Instead, he simply felt at peace.
Sam opened his eyes and glanced at the depth gauge. It read two hundred and five feet. Much less than he’d been able to achieve in his twenties, but more than he had any intention of trying to reach today.
He flicked the release valve and compressed air filled his lift bag.
But instead of sending him upward, he continued to rush toward the bottom. Sam’s head snapped around to look at his lift bag. Gas bubbles spurted out through two giant gashes in his inflatable vest. Under normal circumstances, the entire canvas vest would have been folded in on itself until Sam had pulled the release string, and the air super inflated the balloon.
It was impossible to notice the gash without taking the vest apart before the dive to examine, and now impossible to fix. Which meant, he was going to have to somehow make his own way to the surface the old-fashioned route — by pulling on the dive line and kicking his legs.
He let go of the dive sled, but his foot snagged, and he continued to be pulled deeper. He bent down until he could see the problem. The rubber foot clasp had been replaced with a plastic cable tie. It fitted loosely around his right ankle and the vertical rung of the dive sled, so that he hadn’t felt it until now.
There was no reason to have such ties on the dive sled, let alone around his ankle. Therefore, it wasn’t an accident — and more importantly — it meant someone wanted him dead.
Sam placed his hand and mouth near the small air canister, and took in a deep breath. It would disqualify him from the tournament, but he was more interested in living than breaking records today. There was just enough for a single breath, before the tank ran out.
He kicked his right leg, trying to free his foot. There was plenty of movement, but he remained trapped by the sled — being dragged to the bottom.
The depth gauge now read 275 feet.
He used both his hands and tried to break the plastic. It was impossible. Military Police had been using similar ties to restrain prisoners for years. Without anything sharp to cut it, Sam was wasting his energy by fighting with it.
But what other option did he have?
The alternative was to simply give up and die. He fought with it for another few seconds, and then stopped.
The depth read 350 feet.
He would reach the bottom soon. Then what? Even if he could free himself, without the lift bag, there would be little chance of reaching the surface alive. Seawater became clearer the deeper he got, and despite the darkness, he could now see the bottom.
A seabed of sand and limestone raced to meet him.
Stalagmites, twelve feet tall and higher riddled the seafloor, like the pillars of an ancient city, lost for millennia. Below which, large erosions in the limestone formed jagged scars and deep crevasses and cave systems that stretched a further hundred feet below.
Next to him, the end of the vertical dive-line stopped ten feet short of the seafloor. Dangling off the very end of it, and placed there for emergencies, was a single tank of air and attached regulator. It was a divine gift if he could reach it.
The dive sled crashed into the seabed with a hard jolt, sending a thick cloud of limestone several feet high. The narrow, pointy end of the sled dug into the sandy edge. It balanced for a second and then tipped over, like a tree being felled.
It slid deeper, into an opening in the seafloor like a jagged scar — dragging Sam with it another twenty feet — until the sled became wedged horizontally and stopped.
Leaving Sam thirty feet out of reach of the emergency air tank.
Chapter Fifteen
Sam was running out of options.
His lungs burned with the desire to breathe. In the darkness, he struggled to determine whether his vision was blurry from an oxygen starved brain, or from the depth where light failed to penetrate. A coldness quickly enveloped him, as though Death himself was wrapping a blanket over him in preparation of the last journey he’d ever take.
But Sam had no intention of dying today.
In the darkness he ran his hands through the coral protruding from the side of the limestone cave. His fingertips felt the sharp edge of a spiral piece of fossilized marine life. His fingers latched around it and gripped as hard as they could. Sam pulled back in one sharp jolt, and the rock broke free.
He felt for the plastic cable tie and ran the coarse piece of stone against it. Whatever he’d found simply slipped off the smooth plastic.
Frustrated, Sam moved his leg closer to the hard stalagmite and searched the surrounding reef for something sharper. He felt his hands cutting against some sort of shell. It felt big in his hand — maybe twice the size of it — and heavy too.
He placed the plastic against the edge of the cave wall and blindly struck it with the shell.
The first missed completely.
The second one slid off the smooth plastic, and scratched his right leg.
But the third one connected!
It sliced through the thin plastic and Sam felt his ankle finally become free. He pushed off the horizontal edge of the diving sled and swam toward the air tank.
A warm glow originated directly above him. Someone was swimming toward him. He couldn’t quite see its source, but the light reflected off the metallic cylinder of the emergency dive tank.
It spurred him on and Sam kicked harder with his legs. His oxygen starved and disoriented mind, suddenly focused.
A strong beam of light swept across the Great Blue Hole. It paused on the air tank for a moment, and then continued — finally stopping directly on Sam.
The light shined straight in his eyes.
It made it hard to see the emergency tank. Behind the blinding glare of the light, he could only just make out the shape of another diver. Most likely, one of the rescue SCUBA divers.
Sam felt his vision going again. He kicked harder, but even the movement of his legs seemed to be incredibly difficult.
He was so close. Another two feet! Just keep going…
His legs refused to respond.
Sam’s world went dark, as his mind shut down. He threw his hands forward. The left one connected with the dive regulator. He pulled it into his mouth and took a deep breath.
The cool air tasted sweeter than anything he’d ever experienced. He took slow, deep breaths in, until his vision started to return. It was intermittent at first, like an old TV that wasn’t quite able to receive the transmission.
He opened his eyes and spotted the rescue diver coming in to meet him.
The SCUBA diver stared at him through his full faced dive-mask with piercing green eyes. They were intense and focused. The man had probably raced from the surface trying to save his life, at great risk to himself.
The man held up his thumb and forefinger together to form the shape of a “Q,” an international symbol in diving for, “Okay.”
Sam tried to answer, but his arms weren’t quite responding yet.
“You okay?” the stranger mouthed.
Sam simply nodded.
Everything was going to be okay.
The rescue diver patted him on the back and smiled. His face said, You’re one lucky son of a gun. Sam knew he was right, too. Few people could have survived the events of the past few minutes.
Sam took another breath in and stopped.
A sense of panic raged as adrenaline surged through his veins, and his chest burned — because the rescue diver just turned off the flow from his dive-tank.
Chapter Sixteen
Sam studied his attacker’s face.
There was something uniquely disturbing about his smile. It wasn’t filled with hatred or anger. Instead, the diver’s face was set with the cold, hard appearance of something entirely different and much more sinister.