The cloudy water made the search difficult. The minutes fell away. How many? Even a veteran diver couldn’t judge. Too many.
He passed directly over the boy and almost missed him in the gloom. Kaz lay flat against the sand as if attempting to bury himself in it. At first, English mistook the blackness of the boy’s wet suit for a large sea fan that had fallen over.
Kaz nearly jumped out of his skin when the dive guide grabbed him under the arms and pulled him upright.
Menasce Gérard did not waste words anywhere, especially underwater. “Come,” he said into his regulator.
Kaz grabbed the big man’s arm and did not let go. Now connected to a weighted diver, English was able to lead the way efficiently along the bottom toward the cage.
It might have been underwater radar, or even a sixth sense, but English knew instantly when the shark began pursuing them. A quick glance over his shoulder revealed nothing. But the predator was coming, concealed by the swirling silt. English could picture the eighteen-foot monster with the cold black eyes.
He spit out another word: “Faster.” He still couldn’t see Clarence, but he was aware of a dark shape behind them, and it was grow-ing larger. They kicked like machines, propelling themselves toward the cage and safety.
Kaz did not risk a look back, but there was horror behind his mask, and the desperation of the hunted.
The shadows ahead began to resolve themselves into the straight lines and right angles of the cage. But the shark was visible too now, and gaining. Its sweeping tail powered the attack as it closed the gap, mouth slightly open, lethal arsenal at the ready.
With a burst of speed and strength that surprised even him, English finned for the cage and thrust Kaz inside. He scrambled in himself, and grabbed the door to swing it shut.
And then the great mouth exploded out of the shadowy deep with appalling violence.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Jaws the size of a small desk clamped down on the bars of the still-open door in a shriek of bone on metal. The powerful head began to shake relentlessly. The cage tossed, its occupants rattling around like backgammon dice in a cup.
The tugging from the struggle must have reached the surface, because the cage began to rise. The shark remained clamped on the gate, stubbornly trying to bite through the two-inch titanium. English braced himself against the rear slats, kicking frantically with his flippers at the flat blunt snout.
Hanging on to the bars to avoid being catapulted out the opening, Kaz knew a panic he would not have imagined possible. He saw that the only thing keeping them alive at this point was the tiger shark’s own stupidity. For if the beast had the sense to let go of the door, it would have been able to poke its head inside the cage and reach them.
The glowing dial of his Fathometer watch showed that the surface was still forty feet away. When the cage rose above the waves, he wondered if he and English would still be in it.
Aboard the Hernando Cortés, Captain Vanover bent over his electric winch, which was groaning and vibrating.
Dante looked worried. “Does it do that all the time?”
“Shouldn’t,” the captain frowned. “Not to reel in a cage and two divers.”
Star peered over the stern. “I can’t see anything. No, wait—”
The others rushed to join her at the gunwale.
The ocean was boiling, churning up white water from the depths.
Adriana drew in a sharp breath. “Holy—”
The cage broke the surface, and with it rose the tiger shark, a writhing mass of muscle and fury as thick as a redwood. It was still doggedly clamped on to the bars of the door, being winched from the water up past its huge triangular dorsal fin. Now, hoisted out of the element that was its home, the beast went completely berserk, twisting and thrashing as its snapping jaws punished the tempered steel.
Vanover grabbed a long pole and began beating at the shark’s enormous head. Star hefted another and jabbed sharply at the white underbelly. Dante bounced a soda can off a pectoral fin. Nothing seemed to have any effect.
Kaz remained cemented to the bars, still breathing out of his regulator, although he hung six feet above the water.
Bellowing French curses, English shrugged out of his scuba harness, reared back with the compressed air tank, and brought it down full force on the shark’s obsidian eye. The force of the blow caused the monster to open its vice-grip jaws. It fell back into the sea with a mammoth splash that rocked the boat and sent a torrent of water over the four spectators on deck. It took two menacing laps of the research vessel, its dorsal fin slicing the waves. Then it finally disappeared.
The captain swung the cage over the gunwale and lowered it to the deck.
English hauled Kaz out and yanked the regulator from his mouth. “You are all right, boy? You are in one piece?”
Kaz nodded. His knees felt wobbly, but he was determined not to collapse. “You — you saved my life!”
The dive guide’s response was an elaborate shrug that was very French. “But next time,” he added pointedly, “you like excitement, you ride the roller coaster, oui?”
The radio burst to life in the navigation room belowdecks. Tad Cutter’s voice: “What’s going on over there? Was that a whale? Is everybody okay?”
Rolling his eyes, Vanover dragged himself down the companionway. “Everybody’s fine, Cutter,” he said shortly. “One of your interns almost got eaten. Nothing for you to concern yourself about.” He severed the connection.
“Hey—” Adriana pointed to the cage. There, pressed into a corner, its skin matching the steel-gray of the bars, cowered a small octopus. “Mr. English — here’s the octopus we owe you.”
The big guide reached in through the bars, drew out the terrified creature, and spoke directly to it. “You are lucky I’m in a good mood.” And he tossed it back into the sea.
It was the only time the four interns had ever seen him smile.
It was decided that the teen divers would ride back to Côte Saint-Luc harbor on the Hernando Cortés instead of switching to the Ponce de León.
“The last thing you kids need is face time with Cutter and his crew,” said Vanover grimly.
Kaz nodded his agreement. “Reardon’s probably still sore about losing that grouper. I’ll bet he has no idea that his stupid fishing line almost turned me into the catch of the day.”
Vanover regarded him seriously. “I’ve seen too many divers pretend it never happened by making little jokes like that. What you went through — that’s as scary as it gets. Here’s what you have to decide: Was it a knockout punch? Some guys can shrug off an experience like that and strap on fins the very next morning; others never put a toe in the water again. Your job, Kaz, is to figure out which one you’re going to be.” He headed up the companionway, leaving them alone in the galley.
“He’s right, you know,” said Dante. “How are you ever going to be able to dive after today? I don’t know if I can, and it didn’t even happen to me.”
“That’s just plain dumb,” scoffed Star. “Today was a freak accident. Even if you do run into a big shark like that, chances are he’ll look right through you and keep on swimming. To quit diving because of this would be like refusing to drive a car because you almost got into an accident once.”
“Yeah, but Clarence is still out there somewhere,” Dante reminded her.
She shrugged. “The captain says he’s been around for years. People hardly ever see him, and even when they do, it’s no big deal. Kaz just happened to be there when he was feeding and there was blood in the water.”