The Tiger Warrior Read Online Free PDF Page B

JACK DIPPED THE NOSE OF THE Lynx helicopter and swung it around in a wide arc from the helipad on Seaquest II , lingering for a moment to set the navigational computer for the Egyptian coast some thirty-five nautical miles to the northwest. They would fly low, to prevent the nitrogen in their bloodstreams from forming bubbles, risking the bends.
    Jack glanced past Costas’ helmeted form in the copilot’s seat toward Seaquest II On the stern was the word Truro , the nearest port of registry to the campus of the International Maritime University in Cornwall, England, and fluttering above it was the IMU flag, a shield with a superimposed anchor derived from Jack’s family coat of arms. She was their premier research vessel, custom-built less than two years before to replace the first Seaquest , lost in the Black Sea. From a distance she looked like a naval support ship. On the foredeck Jack saw a team in white flash overalls beside the forty-millimeter Breda gun pod, raised from its concealed mount for live-fire practice. Several of the crew were former members of Britain’s elite Special Boat Service who Jack had known in the Royal Navy. They were near the coast of Somalia, where the threat of piracy was ever present; in a matter of days they were due off the war-torn island of Sri Lanka. But in all other respects Seaquest II was a state-of-the-art research vessel, bristling with the latest diving and excavation technology, with accommodation and lab facilities for a team of thirty. She was the result of decades of accumulated experience when they’d put their heads together and come up with a blueprint for the ideal vessel. Not for the first time Jack silently thanked their benefactor, Efram Jacobovich, a software tycoon and passionate diver, who had seen the potential in Jack’s vision and provided the endowment that funded their exploration around the world.
    “We’re locked on,” Jack said into the intercom. “Good to go.”
    Costas pointed at the horizon. “Engage.”
    Jack grinned, pushed the cyclic stick forward to dip the nose again, then flipped on the autopilot. As they gathered speed he glanced at the bridge wing and saw Scott Macalister, a former Canadian coast guard captain who was Seaquest II’s master. Beside him stood a tall, slender girl, her long dark hair blowing in the breeze, shielding her eyes against the glare and waving at them.
    “Rebecca seems to be doing nicely,” Costas said.
    “For her first expedition, I can’t believe how well she fits in,” Jack replied. “She’s almost running the show. Pretty impressive for a sixteen-year-old.”
    “It must be in the blood, Jack.”
    They could see the reef now, the dark blue of the abyss rising through shades of turquoise until the coral heads at the top of the slope were visible, some of them nearly breaking the surface. They passed over the wavering yellow forms of two Aquapod submersibles, just about to dive on the ancient ships’ graveyard fifty meters below. Within hours the Aquapods would have completed a full photogrammetric and laser survey of the site, something that would have taken weeks of dives and painstaking hand measurements in Jack’s early days. After surfacing from their dive and returning to Seaquest II he had gone straight into an intensive video conference with the Egyptian Antiquities Authorities, the Egyptian Navy, and the staff of his friend Maurice Hiebermeyer’s Institute of Archaeology in Alexandria. With Seaquest II committed months before to a voyage into the Pacific, another IMU vessel would take over the excavation, and an Egyptian navy frigate would be on station for the duration. The excavation would complete a hat trick of ancient wreck investigations by IMU over the past few years: a Bronze Age Minoan shipwreck in the Aegean, St. Paul’s shipwreck off Sicily and now this. Jack fervently hoped he would be back in time to work on the site himself, but for now he was thrilled to have set the wheels in