Inquisition

by David Gibbins

  More bullets splattered around him, gouging into the wood. As the boat rode up another wave, he let go of the stanchion and slid down the deck, tumbling into the fishing net. Kicking and pushing at it to extricate himself, he pulled himself over to the scuba tank, snapping open the cam on the belt that held it to the railing and pulling it toward the opening over the stern ladder. It was a steel tank, twelve liters, and only had a regulator attached, no buoyancy compensator or pressure gauge.

  The boat was reaching the top of the wave, angled now at almost forty-five degrees, and he held the tank against his chest with one hand and the railing with the other—the only thing stopping him from falling off into the sea. A bullet pinged deafeningly off the shoulder of the tank, ricocheting away a hair’s breadth from his face. He stared into the raging tumult below him. There was no time to think, no time for prayer, only time for action. He let go.

  18

  Jack entered the water as if in slow motion, his senses heightened and acute to every change in the sea around him. The wave had broken just as he had jumped, and it was as if the interface between air and water was no longer sharply defined but was one of increment, the spray becoming suspended globules that coalesced into the mass of water behind. He was completely immersed before he realized it, his eyes shut tight at first but then open to the blur underwater, seeing the surface above him illuminated by flashes of lightning and sensing the yawning darkness below, an abyss he knew from the Caribbean bathymetry charts to be at least four thousand meters deep. He clung on to the tank with both arms, not yet risking reaching for the regulator, fearful that the tank would be swept out of his grip if he relinquished his hold. Because the tank was steel he knew that it would make him sink, but he was still buoyed up by the surge near the crest of the wave, an immense force that he knew would keep him near the surface until he was able to slide down into the next trough and plunge beneath the oscillation of the waves.

  He broke the surface, gasping for air, and for an extraordinary few moments he could see the boat below him, wallowing in a trough while he rode the crest of the wave behind it. Through the spray he glimpsed a man hacking frantically at something near the stern rail, then giving up and crawling back toward the deckhouse. Jack braced himself, thinking that this was the wave that was finally going to swamp the boat; that it was going to curl over and throw him back down onto the deck before forcing the vessel under. But then he saw the boat power up the slope of the next wave, and felt himself drop down below its level into the trough. He shut his eyes against the stinging of the spray, and took a deep breath, expecting it to be his last before going under. He could hold his breath in these conditions for a minute and a half, maybe more, enough for him to sink the ten meters or so below the wave oscillation into calmer water that would allow him to let go of the tank with one hand and reach for the regulator. He had no way of knowing whether there was air left in the tank, or whether the valve was open. But it was his only chance of survival.

  Something suddenly jerked at his feet, pulling him violently down and then back up, almost completely out of the water. To his horror he realized that his feet were still tangled up in the fishing net, that he must have taken it out with him as he jumped. That was what the crewman had been desperately trying to hack away: the line where the net was still attached to the boat. Like the derrick, the net would be acting as a sheet anchor, except that this time Jack was part of it. He knew that he only had seconds to try to disentangle himself before the boat went under, taking him with it.

  He gasped for air again, keeping a tight grip on the tank. He could do nothing while the boat was rising up the wave and the line was taut, but after it crested and the line went slack, he might be able to free himself. A blinding flash of lightning lit the scene, followed almost immediately by an immense crack of thunder, and he felt a jolt of current in the water. He breathed deeply, deliberately hyperventilating while he could, preparing for what was to come. As he followed the boat up the crest of the next wave, he saw the tangle of netting spread out around him like the tendrils of a giant jellyfish. The boat plowed on, the lines of the net pulled taut behind it, like some sea stallion drawing a chariot over the waves. Jack slipped back behind the crest and was suddenly underwater, the sea ahead of him a blur of bubbles and current. The rope pulled him forward with a force he had not felt before. Instead of relenting with the next trough, the pull continued, and rather than breaking the surface again, he continued to descend. He realized what had happened. The net had finally pulled the boat under, and it was not going to rise out of the waves again. It was on a one-way trip to the sea floor several thousand meters beneath him, and unless he did something about it very soon, he would be going along with it.

  He kicked his right foot free of the net, but his other ankle was caught in a loop of rope that acted as a self-tightening knot. The more he tried to shake it free, the tighter the knot became. They were dropping deeper now, below the level of the wave oscillation, and he could see the hazy form of the boat sinking at horrifying speed into the inky abyss below. Suddenly he remembered the knife that he had put in his pocket before leaving the hold. He released one hand from the tank and reached around, feeling for his thigh pocket. The knife was still there, caught in the webbing. He pulled it out, strained forward with all his strength, and began sawing with the serrated edge at the rope, holding the tank by its valve with his other hand.

  The fibers of the rope were incredibly hard, oiled and solidified by years of use, and at first he could make no progress. Then the knife severed one strand, and another, and eventually the rope gave way, snapping where it had been taut and going slack in the water. Jack kicked it away with his feet, then watched it draw together and follow the boat as it sank out of sight below. For a moment, even in this maelstrom, he remembered what he had said to Hernandes: Nobody threatens my daughter. As far as Jack knew, Hernandes had been in the cabin of the boat. By chance, Jack had engineered his own payback, of the most horrifying sort.

  He must have been holding his breath now for more than two minutes, and his lungs were beginning to convulse. He dropped the knife and frantically reached for the regulator hose, putting the second stage in his mouth and pressing the purge button. Nothing. He grabbed the pillar valve on the tank, trying to turn it anticlockwise to open it. Still nothing. The valve appeared to be fully open, and the tank bled out. His mind raced. It did not make sense. The diver he had seen using this rig before they left the harbor had still been breathing from the regulator as he came up the ladder, and to empty it entirely he would have had to suck on it strenuously in a way that Jack had not seen him do. Perhaps the valve was jammed closed, rather than fully open.

  He wrapped both hands around it, swinging the tank up in the water and using its weight to give his twist of the handle more bite. Suddenly it cracked open, and he quickly took one hand away to press the purge valve again on the regulator second stage, this time blasting air through the mouthpiece to clear it of water. He breathed deep and fast, shuddering with relief, before forcing himself to slow down. He could feel resistance, and he opened the valve fully. The resistance was still there, a tightness at the end of each breath. That at least answered the question of how much air was left in the tank. Resistance meant that he was well below the reserve threshold of fifty bar, and almost certainly within the final few atmospheres of pressure. Regardless of any efforts to slow his breathing now and make it last, there was no getting around the reality of his situation. Within a few minutes he would have sucked the tank dry.

  He was caught in a terrifying conundrum. By continuing to hold on to the tank, he was heading inexorably deeper, dragged down by its weight. He needed the tank to survive right now, but very soon the air would be gone and he would have to abandon it and try to surface. He was already stretching the envelope for a free ascent, close to the critical depth where he would not have enough oxygen in his system to ascend without a buoyancy aid. His current oxygen level would already be severely depleted
by having held his breath until only a few moments ago; it would be suicidal to attempt an ascent before that level had normalized. To make matters worse, there was not enough air in the tank to allow him to saturate his system with oxygen as rapidly as he would have liked. Taking deep breaths would anyway only waste unabsorbed oxygen through exhalation, and feeling the resistance that deep breaths would bring, knowing that the tank was emptying, might trip him over into the first stages of panic, something that would only increase his metabolism and oxygen consumption. He needed to stay calm, to take shallow breaths, to be in the best state of mind to make a judgment call on the time to ascend before the point of no return was reached.

  He passed through the thermocline, a sudden drop of several degrees in the ocean temperature and his first certain indication of depth. In this part of the Caribbean he knew the thermocline was at about sixty meters. It was a crunch point for his survival; beyond that depth without a buoyancy aid, he would have little hope of making it to the surface after ditching the tank. He tried to relax, to quell the instinct to breathe hard and maximize his oxygen intake, and instead allowed being underwater to have the effect it usually had on him, slowing his heart rate and his breathing. For a few moments, holding the tank and sinking into darkness, he felt suffused by serenity, as if he were levitating in the ocean, becoming one with something that had been his passion all his life. Then he snapped out of it, realizing that he had allowed his mind to prepare his body for shutdown, for the end he had always known might be the price he would have to pay for that passion. This was not the right time, or the right place. He remembered what Costas had once said when they were a hair’s breadth from oblivion. Don’t think. Just act.

  He took as many short, quick breaths as he could, feeling the resistance as the tank finally emptied, and then spat out the regulator and pushed the tank away, seeing it disappear into the depths. He had taken short breaths rather than one deep one in order to saturate his bloodstream with oxygen, but without having to hold the air in his lungs; that would only have wasted oxygen, as he would have needed to expel the air as he ascended in order to keep his lungs from rupturing. He began to swim up, not kicking, but using a more energy-efficient frog-stroke, at the same time pulling down with his arms, keeping his movements controlled and measured. He passed back through the thermocline, avoiding looking up at the daunting distance to the surface but instead focusing on the horizon he could see between the shallower water that was penetrated by sunlight and the inky blackness below. He tried not to work too hard, to increase his tempo in a way that could lead to panic.

  At about thirty meters, he did look up, seeing an undulating mass like storm clouds, shot through with white smudges where lightning was hitting the surface. He knew that this was going to be the most trying part; most freediving blackouts occurred only a few meters from the surface. He began to retch, to feel the ache of oxygen starvation, and tried to suppress the urge to open his mouth and breathe.

  He suddenly lost that urge, and his legs felt leaden, warning signs that he was seconds away from blackout. He tried to pull himself up further, running on empty, and then his arms gave way too and he hung motionless in the water. He could not understand why he had not blacked out; it must have been some extra will inside him. He felt movement, and then saw that the lower reach of the wave oscillation was only a few meters above, a point where the surge might take him the final ten meters or so to the surface. He summoned up some extra hidden reserve and pulled himself up, feeling the current draw him in just as he lost consciousness.

  All movement and pain was gone, and he seemed to be in a place of light, hearing only the soft sounds of the sea and a breeze that gently brushed his face. There were figures on the foreshore, and he realized that they were all there, Rebecca and Costas and the others, beckoning him on, waving for him to come across and join them. Then the scene fragmented and he was back in reality, coughing and taking in great gulps of air on the surface of the sea, riding a gigantic wave to its crest and dropping down into a trough below. He lay on his back as the waves carried him forward, doing nothing more than was needed to keep his head above water, trying to conserve his energy for what might lie ahead.

  A burst of rain swept over him, and he opened his mouth to catch the drops, grateful for a taste of fresh water. He came upright, trying to see beyond the raging waters around him, peering above the crest of the next wave. There was something ahead, a brightness in the sky, perhaps marking the edge of the storm. At the crest of the next wave, he could see it more clearly. The wind was still whipping spindrift off the top of the waves, but ahead of him there seemed to be a dramatic lessening of the seas, and even a hint of blue in the sky above. Far in the distance he could make out a white surf line, and beyond it a hazy dark shape receding into the background. It was land. He still had a long way to go, but the sight gave him a burst of adrenalin that he knew could see him through. He remembered his vision in those few moments of unconsciousness before hitting the surface. He owed it to them, to those who mattered most. There was no way he was giving up now.

  * * *

  Several hours later, he was floating off a long sandy beach, with people visible under parasols, and huts and houses set among groves of palms behind it. The sun had been blazing down fiercely for at least an hour, and the storm was no more than a distant darkness on the horizon, swirling away to the north. With the wind and waves having tailed off, he knew that he was being taken inshore by the Colombia-Panama Gyre, but some time back the current had swerved east to run parallel to the shore, potentially taking him out to sea again in the direction of the Atlantic. For half an hour or so he had been swimming as hard as he could, diagonally from the current, still using its force behind him but trying to edge closer to the surf line, where he should be able to break free and make landfall. He had swept past dangerous outcrops of reef and rock, trying to find a place to strike inshore, and finally here it was, a beach that continued out of sight to the east as far as he could see.

  The final obstacle was the surf itself, a rolling succession of waves that broke and crashed on the beach, surging forward almost to the parasols and falling back in a vicious undertow that dragged the sand and shingle along in a thunderous cacophony. It was a last legacy of the storm, a result of a swell created by the maelstrom to the north that had been imperceptible to Jack in the deeper water but had risen up as he approached the shallows. The beach was only a few hundred meters away, but the obstacle was still considerable. He swam up one wave and tried to bodysurf from its crest, but slid back as it rolled ahead of him against the shore.

  In the trough of the next wave, he scraped his left thigh hard against something, and spotted a black mass of reef running parallel to the shore. Tendrils of blood filled the water around him, but he felt no pain. He knew that to be thrown against the reef again could kill him; all he could do now was judge the best wave to ride over it. He let the next two go, treading water as they broke over him, coming perilously close to the reef each time, then rolled onto his front, arms and legs splayed, and surfed the next one into shore, riding just beyond the crest until it deposited him on the sand ahead of the surf. He knew he had to get farther to avoid being sucked back by the undertow, and he crawled forward, inch by inch, eventually reaching the tideline and safety.

  He stood up, swaying and feeling faint, and looked at his shredded trousers and the bloody wound in his left thigh. The coral had scraped off the skin over a large area and gouged a deep runnel down the middle, where fragments remained embedded. It was not good, but he was alive. He had made it.

  He was desperately thirsty, and he needed medical attention. But before that, there was something he urgently needed to do. He used his last remaining reserves to stagger up the beach toward a palm-roofed bar, one hand pressed against his thigh, the blood oozing out between his fingers. He reached the counter, and stood there panting, oblivious to the stares of those around him. A woman rushed up with a handful of table napkins and lifted hi
s hand aside, pressing them against the gaping wound in his leg. “Doctor, doctor!” she shouted, looking around at the other people in the bar.

  Jack saw a lifeguard running over, carrying a yellow medical bag. The barman gave him a glass of water, and he drank it in great gulps, his hand shaking and his teeth rattling against the glass. He put it down, and the barman poured another, but Jack reached out and grasped his arm.

  “Por favor,” he said, his voice rasping, barely audible. “I need to use a phone.”

  Part 4

  19

  Near Potosi, Bolivia, the High Andes

  Jack braced himself as the four-wheel drive engaged and the driver of the truck negotiated another hairpin bend on the side of the mountain, the single faulty headlight barely illuminating the rocky track ahead. It had been less than twenty-four hours since he had escaped from the sea on the coast of Colombia, and twelve hours since he had signed himself out of hospital and met up with Costas on the tarmac at Bogotá airport. He had been dead to the world for almost the entire flight to Bolivia, but had been woken up for an on-board shower, food, a change of clothes, and kitting-out for what lay ahead, before they had landed at La Paz and he and Costas had met up with their driver for the long trip into the mountains.

  It had been midnight when they had left the Embraer at the airport, and it was now nearly four a.m., still pitch dark but with a smudge of dawn beyond the ridges to the east. The road, which had started out tarmac, had soon become gravel and then little more than a track, pocked with holes, blasted crudely out of the side of the mountain, becoming even more tenuous as they wound their way higher. His GPS wrist computer included an altimeter, and he had watched it pass the four-thousand-meter mark more than an hour before. The plan had been to use this back route in order not to draw attention to themselves by driving through Potosi itself. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, but after four bone-rattling hours, he was not so sure; he had begun to dream of flat roads and of finding some way to relieve the ache in his neck.