After four days of watching most everything go wrong, I was able to maneuver the first cylinder up to the tie mark at five fathoms with a minimum of hassle. In fact, there was enough time for me to circle the damn thing a couple of times and get a good look at it. Underneath 40 years of white rust and Caribbean marina life there was a metal cylinder in there somewhere, and it either contained a body or a big bang. Either way, I was handling it delicately.
Maggie appeared, gave me the signal and took the first of our prizes up the rest of the way. I waited until the empty sling slithered back down through the water. When I got a good grip on it, I started back down.
Hannah and Queet were waiting with the second container. As I approached, Hannah left, heading for the cylinder in the rubble near the fantail. Queet helped me slide the oblong container into the harness and swam away. I gave the signal and the towline grew taut. While I escorted the tube up, they were preparing the charge.
I gave the auxiliary monitor a check and gave hand signals to both Queet and Hannah. He had slightly more than seven minutes left, while she had almost a full eight. I was using up my own supply faster than both of them. The digital device stopped at 6:36 and flashed several times. By agreement we were to head for the surface when the indicator registered a flat 5.0.
Maggie was waiting. She flashed me the universal "okay" sign with a circled thumb and forefinger — and suddenly recoiled. Her arm shot down, pointing beneath me.
There he was, headed straight for me. His dead black eyes were focused right on us. Maggie peeled off one way and I went the other. The ugly monster unhinged his massive mouth and slammed head first into the cylinder, sending it careening crazily. Somehow it stayed buckled in its harness.
There was nowhere to go. I was trying to keep the mass of metal between me and the beast. Out of the corner of my mask I could see Maggie bolting for the surface, but the monster didn't seem to be paying any attention to her. It was me he was after.
He made a second pass, this one closer, and I felt his sandpaper-like hide scrape away the surface of my wet suit as he dove, circled and started another assault. I swam under the cylinder and came up on the other side, trying to draw my legs up so the big bastard couldn't have any other target than the long hunk of metal. A mask filtered down from above. I figured Maggie had discarded it in panic, but there wasn't a hell of a lot of time to contemplate on what had happened to her. I had my own hands full.
Then there was a brief moment when I lost sight of him. He made a pass — then disappeared. Above me the gray light was streaming down; below there was nothing but blackness. Suddenly I could see Maggie's thrashing legs. She had shed the tanks and was holding onto the horizontal stabilizer of the PC-13A.
I felt a surge of freezing cold water.
When I finally spotted him, he was coming straight up from underneath. There was less than a split second to react. I rolled to the top of the cylinder with a death grip on the salvage line and tried to initiate a seesaw motion. I saw his eyes close and his mouth unhinge again. It was like looking down the long, threatening barrel of a loaded cannon.
The rocking motion worked. He slammed into the blunt end of the cylinder. It was like the collision of two battering rams. He took the full force of the blow flush in the teeth, swallowed a portion of it, shook his massive body, coughed it out and backed off. He rolled away and again disappeared in the murky depths beneath me.
When I looked up, Maggie was gone. I could see the underside of the Achilles and the outline of the screws on the submersible. I figured she had shimmied her way up on top of one or the other.
The cylinder broke through the surface with me still on it. I whipped off my mask, wormed my arm through the nylon harness and rode it aboard the Sloe Gin. Maggie was scrambling over the fantail with the help of Huntington.
Sargent untangled me, and I fell clumsily to the deck. One hand was already on the dive monitor. The man was torn between Maggie's hysteria and my panic. Hannah had 2.17 left and Queet had 2.43 — and that big bastard was somewhere between them and the surface.
''Huntington," I screamed, "bring the Achilles in. Now, damn it!" The little man scurried to the stern winch and started cranking. Then I started shouting at Sargent. "There's a damn shark down there big enough to eat this whole goddamn boat, and Hannah and Queet are running out of air."
Suddenly I knew why Queet gave his friend such high marks. Sarge raced for the stern, helped Huntington maneuver the Achilles raft broadside to the Sloe Gin and started barking out orders. "Throw those air tanks in the raft…"
It never even occurred to me to question him. Aching body and all, I scrambled to my feet and began heaving pieces of anything loose on the deck into the tiny craft. Sargent shimmied over the side, slashed the neoprene bladder and fired the Yamaha engine. It had already sputtered to life when the big man leaped back for the railing of the Sloe Gin.
The wounded rubber craft began spinning crazily in the water and slowly sinking. It disappeared beneath the surface just as the first drops of rain began pelting my face.
"Let's hope he goes for it, mon," Sargent gulped. His muddy brown eyes were riveted to the spot where the tiny rubber craft had disappeared.
For what seemed like an eternity, our eyes were fixed on the boiling waters. Then there were bubbles and a diver appeared, clutching the lifeline.
"It's Missy Holbrook," Sargent shouted. He leaped into the water and helped push her up into the Sloe Gin. She fell on the deck exhausted, tears streaming down her face.
"Where the hell is Queet?" I screamed at her.
Hannah Holbrook tried to cough the words out between the racking sobs. Finally I had to deal with them. Finally I had to admit I understood.
"The… the… the shark… it… it got him."
9
It was a long, ugly night. We made it only because everybody hung in there together. We managed to get Hannah sedated, bedded down and finally asleep. Sargent, despite the loss of his friend, stayed in the wheelhouse and kept watch over the storm-battered Sloe Gin. Huntington consoled himself by monitoring the two harmless looking cylinders lashed to the footing of the hoist.
I tried to get some sleep, but it didn't work. After a while, I got up, went to the galley, opened the last bottle of Black and White, found a couple of styrofoam cups, swaddled myself in a slicker and crawled out on the foredeck to a place where the overhang from the wheelhouse jutted out to offer a modicum of shelter. I settled down to do some serious drinking.
So far, the whole, seemingly pointless escapade had caused the death of a lot of people, two of whom were very special to me. I found myself almost wishing that Bearing would gain nothing for all our efforts.
The Sloe Gin was a nightlong nightmare — pitching and yawing in angry seas, situated off some god-forsaken reef in the middle of nowhere, nestled among forgotten and dead islands. It was a waste of energy and time and resources and lives, nowhere near worth the price being paid. and I wasn't the only one hurting. Somewhere, a washed-out looking blonde was crying for Crompton. A woman I didn't even know would mourn for Queet, and I too would feel the deep sense of loss for a long, long time.
There was some faint trace of light on the distant horizon when I filled the cup up for the whatever time and faced the ugly fact that even though it hurt like hell, I was probably going to make it through the night.