“Shit.” The word exploded from his mouth in a burst of bubbles.
Instinctively, he sucked on the regulator and fanned his hands backward to get out of its way.
He was close enough to touch it.
The apex predator’s appetite apparently appeased, at least for the time being, the creature swam off into the darkness paying them no mind.
Jack directed his dive light on what he believed was the main salon. Dana added hers to the surreal scene that lit up in front of them like a slide show as they swept their bright spots over the lavish decor. The once-opulent interior was completely flooded with few trapped air pockets. Furniture that wasn’t fixed to the floor, and a myriad of debris, drifted in and out of their shafts of illumination.
There was no telling what awaited them inside.
It was easy to envision that every sea monster imaginable lurked in the dark recesses of the compartments and passageways ready to take a bite of anyone who dared to enter.
He’d felt that sensation before, but this time it was more intense. And it wasn’t the sudden appearance of the shark. It was knowing that the people onboard had been unceremoniously executed and the boat scuttled.
A murdered crew and a murdered ship.
Something touched his shoulder and he jerked backwards.
Then he realized it was Dana’s fingers tapping him. Her dark figure moved into his beam of light and gestured for him to enter. He nodded and grasped the metal frame of the shattered glass door, preparing to pull himself through.
CHAPTER 59
Jack waited a moment, letting the adrenaline rush calm.
He hoped Dana was doing the same.
They would soon know if the safe and the diamond were still onboard. Or if it ever had been.
A moment of truth that would determine what happened next.
He let go of the door frame and directed his light to see her eyes through her facemask. She squinted at the sudden brightness. But if she was afraid of what they’d find in the bowels of the ship, she wasn’t showing it.
She removed her regulator, smiled, and waved him inside.
He winked back the best he could with a mask on and waited until she was ready to proceed before he turned to enter the wreck.
A waterlogged life preserver drifted out and he pushed it aside. A fibrous particle cloud followed. Fortunately, no shark. One was enough.
He fanned the fragments into the current and kicked through the doorway.
That the yacht rested on its superstructure added to the macabre atmosphere that looked as though it had been snatched from a movie. What had originally been located on the starboard side of the ship was now on the port side. What was up was now down. The more buoyant debris—ornate wood dining chairs, capped bottles, sealed containers from the galley—hovered against what had been a light-colored luxurious carpeting, it’s torn threads draped like spider webs wafting in an underwater breeze.
Pausing to orient himself, he settled onto his knees in the sand and silt the current had deposited on what was now the floor. Dana joined him and pointed at the dial of her waterproof watch.
He was well aware they had little time to linger.
And she was making sure of it.
He flashed the thumb and index finger okay sign and kicked to the forward companionway. The louvered hatch blocking it swung open with minimal effort and he swam inside. The back and forth movement of Dana’s light beam raking the bulkhead indicated she followed close behind the slow, deliberate strokes of his fins.
Exactly where he wanted her to be.
The water in the hallway was clearer providing better visibility. But marginally. So far the only indication the salvage divers had entered the yacht was the shattered glass door. And it was questionable if they were responsible for that. He continued on, fanning aside particles of debris, the surreal scene driving his heart rate up with each stroke of his flippers.
It was impossible for him to control his apprehension. They had to be close to their objective.
Maybe only feet away.
And then he pulled up when his spot settled on an obstruction blocking them from going any farther.
His first thought was the divers had constructed a barrier to keep someone else out or hide what was inside, or both. Dana swam up next to him and pointed her beam at the obstacle. The dive was supposed to be quick and easy. Check on the status of the safe and get out. They’d been down fifteen minutes already.
And they were sucking air.
He scooped up the gauge showing how much he had in his tank and found the pressure surprisingly low for the time they had left.
The heightened excitement and anxiety of a night dive on a wreck with a dead crew and a promise of potential riches beyond their imagination would cause virtually any diver to breathe faster and more deeply than on a normal dive without the added danger and suspense. The thirty minutes of downtime allowed for that. But would the air they had left in their tanks provide enough time to clear a path through the blockage and safely return to the surface?
He tapped Dana on the shoulder to get her attention and pointed to the gauge displaying his tank pressure. She nodded and held hers up in the light so that they could both see it.
She had a hundred pounds less than he did.
Sliding the knife from the scabbard strapped to his calf, he swam at the obstruction. She did the same, following next to him.
Now if time would just work on their side.
CHAPTER 60
Jack dragged aside a hatchway and toilet that had been jammed against the other debris blocking their path. A quick check with his light revealed the objects had come from the compartment next to him. A luxurious bath by all appearances.
Or it had been before the ship was sent to the bottom.
Even though both obstacles had been removed with minimal exertion, the effort still robbed them of time and precious breaths of air.
Their primary concerns.
The next impediment was a long slab of thick carpeting that hung from the floor overhead. That the toilet and carpet had been ripped loose from the bulkhead made him think this wasn’t a manmade barrier to keep people out. The items had become lodged in the confines of the narrow passage when the boat overturned in the current.
No telling what else had been jammed in there.
A little or a lot, they had no choice but to get it out of their way.
Or quit.
He attacked the floor covering with the sharp edge of his knife. But even with Dana’s help, it was a difficult job cutting the woven fibers loose. They both had to let their dive lights hang from the straps around their wrists to free up both hands so they could hold onto the stiff backing with one, while they sawed at it with the knife held in the other.
When the last of the matting fell away, they faced what appeared to be a king-size mattress bent in half, like a gigantic taco. How it ended up wedged in the companionway was beyond his comprehension. Packed tight around it were drawers, bedding, clothing, and what could have been two nightstands.
He swept his spot over the debris looking for the best way to attack the mess, and noticed a 750ml bottle suspended in the gloom. The label was intact and he immediately recognized it for what it was. Only forty bottles of Macallan 1926 Fine and Rare were produced at the Macallan Distillery in Speyside, Scotland, and he was looking at one of them. A single malt whisky that expensive had to have come from the owner’s collection of rare eccentricities.
To not at least hold such an unbelievable find and admire the contents was virtually unthinkable.
Even on a dive such as this.
He reached for the Macallan, and pulled his arm back when Dana swam in front of him jabbing her finger at the dial on her air gauge.
They needed to hurry.
And he wasn’t about to argue.
He grabbed the bottle and stuffed it in a pocket on the front of his buoyancy vest. Then he went to work pulling the smaller debris free of the pile and l
etting it drift away in the hall behind them. At last, all that remained was the bloated mattress.
Seconds counted.
He wedged his fins against the bulkhead and with all his strength, pushed with his shoulder. Dana joined in and they both gave a hearty shove.
The bed moved a couple of feet.
He glanced at the luminous dial on his watch and noticed they had been down thirty-two minutes. They only needed another five or ten to accomplish what they had dived down to do.
But was it worth it?
He got Dana’s attention and pointed at his waterproof SEIKO. Then he jabbed his thumb in the direction of the surface in a signal time was up.
She shook her head adamantly and continued to push.
It was obvious she intended to finish what they started.
He added his strength to the effort and the waterlogged mattress moved. Slowly at first, then easier as it slid back into the master suite where it had come from. If there was a safe on board, this forward cabin was most likely where it would be.
The supreme gamble.
He was staking their lives on it.
She swam in ahead of him and swept her light over the walls. He followed her inside and did the same. The room was pitch black except where their bright shafts of illumination pierced the darkness.
The drawers were missing from the built-in cabinets. The bedframe was attached to what used to be the deck and was now the ceiling, but the nights stands were missing. He’d left them floating outside. On the bulkheads to both sides of him, wardrobe doors hung from hinges that appeared ready to pull loose. Shirts, pants, and expensive suits that hadn’t been jammed into the passageway with the other debris drifted back and forth like kids Halloween decorations blowing in a night wind.
But there were no human bones, no skulls with vacant eye sockets staring back at them to contend with. No lost souls consigned to Davy Jones’ Locker.
Which was a relief.
What concerned him was they’d used a lot of their air supply getting there. He checked the pressure in his tank.
He was down to five-hundred pounds.
CHAPTER 61
Jack swallowed the dread rising inside him.
A diver’s nightmare.
Did they even have enough air to finish what they started?
With his tank pressure that low, Dana’s supply couldn’t be any better and maybe worse. They needed to find the safe or evidence that it had been removed and get out of there.
The timing was going to be close.
And then he heard the boat groan and noticed it shift a few degrees.
They needed to work fast.
He searched out Dana’s spot and saw her kick hard towards the wall between the master suite and the master bath. She’d spotted something.
What?
He traced her movement with his light and added his spot to hers. His gaze fell on what drew her to that side of the cabin.
Blind to everything else around her.
Their beams reflected off a large-screen television dusted gray with silt. The TV was attached to paneling above a built-in entertainment center with tall display shelves and exotic wood storage compartments on both sides. Electrical components hung from power cords that somehow remained attached to their sockets.
But that wasn’t what had drawn her attention there. It was the large safe that sat precariously in a hole in the cabinet on the left. The jagged burn marks on the black metal was evidence the door had been cut open. She hung in the water as if weightless, held there by the small amount of air inside her buoyancy compensator. She held onto the edge of the safe with one hand and probed the interior with her light.
There was no doubt in his mind the necklace was gone.
It was time to go.
He started toward her and heard the Orochimaru let out another loud groan. In the same instant, she shuddered and rocked more violently than a few seconds before. A muffled explosion in the engine compartment that for some reason failed to ignite the fuel tanks. A delayed charge or malfunctioning detonator that didn’t explode until the boat shifted in the current. He swept his beam around the stateroom as furnishings broke loose and fell around him.
The interior of the cabin was coming apart.
Dana had to have seen what was happening. He turned to follow her out and saw the heavy safe, along with the massive entertainment center, the array of electronic components, and the large-screen television, pin her down.
The combined weight of the objects was enough to hold her there in spite of her one handed efforts to free herself. Her other arm appeared trapped underneath the rubble. He reached her in a second and heaved up on the entertainment center, his light dangling from his wrist. The unit lifted with little difficulty in the buoyancy of the water, and he was able to move it aside.
Confident they could finally get out of there, he grabbed hold of the handle to his light and turned to help her. That’s when he noticed the safe had fallen directly on top of her chest. And that the sharp metal on the open door had cut deep into her right arm.
Blood flowed freely from the slice in the neoprene wetsuit.
He peered into her faceplate and saw her looking back at him. Incredulously, her beautiful face became a mask of sorrow. The remorse evident in her green eyes seemed to say, I’m sorry.
Grief tore at his heart.
A look he’d never forget.
It was as if she blamed herself for what happened to her. That she should have recognized the danger and been ready for it. That it was her fault she hadn’t anticipated the wall collapsing on her.
He’d never let her believe that.
If anyone was to blame, he was.
He straddled her with a fin firmly planted on the silt-covered ceiling underneath her, grasped the safe, and heaved it aside amid a silent promise she’d be okay. To his relief, she righted herself with his help and held onto this arm. There was not a moment to waste.
Then he felt the air flowing into his regulator cut out.
He managed to suck one more shallow breath before it stopped completely.
They’d have to breathe off the same tank.
And hope it held enough air for them to reach the surface.
CHAPTER 62
Jack spit out the regulator’s mouthpiece and made a slashing motion across his throat to indicate he was out of air.
He thought he saw an almost imperceptible nod indicating she understood.
There was little choice but to believe she had.
Taking a firm grip on the collar of her buoyancy vest, he inserted the mouthpiece of the secondary regulator attached to her tank. He forced himself to breath shallow, and half-guided, half-pulled her toward the companionway. Their only exit. How badly she was hurt remained to be seen. He’d find out when they were safely back aboard Robert’s boat.
They needed to get out of there.
Now.
His mind was so completely occupied with concern for her well-being, he scarcely recalled shoving aside the items they had cast adrift in the passage on their way inside. He got her as far as the salon and noticed the flow of air reduce to practically nothing, making it difficult to breathe. Realizing the tank was almost empty, he filled his lungs and spit out the octopus. One breath was all he needed to reach the surface.
He worried there might not be enough air left for Dana.
She was practically weightless in his grasp. Her light bobbed at the end of the strap around her wrist, its beam sweeping back and forth aimlessly in the surge. Something was seriously wrong.
He lit her up with his spot and noticed blood flow from the gash in her arm in a red tentacle that mixed with the water and dissipated. The cut had to be severe. But for now the bubbles escaping the exhaust ports on her regulator indicated she was still breathing.
You’ll be all right.
With those words in mind, he pulled her through the outer hatchway, under the teak deck, and slowly fanned the blades of his flippers back and f
orth, propelling them upward. There was not a second to waste.
And they still had thirty feet to go.
Ignoring the urge to search out the anchor line and follow it up, he stayed on a direct line for the surface. And even though his heart urged him to race topside—to get her there as fast as possible—common sense made him exhale a tiny stream of bubbles and follow them up with her firmly in his grasp. Injuring himself by rising too fast would not help her.
And may cause additional harm to her as well.
He couldn’t chance that.
And wouldn’t.
The water grew warmer as he went up. Ascending at a foot a second had seemed like an impossibly long time. Especially on a single breath of stale air. With ten feet to go, he turned his light on Dana. She no longer worked her fins. And then he noticed that no bubbles rose from her regulator.
She was out of air and out of time.
He kicked hard for the surface.
His head burst from the waves and was met by a welcome breeze. His breath rasped in his lungs as he exhaled. At the same time, he lifted her head above the rise and fall of the swells and eased the regulator out of her mouth.
It became immediately obvious she wasn’t able to breathe on her own.
The boat was several yards away. He couldn’t risk drifting any further. But he clearly had to do something to help her. He peeled off his mask. Jerking off hers and tilting her head back, he placed his lips solidly over her open mouth and breathed out. He inhaled and filled her lungs a second time. The weight from holding her face above the waves forced his mouth below the surface. He came back up gagging and coughing on the saltwater. He needed to get her to the boat.
It was her best chance.
He exhaled air into the manual inflator on her bouncy compensator to keep her head above water and did the same to his. That done, he kicked the thirty feet between them and the narrow boarding platform on the transom.
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