The Devil's Deep

by Michael Wallace

  Davis was still clear-headed enough to check his dive computer and see that they only needed a brief stop midway up. The computer didn’t think he had a problem, so why did he?

  He kept giving Bill the “something wrong” sign, and expected his brother to take the lead as they worked their way back through the underwater canyons. But his brother apparently had not taken him seriously, or was so annoyed at aborting their dive that he wasn’t paying attention. In a moment, Davis was in real trouble.

  The bubbles from his mouthpiece seemed to float in slow motion. A fish swam past—or was it a school of fish?—and he watched with a dazed feeling. It was impossibly flashy with colors. He turned to find himself in a cave with a narrow, seemingly moving hole above him. Or was it below? He kicked his legs, but they felt leaden, and he didn’t know if they moved or if he just thought they moved. The spear gun fell from his hands, spinning in a lazy circle as it dropped toward the bottom.

  And there was his brother, floating to one side, doing nothing to help. Watching. Was he upside down? Was that possible?

  Davis’s hands made drunk motions in the water. Danger. Something’s wrong. Danger. Something’s wrong. Something’s wrong.

  And still, Bill did nothing.

  Davis remembered that bottle of water. His brother had given it to him. Hadn’t he suggested it, even? Said something like, “Don’t want to get dehydrated,” as he’d handed it over and taken a drink from his own?

  And Davis, thinking about Charlotte and how she’d told him to be careful, drank almost the whole bottle. Had the lid been opened already? He couldn’t remember. But it had gone down on an empty stomach.

  Davis fought the urge to panic, to strip out the mouthpiece that was suddenly bothering him. He only just remembered that this would mean drowning. Instead he turned and turned, trying to find that light in the cave that meant the surface. His hands brushed the wall, cut against the jagged rock, but he didn’t feel it and only dimly noticed the blood staining the water.

  And then Davis’s hands found open water. How long had it been? Ten minutes? Twenty? A few seconds? His vision was so messed up now that he was nearly blind, but he trusted his hands. He forced himself through the hole. It was tighter than it looked and he squirmed to make it through.

  He was confused again, and worried he’d gone down instead of up. But he’d forgotten to vent his BC and the extra buoyancy was carrying him up, and quickly. Davis looked over his shoulder to see that his brother had followed him from the cave and was just a few feet below him.

  Bill pointed his spear gun at his chest. A pneumatic spear gun, designed to bring down a four hundred pound marlin.

  For that single moment, Davis’s vision was clear. He saw the grim set to his brother’s eyes. Davis could almost hear Bill’s thoughts. They rushed through the water separating the two men like air bursting from a ruptured tank. An accident of birth, brother. That’s all that separates you from me.

  And then Bill’s finger squeezed on the trigger. A burst of compressed air as the spear launched. Davis had already begun to turn back toward the surface. The air was there, just a few feet away. He could see the white hull of the Solorio’s boat. He stretched out his hand. If only he could…

  A hammer blow slammed into the back of his skull.

  Blackness.

  Chapter Eighteen:

  The other diver rushed toward Wes with a knife in one hand and his other grabbing at Wes’s mask. Wes flinched and rolled. The knife slashed just in front of his face. The other hand tried to get a grip on his mask, but failed. Wes grabbed the man’s arms and rolled with him in the water. Bubbles vented around their masks.

  A clear moment and he saw the other’s face. A young man, possibly Hispanic, with dark hair. Grim set to the eyes. He was smaller than Wes, but wiry and strong. Could be Tomás, or maybe not. Wes didn’t have time to find out, because it was all he could do to keep the knife from his throat and the other hand from his mask.

  Becca swam into the fray. She grabbed the man’s right wrist and tried to wrench free the blade. Wes tried to break free, but his equipment tangled with the other man’s. He slammed into the volcanic rock. The blow knocked the two men apart. Wes fumbled at the pockets on his BC and found his dive knife. It was about half as big as his attacker’s.

  And then, from over the attacker’s shoulder, another diver, dropping quickly into the cave. Also armed with a knife.

  Wes and Becca were in serious trouble. Two armed men. Fifty feet of water. Becca swam at one side, struggling with her equipment. She’d lost a flipper. Wes made a quick decision.

  He breathed hard and fast. As he did, he popped the straps on his BC and shrugged free of his gear. He tore out the mouthpiece and suddenly was without air. Fifty feet under water with only the air in his lungs.

  Wes gave himself sixty seconds. One minute of struggle without air and he’d be spent. Meanwhile, the two men would be breathing from their air supplies. After sixty seconds, Wes would be as good as dead.

  He grabbed his tank and BC with his left hand and swiveled them in front of him like a shield, with his knife in the right hand. The second attacker was in the fray now, swiping with his knife.

  Wes was twice as maneuverable without the equipment. He still wore his mask, but there was nothing else for the man to grab. All those years on the swim team and his oxygen levels still high made him confident and strong. He ducked around the second man, hooking the shoulder strap of his jacket over the man’s head and jabbing down with his knife. His blade slid past the nylon shoulder strap and into the man’s shoulder. Wes pulled back the knife and swam free.

  The extra buoyancy of Wes’s float bladder lifted this man toward the surface as he struggled to free himself. Blood stained the water around him.

  Wes turned as the first man grabbed for him. He already needed to breathe. It wasn’t yet desperate, but grew urgent, like a slowly building scream. Seconds now, just seconds. He swam for the far wall of the cave, then, when reaching it, somersaulted into a flip turn as a racer did when reaching the wall of the swimming pool. He shoved off, gaining momentum directly toward his attacker. His head barreled into the other man’s chest.

  And then he was around and on the man’s back. His knife slashed. He cut straps. He cut hoses. He ripped off the man’s tank. Bubbles saturated the water. The man no longer tried to attack, but struggled to free himself. Wes let him go, now looking desperately for his air supply, which he’d sent off with the other attacker. No sign of either Wes’s gear or the man he’d stabbed. Blood filled the water. The second man fled for the surface in a cloud of air bubbles.

  And now Wes was in trouble. How long had it been? Fifty seconds? A minute? Seemed both longer and shorter. Where was his mouthpiece, regulator? Air tank? BC?

  Spots floated in front of his face and the water darkened. He’d reached the edge of the cave and groped for a way to get himself out, but he was weakening. Fast.

  A hand groped at his face and he tried to fight it off. Another hand grabbed his wrist. Too strong. And then he felt the mouthpiece shove into his mouth and he realized it was Becca, sharing air.

  He breathed deep and hard. She’d given him her octopus, a secondary regulator attached to the tank by a longer hose for use in emergencies. He’d never had his primary regulator fail, and while he’d always tested it before descents, had never used his octopus to breathe, let alone used someone else’s. But it worked perfectly and the two of them floated in the cloudy water of the cave for a good minute. They started to ascend.

  He saw a white tip shark swim by and thought about the blood streaming from his attacker’s shoulder. It wasn’t behaving aggressively, but that was an illusion. How long would it take blood to diffuse through the water and attract more sharks? Five minutes? Ten?

  Wes started to tremble and he held onto Becca while he shared her air. Thankfully, she moved slowly, calmly. He fought the urge to swim as fast as he could for the surface.

  The water was clear of other
divers, including their attackers. Becca looked at her dive computer and they made a stop at fifteen feet to adjust buoyancy and allow their bodies to purge extra nitrogen. They hadn’t gone so low or stayed so long as to make a safety stop absolutely necessary. Wes and Becca rose to the surface.

  #

  Alan Pardo had once thought Ellen Pilson a handsome woman. Not pretty, really, but attractive in an aristocratic way that belied her presently humble circumstances.

  But time had worn down her attractive features. Baggy skin surrounded her sharp eyes, and wrinkles around her mouth gave her a perpetual scowl. The skin on her hands was thin, making her veins stand out.

  Ellen sat at the table and sipped ice tea. Two menus sat on the table. She frowned as Pardo took a seat. “You’re late.”

  “I’m worried the police are watching me. I had work in Barre, then took the back roads to make sure I wasn’t followed.”

  They met in a restaurant in downtown Montpelier, a couple of blocks from the capitol building. Legislators and lobbyists occupied the other tables. Montpelier was the smallest state capitol in the country and the downtown was an attractive collection of brick buildings and old stone and clapboard churches. A wooded hill rose behind the gold dome of the capitol building. The restaurant had a nice view of same.

  “The police are following you and you thought it was a good idea to contact me?”

  “You can thank your son for that,” Pardo said. “If Wesley had minded his own business this wouldn’t have happened.”

  The waitress came by. Pardo ordered a beer and the sirloin tips. Ellen ordered a cobb salad with the dressing on the side.

  “Leave him out of this. He’s not going to be any more trouble. Wesley’s gone back to Massachusetts.”

  Sure he’d gone back to Massachusetts. Via Costa Rica, apparently. But Pardo kept these thoughts to himself. “We need to make some decisions, and we need to make them without your brother.”

  “You two have been inseparable for the last twenty years,” Ellen said. “You got into this mess together. And now, what? You don’t trust him anymore?”

  “Let me be blunt, Ellen. Your son, that girl at Riverwood, and now the police are poking around. It’s not going to be long before someone stumbles over the secret. When that happens, your brother is going to be screwed. Because if Davis is still alive, the whole deal with Davis’s widow over buying back the Northrock shares is going to unravel. And when Bill goes down, you’re going to go down, too.”

  “You think he’d drag me into it?”

  “You mean tell the police how you signed off on Davis’s death? I don’t know, but it doesn’t matter. He’ll be in jail. He’ll lose everything. And you’ll be cut off.”

  Pardo stopped for a moment to let the words sink in. It was the money that motivated Ellen Pilson. Twelve thousand a month to keep her mouth shut, to keep her afloat from the debts of a woman married to a spendthrift. The money to pay for her retarded son’s care.

  But to his surprise, she didn’t look alarmed. “I don’t need the money. I mean, I do, but not for long.”

  “Ah, you’re talking about the company stock?”

  “My brother told you about that?”

  “He told me how he forged your shares, yes. Don’t look so surprised, Ellen. How hard do you think it is to forge a stock certificate to his own company?”

  “But I get dividends. That’s where that money comes from, not from Bill’s personal account. I’ve seen the annual report. My shares are worth almost six million dollars. If my brother is arrested and they liquidate the company, I’ll get my share.”

  “Again, he mailed you the shareholder report, and checks that purport to be dividends. I can promise you, however, that you own nothing. He’d have given you six million in cash before he gave you shares in Northrock.” The restaurant was noisy, but he took no chances as he leaned forward and said in a low voice, “Think about it. He shot a spear through his brother’s head. You think he wouldn’t cheat you? After his own father had already disowned you?”

  She had nothing to say to this, but he could see her mind working at it. How the other part of the deal was that she sign over a proxy to let Bill vote at the shareholders meeting on her behalf. How Bill had cheated first Davis out of the company and then Davis’s ‘widow,’ Charlotte.

  The food arrived and Dr. Pardo started to eat, but Ellen just stared at her salad. “So I’m screwed.”

  “You’re not screwed if you play your cards right.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Pardo gave an inward smile. She’d already sold out one brother; faced with the betrayal of the other, she’d repeat the exercise if shown the rewards. “First things, first. We’ve got to get rid of your brother. Davis, I mean.”

  He didn’t mention the shocking discovery that Davis was still alive and aware in there and that he’d found a way to communicate. That Rosa had told Dr. Pardo before making a hasty attempt to run away with the crippled man. That Pardo and Bill Carter had tried to blind Davis and that Pardo had decided they needed to take more rapid, permanent steps.

  “You mean, kill him?”

  “Davis is already dead.” He took a bite of his sirloin tips, washed it down with beer. “He died the moment your brother shot him. Unfortunately, Bill turned craven and you followed his lead. He could have easily expired during the flight to the United States, and nobody would have known the difference. Or a hundred times these past five years. None of this lying would have been necessary.”

  “Except for the big lie, of course.” Her voice had an edge to it, and was alarmingly loud. “That you and my brother would have murdered him.”

  Pardo gave a shushing motion with his hand. “Whatever. The end result is that he’s brain dead, legally dead before we even left Costa Rica, and yet here’s his corpse, just waiting to be discovered.”

  “And you want to finish the job.”

  “Exactly. Let’s clear up the messy loose ends. I’ll give Davis something to put him down. Something hard to trace, that will send him into organ failure. Or make his heart stop. Chad Lett will die, nobody will care or investigate. A middle-aged, profoundly retarded and bedridden resident isn’t expected to live long. It’s mercy, Ellen. Imagine the hell his life is. He wants to die. Or would, if he weren’t brain dead.”

  “But if you’re right,” she said. “About Bill cheating me, I mean. How is killing Davis going to help? Bill will be off the hook. He might just cut me off altogether.”

  “Not if we blackmail him.”

  Her eyes widened slightly. “Go on.” She picked up her fork for the first time and took a bite of her cob salad, and with this motion, Pardo knew he’d won her over. The rest was just details.

  “There are two of us. One of him. We didn’t shoot the spear gun, he did. We’ll both testify under oath, won’t we, that he talked about killing his brother off for good.”

  “But we’d go to prison, too. Even if we manage a plea bargain.”

  “Sure, but not for murder. We weren’t there when the spear gun was fired, we just helped him cover it up. I don’t know what the charges would be, but with a plea bargain, I promise it would be something minor. Maybe a five year sentence, with parole after a year or two.”

  “You have no idea. You’re just guessing. And I’m not going to prison,” she added.

  “You won’t have to. Bill is a coward. Shooting his brother was the only brave thing he did in his life. When Davis didn’t die, he started backtracking. We concocted this elaborate plan so that Davis would be dead and yet not dead at the same time, when it would have been easier just to finish the job. Once Bill had control of Northrock, that was enough.”

  That was true, and yet not true at the same time. Bill had balked from finishing his brother. But he’d kidnapped Rosa, he’d shot his own nephew with a stun gun, and later ordered the boy’s murder.

  “He’ll cave,” Pardo said, “once he sees we’re together. What choice will he have? So you’ll take your six mi
llion—this time in cash, deposited to your account—and then you’ll be rid of him forever.”

  “What about you? What do you get out of this?”

  “I get my land back. The land the leftists stole. The land that’s now a ruin because the campesinos didn’t know what to do with it. Turns out it’s for sale. Four million dollars. Would have been worth twenty, thirty million if they hadn’t ruined it.”

  “So it’s just about money?” she asked. “You’re stabbing your best friend in the back for a few million dollars?” She asked the question with no sense of irony.

  “Are you in, or not?”

  He could see her consider the angles, wondering if there was a way she could turn this conversation against Pardo, and work out a deal with her brother instead. But Pardo wasn’t here on a whim; he’d thought this scenario through several times over the last five years. The reawakening of Davis Carter, presumed brain dead, had turned into a happy coincidence.

  “I’m in,” she said. “With one condition. You leave Wesley out of this. No matter what else you do, I don’t want you touching him.”

  “He’s already out of the picture,” Dr. Pardo said. “Probably sulking in Massachusetts over this imaginary thing with his brother. Give him some space. Maybe a week or two. Then, I guarantee it, he’ll be over the whole thing.”

  This was the tricky part. She’d find out, of course, what had happened with Wesley in Costa Rica, but by then it would be too late. Just like Bill, she’d be in too deep to retaliate. And Pardo would be out of the country, in an El Salvador once again run by business interests—and back in control of the finca. Untouchable. After that, Bill, Ellen, and the whole Carter family could go to hell for all he cared.

  “Nothing will happen to Wes. I promise.”

  # Wes and Becca broke the surface and popped out their mouthpieces. “Holy shit,” Wes said.

  “Calm down,” Becca urged. She’d been the one stunned underwater, as Wes had torn off his BC—god, that took balls of steel—as if he was at the bottom of a swimming pool instead of fifty feet underwater. But now he was breathing hard and she didn’t like his frightened tone.