Hannah was a little defensive about her theory. "Well…" she hesitated, "we didn't go below."
"But you're right, Byron. We didn't see anything that looked like cylinders, except the one on deck," I conceded.
The little bald man seemed to swell up. "Well then, we can draw only one conclusion from that. The remaining cylinders are still down there — and sharks or no sharks, we will have to go down and retrieve them."
The following morning we agreed to take our third crack at the secrets of the Garl.
Hannah and I had spent the rest of the evening poring over the charts and the log from the Bay Foreman. Maggie appeared to be showing the same dedication to finding something in the pictures we had taken. Every time she found a questionable shadow, the three of us searched every inch of it with a magnifying glass.
One by one, they checked out for the evening. Huntington drew watch duty, and by 11:00, only Queet and I were left in the galley to stare bleary-eyed at the disappointing pile of charts, photographs, sketches and the Foreman log. We hauled out the Black and White, reflected back on old times and old places and old faces, and called it a night sometime in the wee hours of the morning. Then, as the heavy haze of sleep started to fold around me, the similarity between what I knew about Big Doobacque and what I had seen aboard the Foreman and witnessed at Deechapal hit me. Suddenly there was a logical connection.
We were in agreement on one aspect of the day's activities. Our dive would focus on the 3-AB locker again, and, if we had enough air, we'd tackle the companion 3-CD compartment. That part was easy, but we weren't in agreement on the dive procedure. I was all for two separate dives with Queet, Hannah and me doing the bulk of the work. Hannah thought we could accomplish more by using one of the two spare tanks and taking Maggie with us. Allowing for depth and objective, Hannah calculated that we had a total tank capacity of about three hours search time. Hannah's approach won out.
When we crawled out of the water an hour and three-quarters later, the air supply was gone and the cylinders were still missing.
It was exactly 11:20 when Sarge entered the disappointing results in our own log book, and one by one we signed it. By eliminating one possibility we had simply opened up several more — all seemingly long shots with even less hope of success.
Hannah appeared to be the most discouraged. She peeled off her wetsuit, sat down on her empty tank and stared dejectedly at the brooding mass of land in the distance.
"Shit… and double shit," she muttered. "Why aren't they where your friend Crompton said they were?"
"Doesn't make any sense, does it?"
Queet folded his arms across his massive black chest. "Does it make sense to try to go down in the trench and have a look at the rest of the Garl?"
"That's the whole problem," Hannah sighed. "That's where our plan falls apart. Elliott was depending on Crompton. None of us are really qualified to work at that depth without an experienced diver."
"If you ask me, it's just one more example of how ill-conceived and poorly organized this mission has been," Huntington carped.
Hannah's head snapped up, and she glared at the little man. "Look, Huntington, look at the damn charts and show me that trench. Show me a trench anywhere on these charts. Then you tell me how you're supposed to anticipate something that isn't even there."
Byron Huntington didn't back down. "All of which proves my point. Bearing Schuster would have been much better off with an experienced dive team operating under my direction. Believe me, Ms. Holbrook, Bearing Schuster will be informed about all of this."
Hannah Holbrook's patience had played out. She turned and stared out at the surrounding reef. "Fuck you," she snarled.
The little man smiled, shoved his hands in his pockets and rocked back and forth on his heels. "I think I've made my point."
I was willing to chalk the whole exchange off to the morning's disappointment. We had made three dives in a carefully pinpointed area where previous divers had indicated the cylinders could be found — and we had come up empty. The Prometheus team had simply come to a fork in the road. We had gotten a break when we found the log of the Bay Foreman. That little piece of good luck probably saved us a full day of dragging the sonar units back and forth across the reef. But not having Crompton available was a serious setback.
Only one thing was obvious at this point. Whatever had happened at Deechapal, either the same thing or the same kind of thing had terminated the mission of the Bay Foreman and that was simply a fact that only served to raise more questions.
Hannah leaned across the table, refilled my cup and smiled. ''Want someone else in that think tank with you?"
I tried to give her an equally generous smile. "Why not? I'm getting nowhere fast alone."
Clad in a pair of white shorts and a cut off T-shirt that revealed a delightful expanse of well-tanned olive skin, Hannah slipped gracefully into the booth across from me. "So what are we cogitating?"
"Similarities."
"Similarities between what?"
"The bodies of the crew of the Bay Foreman and the bodies of those poor souls on the beach at Deechapal."
Hannah wrinkled her nose. "I don't like to think about it."
I took a sip of coffee, set the cup down and looked at her. "I think the cause of death was the same… maybe even at the same time."
The lady slumped back in the seat. "Could be. I think I could buy your cause theory, but I'm not sure I agree with you on the timing."
"Tell me what you saw."
"At both places?"
I nodded.
She thought for a moment. "Well, there were two kinds of trauma. It seems as though most of them had extensive damage to the thoracic region, and it appeared as if they had tried to tear their throats out. I would say they were suffering excruciating pain at the time of death. I know that sounds weird, but that's what it looked like."
"What about the ones with the injuries to the abdominal region?"
Again she gave it some thought before trying to answer. "That may be even harder to figure, but you know what they looked like. They looked like their chests and stomachs just exploded."
"Well," I sighed, "at least we saw the same thing. Now, the question is — what could have caused it?"
Hannah set her cup down, cupped her chin in her hand and stared out at the placid waters. "That, Mr. Wages, is the sixty-four thousand dollar question."
Her answer wasn't good enough. I wanted more. "There's something else, something you haven't told me. You saw it. I saw it."
She looked down and lowered her voice. "It's really weird. Elliott. I almost can't say it out loud, but when you add it all up…" Hannah's voice trailed off.
"Everything looks like it's been subjected to a severe freeze, right?"
Her eyes snapped up and locked on mine.
"Precisely — and we both know that's not possible on a Caribbean island, right?"
"The trees, the flowers, everything — a hard freeze. Is that the way you see it?"
Hannah nodded and began to smile. "But you don't actually think we can tell anybody that, do you? They'll think we've had too much sun."
6
It was shortly after the noon hour when Poqulay and his surly-looking uniformed cohorts showed up. He positioned himself a couple of hundred meters off our stern and waited. I had the distinct feeling the little weasel was going to follow us every step of the way until he had the 5000 in his hot little hands.
The mood of disappointment over the lack of success in our earlier dives had pretty well dissipated, and the team seemed committed to getting more supplies and getting back to the job. Everyone had their assignments when we hit Negril. Queet, with Maggie along for moral support, was assigned some of the more mundane chores like getting the tanks recharged, replacing and repairing broken gear and finding out what they could, if anything, about the Bay Foreman. They were instructed to be discreet and not mention the fact that the old barge had gone down. We didn't need any more people poking around on the reef until we had secured Bearing's cylinders.