Trusting Viktor (A Cleo Cooper Mystery) (22 page)

Realizing at last what had prompted the attack from Hunter in the first place, I started to protest the misunderstanding—I can’t imagine why—when the question of how he’d managed to jump to that conclusion came to mind. I opened my mouth to ask, but about that time the twins jumped in the fray.

“Dad!” they cried in unison.

“You just kept on,” Duchamp continued. “You hacked into Hunter’s computer, learned way more than you needed to know. You’re just like that stupid Eskimo, trying to take something that’s not yours. I might remind you that what happened to him could happen to you.”

What did that mean? “Are you threatening me?”

“I’m saying that until we get the cylinder and I settle my deal with the Chinese, you’re going to be out of my hair.”

“I can’t believe what I’m hearing,” Viktor said in disbelief. “Are you insane? She’s not going anywhere!”

“Look here,” Duchamp said, “it’s time for you to pick a side—”

“
Pick a side
?”

“He already has,” I said firmly, taking Viktor’s arm and wondering two things: One, why I hadn’t realized until this second that Hunter’s body washed up on a Thursday, yet if my memory served me correctly (and I was pretty sure it did), Viktor had told me Voyager called him on Wednesday? So Duchamp must have known—from the twins?—that Hunter wasn’t just missing, he was dead. And two, how would we make it safely past Duchamp and his sons?

“Viktor’s with me, and we’re leaving.” I didn’t get a chance to try, however because just then more visitors stepped into Gerhard Coester’s room.

Twenty-Three

“What the hell are
you doing here?” I squawked to Detectives Pierce and Myers.

“I’ve been following you, of course. Myers had his doubts, but I knew eventually you’d lead me to a person of interest, and so you have. Actually, they were following you, too, but that’s beside the point.”

“Wait!” I said. “I’m confused. You were following them, following me … ”

“No,” Myers said. “We were tailing you. Then those guys—two of whom we’ve already interviewed—fell in behind you, too, so all we had to do was follow the crazy train here, stand outside the door, and listen.”

“Yeah,” Pierce said, turning to the twins, “I must say, it was very interesting. Apparently we need to have another chat. This time we’ll include your dad and find out what you three might know regarding a dead crewman and a certain
cylinder
.”

“Damn straight,” Myers said. “You guys had me doubting my partner, which leaves me a little embarrassed, so what say we all go back to Morehead where we can take some statements?”

My mind was flying everywhere at once. For one thing, I’d just had another brilliant insight. The ROV team wore orange jumpsuits—the same bright orange as a particular little scrap of material Pierce and I had found stuck in Hunter’s watchband. And all along I’d thought it was from Bud’s lucky shirt. Now I was embarrassed … again. It wasn’t enough that I’d stupidly thought an internal log was one kept by the tech team not the ROV itself.

But overriding all my thoughts was the driving need to complete what had became a treasure hunt for me the moment all the pieces of the puzzle started to fall into place and I’d realized I could go down in history as the person who found the Amber Room. In short, everything else paled when compared to the possibility that I could still pull this off. The gambler in me strained to go for broke. Now, I realize this is a bad character flaw in myself and that I should have been happy to tell the police everything I knew about this whole mess. See that truth and justice prevailed and all that. And, I would … maybe. Just not right now.

After all, Viktor and I were still the only ones with all the pieces. With a little luck, we could be the first to the cylinder. We just needed to convince the cops that we were not involved with anything Davy Duchamp and his boys might have been up to. Then we could skedaddle back to the
Magellan,
where we’d somehow manage to fish the cylinder up from the sub. I hadn’t concocted a way to do that undetected yet, but I had some ideas.

However, I didn’t have to give my dilemma any further consideration, because just then Duchamp pulled a handgun from his belt where it’d been hidden under his shirt.

“My boys and I aren’t going anywhere,” he said.

“Dad!” Dean shouted. “Stop. This whole thing is—”

“—getting way out of control!” Tim cried.

See, I should have realized this. I should have totally cottoned on to the fact that with a treasure as vast as the Amber Room, for Christ’s sakes, a person would go to any extremes to acquire it, including taking on the law using a gun—a practice frowned upon by federal, state, and local authorities, to say the least. I was trying to think of something that would defuse the situation when our bedridden host—who, unbeknownst to us, had crept to the foot of the bed—did something that, just like in the movies, changed real time into slow motion. He launched himself off the bed straight at Duchamp, trying, I suppose, to swipe the gun from his hand!

And, just like in the movies, Viktor and I shouted, “Noooo!” simultaneously and lunged for him, as did Goggles and an enormous black orderly in a white uniform, the pair of whom had just arrived in the room. But, like I said, it was as if we were all moving in slow motion. Duchamp, eyes bulging in disbelief, was backpedaling so hard he lost his balance and careened into the rollaway food tray, the back of his head striking it first with a loud
thwack
! This was followed by another loud bang, much louder, as the handgun went off. Then, like a marionette with its strings cut, Duchamp, weapon still in hand, crumpled slowly to the floor.

Then real time resumed and total pandemonium broke out.

It’s funny the things you notice in such a situation, but you know what stood out during the chaos that ensued? How tender and protective Goggles was toward Coester as she and the orderly gathered him up and placed him, unharmed, back in bed. You’d have thought he was her granddad or something. Go figure. Anyway, it seemed like forever before all the cops, EMTs (there must have been four that responded to the scene), and other government types who felt their presence was a total necessity in circumstances involving a firearm (regardless of the fact that no one was hit) did what they do and left.

V
iktor and I had moved our chairs to the hallway to be out of the way. Pierce had ordered us not to leave. With no real privacy, we hadn’t had a chance to speak alone since the shooting and just when I thought we would, Pierce and Myers approached us.

“We’ve just got word from Raleigh PD that Duchamp has regained consciousness,” he said. “This is their jurisdiction, so we have to wait until they make their charges before we can take him into custody. Right now, though, he’s still in the emergency room, so Myers and I are headed over there. His sons are waiting for us. But first, I’ve just got a couple of questions for you.”

“Uh, sure,” I said not without trepidation.

“Why were you two here? What’s your connection to Mr. Dubois?”

“Don’t ask me,” Viktor said. “I’m just here with Ms. Cooper.”

Pierce directed his gaze to me. “Well?”

I struggled to remember what I’d told helpful Mr. Devereaux, over at Women’s College.

“You gonna tell us
today
?” Myers said.

“Well, uh, neither Viktor nor I needed to be back on the
Magellan
until this afternoon so, since we had some time this morning and since Mr. Dubois used to be my aunt’s French professor and I try to stop by when I’m in the area to say hello for her, I figured today would be a good time.”

Pierce’s eyes drifted sideways as he considered this. Then he said, “And you were in the area because …”

“Well, you may remember my friend here,” I said, indicating Viktor. Pierce and Myers shook their heads in the negative. I introduced him as a Voyager crewman who was also working on his dissertation in economic petrology, then explained, “He and I were going to stop at the Archdale Building—it’s practically across the street, you know.”

I got blank stares. “The Archdale Building houses academic geologic papers as well as those produced by the North Carolina Geologic Survey.”

Myers made a rolling motion with his hand.

“So, after I’d completed my social obligation,” I told him, hurriedly, “we planned to do a little research on some of the latest papers on … siliciclastic sequence stratigraphy and …”

“Unstable progradational shelf margins,” Viktor chimed in.

“Whatever,” Pierce snapped. “So you’re saying you were just making a social call, then going to do a little work-related research. Last question for now: those guys were following you because …”

When I didn’t finish his sentence, Pierce raised his eyebrows.

I really didn’t want to say this in front of Viktor so I pulled Pierce aside, lowered my voice, and said, “Maybe they think I remember what happened the night of the attack and it might tend to implicate them. The thing is, I’d rather discuss this with you in private.”

“Tomorrow then,” Pierce said. He called to his partner, “Okay Myers, let’s make like a baby and head out.”

It was almost three o’clock when Viktor and I headed back to Morehead. He was driving and not saying much.

“What do you think of our chances of getting the ROV and finding the cylinder?” I asked.

Viktor looked at me briefly, then said as if he’d already been thinking about it, “I’m pretty sure I can get the ROV without too many questions asked. What I’m worried about is how long it’ll take to find the sub. We need to be able to go straight to it, not waste time looking, bumbling around, hoping the obstacle-avoidance sonar alerts us to something or we just happen to see it. The lights only project out about twenty-five feet down there.”

“I think I can help with that,” I said, grabbing my purse from the backseat. “It just so happens I have a copy of the seismic data that Global used to make the site survey.”

“That’s what’s been bothering me!” Viktor smacked his palm on the wheel. “In this country there are strict guidelines on how close to a shipwreck a wellhole can be placed. Davy must have altered the seismic survey before he gave it to Global. I can’t believe I didn’t think of that before. All we need is an older survey.”

“Don’t feel bad, the thought occurred to me a little late in the game too,” I said as I struggled to spread the map in my lap. “And you’re right about an older survey; we could use it to pinpoint the exact location of the sub by comparing the contours and seeing exactly where Davy changed the offsets. But …”

“We don’t have one?” Viktor asked.

“No. This isn’t the Gulf, where everything’s been mapped and surveyed many times over. Anyway, I seriously doubt another company has surveyed this area, because if they had, they would have found the sub. Besides, anything done by another seismic survey company would be proprietary, not available to the public.”

“So what good is this altered survey going to do us?”

“Well, just hold your horses,” I said, staring at the area in question on the survey. “Let me take a look here.” After what felt like an hour of looking down at a zillion squiggly lines, I began to feel carsick. “I think I need to look at this again at the house.” I laid my head back on the headrest.

“You look green,” Viktor said.

“I’ll be okay,” I said, trying to hide my disappointment. I’d been so sure I’d be able to see some evidence of tampering.

“Chin up. We still have plan B: hope the lights and the obstacle-
avoidance sonar alert us to something. Speaking of which, let’s go
over what we’re going to do when we get back aboard the
Magellan
.”

“Okay, tell me what you’re thinking and what I can do to assist.”

“First,” said Viktor, “you’ll need to explain to the captain what I’m doing back on the ship out of rotation. Then, we’ll go down to the lab, see if the ROV’s down. If it is, we wait until right before their break time, then I go in and give Ray and the boys my story about wanting to go through some maneuvers that I had trouble with last rotation and ask if I can work with Scooter while they’re on break. You watch from somewhere close by. When break time comes and they leave without me, you’ll know I’ve got the ROV. Come on in and we’ll see what we can find.”

“And if Scooter’s not in the water?”

“We just check the schedule. With things about to wrap up on the well, they’ll have plenty to do down below.”

“You think Ray will let you
practice
with the ROV?”

“I think so. I mean, they’re only on break for thirty minutes, they’ll still be responsible for surfacing and docking it. I don’t know Ray very well, but he seems to be an agreeable fellow. ”

We reached the house and Viktor went to his hotel to pack a bag. I did the same, and while I waited for him to return, I looked at the seismic again. This time, however, I took a different tack and pinned it up on the wall in my office. Standing back from it about 5 feet, I squinted my eyes like I was looking at one of those trick optical illusions that hide a 3D drawing. I squinted and squinted, tilting my head this way and that, keeping in mind that I was looking at the underside of the seafloor, at indentions instead of raised areas, and just as I was about to give up in frustration: bingo.

There it was, not 300 feet from the wellhead. Of course, in the pitch blackness of the seafloor at almost 2,200 feet below the surface, it could have been a mere 50 feet away and the ROV lights wouldn’t illuminate it.

Everywhere an offset line had been removed and replaced with one indicating a flat surface with no shipwreck, a tiny blank space was left, leaving a ghost of what had previously been there. In effect, instead of a dark shadow, as the sub would have appeared to Duchamp, I saw a very faint white outline. The shape was what I would expect of a wrecked sub: an oval about 200 feet long.

The more I looked, the more I saw it. I could even detect the outlines of scattered shapes indicating a debris field. Some shapes were large, indicating that a massive explosion had sent the sub quickly to its final resting place. I was still studying the survey when I heard Viktor slam the back door.

I called him upstairs to see if he could pick out the wreck. He was much faster at seeing it than I had been. We were so elated, we could have just about flown out to the
Magellan
by ourselves. But we chose, instead, to hitch a ride on the helicopter that was just loading the chief accounting officer, Patrick Donovan, when we reached the airport.

Once back aboard, I filled Powell in on why Viktor had returned with me, explaining that, as a fellow petroleum geologist, he wanted to be aboard while we plumbed the depths of a reservoir so similar to the ones described in his dissertation. As we talked, I couldn’t help but notice that attention was again being focused on SunCo’s
Able Leader
.

“What’s going on?” I asked Powell.

“Looks like there might be a delay of some sort over there. Best we can tell, they have some type of riser problem in one of the wells. It’s serious enough that they’ve shut down progress on the other well too, to concentrate all hands on the problem.”

“Are they in danger?” Viktor asked.

“No. But they’ve definitely disconnected from the riser for some reason, so we’re keeping watch. Meanwhile, things are going smoothly here for a change. We’ve completed the turn for the new angle and cut down another four hundred feet. We’re only about two hundred feet from your target. We should be there in less than twelve hours.” He paused. “Did I see Patrick come in with you?”