Was it grotesque pleasure?
His attacker gripped Sam in an immovable and giant bear hug, preventing him from opening the emergency dive cylinder again.
Through the full-faced dive mask, the stranger mouthed the words, “It’s okay. Just take a deep breath, and it will all be over.”
The man was simply enjoying watching him die.
It was enough to rouse Sam into action.
He tensed the muscles in his arms, trying to break free of the restraint his attacker had placed on him. He needed to get his arms above his head to reach the top of the dive tank. It was impossible to break the vice through direct force. Even if his energy hadn’t been depleted by oxygen starvation, he wouldn’t have been able to free himself.
Instead, he needed a different plan.
Forcing every muscle in his body to relax, his vision darted downward, in the opposite direction he wanted to go. If he couldn’t go up to the tank, perhaps there was somewhere he could go down. His eyes paused on his attacker’s dive knife, strapped to his lower leg.
Sam moved his right hand slowly toward the weapon. The knife was still out of reach. He had one shot left, and he wasn’t about to let it slip past him.
With his left arm, he threw his entire weight into pushing upward. Like a wounded animal in its death throes, Sam fought to reach the top of the dive tank. His attacker applied more pressure from above him — and with Sam’s right hand, he shot downward toward the knife.
His hand made contact with the weapon’s hilt, but there was minimal movement available to wield it as he withdrew the knife from its sheath.
Sam’s attacker, realizing his mistake, tried to tighten his grip again. The man stared at him with those green and intensely malevolent eyes. A sardonic grin formed on his lips. Both men locked in a deadly battle that would determine which one got to live.
It was enough to prevent Sam from moving his right arm at all. But not enough to stop his wrist from driving the knife sideways — where he planted it deep into the diver’s calf.
His attacker’s pupils widened in pain.
A millisecond later, the binding pressure over Sam’s arms disappeared as his attacker punched his right wrist.
A crushing pain seared through the bones of his right forearm.
Sam tried to drive the knife farther into his attacker’s calf, but instead, the man used both his hands to pull Sam’s hand away. In the process, the knife came free. Sam gripped the knife’s hilt as firmly as he could, and the attacker made a desperate play to take it.
Both men were strong, but in his oxygen-depleted state, Sam knew he wouldn’t win a game of might in hand-to-hand combat.
Instead, he opened his hand and let the knife fall.
His attacker immediately dove to grab it, and in that instant, Sam pulled at the diver’s face-mask. The quick movement broke the seal, and seawater flooded into his attacker’s eyes. It would only take a competent SCUBA diver a moment to clear his mask, but in that moment, Sam kicked hard, breaking free from his attacker and raced toward the surface.
Sam pulled on the dive-line that ran all the way to the surface. He climbed it hand over hand, until he’d built up enough momentum to maintain a constant ascent. Without dive fins, he would have been exerting more energy than he had to try and kick his way to the surface.
Glancing below, he spotted his attacker.
The man had already cleared his dive-mask and was now kicking his fins vigorously in pursuit. In his right hand, the diver gripped the same knife Sam had used to stab him thirty seconds earlier.
It urged Sam on, pulling on the rope as fast as possible as he raced upward. He had a ten to fifteen second head start on his pursuer, who had fins. It was going to be a close race — but he had to win it if he was going to survive.
As the air in his lungs — from the few breaths he’d managed to take before his attacker switched the emergency tank off — expanded, he started to ascend faster than he could pull himself along the rope. Like a small rocket, he shot toward the surface. He opened his mouth, and breathed out in one long and continuous exhale.
He glanced at his depth gauge — just seventy feet to go!
Above him, he could already make out the dark shadows of the flotilla of yachts and dive barges. His view darted downward, where his frustrated pursuer was unbuckling his weight belt and inflating his lift bag. The small, orange balloon filled with air in an instant, and sent the diver shooting to the surface and toward him.
Sam gritted his teeth and kicked as hard as possible. He didn’t need to go far. All he had to do was hold in there for another ten seconds, and he’d be on the surface. He kicked again, but his left foot didn’t move — because someone had grabbed it.
The diver released the lift bag, and the orange balloon floated past Sam like a shooting star. Sam felt the jolt as the diver tried to pull him down again by his leg.
His attacker had assumed the only way to kill him was to drag him down long enough to drown him, or at least get close enough to him to drive the knife somewhere where it had the potential to kill him. The man probably guessed that Sam, in his hypoxic state, would be unable to concentrate on anything but trying to reach the surface.
It was a mistake.
Instead of fighting to reach the surface, Sam turned his energy to pulling — driving himself downward, to meet his attacker.
With his right leg, he kicked hard — and it connected at the space between his pursuer’s dive-mask and face. It wasn’t strong enough to do any real damage, but the man relinquished his leg as he tried to fix his mask.
It only took a second, but it was enough for Sam to kick the man’s head again. This time, there was enough force to send his opponent off to see stars.
Sam didn’t wait to see how much damage he’d inflicted, but instead swam to the surface. His mind struggled to focus, and in his disoriented state, he felt like he was never going to reach it. He felt as though both his legs had been attached to something heavy, which was dragging him under, time and time again. He could see the slight ripples of the water lapping on the surface only a few feet above him — but it may as well have been a mile.
A second later, his head broke the surface.
He took a giant gasp of fresh air…
And the darkness swallowed him whole, as he suddenly blacked out.
Chapter Seventeen
Sam opened his eyes.
He was on the dive barge, with his back up against a medical kit, looking out upon the glistening deep blue water of the Great Blue Hole. He must have passed out, and someone had dragged him out of the water. His mouth felt dry. Someone had placed a medical oxygen mask over his mouth and nose. It was working wonders to clear his head, after what had happened to him.
But what had happened?
He was free-diving. That much he felt sure he could remember. Could he have stayed under too long? That didn’t seem right. He was only entering the competition to enjoy the peace and mental tranquility free-diving provided — not to get himself killed trying to break records.
So, what went wrong?
A flash of distant memories, almost like dreams filtered through his head, like a movie, fragmented and discombobulated. None of it made sense, but he recalled those eyes.
He sat up, rigid.
Tom said, “Hey buddy, you’re awake!”
Sam searched his surroundings. His eyes spotted the orange lift-balloon floating on the surface. He searched the faces around him. Then stopped and looked directly at Tom. “Where is he?”
“Who?”
“Quick!” Sam removed the oxygen mask. “Where is he?”