Ladyfish (14 page)

“I don’t know. It depends if they can make a case, I suppose. Listen, I didn’t want this to be our last face-to-face conversation for I don’t even know how long. I’m sorry, Finn.”

She shrugged. “I wish you’d told me sooner.”

“I wasn’t supposed to tell you at all.”

“Why?”

“Official secrets act. I had to sign a disclaimer before we left the UK.”

“Wow. So telling me was treason.”

“Great, now I feel better.”

She laughed and held up her little finger. “I won’t tell. Pinkie swear.” She wiggled her finger.

“Finn, we aren’t kids anymore.”

“I know.”

He laughed and hooked his little finger with hers. “Okay, now what?”

“Don’t tell me you don’t remember?”

“I’m not singing that stupid song. No way.”

“Then it’s not binding.”

“I don’t care.”

They finished their meal, paid, and left. Finn caught a flash of light out of the corner of her eye as they settled back into the car and headed for the airport. Almost certain that it was a camera flash, she looked around, but couldn’t find its source, so she pushed it to the back of her head.
I’m getting paranoid now.

“Hey, are you okay?”

Finn was staring out across the ocean, hugging her coffee cup, the brew long cold and unnoticed. Oz’s voice broke her reverie, and she looked up with a wan smile.

“I’ll be fine.”

“I know you will. But that wasn’t what I asked. Did Pete get to the airport okay?”

Finn wiped her hands across her face as the tears welled in her eyes, and she found herself unable to speak.

“What time is he due to land?”

“He should be landing any time now. I was going to give him a call tonight, if he hasn’t already beaten me to it.”

“Well, in the meantime do you want something to take your mind off him?”

“Definitely. What do you have planned?”

“Well, you passed your rescue diver test with flying colors yesterday so I thought we’d move on with logging your dives for your Divemaster certification. We’ve got plenty of time today. No reason why we can’t get three dives taken care of. There’s a boat going out with some tourists in about thirty minutes. Can you be ready?”

“My gear’s all boxed. I just need to grab my wet suit.”

“Perfect. I’ll get Carlos to put the tanks on the boat for us, and I’ll see you there in a few minutes.”

Finn watched her go, grateful that Oz had found the perfect way to take her mind off things. Not only was she reeling from Pete’s departure, but the discovery of her father’s nefarious activities and the subsequent interest of MI6 left her with more questions than answers. Why MI6? They wouldn’t be investigating simple cases of money laundering unless there were international or terrorist connections. Why hadn’t Pete trusted her with his suspicions in the first place? She felt cold inside and tried to push the troubling thoughts away, knowing there was nothing she could do about the situation. She tried to focus on the diving ahead of her and the time she’d be spending with Oz. She felt the chill in her bones begin to thaw as she pictured Oz in her wet suit with the top half rolled down to her waist, just high enough to cover the scar on her belly most of the time. Every glimpse of it piqued Finn’s curiosity, and she wanted to ask her about it but found her courage failing every time. So she focused again on the image of the strong, tanned shoulders covered with only the thin straps of the bikini top she always wore underneath. She found herself hoping for the aqua blue top today, loving the way it made Oz’s eyes stand out. She hurried to grab her gear and flipped through her own swimwear, mentally casting aside one after the other until she spotted her dark green bikini and hurried to the changing room. Oz had said that green brought out her eyes. She thought about her conversation with Pete. The truth, even if she didn’t admit it to him, was that she had a major crush on Oz. She made her feel good, she made her laugh, and more importantly, for the first time in her life, she felt sexy. Oz made her feel like the new woman she wanted to be, and she was going to keep doing whatever it was that made Oz look at her like a woman.

The more time they spent together, the more she liked Oz as a person. She had told Pete Oz was a good friend, and it was true. The more she watched her interact with the crew and customers alike, the more fascinated she became with the woman behind the snorkel. She held the green bikini top to her chest and grinned before rushing to finish getting ready.

Twenty minutes later, Finn passed her crate to Carlos and stepped aboard the dive boat.

“Hey, Finn, are you going out with Oz today?”

“Yup. Where are we off to?”

“Key Largo. She didn’t tell you yet?”

“Nope. Should I be worried?”

“Well, it’s a beautiful spot. She asked me to put three tanks each on the boat for you so she must have a good plan. Clem’s taking out a group of six, and Mac’s got a group of five. Different levels in each group, so Oz will probably want you to listen in to the dive briefings of both before she does the briefing for you.”

“Does that mean you are our captain today?”

“No, my dad is the captain. I get to run around doing everything he tells me to do.”

“Carlos, stop chatting up the pretty girls and get the rest of the gear on the boat! We don’t have all the day to be playing Don Juan, you know.” Oz joined them, smiling.

A furious blush colored Carlos’s cheeks. He turned quickly and almost tripped over the box he had put down for Finn, causing his blush to deepen further.

“I told you. He’s smitten.” Oz was grinning at her from the dock, her hair glowing against the shining sun. It was easy to see her eyes sparkling with mischief, even covered by the dark glasses. She wore shorts over her bathing suit and had a backpack slung over her shoulder, one arm securing her dive crate to her hip. Finn felt her pulse speed up as she stood looking at her. She wanted to reach out and run her fingers through her hair, stroke her fingers down her cheek, and feel the soft, smooth skin for herself. She shook her head in an attempt to clear her thoughts.

“Stop teasing and pass your crate over.”

Oz handed the crate over and stepped aboard.

“So tell me about today’s dives.”

“We’re going to do a deep dive and a couple of wreck dives. We’re going to dive on the Spiegel Grove. We’ll be doing all three dives on it and start off with the deep one first. That means we’re going in and straight down to ninety feet. That’s thirty meters in English.”

Finn smiled sweetly at her. “I can do the sums, thanks, Oz.”

Finn watched as Carlos cast off the boat and then she headed to the top deck where Mac was giving his briefing. He nodded to Finn as she sat at the back of the group and listened intently.

“The Spiegel Grove was a five hundred and ten foot long naval vessel that was eighty-four feet wide and could carry more than three hundred combat troops, twenty-one landing craft, and eight helicopters at any one time. It lies between fifty and a hundred and thirty feet deep. It was scuttled in two thousand and two to create an artificial reef. This wreck is so big that you could easily dive it twenty times and still see something different every time.”

He held up a picture of the wreck. “This is how the wreck lies currently. We’re going to descend and stay on the shore side of the vessel. We get better protection from the strong currents there, making dives easier and therefore much more enjoyable. We’ll be down about forty minutes, depending on air usage, and we’ll stay around sixty feet. We’ll have a three minute safety stop at fifteen feet as we ascend. Now, there are sections we can swim through. Everyone here has their advanced dive certifications, so if you want to, we can go on the swim-through. Does anyone feel uncomfortable going inside the wreck? Nope. Cool. Okay, we’ll be going onto the bridge. The doors are missing so you can’t get stuck behind closed doors or anything. This will be a drift dive due to the strong currents. Does anyone have any problems with any of that?”

Clem tapped Finn on the shoulder and motioned her to follow him. “I’m going to start my briefing now, if you want to come and listen.”

“Thanks.” She followed him downstairs.

“Okay, guys, if you’ll all gather around, I’m going to start the dive briefing.” The group congregated quickly and settled into their seats.

Finn listened and learned a bit more about the wreck itself, but not much more about instruction. The styles were different, but the information was virtually the same.

“That’s it, really. If we have to come up, we’ll do it as a group, take care of whatever the problem is, and then decide on the course of action from there. Does anyone have any questions?”

Finn set off to find Oz when the talk ended.

“So tell me what you know about the wreck,” Oz said, sitting with her back to the sun, her bathing suit showing off her tanned, toned arms. Finn took a breath to steady herself.

“It’s underwater.” Finn grinned cheekily as Oz laughed loudly.

“Can you tell me how deep?”

Finn fed back the information from the other dive instructors almost word for word. “And since they said their dives are drift dives, I’m guessing ours is too. How’d I do?”

“Not bad. A little short on details, but the main points are definitely there. Let’s see if you can still tell me when we come back up.” She made the T sign with her hand “What’s this?”

“One hundred bar.” She made a fist herself. “Fifty. And each finger is ten bar. Always tell you the number lower if I’m in between and let you know when I get to one hundred bar so you can plan ahead.”

“I’ll make a diver of you yet. So we’ll go in and drop to what depth?”

“Ninety feet.”

“Then we’ll just drift along nice and steady. We won’t be going in the wreck on this dive. We’ll save that for next time. Just follow me and keep breathing. Oh, and here, put this on your BCD.” Oz tossed her a coin-like medal.

“What is it?”

“It’s your wreck medallion. All divers who go on the wrecks out here have to have one to show they’re allowed to dive the wrecks. You can get annual medallions or lifetime ones. I got you an annual one. It covers this wreck and two others that you’ll be diving pretty regularly. We’ll be down a shorter length of time than the others.”

“Because we’re going deeper so our air will run out faster.”

“Exactly. But I’m not going to set a limit on the dive. I want to see how long you get at depth, then we can gauge what work we need to do to maximize your dive times.”

“Cool.”

They got their gear ready and went through their buddy checks. The boat came to a stop and Mac led his group in first. When they had descended, Clem led his group below the surface of the water and Oz stepped off the back of the boat. Finn watched the waves tossing the small dive boat, planted a hand over her mask and regulator, crossed the other over her body, and stepped off the boat. She signaled her okay to Oz and pointed her thumb down. Foot by foot, they descended into the blue-green depths of the ocean, and at one point she pinched her nose to help equalize the pressure in her ears. Oz asked if she was okay, and she signaled that she was fine.

A shadow appeared slowly below them, the coral-covered hull rising out of the depths. A shoal of sergeant majors with their yellow and black stripes swarmed in front of her, dancing one way, then shifting to the other as the current flowed around the ship.

So beautiful.
Finn slid into an aerodynamic swimming position and maintained the position naturally, Oz occasionally pointing to interesting fish or plants.

A parrot fish was pecking at the coral attached to the hull, and Finn swam slowly around it, mesmerized by the vivid greens and pinks against the blue water and buff-colored coral. Oz was shining her flashlight into a crevice ahead of her. She swam over and balked at the sight of a moray eel. Its fearsome prehistoric features splayed as it bared its teeth, its warning to any who would invade his territory. They floated along watching angelfish with blue and yellow stripes, squirrelfish, with their distinctive red-orange bodies and thin white stripes weaving in and out of the coral formations, along with tangs, groupers, snapper fish, and even a few porcupine fish. As they neared the end of the dive site, a turtle raised its head and swam out of the porthole just ahead of them. It seemed almost curious as it swam toward them before dropping down, only to reappear behind them and pass them easily, before disappearing into the vast blue ocean. Finn looked at Oz, wide-eyed with amazement. She made a general gesture with her hands in an attempt to signal her amazement and nodded when Oz threw her an okay sign.

She found her attention drifting to her left, watching the great blue abyss for shadows that could become creatures she had only dreamed of seeing in this environment before. The enormity of the space beside her shocked her for a moment, the true vastness of the ocean hitting her all at once. A small part of her had been worried she might feel some sense of fear when she was down here, but all she felt was the calm Oz had told her about. The pure and simple wonder of being surrounded by the power and magnitude of the ocean and all its inhabitants, from the smallest fish to the largest mammal and everything in between. It was so easy for her, floating along beside Oz. It felt so natural it was hard for her to believe that this was not the world to which she belonged.

Finn saw Oz check her gauge and noticed that she had just hit one hundred bar so she signaled Finn to check hers. She signaled back straight away with a T sign and two digits. Oz shook her head and signaled again. Finn repeated the sign. Oz reached for Finn’s wrist and looked at the air gauge herself. She pointed to her own chest and gave the T sign for one hundred bar and the signal that they would be starting their ascent to the surface. At fifteen feet, they held their position for the required three minute safety stop and watched as a shoal of barracuda eyed them warily. They broke the surface a few minutes later and located the dive boat about twenty feet away. A short surface swim and Carlos’s help had them on deck in no time. He lifted the tank as Finn unstrapped her BCD and he placed it in the rack, reaching Oz just in time to help her rack the tank.