Deeper (35 page)

"Because
if those things decide they want to get bitchy, I need someone to take care of
the
Isabella
and finish this
job."

"Screw
the job, Joe!
 
You should leave here and
so should everyone on this rig."

"We got
paid to do the job, Charlie.
 
We're going
to do it.
 
But I want to make sure
there's nothing coming up at night that shouldn't be.
 
You dig?"

"What
makes you think—
"

"You saw
the same tape I did today, Charlie.
 
What
do you think it means
,
them coming out of the water in
that kind of number?
 
That they're
planning a picnic?"

"I don't
know what it means, Joe.
 
I just don't
like the idea of you being out here by yourself."

"Don't
sweat it.
 
I have a few things to defend
myself with.
 
And then there's the
changes Buddy is making."

"That's
another thing.
 
Where do you know him
from?"

"Buddy?
 
He came
with the equipment."

"Yeah?
 
I hope
the price wasn't too high."

"What do
you mean?"

"I know
him, Joe.
 
I've seen him before."

"Where?"

"Back
when I was active in the Navy.
 
There was
a problem with a couple of guys getting themselves in trouble with a loan
shark."

I didn't like
the way this was going and I nodded for him to continue.

"I'm not
saying he was the one that did anything, but I’m good with faces and he looks
an awful lot like the picture that ran for a while in the local papers up that
way.
 
After the two
guys wound up dead with bullets in their heads."

"I don't
think there's a problem here, Charlie."
 
I walked and he followed and soon we were outside and looking down at
the
Marianne
and Buddy, who was
wrapping barbed wire along the railing of the smaller boat.

"No?"

"No.
 
He's pretty much here to make sure I don't
get myself hurt."

"Then I
hope he's really good at his job."

I nodded and
then looked over at Jacob Parsons who was standing only a few feet away.
 
He was good to me and threw me a
cigarette.
 
If he heard any of what
Charlie and I said, he gave no indication.
 
Like I said before, not a man I'd play poker with.

Ten minutes
later Charlie was getting his gear back in order and preparing for another
dive.

Jacob was
leaning on the railing and looking at Buddy as he worked, and I was cleaning up
from lunch.

After that was
done I took a nap until the divers came back up a second time.
 
It was cold and the weather was quickly
heading toward ugly storms.
 
I advised
that the divers call it a day and Ward was smart enough not to argue with me.

I was sort of
surprised by that.
 
Seems like he'd had
some luck on his latest dive; they'd run across one of the fish men that was
willing to listen to the recordings the professor had made the night before and
then was even good enough to talk into his microphone and let itself be
recorded.

The good
professor couldn't have been happier.

Good for him.

If everything
worked according to my plans, it would be the last recording ever made of one
of the Deep Ones.

Everybody else
on board was going to sleep in Golden Cove that night.
 
Me.
 
I
was going to war.

21

I watched the
Isabella's Dream
coast back to shore at
a leisurely pace and felt my heart tremble a few times.
 
I fully expected I was saying goodbye to a
part of my life.
 
Maybe even all of my
life.

The
Marianne
was just fine for what I
needed.
 
I looked around at the
alterations Buddy had spent most of the day working on.
 
No doubt about the fact that he was a
professional.

Aside from the
barbed wire, there were a few subtler changes that had been made.
 
The biggest of them was the hot wires that
ran around the railing.
 
They were there,
but harder to see, and he'd had to work carefully to make sure they wouldn’t
get tangled into the new decorations.

The hot wires
ran a quarter inch under the barbed wire additions, and they were stopped from
touching the metal railings by small rubber squibs that he'd glued into
place.
 
There were three separate lines
running near one another, each hooked into a separate generator.
 
They weren't hot yet, but as soon as I gave
him the word, they'd be turned on and send enough voltage into anyone touching
them to deep-fry a salmon in around three seconds.

Next up, I had
to check over the rest of the packages.
 
The biggest surprise had already been set in place.
 
When the time came, I didn’t think I'd have
any problem at all pushing the button.
 
There were guns aplenty and that suited me fine.
 
Buddy had taken the time to load each one and
had several spare clips for each carefully set in a sling sack that draped from
the stocks.

Anyone
boarding the boat right then would have been in for an ugly surprise.

So the time
had come and I still didn't want to do it.
 
Not all of me, at any rate.
 
I
have to be honest and say I didn't much expect to survive whatever went down.
 
I just intended to take as many of them with
me as I could.

The sky was
darkening nicely, and we puttered around a little before moving the
Marianne
over to where I knew the
entrance of the cave was waiting below the surface.

I looked over
at Buddy.
 
He looked back, his face as
calm as could be, but a little paler than he'd looked the last time I checked.
 
"You don't have to do this, Buddy."

"Yeah, I
do."
 
He shrugged his shoulders in a
way that said this was all just business as usual for him.

"No.
 
I mean it.
 
I know you watched the tape and I know it wasn't superclear footage, but
its' enough to let you know what's going on down here, and I don't much like
the idea of you staying here and dealing with what's coming."

"Listen,
I appreciate the sentiment, but this is what I do.
 
Demetrius says jump, I jump.
 
Demetrius says go watch over my suicidal son-in-law
and make sure he doesn’t fuck up, that's what I do."

"There's
going to be a lot of those things if this goes the way I want it to."

"There
are a lot of bullets here and a few more surprises, too."

I stared at
the man, completely without any idea who to respond.
 
He knew what he was getting into, and I'd
given him an out to make sure he could survive it, but he didn't even blink.

"You
really think you can pull me out of this in one piece?"

Buddy shook
his head.
 
"Fuck no.
 
But I've been in tighter places."

"My ass
you have."

He
chuckled.
 
"Believe it, Joe.
 
Working for Demetrius means you work in some
very sharky waters."

"All
right then.
 
Don't say I didn't give you
an out."

"Not in a
million years."
 
He pointed back
toward Golden Cove and shook his head.
 
"But what about them?"

I turned and
saw the
Isabella
coming our way and
groaned.
 
"I told Charlie to leave
the fucking boat in the dock.
 
One little
goddamned order and he can't follow it."

"Yeah,
well, maybe we should wait until you've told him again before we do
anything."
 
He sounded amused.

I stood in
plain view as the
Isabella
came
around and coasted up next to us.
 
Charlie came out a few moments later after dropping the anchor.

"What the
hell are you doing out here, Charlie?
 
I
told you to go to port."

"Yeah, I
heard you.
 
What are you doing out here
tonight, Joe?"

"None of your goddamned business.
 
Go back to the cove and park for the
night.
 
We can discuss it in the
morning."

"Not
gonna happen."

"Then get
down here so I can kick your fucking ass!"

"Diana
wanted to talk to you and your radio isn't on."

I let loose
with a string of profanities that would have had Belle ready to wash my mouth
out with soap, while Diana and Charlie climbed down from the
Isabella
and boarded the
Marianne
.

Diana didn't
waste any time with pleasantries.
 
"You gonna kill those things?"

"Maybe."

"I want
in."

"No."

"They owe
me."
 
She spoke in a low hiss, her
eyes slitted and her teeth
bared
.

"I'll
tell them to send you a payment.
 
I got
everything taken care of."

"I'll
trade you information for the right to be here when it all goes down."

"Now just a fucking minute here!"
 
Charlie stepped up and got in my personal
space.
 
He's one of the few people I'd
let do that.
 
"What the hell are you
planning to do, Joe?
 
Take them all
on?"

"First,
get the fuck out of my face.
 
Second,
yes.
 
That's exactly what I plan to
do."

"You've
lost your fucking mind."

"One thing at a time, Charlie.
 
Let's hear what Diana has to say and then you
can try to talk me out of it."
 
He
wouldn't be able to, of course.
 
I had no
intention of backing down now.

Diana looked
at me.
 
"We have a deal or
not?"
 
I looked at her eyes, looked
hard, because I wanted to know what she was thinking.
 
All I saw was the same sort of rage I was
feeling.
 
She was as good as dead inside;
I could see that well enough to know that even if I said no, she'd still find a
way to be here.

"Fine.
 
Deal.
 
Let me have
it."

"So I was
looking over Martin's notes.
 
Not the
normal ones he leaves out, but the ones he keeps in his personal notebook, and
I saw some of the things he'd translated."

She paused and
waited for a response.
 
I nodded my head
and told her to go on.
 
I got a feeling
in the pit of my stomach that told me I was not going to like what I was about
to hear.

"Charlie
said the other day that you heard Martin say something to the Deep One on your
boat."

"Yeah.
 
Don't ask
me to say it though, because it isn't gonna happen."

"No way
in hell I could say it either.
 
Martin's
been practicing.
 
Look, I don't know for
sure, but there's one phrase written out and then about five pages of notes
before there's another phrase in their language."
 
The more she spoke, the more hesitant she
seemed to be about finishing.
 
I crossed
my arms and waited for her to finish.
 
No
way was I going to make it easier on her.
 
She wanted to buy the right to her death; I was going to make her work
for it.
 
I already had enough pre-battle
guilt on my shoulders thanks to Buddy.

"He
writes translations of what he's trying to say.
 
That first entry — the one that was by itself — said ‘pick the one you
would have as your sacrifice.’

What can you
say to something like that?
 
I could
barely even think, let alone answer the comment.
 
But I could feel.
 
I felt it when the tendons in my hands
started screaming because I made fists harder than I think I ever had in my
life.
 
I felt my blood pressure surge
like high tide coming in.
 
Oh, I felt
that and more.

"Really?"
 
One word.
 
That was
all, but I guess I made my feelings pretty clear with that simple phrase, because
Diana got a different look on her face.
 
Maybe it was satisfaction; maybe it was something else.
 
I can't say for sure.
 
She nodded her head and I nodded mine.
 
"Welcome aboard the
Marianne Winston
."

"Wait a
minute."
 
Charlie was sounding a bit
weak and looking like a strong breeze would have knocked his ass into the
drink.
 
"Wait a goddamned
minute.
 
You mean he told them to pick a
victim?"

Diana nodded
and so did I.
 
"More
than that, Charlie.
 
He told them
to choose their own sacrifice and they chose Belle."