by Kathy Brandt
I held my breath, working to silence the bubbles and the rasping noise of air intake. I listened. I’d made a mistake before—taken my situation and the underwater environment for granted. Only once. I’d never let it happen again. So I waited. A shark brushed past and swam out the door. I closed my eyes, hovered, focused, and waited some more. Just a couple of seconds longer and I’d get out.
The plane shifted slightly and I heard it again—a whimper, coming from the tail. I hadn’t worried about anyone being in the bathroom. The plane had been just taking off. No one should have been moving around the cabin or in the john. I swam to the door and pulled it opened.
I caught a sudden flash of red and then a glancing blow hit the edge of my mask, followed quickly by another. This one hit me square in the nose. When my vision cleared, I saw it—a red high-topped tennis shoe. It was a kid. He had managed to wedge himself up into the ceiling. He was kicking his feet like crazy and sucking on the last pocket of air in the space. He wasn’t ready to give up his position either. When I grabbed his leg, he kicked again. This time I was ready. I grabbed his ankle and tried to pull him down toward me. He didn’t budge. He was stuck on something. I swam up into the air space and wedged myself in next to him. He had his head tipped back and was gasping for every breath. His eyes were wild with fear. No kid should have to experience this kind of fear.
He had a camera wrapped around his shoulder. The strap was caught around a hook and the kid was hanging on to it for dear life. The thing had probably saved him. It was keeping him in the air pocket. He wasn’t about to let me release it.
I looked him in the eye and forced him to focus on me. He was fighting me all the way. I grabbed his face in my hands and shook him. Then I took my regulator out of my mouth and took a breath of stale air. Seawater bubble up around us. In seconds the kid’s only source of oxygen would be gone.
“Kid—kid, we’ve got to get out of here,” I said, shaking him again. “I’m taking you out. I’m going to untangle the strap. When I release it, you’ll sink under the water, but I’m going to give you this thing to breathe through.” I show him my spare regulator.
He took a quick look at it and nodded.
“The water will sting your eyes, but it will be okay. All you have to do is breathe. I want you to grab my tank and hold on. Are you ready?”
I put my arm around him and waited. He nodded, took the regulator, and put it into his mouth. I watched him take a breath, then another. He learned fast—nothing like a kid. I untangled the strap and he grabbed me around the neck. I found my spare regulator, breathed through it once, then we sank together into the water, swam through the bathroom door, and out into the gathering of gray sharks.
I could feel his his fingers digging into my neck. This had to be a kid’s worst nightmare—swimming into a pack of jaws. These were no great whites, but to this kid they probably looked it.
A small lemon shark came right at us. I punched it with a fist and it veered, its dorsal fin skittering along my belly as it swam away. I could see it coming around for a second look, another shark right behind it. If I could have spoken, I would have told the kid not to worry, that the damned things looked ferocious but would not bother us. It was raw bleeding flesh that they were after. Instead, I kept moving up.
Chapter 3
When we broke into daylight, a pair of sinewy black arms grabbed us and lifted us together in one swift motion into the Wahoo. It was Stark. He helped me out of my gear with the kid still clinging to me.
“It’s okay, kid. You’re okay. You’re out. You’re okay,” I kept saying, probably as much for me as for him. Only minutes before, we had been gasping for breath in the last air pocket of a plane under sixty feet of water. Now we were standing in tropical sunshine, a warm fragrant breeze brushing our faces.
I’d been here before. It was mind-jarring to realize that we had just escaped death.
The kid didn’t let go. I wrapped my arm around him, pulled him in, and held him, waiting for the shaking to stop while Stark stowed my gear. Jimmy appeared with a blanket and managed to get the kid bundled up with me in it.
Stark came back over, handed us each some water, and sat down next to me.
When I wasn’t on a dive-related investigation, Stark was my partner in the PD. Though we were officially assigned to homicide, Stark and I got called out on anything that needed special investigative skills, from burglary to drug running.
Stark was a native islander, had done a three-year stint in Miami as an undercover narcotics officer, and had spent his entire life with the ocean outside his window. Yet he’d rather have a killer holding a .357 Magnum to his temple than put his big toe in the water. The guy avoided anything deeper than a glassful of island rum.
Right now he looked like his stomach was somewhere in the back of his throat and his mahogany skin had turned an ashy charcoal. He never set foot on a boat without a life jacket and today was no exception. Stark was a big guy, six-five, all muscle, his head shaved. The life jacket barely made it across his chest.
The kid and I sat huddled on a bench as chaos reigned around us. By now there were a dozen boats circling, with everyone trying to help out.
Dunn was standing in the cockpit of the Wahoo, hands on hips, surveying the situation and directing the scene in his calm, chief-of-police voice. I had never heard Dunn raise his voice. He never had to. People did what Dunn said. He’d been running the police department with his regal authority for more than fifteen years now, and at times like this I was glad he was around. Though Dunn and I had butted heads on more than one occasion, I respected him and called him a friend.
Several other official boats were tied up alongside the Wahoo. James Carmichael and Tom Mason, one of his dive masters, were standing on the deck of the BVI Search and Rescue vessel. Both were experienced divers and volunteers for search and rescue. They were pulling on dive gear and getting ready to go in to assist.
“No need for any divers to rush back down there,” I said under my breath to Stark. “We’re in recovery mode now.”
I snugged the blanket around the kid, stood, and motioned Stark to the cockpit to talk with Dunn, who at the moment was threatening to arrest a tourist who had motored over with dive gear and thought he had every right to dive to the wreck.
“Hannah,” he said. “Unbelievably lucky that you were out here when the plane went into the water and got to the passengers so quickly.”
“Almost too lucky,” I said. “Damn plane almost hit the Wahoo.”
“What’s the situation down there?” Dunn asked.
“Jimmy and I got everyone out except for the four still inside who died on impact.”
“You sure there’s no chance?”
“Yeah, I’m sure,” I said as I flashed on the image of that couple sitting in their seats while sharks moved in.
The victims that Jimmy had brought up were lying all over the deck. Christ, I’d lost count. How many had been rescued? Only eight—the copilot and seven others, including the kid. It wasn’t clear how many would survive. The copilot had already been pronounced dead. His body lay under a tarp ready to be transported to shore.
A couple of emergency techs were working over the blond woman in the sundress and her husband. Other passengers were being loaded into a motorboat to be taken to the hospital.
The man, along with the woman he’d pushed out of the plane before it sank, was already aboard. The man smiled and gave a little salute. He held his right arm close to his body and it was obvious he was in a lot of pain. He was drop-dead gorgeous, maybe thirty-five, tanned, square-jawed, heavy eyebrows, and bedroom eyes. I knew him from somewhere. The woman was older, fifty-five, maybe sixty, and looked like she was in shock. The guy with the parrot shirt huddled next to them.
Finally, the techs loaded the blond woman onto the boat. She was still unconscious. Her husband had come around, coughing half the ocean out of his lungs.
The woman with the red mane who had been fighting her way out of
the plane was standing on the deck, arms locked across her chest, breasts spilling over the top of a form-fitting black shirt. She couldn’t have weighed more than a hundred pounds. She was tiny, lean, top-heavy and flaunting it. She was well aware of the fact that every guy on the boat who was conscious had his eyes glued to the cleavage. She was determined not to go to the hospital and was stating that fact in no uncertain terms until Dunn made it clear he wasn’t giving her a choice. Reluctantly she climbed aboard.
The kid needed to go with them. He was in shock. Color like fresh snow. He was still huddled under the blanket near the back of the boat, looking small, alone, and haunted. I went back, sat next to him, and wrapped an arm around his shoulders.
He looked like he was about ten. In other situations, I was betting, the last thing he’d want was some strange woman acting like his mother. Not now though.
“Hey, I’m Hannah. What’s your name?”
“Simon Redding,” he said, voice quaking.
“Were you traveling with someone?”
“My dad. Where’s my dad?” he asked, sitting up, reality taking hold, and with it, renewed panic.
“Was your dad with you on the plane?”
“Yeah. He was sitting right across from me. He didn’t want me to go to the bathroom, but I told him I couldn’t wait.”
“What does your dad look like?”
“He’s old, got some gray hair, wears those wire-rim glasses.”
“How old is he?”
“I guess he’s maybe forty or something.” I guess I thought forty was old once too. Now old is ninety.
“What about your mom?”
“She died a long time ago,” he said.
“Look, I want you to go with these people in the boat and let the doctor check you over.”
“Can’t I stay here with you till you find my dad?”
“No, Simon. I’ve got to go back in the water.”
“And you’ll find my dad?”
“I don’t know. I’m not sure where your dad is.” I wasn’t about to lie to the kid, tell him his dad would show up. I was pretty sure he wouldn’t. I thought about the dead guy down there staring out the window at the sharks.
“I’ll come to the hospital as soon as I can. Meantime, you go with these folks.”
I walked him to the waiting boat and one of the techs lifted him onboard. The good-looking guy made room and Simon settled in next to him.
“Hey,” Simon looked at the man, eyes lighting up for an instant. “I know you. You’re the Avenger!”
The Avenger. Jeez, the guy was a film star. There had been a movie, a couple of sequels. The Avenger was a one-man force against evil.
“Yeah, kid. Stick with me. You and me, we’ll take care of things.”
As Dunn released the boat line, the kid gave me a lost look and pulled the blanket tightly across his body as if to protect himself from the inevitable. I figured he already understood that he wouldn’t see his father again. In spite of the fear and the shock, the kid knew the score.
“I’ll see you at the hospital,” I called before the engines roared and the boat sped toward shore. At the time, I never would have imagined that saving the damn kid would change everything. But like my old partner in Denver Homicide said every time the unexpected occurred: “Life is what happens when you have other plans.” He always followed it with, “Shit happens.”
Chapter 4
I found Jimmy in the stern of the Wahoo, untangling dive gear. I recognized the syndrome. Keep busy enough and maybe you could wipe out the horror of the dive, muffle the fear, and forget how terrified you’d been so that you could get back in the water.
He and I both knew we were going back down. We had no choice. We needed to bring the bodies up and we couldn’t leave it to the volunteers on the BVI Search and Rescue team, who were not qualified in underwater investigation. Things needed to be done by the book. That’s what I’d been training Jimmy to do—analyze the scene, handle the evidence, bag the bodies, and document everything.
I’d been worried about how Jimmy would perform under pressure. He was so young, with all the recklessness that came with it. But he had really come through today under the worst possible conditions.
“Sit down, Jimmy. Leave that stuff for a minute. We’ve got time before we go back down.”
He sat, put his arms on his knees and his head in his hands, and gazed at the wet floor.
“You were unbelievable down there, Jimmy,” I said, hoping to divert the doubt. Too late.
“I don’t know about dat, Hannah,” he said in his island accent and then grew quiet. I knew he was reliving the entire last hour, play by play, kicking himself for what he thought he could have done better. I’d done it plenty of times myself.
I leaned back and lifted my face to the sun, trying to regain my own equilibrium. The scene had been like a Dali painting, surreal and frightening. Now, sitting in the back of the Wahoo, I could almost convince myself that I’d fallen asleep and dreamed it all, that it was just another day in paradise.
I could see a big cruise ship docked over in Road Harbour and sailboat masts jutting into a sky dotted with cotton puffs. Nearby, a flock of terns chattered and splashed in the water, feeding on a school of small silversides. The water sparkled like a sapphire crystal, except around the police and rescue boats, where everything looked mean and ugly brown. A dark foam of flotsam—life jackets, seat cushions, even a few pieces of luggage—was finding its way to the surface.
“I be thinkin’ a couple a dem folks not be pullin’ through,” Jimmy finally said, lifting his head. “Maybe I coulda been gettin’ dem up top quicker. Maybe I shoulda been spendin’ more time givin’ dem CPR on the surface before I be goin’ back down. When I be comin’ up da first time with dat redheaded lady, no one be out here yet. I be leavin’ her with dat guy and da older woman. Dey be hanging onto the Wahoo. The next time when I gets up with dat fella with da parrot shirt, the place be swarmin’ with boats. I just be handin’ da guy over to da closest boat and going back down.
“Mon, I be one happy fella da next time I come up with dat couple and be seein’ da chief, Stark, and Carmichael on the Search and Rescue boat. Still dat young blond woman be lookin’ real bad. Maybe if I be gettin’ her up to da top faster, she be conscious now.”
“You did everything exactly the way I would have, Jimmy. No one could have gotten them up more quickly. And you had to leave the victims with whoever was on the surface. It was just the two of us to get those people out. You know what would have happened if you hadn’t been back at the airplane door every time I needed you there? I’d have had to head up with the victims or release them into the water and hope they’d make it to the surface. Christ, you saved people down there, Jimmy. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t been there. You kept your head and did your job. You’re one hell of a diver.”
“I be havin’ a good teacher,” he said with a quick smile.
About then Carmichael and Mason came back to the stern and we developed the recovery plan. I’d never dived with Mason but had gone down with Carmichael many times. He was an exceptional diver—professional and levelheaded. The first time I ever dived with him, almost two years ago now, a killer had trapped me in a wreck. I was breathing the last of my air when Carmichael showed up and shared his air until we made it to the surface. We’d been friends ever since.
Carmichael owned his own a dive shop, Underwater Adventures, one of the most reputable operations in the islands. He never took anyone out on a dive that they weren’t qualified to make. And he wouldn’t put up with the bullshitters—the ones who bragged about all the macho diving they’d done, going down one hundred fifty feet and into the middle of a pack of hammerheads, a knife strapped to each leg. Those kinds of bullshitters. Carmichael told them to find another shop.
Both Carmichael and Mason had been on call for BVI Search and Rescue this morning when the plane went down. Their boat had been one of the first on the scene.
&
nbsp; I filled them in on what we were likely to encounter down there. All four of us would descend to the aircraft, Carmichael and Mason ready to assist as needed.
Dunn and I had talked over the procedures. Since we had no idea why the plane had crashed, we agreed that this would be treated like every other underwater crime scene. That meant recording what we saw, assuming the victims were possible targets and that there might be evidence that needed to be preserved.
I would photograph as we circled the exterior of the aircraft. Then Jimmy and I would go inside. I’d take close-ups of the bodies. Then we’d bag them and pass them out to Carmichael and Mason, who would swim them to the surface. I warned them that by now the area would be thick with sharks.
“Not a problem,” Carmichael said. “Got just what we be needin’. I be dyin’ to try these things out.” He jumped into the BVI Search and Rescue boat, pulled a nest of equipment out of the hold, and shot a smug smile our way.
“One of da local banks be donatin’ these to da team. They be called Shark Shields, made by an Australian company. Things are supposed ta send out a protective electrical field dat sharks be detectin’ though da sensory receptacles on der snouts. Shark hits dat electronic barrier and takes off. Doesn’t hurt da shark, doesn’t bother any other kinds of fish. Puts a circle of protection around da diver.”
“Jeez, Carmichael. You say you haven’t tried one out yet?” I said. I admit it. I’m a born skeptic, especially when it comes to guarantees about jumping into a sea full of sharks.
“Come on, Sampson. They be better den nothin’, which is what we’d be havin’ otherwise,” he said, handing us each one of the devices.
“Okay, but let’s not assume that these things will make everything okay down there. We need to stay alert,” I cautioned.
Carmichael showed us how to put the things on, strapping the main housing unit onto his thigh, then attaching one of the antennae units to his tank and the other around his ankle. A snakelike appendage dangled from the unit. I didn’t like it. Until I got in the water.
