2.

December 4, 2011, Early afternoon.
Aboard the Proteus, 11 nautical miles off Long Island.

The electric atmosphere on the bridge was palpable, and the tension could be read on the faces of every crew member. Kathy Linbaum stood with the captain amidst a welter of screens and flashing lights, gazing at what looked like a radar.
"It's a fairly recent system designed for ocean floors. It combines a number of detectors and not only gives us a very detailed relief map of the ocean floor under the Proteus, but also calculates the strength of the currents. The masterstroke, though, is that it's linked to an incredibly exhaustive geological seabed database."
"And this is what you used to detect the planes?"
"That's right. You've got to understand that a mission like this costs a huge amount of money, and there are cable path studies carried out to determine the exact route to take. This work was done less than a year before we set out. And I can assure you that none of those studies revealed the presence of any… airplane. They simply weren't there ten months ago."
He'd hesitated before saying the word "airplane". It all seemed so unimaginable. Four aircraft of different sizes, lying 140 feet down on the ocean floor, and all pointed in the same direction!
"Have you arranged what I asked you from the helicopter?" asked Kathy.
"Yes, the diving gear is all ready. I just hope there's a suit your size. The water's pretty cold here. Luckily, there's practically no current over the aircraft. As for the weather, they're forecasting rain during the night, but it'll be fine until then."
"Perfect, Captain. Could you show me?"
The captain seemed troubled. He looked at the young woman and asked: "Are you… planning to go down alone?"
Pushing her hair from her face she frowned and replied: "It's my job. Believe me, I've had it worse than this…."

The watertight Neoprene wetsuit fitted her like a glove. Kathy adjusted the control device on her wrist: it was this which would monitor her movements throughout the dive, indicating the correct diving stages and, just as important, the state of the synthetic Heliox mix. This mix was perfect for a dive of this depth. Largely consisting of helium, it was lighter and less narcotic than the normal nitrogen, and was used only for industrial diving.
An officer watched Kathy as she checked her gear one last time. Curious, he asked her: "You know something about this kind of diving, do you?"
"Why yes, I do have a little experience," she replied dryly. The officer let her get on with her preparations.
Twenty minutes later, Kathy found herself on a small speedboat a hundred meters out from the Proteus. The water was freezing as she dived in; she wiped her mask clean and signaled to the three men who watched from the dinghy.
Seconds later, her body had completely vanished into the looking-glass sea.

Kathy swam down through the azure of the surface water, then ever deeper as the water turned dark blue and almost black. As with every dive, it took a few minutes to get used to breathing through the mouth only. She monitored her every movement and carefully controlled her buoyancy, conscious of the need to conserve energy.
She checked the monitor on her wrist. The d-GPS (d for differential, extremely accurate since it links to a land station as well as satellites) matched up with the coordinates the captain had given her. She was where she was supposed to be. Already over 120 feet down.
The aircraft, or whatever was down there, should come into view pretty soon…
She continued her descent until she could see the huge dark mass of the seabed. Two meters from the "ground", she changed to breast stroke, more tiring but less likely to disturb the sand. So close to the bottom, and yet still there was nothing to see.
It seemed to emerge from nowhere. Suddenly she could make out its colossal silhouette, rising up from the silence of the deep.
A truly enormous airliner.
It was completely covered with a waterproof tarpaulin – like a ghost with rags quivering in a silent wind. Or a giant white bird, slumbering in the cold, murky underworld of the Atlantic Ocean. As she got closer, Kathy could see the tarpaulin shaking against the immense body of the plane – as if it, too, could feel the cold of the deep.
So many of the jobs she'd been assigned left her hanging about in airports that she'd had time to garner a pretty exhaustive knowledge of commercial aircraft. And despite the thick tarpaulin, Kathy could make out the main traits of this one.
Water played tricks with perspective, though, and Kathy realized that the plane wasn't as big as she'd at first thought it was. In fact, it was actually pretty small compared with other airliners. It wasn't a widebody. She swam slowly along the length of the wing. There was an engine under each wing but none on the back fuselage or under the fin. The names Airbus A 320 and Boeing 737 sprang to mind.
She stopped suddenly, then slid against the horizontal stabilizer. Kathy expelled all the air from her lungs and positioned her body towards the ocean floor. Properly controlled breathing allowed her to change her inclination. Limiting her movements as much as possible, she swam right down to the ocean floor. Yes, she'd been right – she'd noticed it without realizing its importance.
The landing gear was down – it too was covered in the strange watertight tarp.
The plane was perfectly positioned on the ocean floor, as if it had just landed there.
The tarpaulin over the plane was like an unbelievably huge cover, as if for a piece of furniture. It was tailored to fit round the wings and under the landing gear with an astonishing precision. Its milky-white fibers harmonized perfectly with the curves of the aircraft, even its wheels. And all completely waterproof. Whoever did this had incredible know-how. It was a work of genius.
OK, Kate. It's up to you to figure out a solution, she said to herself. Except normally I have people to deal with and not… this.
She swam on a few meters until she could see the shadow of another plane.
All in all it took around fifteen minutes to locate all four aircraft: the one she thought was probably a Boeing 737, another commercial airliner (wider and longer than the others and no doubt the first to come up on the radar), and two smaller aircraft, one probably military and the other an extremely old model.
As her gloved hand touched the wing of this last one, Kathy caught a glimpse of something metallic.
She moved closer, picked up the object.
Finally, it seemed like she was getting somewhere.

***