dive regulator. Gunn studied the object, then carried it down the hall to the corner office of Dirk Pitt.
“Warranty problem?” He set the scooter down and took a seat.
Pitt was examining a sheriff’s report from Detroit. “It was Mike Cruz’s.”
Gunn nodded, still not sure why it had ended up on his desk. He waited for Pitt to explain.
“I found it on the bottom of the Detroit River. About two hundred feet from Mike’s body.”
“He might have lost his grip on it and it propelled off without him.”
“No, the device requires pressure on the throttle. Otherwise, it stops.”
“Perhaps the river carried it. I know you were working in strong currents.”
“Mike was roughly at the center of the ship, near its keel line. The device would have to move fifty feet abeam of his position, take a ninety-degree turn, then proceed downriver. I know strange things can happen with underwater currents, but I’m not buying it.”
“So what are you saying?”
“I think Mike was murdered.”
Gunn considered the comment, his studious blue eyes refusing to blink. “I just read the Detroit Sheriff’s Office’s preliminary findings.” He nodded to the report in Pitt’s hands. “They call it an accidental drowning, pending autopsy results.”
“Mike was too experienced.”
“Disorientation and panic can strike even the most seasoned diver,” Gunn said. “He was in nighttime conditions with a strong current and low visibility. A dangerous mix for a diver all alone. There was also the fatigue factor.”
Gunn was probably right, Pitt thought, and that’s what stung. He shouldn’t have allowed Cruz to dive alone, regardless of his experience. Pitt felt the guilt of his death, and he hoped it wasn’t clouding his judgment.
“He was in shallow depths. If his tank got entangled, he could have ditched it and kicked to the surface. Yet there was no evidence he even tried. Besides the location of his scooter, there’s the matter of his regulator.”
Gunn examined it. “Doesn’t appear damaged. In fact, it appears brand-new.”
“Too new. And it’s not the make we carry on our projects.”
“Someone swapped his regulator?”
“Possibly.”
Gunn glanced at the regulator, then back at Pitt. “If he was murdered, why leave his body in the wreckage? They could have let him drift downriver where his remains might never have been found.”
“It could be either to make it look like an accident or to discourage anybody searching downriver.”
“That could explain a motive, but who would have done it?”
Pitt shook his head. “The big unknown. I checked with the captains of all of the vessels working the site. None saw any unknown boats approach at the time of Mike’s dive. But, it was late at night.”
“That leaves,” Gunn said, “a finite number of divers on the assigned vessels.”
“Eleven that I could determine. Six NUMA divers on the barge, including Al and me, three divers on the BioRem freighter, and one auxiliary diver each on both the lift barge and the evacuation tanker. Our divers were all on board during Mike’s dive. The other vessels reported the same.”
“Then someone’s lying or it was indeed an accident. Be difficult to prove either way.”
Pitt looked at Gunn with a steady gaze. “I’d like you to find everything you can on BioRem Global.”
“A hunch?”
“If even that. They were the only ones downriver of the Mayweather.”
“I’ll do it, and monitor the autopsy findings from Detroit.”
Gunn started to leave when Zerri Pochinski poked her head into the room. “Sorry to bother you two, but there’s an unscheduled visitor outside. Would you have time to see one Elise Aguilar?”
“Of course,” Pitt said. “Please show her right in.”
He met Elise at the door and received a friendly hug. Dressed in a Elie Tahari business suit, with her dark curls neatly subdued in a low ponytail, she looked nothing like the waterlogged scientist Pitt had rescued in El Salvador.
“Now this is what I call a pleasant surprise,” Pitt said. He introduced her to Gunn and offered her a seat. “Not only am I surprised to see you so soon. I’m surprised to see you looking so well.”
Elise blushed. “I do feel pretty good. Two days at Walter Reed was enough motivation for me to heal quickly. I’ll just be stuck with this a few more weeks.” She raised her left arm, revealing a soft cast. “The doctors promise it will be as good as new.”
“That’s terrific news,” Pitt said.
“I read in the papers about your salvage work in Detroit and was hoping you were back in the building. I wanted to say thanks for what you did to save my life.”