Eric Mentzer

      Captain Martin Brant stood on the bridge wing of the Little Rock  peering through his Steiner Commander digital binoculars at a tiny dot on the horizon. The tiny dot soon emerged into a Sikorsky HH-60 Jay-hawk helicopter painted the unmistakable crimson color identifying it as a helicopter belonging to the newly formed National Oceanographic Research and Salvage Agency or NORSA for short.

            The Little Rock was anchored over the Spanish Galleon Santissima Concepcion, just off the Florida coast near St. Augustine. It had recently been discovered by Amos Zander with the help of his best friend Galen Edwards and the crew of scientists at NORSA.

            Spain had been the first to benefit from the discovery of the new world. After the Spanish conquered Mexico, Central America, and South America, they discovered gold and silver in great quantities. The Spanish quickly took advantage of the peoples of the various civilizations they had vanquished. They almost immediately began stripping the cultures of their valuables and shipping the silver, gold and many other valuables that they had pillaged back to Spain. Because of this, in a few short years, Spain had become the richest country in the world.

            In the 1680’s the Santissima Concepcion plied the seas of the South Atlantic carrying treasures from the new world back to Spain. She was a 700 ton galleon sometimes known as the “El Grande.” She was a broad and beautiful galleon belonging to the king of Spain and commanded by Admiral Manual Ortiz Arosemena.

            Arosemena was a shrewd commander and an excellent navigator. He stood 6 feet tall and was in top physical shape for his sixty-seven years. His jet black hair was neatly combed and tied in a ponytail, and he sported a long well groomed black beard. He also donned the neatly tailored uniform of an Admiral in the Spanish Armada, complete with festooned hat and gold braid. He led his crew with an iron fist, yet he was very well respected by both the officers and the crew. Never was there any mention of insubordination or mutiny. The men he commanded would have followed him to their graves and most of them did.

            In 1683 after taking on loads of treasure in Porto Bello, Panama, Cartagena, Columbia, and Veracruz, Mexico, they made a stop in Havana to take on fresh supplies and to give the crew a chance to blow off some steam on an island paradise before embarking on the long journey across the Atlantic and back to Spain.

            Lieutenant Thomas S. Jessup stepped to within three feet of Admiral Arosemena and extended his right hand. In it he was holding a quill pen and a piece of parchment.

 “Admiral, here is our final manifest for the journey home.”

            The Admiral quickly spat back at Jessup, “Don’t just stand there with your hand stuck out, read it off to me, Lieutenant”.

            Jessup quickly began to read, “Admiral, we have 1,800,000 pesos in silver bullion, 1,500 pounds of gold, 77 chests of pearls, 49 chests of emeralds and 217 chests of goods from the orient.”

            Jessup paused and then whispered, “We also have almost 7 tons of gold hidden in the aft steerage hold.”

            The admiral just nodded and grinned as he listened to Jessup’s report. He knew that the gold that they were smuggling back to Spain in the steerage hold would make him and his crew into very rich men.

            Lieutenant Jessup said, “Admiral, it looks like there is a storm blowing in. She looks like a hurricane and a bad one at that. Maybe it would be safer if we weathered the storm here in the safety of the port.”

            Arosemena snorted back at Jessup, “We will depart at our scheduled time. If we sail north to the coast of Florida and then east to Spain we will surely skirt the path of the storm.”

            “As you wish, Admiral,” Jessup nodded.

            As the Santissima Concepcion sailed out of Havana Harbor the storm clouds were swelling. Despite repeated recommendations by his officers, Admiral Arosemena insisted on sailing towards Florida with his continued assurances and belief in the safety of the North American coastline. Somewhere off the coast of St. Augustine the hurricane caught up with them. As the hurricane swirled around the great galleon, it churned the sea into a black cauldron of death. The Admiral and his crew made a gallant fight to save their beloved ship filled with treasure, but they quickly lost that fight. Like a matador playing with a bull before delivering the fatal blow, the hurricane tossed and threw the Santissima Concepcion around like it was a toy in a bath tub.  Most of the crew along with the Admiral was swept overboard by several giant waves. Soon after the loss of the Admiral, the remaining crew became demoralized without his leadership. The great galleon soon struck a reef and foundered. Of the more than 500 souls onboard only four made it to shore near St. Augustine.

            Just after the disaster a chest of clothes belonging to a passenger washed up on shore which contained almost 1,500 pesos of unregistered gold and jewelry. For many years the Spanish government and other treasure hunters attempted to find her without success, that is until Amos Zander and the scientists of NORSA came along more than 300 years later. She was found in sixty feet of water and underneath twelve feet of sand with her forecastle jutting fifteen feet out of her sandy grave.

            Amos Zander had spent nearly a year researching the ship and her demise. He had sifted through reports and some eye witness accounts, but true to form, eye witness reports are not always that reliable, especially those that are over three hundred years old. Many of the landmarks have changed or do not even exist anymore and due to constant erosion the coastline is much different now.

            Amos had just about used up all of the vacation time he had left for the year, running search grids with a magnetometer dangling off of a forty foot skiff that he had rented from a local marina. Then his well trained eye saw a series of blips lined up in two perfect rows come across the screen of the magnetometer. He immediately knew that he had found an old ship with her cannons set neatly on the ocean floor. After several dives and some more research in NORSA’s expansive library, he was able to convince Admiral D’Amato to bring a NORSA expedition to St. Augustine. The Admiral agreed to use NORSA funding and equipment to excavate the site, salvage and preserve what was left of the Santissima Concepcion. The Admiral could seldom say no to Amos, not because he was his son-in-law, but because Amos was a talented treasure hunter. He did his research well and the Admiral was fond of reminding people that Amos simply had a good nose for gold.

            This time Amos managed to wrangle the use of the Admiral’s newest and most prized research and salvage ship, the Little Rock.  The Little Rock is a former US Navy light missile cruiser. She was born early one morning in March of 1943. Her keel was laid down by the Cramp Shipbuilding Co. in Philadelphia, Pa. After finely being launched in August of 1944 she was commissioned in June of 1945 as the USS Little Rock CL-92, a light cruiser of the Cleveland class. Her captain was W. E. Miller. He was a seasoned veteran and had spent the last two years supervising her construction.

            After a shakedown cruise off the coast of Cuba and a training cruise along the Atlantic Coast, she made trips to South America and the Caribbean Isles, before trekking to Europe where she operated with the sixth fleet. She sailed one last time to the Mediterranean before returning to her home port of Norfolk, VA, where in June of 1949 she was decommissioned. After being put into mothballs she was towed to New York where she joined the ranks of the Atlantic Reserve Fleet.

            On January 13, 1957, the USS little Rock was born again. She had been delivered to the New York Shipbuilding Corporation, in Camden, New Jersey. She was to be converted from a light cruiser to a light guided missile cruiser. Her hull designation was changed from CL-92 to CLG-4.

            The Little Rock had been given a new lease on life and she was about to have another distinguished career. She now had all of her guns removed except for the triple six inch and the twin five inch guns that were mounted forward. Her aft gun batteries had been removed and the new state of the art Talos guided missile system was mounted in their place.

            She made multiple trips to the Mediterranean where she was given the distinction of being the sixth fleet flag ship. After the assassination of Trujillo in 1961, the Little Rock was sent to the Dominican Republic to assist and support the US military in quelling the political and civil unrest that ensued. She was again pressed into service when President John F. Kennedy and Fidel Castro locked heads over a few Russian nuclear missiles. The Little Rock ran blockade duty around the tiny island along with many other US Navy warships until the Russians and Castro blinked. She again began regular cruises to the Mediterranean where she again served as the flagship of the sixth fleet.

            Here is where in 1966 Senator Ray Zander, who was then Commander Zander, USN, began serving as her second in command. He soon came to love this ship as she began to feel like a part of his family. Ships have a tendency to grow on a person like that. Zander served as the Ex O on her annual summer cruises to the Mediterranean Sea until 1969. In the summer of 1970 he was promoted to Captain and given full command of the ship he loved so much. Lieutenant Commander Vincent D’Amato was assigned as his executive officer and the two became steadfast friends, a friendship that would last the rest of their lives. Even their children would eventually end up getting married to each other.

            Zander and D’Amato were well liked by the crew and especially the top brass. They were like a pair of swashbuckling heroes who never did any wrong. Even after a major incident on June 13th 1970 in the Mediterranean Sea, there was only a mere mention of the accident in an obscure log book, which is almost unheard of for navy brass. The Little Rock under the command of Zander with D’Amato standing watch accidentally struck a Greek Cruiser. She struck the cruiser amidships on the starboard side with her bow crushing it like the Jolly Green Giant would a thimble. This type of incident would surely have destroyed any other commanding officer’s career, but it seemed to be forgotten by the Navy brass before the ship even reached dry dock. Zander and D’Amato went on to have extremely distinguished careers.

            Six years later in November of 1976 the U.S.S. Little Rock was decommissioned again, and again put into mothballs. This time with the navy’s newer nuclear fleet which had much more technically advanced armament, there was little hope that the Little Rock would ever rise again. This time she was truly headed for the proverbial razor factory or maybe she was destined to become a new reef after being sunk somewhere in one of the world’s oceans.

            In 2004 now a United States Senator, Ray Zander came to her rescue. He had her reactivated and transferred to NORSA, a fledgling new government agency devoted to deep sea salvage and research. With Zander and congress providing the federal funding and Vince D’Amato providing the wish list, the Little Rock was transformed from a warship into a state of the art deep sea salvage and research ship.

            All of her gun mounts were removed. The Talos guided missile system was removed from her aft and a helicopter landing pad was laid just past the conning tower. A salvage derrick was mounted on her fantail. On her bow was mounted a wench and two miniature two man submersibles. They were mounted on 40 foot racks, one on each side of the ship. Her interior was transformed into a state of the art laboratory with the best equipment and computers that congress could buy. It was all staffed by the best scientists that NORSA could recruit from around the world. Finally, she was commanded by the infamous Captain Martin Brant.

            Zander, along with the marine archeologists, oceanographers and other assorted scientists from NORSA, had just spent the last several days plotting, measuring and photographing the remains of the wrecked ship to document the rare find. They were now preparing to bring up one of the Santissima Conception's massive battle cannons.

            Captain Amos Zander was 34 years old, weighed 205 pounds and stood 6’3” tall, with broad shoulders and narrow hips. He had the muscular build of a professional athlete. The good looking blond haired man was the director of strategic operations at the National Oceanographic Research and Salvage Agency. Amos had started his career following in his father’s footsteps but soon found himself branching out into many fields of operation. The navy seemed to want him to be a jack of all trades. After his graduation from Annapolis, Amos was assigned to the deep sea diving school at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. He then was sent to Pensacola, Florida, to learn how to fly jets. Since then Amos has logged thousands of hours in jets, helicopters, and just about anything that can fly. He has also spent as many hours or more piloting any number of specialized deep sea submersibles and is well qualified as a deep sea salvage expert.

            Amos had recently married his high school sweetheart, Isabella. Although they were very busy with much different careers, they had remained extremely close through the years. Each one looking foreword to the next time they would see each other. Amos and Isabella had dated all through high school, college and now had finally decided it was time to tie the knot.

            Soon after their marriage Isabella’s father, Admiral Vincent D’Amato USN Ret., convinced Amos to leave the navy and come work for him at D’Amato Salvage Association. He and D’Amato had made themselves a real reputation for finding and salvaging the most difficult ships to find or rise. While still in its infancy D’Amato Salvage Association had recovered so many unusual finds of sunken treasure and raised the most difficult of sunken ships, that it caught the eye of a junior senator from Pennsylvania. It helped matters that the senator was Amos’s father, Senator Ray G. Zander, a retired admiral in the US Navy and a deep sea salvage expert himself. Senator Zander was tremendously impressed with the association’s accomplishments. He realized that there was a need on the federal level for an agency that could do the sort of things that D’Amato could accomplish. He convinced congress to adopt the association and give it federal agency status. This meant that the name would change to the National Oceanographic Research and Salvage Agency. It would be fully funded by the federal government and given full congressional authority to conduct research and salvage operations. There was one catch; however, Senator Zander insisted that all of the personnel be US military or government personnel. That meant that Vincent D’Amato, Amos Zander, and his best friend and colleague Galen Edwards along with many others would need to have their military status reactivated. Senator Zander also required that D’Amato be promoted immediately to Admiral and appointed as the director of NORSA. He felt that the agency would require a strong presence at the helm and the senator was well aware of D’Amato’s abilities, since D’Amato had been his executive officer on the Little Rock.

            It was a bright day and the seas were calm, with only two to three foot waves, but Brant was still fuming about Admiral D’Amato’s orders for him to land the helicopter that was flying in without so much as an explanation. Brant had spent the last 22 years on the sea going up through the ranks in the navy and then being reassigned to NORSA to command its newest acquisition, the newly refitted research and deep sea salvage vessel Little Rock. He knew NORSA regulations like the back of his hand and was a man who lived by those regulations.

            Brant was well aware of the dangers of landing a helicopter on a ship at sea, most especially while he had a dive crew sixty-five feet below his keel. They were only about ten minutes into their second dive of the day when the Admiral had radioed that the Jay-Hawk had lifted off and was already inbound to his position. Brant watched as the helicopter grew bigger with each passing minute as it got closer. He sent a crew down to the bow where the new helicopter landing pad had been placed to help lash down the chopper’s landing gear the moment it landed. Then he went to the communications center and picked up the mic. to the underwater communications system. Amos Zander heard a deep voice come through the head-set in his Divator MKII full face dive mask. It was thick with a southern drawl that sounded like it was coming through a tunnel.

            “Amos, your presence is requested top side.”

            “Ah, Captain, we’re a little busy down here, and besides I’ve got another fifty minutes to go before I run out of air. We also have twenty minutes of decompression stops before we reach the surface.”

            “Okay, Amos, let’s put it this way, the Admiral demands your presence topside. Start your decompression process now and I will see you in twenty minutes.”

            With that Brant unceremoniously dropped the mic. on the table and moved back out onto the bridge wing in time to watch the support crew lash down the helicopters landing gear to the deck. Even before the blades stopped turning, the pilot had jumped out of the cockpit and was running across the deck towards the deck ladder that led to the bridge. As the pilot stepped through the doorway onto the bridge, Brant recognized that the helicopter had been flown by his old buddy and roommate at Annapolis, Galen Edwards.

            “Hello, Marty,” Edwards said. “Is Amos ready to go?”

            “He is on his way up,” Brant replied. “You caught him in the middle of his second dive. The boys were just getting ready to bring up the first cannon. Boy, is he gonna be madder than an old wet hen till he gets to the surface.”

            “The admiral wants us in the air in ten minutes. So why don't you show me the way to Amos’s quarters and I will pull together some clothes for him and we can talk on the way.”

            “Okay, Galen,” replied Brant. “What gives? You know it is against regulations to land a chopper on deck while there is a dive crew below.”

            “I know. It was the Admiral’s orders. Something has him all in a twist.  He didn’t give me any details. He just said, “Go get Amos. We are scheduled to fly in to Ocala International Airport in Florida and then catch a NORSA jet that is already fueled and waiting to take us to Honolulu International Airport in Hawaii.”

            Brant looked at Galen quizzically. “Isn't that where Isabella is on vacation? Amos has been talking to her on his Iridium satellite phone every evening.”

            “Come to think of it, that's right.”

            Galen threw some clothes in a duffel bag for Amos and the two men headed back for the bridge.

As they reached the ladder that led up to the bridge wing, Galen stopped and looked overboard. He could see Amos climbing out of the water and sliding down onto the deck of the support boat for the short trip over to the Little Rock.

            Brant looked at Galen. “I hope you’re ready for the verbal onslaught that you’re about to take for disturbing his dive.”

            “I know,” Galen said. “He hates it when someone stops him from pillaging and plundering. I’m going to go warm up the helicopter so we can high tail it out-a here. Don’t let him get dry before you send him down to his awaiting chariot.”

            And with that Galen spun around and headed for the Jay-hawk. Five minutes later they were in the air and headed for Ocala. Thirty seconds after that Amos was on his satellite phone with Admiral D’Amato. Normally, Amos could lie back just about anywhere in any conditions and fall sound asleep. This was a quality that had served Amos well in the past, but after hearing what had happened to Isabella, he was a restless wreck. No matter which way he turned he could not get comfortable. Amos resigned himself to the fact that sleep was going to be elusive on this flight.

            Finally, Edwards looked over at Amos and said, “I couldn’t help but eavesdrop on your conversation with the Admiral.”

            “You are only two feet away from me,” Amos replied.

            “I’ve never seen the admiral this jumpy before. He’s acting like he lost his first born child or something. So what's up with Isabella?”

            Amos turned to Galen. “He did!”

            Then Amos related the story that the Admiral had told him while Edwards extracted his foot from his mouth.  Amos also explained that she was in the intensive care unit at Queens Hospital in Honolulu. Apparently she was suffering from some unknown illness or poisoning, and was not expected to live.

            Forty-five minutes later the Jay-Hawk landed on a private runway at the Ocala International Airport which was reserved for military use. Admiral D’Amato already had a private jet fueled and warmed-up just waiting for Zander and Edwards. The pair was airborne and in-route to the Honolulu International Airport within five minutes.