both shook their heads and Carlson immediately went back to addressing Spinney. “I think it’s worth one more search of the surrounding site to see if anything else can be found.” He turned back to Maddock and Bones.
“How did you get into the plane, by the way?”
Maddock explained the tunnel system he and Bones found, and then Carlson continued. “Okay, so it’s possible that there are human remains that were washed deep into this tunnel system. The world has waited over sixty years, it can wait another day, right?” He directed this at Spinney, holding his hands palms up as if to say, it’s worth a shot.
After a moment of what appeared to be genuine deliberation, Spinney nodded. But it looked to Maddock as though the man really wanted to make the announcement right now and claim the fame that he’d been seeking for so long.
“It can wait a half a day. One more dive this afternoon to search the tunnels. If no remains are found, then we contact the media anyway and say that we found Amelia Earhart’s plane based solely on the serial number plate. Let’s go, people!”
The dive team helped Maddock and Bones grab the gear out of the Zodiac and started back to camp. However, as Maddock fell into stride behind them, he felt Spinney’s hand grip his arm.
