by Andrew Mayne
“They have radar and thermal imaging. Hell, they may even have airplanes spotting for ’em.”
“Not in this weather. And they’ve never had to deal with a McPherson in their natural element,” Dad replies.
I try to make myself believe his bluster, but I know it’s just his way of keeping his spirits up. I’m glad he’s trying.
Dad looks at something over my shoulder, and his expression goes slack.
I spin around. “What is it?”
“I saw something.”
I turn around. “The Fool?”
He starts digging through the gear packs until he finds a flare gun. “This one didn’t have any running lights. Put your tank on and go in.”
“What?”
“Just go down a few feet under the chop.” He throws a line over. “If it’s them, I don’t want you in the boat.”
“Dad . . .”
“Do it!”
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
BALLAST
I stay on the surface and bob like a cork but keep my distance from the Zodiac until Dad gives me the signal to dive.
I let the air out of my vest and drop down fifteen feet, where I get handled a little more gently by the waves and am in less danger of getting chopped up by a propeller. My lights are off, and I feel extremely vulnerable.
The sound of the waves hitting the raft is what attracts sharks. While I’m just as much of a target going up or down the anchor line, I feel better when I’m moving. I also have my light, but right now it’s off. We can’t risk someone on the surface seeing a strange glow if I’m supposed to be hidden.
Although it’s dark, it’s not pitch-black looking up at the surface. The outline of the Zodiac is clear, and I can see it bobbing up and down in the waves.
I hear the other boat approaching before I can see the shadow of its hull about thirty feet away from Dad. My heart races as I wait for him to give me the signal.
One flash for danger. Two for the all clear.
One flash . . .
Two flashes . . .
I kick upward and pop out of the water as George throws a line to Dad from the stern of the Fool. He’s turned out all the lights and is trying to keep himself from falling over as the waves knock both vessels around.
Dad reaches down and grabs my hand to steady me, then escorts me around the raft and to the dive ladder on the back of the Fool. George grabs the back of my tank and lightens my weight as I climb. We pull Dad into the boat and tie off the Zodiac.
Dad turns his eyes to the clouds. “This is getting bad.”
“And they’re jamming us,” adds George.
“How far away are they?” I ask.
He shrugs. “I thought I saw something a couple miles out. I turned off the lights, hoping the weather would make it harder to see the ship. I don’t know if it worked. I think we should make a run for it.”
“We can’t,” I reply. “Dad found the Kraken.”
“What? Here?”
“About a thousand feet that way,” Dad explains from memory, pointing south. “We moved the raft in case they got to us first.”
“Can we get the cargo?” asks George.
“I need my tools,” Dad replies, trying not to fall as a wave tilts us.
When his sea legs start to give, it’s time to worry.
“I can open the hatch and start bringing up the cases. There could be as many as fifty of them. We don’t know which have the files,” he says. “I suppose we want the ones with the money too.”
“You think?”
Dad goes into the boat to gather his tools. I climb up to the bridge and use the night-vision goggles to scan the horizon. George climbs up after me.
Far to the west, I spot a tiny light. “Is that what you saw?”
George takes the goggles from me and looks through them in the same direction. “That’s it. I can’t see it with the naked eye. So I’m assuming it’s someone with infrared goggles like us, only their illuminator is on.”
“As long as they’re out there, I’m okay with it,” I reply. “We’ll have to figure out how to get past them.”
“I was thinking about that. I have a crappy plan,” he explains. “We find which case has the plans and load them into your little raft with me. You head to port, and I wait a few hours and then head straight into Hobe Sound and beach it.”
“That’s a horrible plan. We’re not going to last a few more hours out here. And that Zodiac will be a death trap. Especially . . .” I don’t point out that he doesn’t have as much ocean experience as Dad or me.
“We could try getting out of range and calling for help,” George says. “The problem is, the DEA agents we want to avoid probably have someone on every coast guard boat out here.”
“They can’t all be bad,” I reply.
“No. But I’m sure at this point they’ve been told you and I have pledged eternal allegiance to ISIS and should be arrested on sight.”
“Damn it. Who do we trust?”
“Nobody out here. I have people. Unfortunately, they’re not out in this crap.”
Dad climbs up to the bridge. “I’ve got a tool kit ready. I need you to lower me down an extra air cylinder.”
“What are you trying?” I ask.
“I’ve got the salvage balloons. I want to try to raise the nose a bit. Winston may have put a hatch underneath. The saddle tank was ruptured, but the interior was pressurized and still has some air.”
“Did you see anyone inside?” asks George.
Dad shakes his head. “There’s barely enough room. But air is a good sign.”
“To breathe?” asks George.
“It’ll make it easier for me to float the thing. Trying to transport fifty cases from down there to here is going to be a challenge,” he replies.
“What if we rope them all together?” I ask.
“The current will drag them away. If I can’t get the whole thing to float, we’ll drag them up one by one.”
I do the math in my head. Assuming two minutes per case at best, we’d need a hundred minutes. That’s longer than Dad should be down there after the other dive.
“All right. Let’s hope that works.” I’d insist on going down myself, but Dad knows how Winston’s boats work better than I do.
I pilot the Fool back to our spot, and George helps Dad into the water. He returns to the bridge once Dad’s beneath the waves.
“Your dad is one brave man,” says George.
“I think it’s equal parts stupid. It runs in the family.”
I go back down to the stern and check the anchor line we set for him. A hundred feet below, the crazy bastard is trying to rescue one of the largest sunken treasures ever, even though none of it is his.
I feel like an ass for calling him a pirate and questioning his ethics. I should have known all along what his real priority was—his idiot daughter, who may yet get him killed.
George comes running down the ladder and peers over the port side of the boat. “You see something?”
“What? No.” I look around the horizon as the waves slap into us, trying to see into the dark.
George turns from the sea and whispers, “I heard a weird knock.”
“Probably driftwood . . .” My words freeze in my mouth as I see a red dot light up on his forehead.
I know it’s a laser sight from a gun, but I can’t understand how someone could keep it this steady in rough water . . . until I realize it’s because they’re already on our boat.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
TOW ROPE
I turn and follow George’s eyes to the space just above the bridge where the sniper is crouched. All we can see is his dark silhouette against the night sky. It would seem the renegade SEALs found us.
The boat rocks as more waves slap into the side. A gruff voice shouts from behind us, “Take your sidearm out and throw it into the water.”
Shit. I catch a glimpse behind me; two more frogmen have climbed up the dive platform. Christ, they’re
good.
Both are wearing face masks with compact rebreathers and all-black dive suits. Their chests and legs are covered in pouches and tools.
George doesn’t move. His hands stay at his side. “Get the fuck off our boat.”
Damn, even under pressure he still acts the alpha.
The diver directly behind him pushes a Sig Sauer P226 into the back of his skull. “Drop the gun.”
“You can shove that all the way to my tonsils, but I’m not giving up my weapon.”
The red dot moves from his forehead to mine. “Mario up there is going to count to three,” says the diver behind George.
A wave hits the boat, and George and I stumble while the ex-SEALs don’t move. They must have some special deck shoes, or amazing balance.
The pitch of the boat sends a weight belt gliding across the deck to stop a foot away from me. I look to George.
“Fine,” says George. He takes the gun from his hip, grasps it by the muzzle, and tosses it starboard while staring straight ahead.
I realize the gun is heading for our raft and decide to distract them. “This is ridiculous. We’re all on the same side.” I step forward as I say this, raising my hands.
A powerful hand grabs me by the back of my neck, and a gun muzzle pokes behind my ear. “One more inch and I shoot.”
“I don’t think they’re on our side,” says George.
“No shit,” mutters the diver behind him.
The Fortune’s Fool is rocked by a massive wave, and George and I are thrown to starboard. The divers behind us even have to brace themselves against the rail to keep from falling.
The lead diver keeps his compact rifle on us. “Sit down! Link, cuff ’em.”
George and I follow his order—partially because it’s easier than standing. The other diver, Link, pulls plastic zip cuffs from a pouch and binds our wrists.
“Anybody inside the boat?” asks the third diver as he aims his gun into the cabin.
“No,” I reply.
“You got ’em covered?” he asks the leader.
As if in response, the red dot bounces from my chest to George’s, and the divers enter the cabin and start sweeping for people. It’s not a large boat and only takes a minute—although I can think of four hidden compartments they almost surely missed.
“What did you find down there?” the leader asks.
“Nothing,” I reply. I’m still wearing my dive suit, so there’s no point insisting that I wasn’t down there. Right now, my main concern is Dad. He could come back to the surface at any moment.
Mario, the original sniper and team leader, drops down onto the deck from the bridge with the grace of a gymnast. He can’t be more than five and a half feet tall.
“Hey, Sonic,” he says to the third SEAL, “I saw a glow stick on the bowline.”
Sonic? Mario? Christ. We’ve been taken hostage by a group of psychopath gamers.
“Do you still have a diver in the water?” the leader asks me.
“No.”
“Nice try,” says a diver.
“Take out their VHF,” Mario tells Sonic.
Sonic turns and fires at the radio on the helm. Although the sound is suppressed, the noise still hurts my ears, and I instinctively duck. My gaze lands on a fish knife Dad keeps tucked under the railing.
I glance at George and let my eyes dart back to the knife, letting him know something’s there. He twitches, signaling he understands. I think.
Mario puts his gun to my head. “Sit up and tell me who’s down there.”
I refuse to answer.
Smack! I see stars as he slaps the side of my face, hard. George bolts upright but gets a solid kick in the shoulder from Link. He falls back, making a loud groan.
“Next time you do that, I put a bullet in her,” says Mario. The barrel of his gun goes back to my head. “Who and what is down there?”
“We sent two Broward County deputies down there,” says George. “Someone gave us this GPS coordinate; it’s the fifth one we checked. So far, it’s bullshit. We got had.”
“Sonic, watch them,” says Mario. “Link, you’re with me.”
The two of them step to the edge of the dive platform and jump into the ocean. They vanish beneath the waves, and Sonic takes a seat in the captain’s chair with his gun trained on us.
George whispers to me, “These men are killers.”
I know. And right now, they’re on their way to get my father. When they see the Kraken, they’ll have no use for us.
My dive gear’s in a locker by Sonic’s feet. There’s no way I can get him to move an inch, much less get the upper hand.
We hit a wave from the port side, and George and I roll to the side. I can hear him groan as his aching shoulder strikes the hull.
Sonic braces himself against the impact, and his gun points away from us for a moment.
Sometimes it’s all about instinct. It’s the only way you survive situations like this. George knows this too.
“We can’t stay here like this,” he whispers, putting his body between Sonic and me. “They only need to keep one of us alive until they find it.”
A huge wave rocks us.
Now, Sloan.
I fall toward the bait knife, pull it from its sheath, and stick a toe in the weight belt, sliding it toward me.
Sonic fires his gun, and the bullet hits the deck in front of me.
“Don’t hit the fuel tank, asshole!” George screams.
I try to distract the SEAL to give George a chance. I bounce to my feet, grab the weight belt, and run along the gunwale for the bow of the boat.
Sonic fires behind me, and I hear the windshield break. I don’t look back. Hopefully this will give George enough of a distraction to do something if he can. Right now, my main concern is one hundred feet below me.
My hands are still bound, and I don’t have my scuba tanks. I don’t have my fins. I don’t even have my mask.
All I have is a knife, thirty pounds of weight, and one breath of air . . .
I jump anyway.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
AMPHIBIAN
My earliest memory is the water. It was actually my mom calling me to step into the ocean. She stood there in her blue bikini, a sleek giant, the surf surging past her ankles as she beckoned me closer.
It wasn’t the water that scared me. It was the way the wet sand shifted beneath my feet. The ground had been so sturdy until then; now it couldn’t be trusted. Under the onslaught of a wave, it literally slipped away beneath your feet.
“Sloan . . . come on, sweetheart,” she called to me.
But it wasn’t her soothing voice that made me step in.
It was the giggling of my brothers as Dad tossed one of them into the water, farther out, much farther.
They were out where the waves came rolling in as whitecaps, bounding around like sea creatures playing in the surf.
“Come on, Sloany, it’s okay,” Mom said.
Robbie jumped up on Dad’s back and wrapped his arms around his neck. It was just play, but I didn’t know that at the time.
I was two.
Dad was in trouble.
I ran.
I ran past Mom.
I dived into the waves.
I swam.
I couldn’t see my mother, but I heard her calling to me. She was too stunned to chase after me. I must have seemed possessed.
I fought the current.
I tried to paddle through waves taller than me.
I swam as hard as my tiny body could.
Daddy needed me.
The current pushed me under. I kept swimming.
Mom’s muffled cries sounded so far away.
I paddled. I kicked. When my head poked above the waves, I breathed.
They say that swimming is instinctual for humans—that it taps into some ancestral ability. I believe this.
I caught a glimpse of Dad staring in my direction, trying to understand why Mom was yelling. Part of me knew he was no lon
ger in danger, but I kept swimming. My brain only understood one purpose.
The waves kept throwing me around, and at some point my arms tired.
Just when I was ready to cry for Mom, powerful hands lifted me out of the water. I saw the bright sun making a halo around Dad’s head.
I giggled.
He laughed.
Mom waded her way over to us as Dad put me up on his shoulders. I didn’t understand the look in her eyes then, but I understand it now—I was Daddy’s little girl. I was a sea creature like him. I wasn’t an interloper like Mom, who kept close to the shore. The water was my home.
It was where I belonged.
But it wasn’t where I wanted to die.
And it’s not where Dad is going to die either.
Not today.
The weight belt I’m grasping is pulling me down. The knife is in my right hand.
Ten feet.
I slide the blade between the plasticuffs and my wrist, nicking the skin slightly. I twist the handle and cut the thin binding.
My arms free as the weight belt pulls my left hand toward the bottom.
Twenty feet. I’m at two atmospheres and feel the pressure in my ears.
The bottom is a dark abyss. The divers lie somewhere below me.
Thirty feet. My lungs feel the crush of the ocean. You’re never supposed to hold your breath when you scuba dive—but this is free diving, and the physics are different.
Forty feet. My ears are really hurting. I didn’t equalize the pressure. I might blow out an eardrum.
Fifty feet. The sea is crushing my body like a can as the air in my lungs begins to compress.
It’s only pain.
Sixty feet. I see the glimmer of a flashlight on the bottom.
Dad.
I’m coming.
A dark shape glides between the light and me.
At first I think it’s a shark, but then I realize it’s worse.
Seventy feet. The pressure at this depth is so intense my skull feels like it’s about to implode.
I can see the outline of two divers.
They’re spreading out so one can meet Dad from the front while the other sneaks up in the shadows from behind.
The one descending in the darkness has his knife drawn. He’s going to kill my father.
Eighty feet. My joints hurt. My sinuses are about to collapse. I’ve never gone this deep this fast before.
