us in their sights if we don’t get it cleaned up quick.”
“Since when are you worried about political fallout?”
“Since I looked at my pension fund and realized I need to work another twenty years before I can retire comfortably in Bora Bora.”
Giordino pulled alongside the barge, which lay within spitting distance of an empty tanker moored upriver. A bearded, bear-sized man in a NUMA ball cap tied off the boat’s lines and helped them up onto the barge.
“Welcome to Camp Maui,” Michael Cruz said. A marine engineer and salvage expert with NUMA, Cruz had led the advance team.
“Camp Maui?” Giordino asked.
“Our little island paradise sandwiched between two big, ugly wrecks.”
Giordino eyed the barge’s weathered housing structure and grease-stained decks. “Not exactly my idea of paradise.”
“Best we could do on short notice,” Cruz said with a laugh. The husky engineer wore a constant grin beneath his thick beard, and his eyes crinkled with mirth. “Come, let me take you on the Grand Tour.”
Cruz showed them to their cabins, then reconvened in the makeshift conference room. Underwater photos of the damaged tanker lined the walls, along with a large, hand-drawn rendition of the vessel. Cruz pointed to a nautical chart of the Detroit River on the table that was marked with the two wrecks.
“The Mayweather, carrying a full load of tar sands oil from Thunder Bay, was approaching Belle Isle just after midnight. The Duluth, a ninety-meter dry cargo freighter, was running upriver at speed and veered across sharply, striking the tanker amidships. The Mayweather sank quickly, while the Duluth somehow broke free and continued upriver before running aground at Grosse Pointe.”
“We took a spin by her before arriving here,” Pitt said. “Looks like some tugs are ready to pull her off.”
“That’s right. She’s headed for a city dock downriver off Grosse Isle, where she’s to be impounded by the FBI.”
“Why’s the FBI involved?” Giordino asked. “The news accounts I saw called it an accident.”
Cruz shook his head. “It was no accident. The Duluth’s captain and several crewmen were killed in an explosion on the bridge just seconds before impact.”
“We noticed the charred exterior,” Pitt said.
“Morgue and forensics people were there all night, removing the crew’s remains. Reporters haven’t picked up on it yet. The authorities are trying to keep a lid on it while the investigation gets under way.”
“If it was a terrorist act,” Pitt said, “it was more effective than most. Any suspects?”
“Not that I’ve heard, but I’m out of that loop. Got enough to contend with here.”
“Tell us what we’re facing with the Mayweather.”
“The ship’s still in one piece—just barely. The Duluth cut across her at a sixty-degree angle, opening her up like a sliced melon.”
“Leaking heavily?”
Cruz nodded. “It’s less evident on the surface. ROV cameras showed heavy plumes at the lower depths.”
Pitt motioned upriver. “The empty tanker. Is she ready to evacuate the undamaged storage compartments?”
“Yes. We got lucky there. She happened to be crossing Lake Huron with bone-dry tanks. The Mayweather’s owners chartered her for a pretty penny. They hope to recover the bulk of the cargo.”
“A few empty storage compartments will make things easier for our recovery.” Pitt turned to Giordino. “Time we take a look downstairs?”
“I thought you’d never ask.”
Cruz led them to a dive shack, where all three donned hazmat dry suits and collected scuba equipment. The men assembled on a dive platform off one end of the barge and put on their gear. As they prepared to enter the water, a crewman handed each a motorized underwater scooter.
“I was hoping we wouldn’t have to thumb a ride back to the barge,” Giordino said.
“You’d end up in Lake Erie without it,” Cruz said with a grin.
Pitt adjusted a headlamp above his face mask and turned it on. “Let’s start down current at the bow and work our way upriver.” He bit into his regulator mouthpiece and stepped off the edge of the platform.
The May waters of the Detroit River were brisk, and Pitt shivered until the air pockets in his dry suit warmed from his body heat. While lacking the purity of an Arctic glacier, the river was clearer than Pitt had expected, offering almost twenty feet of visibility.
He flicked the scooter’s throttle to low and tilted it forward, letting it pull him down until the river bottom appeared. With a visual frame of reference, he could see the strength of the three-knot current.
He waited until spotting the approaching headlights of Cruz and Giordino, then proceeded across the river bottom to where the towering