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This was almost a thousand feet below the surface. Could there be survivors?

“A battle,” Steve said, his voice a husky whisper. “Between who?”

“The Americans. They shot at each other.”

Steve couldn’t think. Why hadn’t he asked more questions?

The final picture showed blackness: the Platypus moving over the submarine to the other side. Then, a wider shot of the sunken s.h.i.+p; from this angle, it looked bent, like a loaf of French bread kinked in the middle. A huge gash marred the hull, metal shards bent violently inward.

Bo Pan pointed to the gash.

“There,” he said. “Can your machine go inside?”

Steve stared. What had happened? Why had the navy destroyed its own vessel? If the navy would slaughter everyone on the Los Angeles, it wouldn’t think twice about sinking the Mary Ellen Moffett. He started to shake. He was in danger. This little excursion might get him killed.

“Steve,” Bo Pan said sharply. “Can it go in inside?”

Steve tried to clear his thoughts, tried to focus. He examined the tear in the hull.

“No, that’s probably not a good spot,” he said. “The metal is too torn up, too jagged. The Platypus could get hooked on a shard, get stuck.”

“Then go back to the picture of the dry deck shelter.”

Steve started to ask what that was, but then he knew — the sausage-shaped construct behind the sail. He called up that image.

“There,” Bo Pan said. “Could it go in there?”

A hole large enough for two men to walk through … the open inner hatch … far enough away from the torpedo damage that the corridors would be flooded, but mostly intact …

But if the Platypus went in and got stuck, and the navy captured it, could any of the advanced tech lead back to Steve? What would happen to him if it did?

“We need to leave this alone,” he said. “The data shows there are American ROVs in the area.”

He felt an iron-hard hand grip his shoulder. Steve’s body scrunched up from the sudden pain.

Bo Pan bent close. When he spoke, Steve felt the old man’s breath on his neck.

“I said, can it go inside.”

“Yes, sure,” Steve said in a rush. “But it’s like a maze in there. Without a deck plan, the Platypus might get stuck. We’d never get her back.”

Bo Pan stood straight, lifted up his bulky Detroit Lions sweats.h.i.+rt to reach into his jeans pocket — when he did that, Steve saw the handle of a small revolver.

A gun?