He also told himself that it would be pretty easy to bolt right then and there, without the professor. He only had to start the engine and go. They’d look after the man and his wife at the hotel.
He started the car. As he turned on the headlights, he saw, just beyond the lawn, the thick undergrowth thrashing about like a choppy ocean.
The current wasn’t as strong at the guide had led them to believe, but even so, the professor’s son didn’t let go of the cable during his descent. He followed the wake of bubbles left by his partner, a few yards ahead of him. Visibility was good. They soon caught sight of the boat wreck. The cable guide was fixed to one of the deck rails. More bubbles, this time emerging out of the hulk’s various orifices, told them there were more divers inside.
The SS Thistlegorm sank on October 6, 1941, in the northern part of the Red Sea, while en route to Alexandria, where it was taking supplies to the allied forces in Egypt. It was spotted by a pair of German bombers who were returning to their base in Crete after completing a mission. The planes were almost out of fuel, so they wasted no time. They launched straight at the boat. The bombs went through the deck and all the way down to the hold, where they exploded, splitting the freighter in two. Nine of the forty-one crew members died in the shipwreck.
The boat was covered with a bulbous layer of rust, corals, and sponges. The professor’s son saw a moray eel emerge from the open mouth of a deck canon, which was now the animal’s fixed abode. On the sandy sea bed, not far from the boat, lay one of the two locomotives that the SS Thistlegorm had been transporting for Egyptian National Railways. It was tempting, but there’d be time for that later.
His partner caught his attention and pointed toward a hatch. The professor’s son nodded. They switched on their flashlights and swam down into the hold.
Everything was brown inside the boat. The beams from the flashlights lit a narrow passageway. What looked like particles suspended in the water proved on closer inspection to be a shoal of tiny fish the same color as the rust on the bulkhead.
The SS Thistlegorm had been carrying a wide array of cargo — rain boots, trucks, armored vehicles, radio equipment, rifles. . In the hold, the floor was covered by a jumbled mess of debris that looked like trash piled up by floodwaters. The two divers moved carefully, so as not to disturb the sediment. They spotted a row of Norton motorcycles leaning one against the other, like books on a shelf. The professor’s son fiddled with his underwater camera to photograph a scorpionfish posing on one of the seats. His partner signaled for them to move on. They swam around the hold for a while and then left again through one of the bomb holes in the hulk. They continued exploring the freighter and taking photos until their air gauges told them it was time to go back.
They followed the cable guide as they made their ascent. It ended in a buoy, and just next to that was the boat. Their Egyptian guide gave them a hand hoisting themselves onto the platform at the stern.
“Everything OK?”
The professor’s son gave two thumbs up. His partner took off his tank, which the guide then put in the rack set into the side of the vessel. He did the same with the professor’s son’s tank.
“Something to drink now?”
The two men nodded.
They took off their wetsuits, and the guide grabbed a couple of beers from the cooler. He took another for himself and sat down at the helm.
The professor’s son and his partner drank as they recounted the dive. There were other diving boats anchored around the buoy. They ate something and then took a dip in the nude, not caring that they could be seen by the other boats. The professor’s son got out of the water with a cheeky laugh and went into the cabin. His partner followed him. They closed the door.
The guide didn’t pay them any attention. It wasn’t the first time he had a pair of fully-grown men fooling around like kids and having a kiss and a cuddle. What’s more, they’d accepted his boat rental price without any haggling, and his instinct told him they’d probably leave a decent tip, too. He killed time reading the previous day’s paper. Eventually his passengers came out of the cabin and told him they were ready to do another dive.
“The locomotive now?”
They nodded.
At the stern end of the deck, the professor’s son squeezed into his wetsuit. His partner went back into the cabin.
“I’m gonna grab my other goggles,” he said. “These ones pinch my nose.”
From among the various tanks, the guide chose a full one. It had spent all morning in the sun, its contents expanding in the heat. This fact in itself wasn’t enough to cause what happened next. But the tank was old, and it had a crack where the cylinder joined the air valve. When the guide put it down on the deck with a little thump, the bottle exploded.
In the cabin, the explosion threw the professor’s son’s partner against a bulkhead. He got up, stunned. He was bleeding from the forehead, and there was a sharp buzzing in his ears. He staggered out on deck, which was stained red with the guide’s blood. There were pieces of him stuck to the gunwale and others floating in the sea, in pink patches of water. The professor’s son was also in the water, having been propelled outward by the explosion. He wasn’t moving, and was floating facedown.
His partner leaped into the water after him.
PART III Cabin
Joanes drove leaning into the wheel. The wind and rain lashed against the car. They came off the small lane that led to the hotel, turned onto the Los Tigres road, and followed it away from the town, which disappeared into the distance. They made slow progress due to the almost total invisibility and the branches strewn across the road.
“Keep your eyes peeled,” said Joanes. “The cabin should be on the left.”
In the back seat, the professor’s wife pressed her nose against the window next to her, but she couldn’t see a thing. Her husband passed her the flashlight, and she shone it at the passing roadside.
“See it?”
“Not yet.”
The wind sent a garden chair flying out of nowhere, and it smashed into the side of the car, making all three of them jump. A nightgown, presumably belonging to some lady from Los Tigres, went flying past the headlights, all puffed up in the wind, its sleeves flailing wildly.
“Focus!” the professor told his wife. “It must be around here somewhere.”
“You don’t think we already passed it back there, do you?”
Nobody answered.
A hundred or so yards further along, the woman shouted, “There! There’s something over there!”
Joanes braked suddenly and looked to where the flashlight was shining. He couldn’t see more than a track coming off the main road. The light didn’t reach any further than that.
“Do you think that’s it?” asked the professor’s wife.
“We’re going to have to risk it,” replied Joanes.
He turned onto the side street, which was narrow, riddled with potholes, and almost completely choked with vegetation. They pressed on, crushing branches and praying they wouldn’t get stuck.
“There!” they cried all together.