Volume Three - WordPress.com — Get a Free Blog Here

His wide shoulders, height, and good looks usually tagged him as some sort of Billy Budd, but this particular
Budd held two diplomas and a doctorate in underwater forensics—investigating shipwrecks with an eye to what
brought them down. His long, sandy blond hair curled up from below the hat. As always, he maintained his
regimen of exercise to keep in peak athletic shape. A former Navy Seal, he routinely involved himself in various
triathlons across the country and overseas.
Ingles’ attention was suddenly drawn to a figure pushing through the crowd, a young woman who offered a
reporter a sharp reply to what looked like either an annoying question about her mercenary tendencies, or an
annoying pass. Ingles guessed who she might be, and he thought her stunning, and from her catlike reaction to
the reporter, she didn’t take anything sitting down. He noticed how she took in the crowd, eyes darting in every
direction as if searching for someone she’d hoped to meet on the pier, someone other than reporters.
Looking over her shoulder like me these days, he wondered, thinking maybe they had something in common
—detesting reporters. Regardless, he found himself unable to take his eyes from her. He watched her go about in
a circle, making him wonder why she was taking her time on the pier. Looking for a boyfriend who was
supposed to see her off, no doubt. Still searching it seemed, when she suddenly looked up at the ship and
straight at David. He blinked and pretended to look away. He then turned and leaned into the railing, hair lifting
in the breeze. But he soon looked back. Had she found who she was looking for? Was she in search of the socalled
hero, David Ingles? Was she a pushy, snooping reporter or was she Dr. Kelly Irvin? Irvin was another of
the divers whose specialty was marine biology and creatures of the deep. Word had it that Woods Hole insisted
the expedition have a marine biologist aboard, and they expected specimens brought up from the deep.
But if she’s a reporter in search of a story here to ask me to repeat my harrowing escape from death, David
told himself, just watch how quickly I’ll lose interest in the woman, despite her beauty. Then again perhaps she’s
not a reporter at all. In fact, she looked like a photo he’d once seen of Dr. Kelly Irvin, and if so, perhaps there
was an up side to the hero business, he inwardly joked. After all, she is damned gorgeous and obviously in
wonderful health.
When he again focused on her whereabouts, she was storming aboard, her gaze set on him. At least it
seemed so, which is what he told himself. As she neared, smiling, a hand extended, David gave her a firm nod to
acknowledge their mutual stare, and he instantly regretted it when she rested a duffle on wheels that trailed in her
wake, her honey hair blowing like wheat in the ocean breeze. Dressed in jeans and a safari blouse, the returning
sun bathed her in light. Tall, he thought, fair-skinned, eyes matching the color of her hair. Carries herself with a
distinct elegance and pride, he surmised.
But it was suddenly apparent that indeed this was Dr. Kelly Irvin, one of his co-divers, when she stepped up
to him and Dr. Alandale—her duffel bag carrying the universal sign for divers.
She gave David a perfunctory nod but showered Alandale with a beaming smile, grabbing his hand and
pumping it in a handshake. She then proceeded to tell him how she had read everything he’d ever written while
still pumping his arm as if she might discover some secret if she only shook long enough. She certainly appeared
enthusiastic in her admiration for the elderly man beside David—perhaps one of those father complexes;
perhaps simply in awe of being in his presence.
“Such genius…such genius,” she said in a mantra while David frowned. Meanwhile, entirely ignoring Ingles
as if he were a fixture—treating him like one of the crew—she began a tirade of questions for Dr. Alandale, all
surrounding Titanic and her last night at sea in what appeared an effort on the part of the student to make the
teacher believe that she was his number one pupil and entirely enthralled—and apparently, she was.
By now Ingles wasn’t sure it was a bad thing to be ignored by Kelly Irvin. At the same time, he had to give it
to Alandale; the man knew as much about patience as that shown by the biblical character Job. He also knew
every detail of Titanic and her first and last ‘maiden’ voyage in 1912. In the parlance of gang mobsters and
salvage crews, people said of Alandale ‘He knows where the bodies are’.
Dr. Kelly Irvin finally introduced herself to Alandale, and then continued a rain of questions, until Alandale
stopped her with a single word. “Enough.”
“Enough? I’ve just begun,” she countered. “You’re an expert on marine biology as well as—”
“Enough for now; we’ve weeks at sea together. I must pace myself…I’m an old man.”
“Oh, not at all, sir.”
“Calling me sir further ages me.”