Page 70 of Night's Reckoning
“You are ready,” Fabia said. “So don’t wait for us. I’ll wait for Ben to suit up and we’ll meet you down there.”
Professor Chou stepped forward and spoke quietly to the four students who were diving. They all listened intently, but Ben couldn’t make out what they were saying.
Fabia proceeded to hand Ben a wet suit and then shoved him toward a small compartment with curtains drawn over the windows. “Go. Get ready. I’m dying to get down there.”
“Oh goodie. A wet suit.” Ben was glad he wasn’t sore anymore. Nothing was worse than trying to get on a wet suit if you were sore. Come to think of it, even getting one on when you weren’t sore wasn’t a picnic.
He stripped down to his underwear, turned the suit inside out, and carefully worked it up his body. By the time he was ready, he could hear Fabia and Professor Chou outside, giving directions to Jon, who’d taken the submersible down with the university team.
“A little to the right,” the professor said. “Yes, there.” He flipped the microphone off. “This site is so impressive. I wish we had more time.”
“Looters,” Ben said, walking out from the closet. “I can feel them circling like sharks. On a site this shallow, we’re going to have to work quickly. If you can get more divers, I’d call them.”
The professor nodded. “I agree. I may have a colleague in Shantou. Will Cheng approve of my contacting him?”
Ben didn’t want to step on Cheng’s authority, but he figured he’d been hired for a reason. “Call him,” he said. “The more divers, the better. Just emphasize that confidentiality is key and this is… an unusual job.”
The professor nodded. “I have other colleagues I would contact if this was not a delicate situation, but my friend in Shantou will not ask uncomfortable questions if I reassure him.”
“Thanks, Professor.” Ben began checking the regulator that would make sure he didn’t suffocate fifty feet below the surface of the ocean. “Fabi, you want to double-check my stuff?”
She walked away from the monitor. “How old are you again?”
“Old enough not to be overconfident.”
It took over half an hour for Ben to prepare everything, but soon he and Fabia pushed away from the boat with the diving flag flapping in the cool breeze.
She pressed the button on her microphone. “Can you hear me?”
Ben pressed his. “Yes. Can you hear me?”
She gave him a thumbs-up before she dove under the surface.
Here we go.
Ben sank below the surface into the heart of the brilliant blue sea. Lower and lower he went until he could see the divers beneath him. All four were working around the wreck, securing brightly colored stakes in the ground and taking measurements with tape.
What had looked eerie and mysterious from the sonar pictures and the nighttime flashes from Kadek’s camera looked far less ominous in the daylight, though it was no less fascinating.
“Are you going to be able to interpret for me while we’re down here?” Fabia asked.
He pushed the microphone in his diving mask. “If we keep it simple, it should work. Are we all on the same frequency?”
“Yes.”
The professor’s voice came through the speakers next to Ben’s ear. He spoke in Mandarin. “Excellent work. We are placing markers right now. We are limited on time, but we work this one like any other job. Be deliberate. Document everything.”
Ben didn’t know exactly what their method was, but all four divers were busily working in different corners with clear purpose. They were measuring and documenting on whiteboards attached to yellow frames. They motioned back and forth to each other, mostly ignoring Ben and Fabia, who swam around the wreck, surveying it from a distance before they swam closer.
“It’s remarkably intact,” Fabia said. “Ninth century?”
“Yes.”
“It looks much newer.” She swam closer. “Arab dhow. I want analysis on that wood. I’m so curious where it was made.”
“Wouldn’t Arosh know?” Ben asked. “I mean, this isn’t exactly like a normal dig. He probably has a manifest of everything he sent, along with the names of the captain and crew. We already know the name of the ship. We can check with him or Zhang if we really want to know, right?”
Fabia shook her head. “You know, sometimes I go months and months at a time forgetting how strange my life is, and yours is even stranger.”
