The Hydra Protocol

by David Wellington

  Groping his way up he reached for the anchor cable. The conductive wires in his glove made contact with the metal cable and he heard a very welcome hiss in his earphones. He was back in communication with Angel.

  “It’s done,” he told her. “I’m starting my ascent. Should take—about two hours, now.” Saying it made his heart sink. He was more than ready for this dive to be over.

  His frustration didn’t last long.

  “Chapel? I’ve got you—can you hear me all right?” she asked. She sounded nervous. That was never, ever a good sign.

  “You’re coming through just fine. There were some hiccups, but I’ve managed to—”

  “Chapel, you need to be up top now,” she said.

  “What?” He didn’t understand. “No, Angel, I need to decompress—”

  “There’s no time. I wish I could have kept you apprised, but you were out of communication for so long. Chapel, start your ascent now, please.”

  Chapel reached for the cable with his free hand and started hauling himself slowly upward, hand over hand. “I can reduce the number of decompression stops,” he told her. “I’m supposed to stop every ten feet and pause, but I can make it twenty—”

  “No, Chapel—you don’t have that kind of time. The Cubans found the boat.”

  Oh no, he thought. That was bad. That was very bad.

  The Kurchatov had sunk in disputed waters, claimed by both the Bahamas and by Cuba, which made them off-limits to American vessels. When Chapel had spoken with the yacht’s captain and asked him to drop anchor here, he’d known there was a risk they would be spotted by the Cuban coast guard. The risk was low—Cuba wasn’t known to have a large number of vessels patrolling these waters—but they had tried to prepare for it anyway. Angel had been watching for any approaching vessels, and one must have appeared while he was down in the wreck.

  “How much time do I have before they arrive?” Chapel asked. There was no question in his mind that the Cubans would approach and board Donny’s yacht as soon as they spotted it.

  “None. They’ve already signaled the yacht that they’re coming aboard. In a few minutes they’ll be boarding and they’ll probably search the whole boat. You need to be topside right now.”

  Chapel grunted in frustration. “What if I just stay down here until they’re gone?” he asked. “That’ll give me plenty of decompression time. If I come up now, I’m at real risk for decompression sickness.”

  “You’re going to have to chance it. Chapel, your name is on the passenger list.”

  Crap, Chapel thought. He hadn’t thought of that. When he came aboard Donny’s yacht, Donny had insisted he sign in. He would have preferred to come aboard incognito, but it hadn’t seemed like a big deal at the time.

  “If you’re not present when they board the yacht, they’ll have way too many questions and they’ll be able to claim the yacht is evidence in an ongoing investigation,” Angel told him. “They’ll impound it and tow it back to Cuba to try to figure out what’s going on. You can stay down and wait for them to leave with the yacht, but then you’ll be surfacing in twenty miles of open water with no way home but to swim there.”

  Worse than that, Donny and all his party guests would be arrested and thrown in a Cuban jail until they could explain what had happened to the missing man on the guest list. He couldn’t let that happen to his friends.

  “All right, Angel. I’m going to have to go back into radio silence for a minute. I’ll contact you when I hit the surface.”

  “Understood. The Cubans are coming in from behind and slightly to starboard of the yacht. If you’re going to make bubbles or a splash, try to use the bulk of the yacht to cover your ascent.”

  “Got it.” Chapel let go of the cable and swam backward for a second. This is going to hurt, he thought. Coming up from this depth without decompression stops made it inevitable that he was going to get the bends, rebreather or no.

  It couldn’t be helped. He unbuckled his weight belt and let it fall away into the murk. He shed as many of his pouches and pieces of equipment as he could, even the dive computer, then he started kicking toward the surface. His natural buoyancy started lifting him up immediately, straight toward the waves above, but even that wasn’t fast enough. He unclipped the helium tank from his abdomen and pointed its nozzle downward, then threw open its valve and used it like a miniature rocket booster.

  Up. Straight up. A hell of a lot faster than he’d gone down.

  OFF CAY SAL BANK: JUNE 11, 01:12

  As Chapel approached the surface his eyes started working again. A little moonlight was coming down to meet him, and it turned the surface of the waves into a vast rolling mirror, obscured by a large dark mass. As he got closer he saw that shadow split into two. One part was the yacht, big and square and right over his head. The other must be the Cuban coast guard ship. It was only about half the size of the yacht, but it had the sleek, streamlined curves of a warship and looked like a shark nuzzling up against a bloated sunfish.

  As he got even closer he could make out a few details. The Cuban ship had tied up to the side of the yacht, which had to mean the Cubans had already boarded. Chapel was going to have to sneak back on board and hope he could mix in with the partygoers so no one noticed he hadn’t been there the whole time.

  Angel could help him get a feel for how things were up there. As he neared the surface he reached for the anchor cable again. “Angel?” he asked. “What can you tell me? Am I too late?”

  There was no answer except the steady hiss that meant his earphones were working. They just weren’t picking anything up.

  Chapel poked his head above the water and studied the cable. The transponder unit he’d clipped to it was gone. Someone must have found it.

  That could be very, very bad.

  Once he’d broken the surface, though, his headset could patch into the cellular network and he could at least make contact. “Angel,” he whispered, “are you receiving me?”

  “I sure am, honey,” she said back. “You’ve just got time, if you hurry.”

  The mystery of the missing transponder would have to wait. Chapel climbed up onto the swimming balcony at the bow of the yacht and started tearing off his gear. The mask came first and suddenly he was breathing real, fresh air again, not his own recycled breath. It burned his lungs—there was a lot more oxygen up here than he’d been getting below—but it tasted so sweet he didn’t care. He wriggled out of the drysuit as fast as he could, careful not to get his artificial arm wet. He opened the pouch that held the little laminated book he’d salvaged from the Kurchatov, then bundled up all the rest of his gear, drysuit, rebreather, headset, all of it, and tossed it over the side. It floated for a second and then disappeared without so much as a gurgle. It was a real shame to just throw away all that expensive equipment, but Chapel knew if he was caught with technical diving gear, the Cubans would ask a lot of questions he was in no position to answer. Worst of all, it meant losing his connection to Angel as well—but that was another thing he would have a hard time explaining.

  Wearing nothing but a thin pair of trunks, Chapel ran hands through his sweaty hair and stepped through the balcony’s door, into the lower deck of the yacht. He could hear someone shouting in Spanish over his head, but no one saw him as he moved quickly toward the stairs that led to the main deck.

  Halfway up, a brick wall came out of nowhere and hit him full on.

  At least, it felt that way. Every muscle in his body just shut down at once. A wave of fatigue and dizziness passed through him, and he felt a desperate, unbearable desire to sit down, to lean his head against the wall. To go to sleep right then and there and not even bother finding a comfortable place to lie down.

  “Shit,” he breathed, because he knew where that came from. It could take hours for the first symptoms of decompression sickness to set in, he knew, or just minutes. The faster it came on, the worse it was going to get.

  In all his time diving, Chapel had never gotten the bends before
. He’d always been careful to decompress in stages, to read dive charts more carefully than some people read the Bible, to know his limits. He’d managed to stay clear of every diver’s worst nightmare—until now.

  But he’d seen other divers go through it. It wasn’t pretty. He remembered one guy down in Mexico, off the Yucatán, curled up in the bottom of a rowboat, screaming and crying as his joints shook and spasmed. If that was what awaited him—

  He couldn’t let it. He couldn’t give in to the nitrogen in his blood. Chapel forced himself to stand upright, to keep moving. He climbed the stairs one at a time, forcing himself to lift each foot, to keep himself steady.

  Just a little farther. Just up a few more steps. Up ahead the main deck opened up around the pool. Chapel could just see what was going on out there. The partygoers were lined up around the edge, none of them talking. Most were looking at their feet or up at the sky, anywhere but at the soldiers who had boarded the yacht.

  There were a dozen of them, all of them carrying carbines slung around their necks. They wore the green uniforms and flat-topped hats that Chapel always associated with Fidel Castro. That was strange. Those were Cuban army uniforms, not the white sailor suits that naval personnel wore.

  Another mystery. Chapel had no time for mysteries. It was taking everything he had to keep climbing the stairs.

  The soldiers were looking every partygoer up and down, checking names against a list. They didn’t leer at the young women in their bikinis, didn’t try to outmacho the muscle-bound guys in their Speedos. The soldiers had a job to do, and they were being consummate professionals. Not what Chapel had expected at all.

  He came up to a broad archway that led to the main deck. He would walk out there, he thought, walk out calling his own name and apologizing profusely. He would claim that he’d been stuck in the head and couldn’t get up top until just now. Maybe, just maybe, the Cubans would buy it.

  He took a step toward the deck, but his foot never came down.

  Instead a bright blossom of pure red agony burst inside his knee, and his leg bent under him until he was standing like a flamingo. A flamingo that very much wanted to die.

  “Christ,” Chapel said, biting off the word so he didn’t shout it. The pain was incredible. He’d been shot before, several times in fact, but even that didn’t hurt like this. Nothing ever had.

  At least, not until his good shoulder started up, too. It felt like his arm was being cut off, like he was going to lose that one too. Like there was a knife inside his arm, ripping away at his muscles, grating against his bones. He reached over with the artificial arm to grab the flesh there, to squeeze it even though he knew that wouldn’t help at all.

  Standing on one foot, suddenly off balance, he couldn’t stay upright anymore. He crashed to the floor, his head thudding on the polished wood of the deck. He could only hope the Cubans hadn’t heard him fall.

  Out by the pool they were nearly done with their inspection. One of the Cubans, a young guy wearing round glasses, looked down at a piece of paper in his hand. He smacked it with the back of his fingers, and it made a noise like a snare drum.

  Chapel brought his head up so he could watch. He didn’t need to—he knew what was going to happen next. The young guy was clearly the commanding officer of the Cuban patrol. He strode up to Donny and got way too close to his face.

  “¿Dónde está Chapel, James?” the Cuban demanded.

  OFF CAY SAL BANK: JUNE 11, 01:21

  Chapel curled up into a ball on the carpeted floor of the stairway landing. He couldn’t get up, could barely breathe. The pain had spread to every joint in his body, and it was only getting worse. He could hear people moving out on the deck, but his eyes were clamped tightly shut and he knew he wouldn’t be able to get away, wouldn’t be able to move from the spot where he lay. At any moment the Cubans would start searching the yacht and they would find him—there was no chance of his even rolling into the shadows, must less finding a place to hide.

  Once they found him the questions would begin. They would want to know what was wrong with him. It wouldn’t take long for them to figure out that he was suffering from decompression sickness, and then they would want to know why he was diving in Cuban waters. They would find the little black book and he would be arrested, dragged back to Cuba, and thrown into a bottomless pit of a jail and never heard from again.

  And there was nothing he could do to stop them. He couldn’t fight like this, and he couldn’t run. He tried desperately to move, to use his artificial arm—which at least didn’t hurt—to drag himself farther down the corridor, back to the top of the stairs. If he could push himself down those steps, and if he didn’t break his neck, maybe, just maybe—

  Soft hands touched his head and shoulders. Fingers slipped under his chin and took his pulse. “You smell of brine,” a woman said. “We have to fix that somehow. Can you walk?”

  He tried to open his eyes. Found he could just barely crack one eyelid. He saw dark hair and nothing else—he couldn’t turn his head to get a better look.

  “I take it that means no,” the woman said.

  The voice—he remembered it, the accent he couldn’t place. The woman in the sundress, the Asian woman he’d met with Donny and Shelly and the rest. She must have found him there on the carpet. But why? Why wasn’t she out with the rest of the partygoers, out on the main deck?

  “I can’t lift you on my own, and there’s no one else to help. You have to get on your feet,” she whispered. “Please. So much depends on this.”

  He had no idea what she was talking about. But he knew if he didn’t get up and get moving, he was doomed. Chapel reached down with his artificial arm and grabbed one of his ankles. His leg was curled up underneath him, his knee and ankle both on fire, but he could push the leg out straight if he didn’t mind some searing agony.

  Well, he minded. He minded a lot. But he managed not to scream.

  “Good,” she said. “You’re a strong guy, yes? A powerful guy. You can do this. You have to.”

  He reached down and straightened out his other leg. He could just twist sideways until he was sitting up, though it felt like he was being torn in half. With his back against the wall he pushed upward from his knees. His feet slid away from him on the wet carpet, but he recovered before he fell again. Using every shred of willpower in his possession, Chapel was just able to push himself up until he was leaning against the wall, as little weight as possible on his feet.

  “Here, on my shoulders,” she said, and pulled his good arm around her neck. Straightening out those muscles made Chapel want to pass out, but he forced himself to stay conscious. Just a little longer. Just a couple more seconds, he promised himself. “Donny’s cabin is just here,” she told him. “Move your left foot forward.”

  Chapel fought to open his eyes, to see what was happening. He didn’t know this woman. Why was she helping him? Just because he was a friend of Donny’s? “You’ll get in trouble,” he said, his voice sounding weak and small even to his own ears. “Just leave me,” he told her.

  “I don’t think so. Come, now, move your left foot forward. I know you can. Good. Very, very good. Now your right foot.”

  She didn’t exactly carry him, but she took a lot more of his weight than he thought she could. Together they set off at a snail’s pace down the corridor.

  Behind Chapel, out on the deck, someone started shouting in Spanish. Someone else shrieked in fright.

  Chapel must have glanced backward.

  “You’re thinking this isn’t a normal patrol, that they didn’t find us by accident, and you are right. But they don’t know who you are, only that you were missing when they demanded to see everyone on board. You can’t let them find out who you are.”

  He felt his eyes widen—mostly because it hurt so much. What did she know about him? His mission was utterly secret—nobody on board even knew who he worked for, much less what he was doing here.

  Questions were going to have to wait. He focused on movi
ng his feet.

  A door opened in front of him—she must have opened it. He could still barely keep his eyes open, barely see where he was. Beyond the door lay a sizable cabin, bigger than the one he had on the deck below. It had room for a little table and a couple of chairs and a widescreen television on the wall. It also had a private bathroom with a big shower stall. The Asian woman shoved Chapel into the stall and ran the water, which came out icy cold at first. Chapel shivered as the water poured down over his aching face and chest. He tried to keep his left arm out of the spray, but the rest of him was quickly soaked.

  “For the salt smell,” she told him, adjusting the water temperature. “Get your trunks off. Don’t worry about modesty now. This is not the time. Get them off!”

  If he hesitated, it wasn’t because he was afraid of letting her see him naked. It was because the little black book was jammed down the side of his shorts. It was the only hiding place he had.

  “It hurts too much, I know,” she said. She bent down and pulled down his trunks. The little black book fell out before he could stop her. She didn’t seem surprised. Instead she shoved it into a pocket of her sundress. She wadded up his shorts and put them in a laundry hamper that was already full of wet bathing suits and towels.

  “Wait,” he said. “That book—”

  “Shh,” she told him. “I can hear them outside, be quiet!”

  It was no use. Chapel had to focus on holding himself up and not collapsing inside the shower stall. He felt so weak that just the water pouring down on him could knock him over. He heard the Cubans out in the hall as well—he could hear them shouting, even over the roar of the blood in his ears. He heard them pounding on the door, demanding to be let in.