The Deep Zone

by James M. Tabor

  Brewster came in and settled down toward the skeletons, whose bones flashed white in his bright dive lights. They were on their backs, where the weight of their tanks had pulled them. As their flesh had decayed, their mask straps had loosened and the masks had fallen away. The eye sockets gaped, black holes in the white faces.

  Brewster videotaped ten feet from the skeletons for thirty seconds. He sank lower until he hung a foot above them, the sharp light making the skulls shine like silver. Then he jerked and spun, dropping his Nikonos. Inside the mask his eyes looked wide and wild.

  Hallie had seen it before. The skeletons had spoken: We died in here. You can, too. He had begun to imagine their deaths, the panicked breathing, thickening silt, the flailing search for the exit in zero visibility. Thrashing and gasping, tangling bodies, panic feeding panic, air coming harder as tanks emptied, frantic last gasps, thoughts flickering out, and then… nothing.

  She knew that Brewster’s deep, reptilian urge for self-preservation would be screaming, Out! He charged, tried to shove her out of the way. Hallie grabbed his harness and spun him around and smacked him hard on the side of the head, just beneath his helmet, with the steel handle of her primary light. Not many things could cut through panic, but good old-fashioned pain was one. She gave him a shake, held up one finger: Stop! For a moment she wasn’t sure, but then he got control of himself. She looked at his pressure gauge: 1,300 pounds. They had started with 3,000. He should have signaled for the turnaround long ago.

  We’re going back, she signaled with a twirling forefinger. Now.

  He nodded.

  She went first, frog-kicking and pulling herself along with handholds to get more speed. She had dropped her primary reel in the Boneyard. No time to be rewinding line now. Brewster was breathing so hard it looked like his regulator was free-flowing. At the Jaws of Death she slipped through. Brewster got stuck again, flailing and scrabbling. Hallie hung back, knowing that panicked divers not infrequently took their buddies with them. Two minutes passed before he finally muscled through.

  And then, suddenly, his bubbles stopped. He grabbed his secondary regulator. No bubbles. She could not believe he had breathed both tanks dry that fast, but here they were. She gave him her primary regulator on its seven-foot hose. His eyes were bulging as though someone were pumping air into his skull.

  Breathing from her own secondary, which she carried on a shock-cord necklace, she started out again, careful not to pull the regulator away from him. Fifty yards from the cave mouth, it began to feel as though she were sucking air through thick cotton. She took several long, deep breaths, locked the last down in her chest. Brewster spit his reg out and tried to grab her. He breathed in water, convulsed, went limp. She grabbed his harness and began swimming backward, towing him on her chest.

  Hallie was a national-class free diver who could remain motionless at forty feet for almost five minutes. But hauling Brewster, who weighed more than two hundred pounds, and whose double-steel tanks weighed another hundred, she was burning through oxygen. No choice. She swam on toward the circle of light. It was small and too far away and she knew they were not going to make it. Hypoxia hit, burning in her chest, her peripheral vision contracting, thoughts slowing. She felt sluggish and numb. Very soon her blood CO2 level would trip an autonomic breathing reflex, and that would drown her.

  Nothing to do about that.

  Swim.

  She kept kicking hard, pulling on rocks with her free hand, her vision darkening to points of light like the last two shimmering stars in a black sky. Beyond thought, beyond feeling, her body kept working, hauling, pulling. Then she was falling away from the dimming stars, away, and then she was gone.

  She did not remember bringing herself and Brewster through the cave entrance. When she came to, she was swimming toward the platform, Brewster in tow.

  “Need help here!”

  People ran down from the picnic area, hauled Brewster onto the platform.

  Gasping, she puked into the water. “Put him on his left side!” Hallie said. She dumped her own gear in five seconds, climbed onto the platform. Brewster’s face was gray, lips and fingernails blue. She cleared his airway, rolled him onto his back, performed fifteen chest compressions, started CPR. Sour fluid came out of him. She breathed, pumped, breathed, pumped. She heard someone calling 911.

  “I thank he’s a goner.” A woman in the crowd, nearly hysterical.

  This was country; EMTs would take time. Hallie began to feel light-headed, her arms burning. She kept at it, breaths and compressions, over and over and over. It could have been ten minutes or an hour, she wasn’t sure. Was that a siren? She couldn’t be sure about that, either. Foul liquid kept leaking out of Brewster’s throat and nose, but she ignored it. A child in the crowd was screaming. A man bent over her, red-faced, fearful.

  “Lady, I don’t think he’s gonna—”

  Just then Brewster bucked, convulsed, spewed vomit. She rolled him over onto one side as two EMTs in blue jumpsuits shoved through the crowd.

  “What happened?” The EMTs, sweating like laborers from their run in the heat, were breaking out oxygen and defib kits.

  Hallie and Brewster knew exactly what had happened. But she said, “Equipment failure. His regs silted up.”

  Hallie leaned close, as if to give Brewster a light kiss, and whispered into his ear. “You were lucky.”

  Vomit-smeared, eyes stretched wide, he grabbed her hand. Squeezed, pulled her back down. Whispered, “Thank you.”

  “No worries.”

  She patted his shoulder and left.

  FIVE

  MARY WAS THERE, RED-EYED, GREEN-FACED, CLUTCHING A mug of black coffee in one hand and a Marlboro in the other when Hallie came in. The paramedics had taken Brewster to their local hospital, worried that he might have aspirated vomit and possibly collapsed a lung as well. Hallie had sat with two state troopers, giving information they needed for their report. It was almost two by the time she made it back to the shop.

  “I got a call. What the hell happened?”

  Mary’s voice was deeper and rougher than cigarettes could make it. Insurgents in Iraq had done that, bringing her Apache down with a Stinger and filling her lungs with fire.

  Hallie told her.

  “Jesus Christ. How are you?”

  “Trashed. Can I take the afternoon?”

  “For sure. Those guys want a word with you, though.”

  Mary nodded toward the back of the shop, and Hallie saw the red, wrinkled mat of scar tissue on the left side of her friend’s face, a sight she would never get used to. Then she let her eyes travel farther.

  She hadn’t noticed the two men by the racks of masks and fins. Gray business suits, white shirts, and ties with wide, diagonal stripes. One tie was red and gold, the other blue and green. Both had little American flag pins in the right lapels of their suit jackets, short, razor-cut hair, and cheeks shaved so close they gleamed.

  “I don’t think they’re looking to dive.” Mary blew smoke toward the men.

  Hallie approached them. “Can I help you?”

  “I’m Agent Fortier,” said the one with the red-and-gold tie. “This is my partner, Agent Whittle. We’re with the Department of Homeland Security.”

  They showed ID folders with gold badges and photos.

  Hallie flushed, folded her arms across her chest, pissed off just by the sight of them. “Let me guess. You’re worried we’re diving with terrorists, sowing mines in harbors or some such bullshit. Am I right?”

  Fortier’s mouth dropped open. Apparently people usually showed more respect. While Whittle coughed and examined a wet suit’s price tag, Fortier maintained a neutral expression. “Can we speak privately, Dr. Leland?”

  That surprised her. Hallie wasn’t called “doctor” around here, where people just knew her as a dive instructor and guide.

  “Nope,” she said. “Let’s do this tomorrow. Rough day at the office, gentlemen.” She started to walk away, already tasting an ice-cold Cor
ona, then stopped. “In fact, let’s not do this at all. You want to see me, I have a lawyer you can talk to first.” It wasn’t true, but she thought it might get them off her back.

  “Dr. Leland,” Fortier’s eyes flicked from side to side. His voice dropped to a whisper. “This is a matter of national security.”

  That did it. She whirled, eyes flashing. “I know exactly what it’s a matter of. What, BARDA didn’t screw up my life enough already?”

  The agents exchanged glances. Then Fortier said, “You’re right. We are here because of someone from BARDA.”

  “Uh-huh. So you can just—”

  “We have a message from Dr. Barnard.”

  That stopped her. “Don Barnard?”

  “Yes.”

  Dr. Donald Barnard had been her boss at the CDC. The only one who had stood with her when her world came crashing down.

  “Is Don all right? Why didn’t he just call? Or come down himself? What is—?”

  “Dr. Barnard’s presence was required in Washington. He is… very busy.”

  Fortier looked truly worried—whether about Barnard or something else, Hallie couldn’t tell.

  “So you came all this way to give me a message?”

  “Fifteen minutes, Dr. Leland. Please. But not here.”

  “I’m the blue Tundra outside. Follow me to my house.”

  “Nice place.”

  The first time Agent Whittle had spoken and his voice wavered. The oppressive, soggy, boiling heat. He had the fishy, white-lipped look people got before they fainted. Hallie saw it, but she was not feeling charitable. If he can’t take the heat, screw him.

  “Thanks,” she said. The rented house wasn’t really nice. Some shutters were missing, the faded blue paint was alligatoring, and the small screened porch listed. But inside it was neat and clean, with white-painted floors and walls, and smelled of fresh oranges. There was, however, no air-conditioning.

  “Warm down here,” Whittle said. He was a sizable man who appeared to be in good shape, but his voice sounded weak and thin. They were sitting in chairs at her chrome-and-Formica kitchen table, original equipment with the house.

  “You get used to it. No worse than D.C. in August.”

  “It’s February, though. How hot is it, exactly?”

  “About ninety in here. Ninety-eight outside. So, not too bad. High humidity today, though.”

  “Lord God.” Whittle loosened his blue-and-green tie, unbuttoned his collar. Mopped sweat from his face with a damp handkerchief. “I’m from North Dakota. It doesn’t get like this.”

  Hallie was afraid he might actually keel off the chair. If there was one thing she did not need this day, it was a heat-stroked Fed flopping around on her kitchen floor.

  “Hold on.” She took a fluted pitcher from the refrigerator and poured three tall glasses of cold, homemade lemonade. Condensation filmed the glasses in a second. She added sprigs of mint from her backyard herb garden and brought the glasses to the table. Hallie sipped hers, studying the agents. Whittle gulped half of his lemonade, then held the glass against his forehead.

  “Thank you.” There was serious gratitude in his voice.

  “About Don?”

  “Yes. Just a second.” Fortier put his briefcase on the table and begin working through its three combination locks.

  Agent Whittle took another long drink of lemonade, then looked at Hallie in an odd way. “Could I ask you a question, Dr. Leland? It’ll take Agent Fortier a minute here.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Well, I was wondering what happened to your friend back there.”

  “You mean Mary? The shop owner?”

  “Yes.”

  “She was an Apache pilot in Iraq. Patrolling her sector one day when she monitored a combat patrol screaming for air support. Insurgents had them surrounded. Command denied their request. The fighters were known to have Stingers and the brass probably figured soldiers were easier to replace than choppers. Mary went in anyway. She saved the team, but the bad guys brought her down with a Stinger. Her copilot was killed. Mary survived the crash but… well, you saw. She should have gotten the Medal of Honor.”

  “What medal did she get?”

  “None. ‘Lieutenant Stilwell is dishonorably discharged for willful disobeyance of orders from a superior officer and wanton disregard for the safety of her copilot, her actions resulting in destruction of Army assets and the death of said copilot,’ is how the court-martial finding read, if I recall right.”

  Agent Whittle blinked, looked out the window. “I’m sorry to hear that. You get a feeling sometimes. I lost a son in Iraq.”

  The words stung. At least Mary was alive. “I’m sorry, Agent Whittle. I have a soft spot in my heart for soldiers. My father was career Army.” She reached forward and touched his arm, realizing that her eyes had teared up.

  “Thank you.” He continued to look out the window. Hallie hadn’t added all her history with Mary, how they had been best friends at Georgetown University and she had gone on to graduate school at Hopkins while Mary abandoned plans for medical school and joined the Army instead. Mary had been chasing her Big Sister the Doctor’s achievements all her life, and going to med school would have been just another step in her shadow. But flying an Apache—that would be something. Mary graduated from flight school at Fort Rucker second in her class and asked for the hottest region of operation, which at the time was around Fallujah in Iraq.

  Agent Fortier set on the table what looked like an oversized BlackBerry, unfolded two side panels, pressed a button. One soft tone, then a cone of rose-colored light blossomed, and Don Barnard was there on her table. His head and chest, anyway.

  The hologram spoke: “Hello, Hallie! Can you see me okay?”

  It took her a moment to respond. “I… can see you fine, Don.” The image was unbelievably real. Every hair of his big white mustache was clearly visible, his bushy eyebrows and sharp blue eyes and his weekend sailor’s sunburn.

  “I can see you, too. Amazing, isn’t it?”

  “This is you I’m talking to? Not some CG thing?”

  “It’s me. I just couldn’t get away right now.”

  She smiled at the sight of him for another moment, then decided it was time to drive the conversation forward.

  “What’s going on, Don?”

  His smile faded. “We have a problem, Hallie, and time is of the essence. I—we—need your help.”

  She actually laughed. “My help? Come on, they ran me out of there on a rail.”

  “You know how I felt about that. It was a rotten deal.”

  “I know that you were the only one in my corner.”

  “And I would be there again. Look, Hallie, can you come up here?”

  “You mean, like now?”

  “Yes.”

  “In a day or two, I guess. I work for a friend, Don. She’ll need some—”

  “Can’t wait, Hallie. We need you now. Someone will speak to Mary.”

  “How did you know—Never mind. But you won’t tell me why?”

  “Can’t. Even these things can be hacked. I’m sure the agents have mentioned national security.”

  “Was I supposed to take that seriously?”

  “Indeed.”

  “This has nothing to do with the other business?”

  “No. Nothing. My word on that.”

  “Okay.” Hallie believed him, but wanted to be clear. “Those bastards can piss in their hats for all I care.”

  “I think we agree on that.”

  “I’ll come. What happens now?”

  “Agents Fortier and Whittle will take it from here. Thank you, Hallie. We’ll speak soon.”

  His image dissolved.

  “Do you have any idea what’s going on?” she asked Whittle, who was drinking the last of his lemonade and looking better.

  Her hospitality had softened their official crust. He smiled and shook his head. “For this mission we’re just high-end errand boys, Dr. Leland.”

  “D
o I have time to pack?”

  “They’ll have things for you on the other end.”

  “Jesus. Well, then I’m ready when you are, gentlemen.”

  They walked out. She locked the door and followed the agents to their black Expedition with tinted windows, where Whittle held a rear door for her. They had left the engine running to keep the air-conditioning on. She got in and it was like sitting down in a meat locker. When he saw that she was settled, he said, “Thank you, Dr. Leland,” before gently closing the door.

  This, she had to admit, was more like it.

  SIX

  “HALLIE!”

  Donald Barnard, MD, PhD, had started at tight end for the University of Virginia in 1968 and ’69. He was now twenty pounds heavier and decades older, but still solid. He hauled around his desk like a bear rolling out of its den, big hand extended, looking happy and relieved and exhausted all at once. Hallie brushed his proffered hand aside and gave him a long, hard hug, then held him at arm’s length. She frowned.

  “You look tired, Don.” It was just after seven in the evening. She knew he started his workdays at six-thirty A.M.

  “That makes two of us.” He stepped back. “You remember Lew Casey? Lew was Delta Lab supervisor when you were here.”

  It was only then that she noticed the two men who had been standing off to one side in Barnard’s large office while he and Hallie said hello. Dr. Lewis Casey was a short man in his fifties with milky skin, a blizzard of freckles, and hair like curls of rusty wire.

  “I remember him very well. It’s good to see you again, Doctor.”

  “And I remember you, Dr. Leland.” Casey stepped forward, shook her hand. “I always admired your work. Tried to steal you for Delta, in fact.”

  She looked at Barnard. “You never told me that.”

  “Lew was not the only one, I can assure you.” Barnard appeared, very briefly, sheepish.