They were paid to raise it. They were not paid to open it.
In 1944 the Vanthorpe went down with a locked hold and a log that would not agree with the telegram. Eighty years later a salvage crew is hired to bring the ship up. The contract is ordinary. The ship is not.
The hold does not want opening. Something in the margin keeps writing stop. Fourteen people were supposed to have died. Some of them are still answering.
Below the Waterline is a marine salvage thriller about the difference between answering and opening: fogged glass, bad invoices, a night clerk who meets a knock with a tide table, and a bottom that may keep one man if he chooses to stay. The ocean keeps its own book. This one is closed.