Port Starbird (Storm Ketchum Adventures) (20 page)

When they got to the boatyard, the Captain's arrant voice
started assaulting their ears before they'd even killed the truck's engine. "Ahoy there swabbies, top a the day! Y'all need a hand with your gear? If you do, I got a number you can call!" he cackled from the deck of the
Minnow
.

The Captain's
good humor roused Mario, who'd apparently been puttering around on his boat. "Hey, Ketch! Hey, Kari!" he called. "You guys goin' divin'? Hang on, I'll be right over." Ketch put the dog's life jacket on for him and got him squared away aboard the boat while Mario threaded his way to the truck.

"So where you guys headed?"
Mario asked as he helped them haul their equipment out to the
Minnow
. "You got a lotta gear here, you goin' wreckin'? Find a new U-boat or somethin' like that?"

"
No, just one of the known wrecks," Ketch answered, thinking fast. Keying off Mario's 'wrecking' inquiry and relying on him knowing, as everyone around here did, that salvaging artifacts from shipwrecks in U.S. waters without permission was illegal, he elaborated in a lower voice, "No offense, but I don't want to say which one. I saw some odds and ends there that I'd like to bring home, you know, portholes and such."

"Say no more
, man," Mario demurred. "Your secret is safe with me." When he finished helping them get everything loaded, he called, "Have a good trip!" as he retreated back to his boat.

"Well, that was smooth," Kari
commented when Mario was out of earshot. "Damn right," the Captain said. "Where'd y'all learn how to fib like that? You're almost as good as me!"

"It's not something I'm proud of," Ketch said. "Come on, let's cast off and get this thing done."
He was seriously starting to taste the prize now, and he wanted to get going.

While the Captain piloted them
north up the sound toward Oregon Inlet, Kari sat Ketch down at the table in the cabin and went over the dive plan again with him. Though he listened attentively enough, knowing what was at stake, he also kept an eye on the dog, who was reclining out on the aft deck. The dog looked relaxed, but his nose was constantly twitching as he savored the rich olfactory treat the sea breeze was providing him. Shades of salt and fish seasoned with a tinge of death, Ketch thought; he liked it, too.

Kari would dive with a d
ual-tank rig, one tank for her to breathe from and the other for filling the lift bags, each tank with its own regulator. Controlling a lift bag was tricky business due to the fact that the pressurized air it had been fed from the tank would expand inside the bag as the depth and ambient pressure decreased on ascent, like a balloon being inflated, making a runaway ascent a distinct and dangerous possibility. Since she'd had some previous experience doing it, she'd be the one to fill the bags, manipulate their dump valves as necessary, and control the ascent of the drum.

Ketch would
use a similar rig; he'd be able to breathe from both tanks if necessary, and they could use air from his second tank for the lift bags if needed. He'd be the first to descend on the anchor line and the one to locate the drum, using his wreck reel to reprise his circular search until he found it, while Kari hovered at a shallower depth to conserve her air, but keeping him in her sight. She'd drag the chain sling, previously attached to the free end of the boat's stern line topside and with two empty lift bags clipped to it, with her on her way down, along with a third empty bag clipped to her BC just in case. When Ketch signaled that he'd found the drum, Kari would complete her descent and he'd back away from the drum and ditch his reel. She'd try to tip the drum, and if she couldn't do it on her own, Ketch would approach and help. If they both had to tip the drum, they'd stay together only for the time it took to do that, and then Ketch would back off again.

They were to maintain neutral buoyancy throughout and avoid touching or even finning near the bottom, to
minimize silting and preserve visibility. Kari would secure the sling to the drum and then start releasing short bursts of air from her second regulator into both of the lift bags as evenly as possible. At all other times except in the event they had to use some of Ketch's air for the lift bags, they'd remain in constant sight of each other but stay well clear of each other to avoid entanglement and injury. Neither of them would be physically attached to the drum, and they'd both avoid lingering directly above or below the drum as much as possible.

Ketch would provide lighting during the
setup and ascent as needed, and the Captain would keep the stern line taut topside and take up the slack during the ascent, again to prevent entanglements; and he'd also keep the engines idling in case he had to nudge the boat closer to wherever the drum was located. When the drum reached the surface, the Captain would cleat the stern line, and Ketch and Kari would re-board the boat, doff their gear, and help haul the drum aboard. The five-minute safety stop at fifteen feet would be omitted today, but that shouldn't be a problem at the relatively shallow depth they'd be diving. Sometime later, Kari would make a bounce dive to recover the reel and free the anchor if necessary.

S
he was certainly all business today, he thought, and she seemed tense as well - to a degree that he wondered if she was deriving any pleasure at all from this trip, despite her assertion a few days ago that she'd enjoy diving without students for a change. This wasn't really a recreational dive, though, and its goal was admittedly less than uplifting. Regardless, the most important thing for now was that she seemed to have thought of everything. But he knew things could still go wrong; what if she needed more or less weight, or he couldn't find the drum, or they couldn't tip it, or they needed a replacement bag or a third bag, or the grab hooks didn't hold, or the drum got away from her during the ascent, or there was too much current for her to stay with it, or they got tangled somehow, or someone got injured, and so on? What if Eleanor Roosevelt could fly, he thought, recalling one of his favorite old
Saturday Night Live
skits. They'd just stick to the plan and do the best they could; they had a redundant set of tanks and they could revise the plan if they had to try again, if it came to that.

They soon passed through Oregon Inlet and headed out to sea. With the
Minnow
's powerful twin inboards smoothly plowing a path through the water at a faster clip than Ketch's
TBD
could have safely  managed, it didn't take much longer for them to reach the target area. They anchored at about the same spot Ketch had earlier in the week. After he'd tethered the dog to a table leg in the cabin and Kari had run up the dive flag (which she'd insisted on doing for safety), they set up their rigs, suited up, and began their descent.

So far so good, he thought as he glanced
back up at her along the anchor line. She didn't seem to be having any trouble descending, and she was signaling 'OK'. The visibility was at least as good as it had been the last time he'd been here, and there was hardly any current so far. He clipped his reel line to the anchor when he got close enough to the bottom and started his search, periodically verifying that she was still in sight above him and still signaling 'OK'.

He found a couple of groupings of drums and shined his dive light on every one of them, even the ones that didn't overtly look like salvage drums, so he'd be sure to spot the telltale swatch of brightly colored fabric
- but no luck so far. When he found a third grouping about fifteen minutes into the dive and struck out again, he looked up at her and shrugged his shoulders. She signaled 'OK' again and motioned for him to continue searching - which he knew they still had plenty of time and air to do.

He finally hit pay dirt a few minutes later in the next grouping he found. He
had to make a conscious effort to control his breathing as he excitedly signaled to her that he'd located the drum and she should descend, which she slowly did. Before he backed away from the drum as planned, she got close enough for him to see the expression on her face behind the mask and regulator. Knowing her more intimately as he now did, it seemed to him that she looked surprised, and possibly also a bit upset for some reason.

But it didn't seem to matter. He watched her work at freeing the drum, gently rocking it back and forth while she hovered upside-down so her fins wouldn't stir up any more silt than necessary. Excellent buoyancy control, he thought. She was finally able to tip it onto its side. A small silt cloud rose up around the drum
as it re-settled onto the bottom, but not enough to completely obscure his view. He moved a little closer and shined his dive light on the drum to help her see what she was doing, and watched as she successfully attached the chain sling to the drum and began squirting air into the lift bags.

Everything was proceeding according to plan so far, with nary a glitch.
Maybe he'd been mistaken about what he thought he'd seen on her face; maybe she was just concentrating on her designated tasks. He followed below her at a safe distance, being careful to not drift beneath the drum, as she alternated between adding small amounts of air to the bags and dumping air from them, waiting for what seemed like an inordinate amount of time after each action in order to gauge the reaction. But what she was doing made perfect sense; it was somewhat analogous to avoiding oversteering while handling a boat.

It turned out the amount of air in her second tank was more than sufficient for the lift bags, the grab hooks were holding, and the stern line wasn't getting in the way.
When the bags at last broke the surface and he heard the boat's engines cut off, Ketch was both relieved and amazed. Their plan had worked flawlessly so far, something he knew didn't often happen in the real world. Of course, they literally weren't quite out of the water yet, so something could still go wrong. For example, they'd have to be careful when they hauled the drum aboard; after all this effort, it wouldn't do to dislodge a grab hook and send the drum plummeting back to the bottom of the ocean.

Kari surfaced ahead of Ketch and swam to the stern and handed her fins up. When he was about to do the same himself, he thought he could hear the dog barking - but not the way he did when he was happy about seeing someone. As soon as his head popped above the surface, Ketch saw the reason for the dog's apparent distress.

"Gimme your fins," the Captain
directed him, squatting on the stern platform. "And then get your ass up here. As you can see, we got company, and neither me nor your dog's much likin' it."

~  ~  ~

Ketch obeyed and passed his fins to the Captain. He could see that there was another boat tied up alongside the
Minnow
- Mario's boat - and he heard voices drifting down from the flying bridge. Kari for sure, and who else? He looked up and shaded his eyes. Mick. It sounded like they were arguing, though they were keeping their voices down and he couldn't make out what they were saying. "Jack, settle!" he commanded the dog, who stopped barking but kept a low rumble going in his throat.

"They snuck up on me when I was mindin' the stern line, didn't notice 'em at first with
the engines runnin'," the Captain explained, keeping his voice low as well as he helped Ketch wriggle out of his rig. "Said their head was busted and could they use mine, Mario said he really had to go."

"
I figured Mario was here. Anyone else besides Mick?" Mario would have to be involved, Ketch knew, since it was his boat and Mick didn't know much about boats. Nor did Mick dive or know much about that either, nor was he educated in anything at all that Ketch knew of. He wondered what Kari had ever seen in that wastrel.

"Nope, just them two."

"What are they doing out here in the first place?"

"That's what I wanna know. I'm guessin' we'll find out shortly."

"Hey Ketch," Mario called, emerging from somewhere below, not from the head. "Could you make sure I don't get attacked? I don't think ole Jack here likes me much today, acted like he might want to nail me before."

Ketch went into the cabin and held onto the dog's collar while Mario passed. "So you couldn't find a bush, eh?" he said.

Mario laughed at that. "Ketch, my man - and you too, Don - I want you to know this ain't personal, it's just business. Mick heard you guys were makin' a score and we just decided to get in on the action, you know? And I'm real sorry about not finishin' the work on your house, Ketch, but I figure you probably won't be wantin' me around after today anyway, am I right?"

"What kind of score? What are you talking about?"
Ketch said.

"You know - treasure, man! What'd you do, find some old Spanish ship? Or maybe a load of coke or grouper somebody had to dump? Whatever we can sell, it's all fine with me." Mario called up to Mick, "Hey, come on down from there, let's get whatever this is outta the water and check it out!"

"Ha!" the Captain said to Ketch, "I wish 'em luck tryin' to sell what you-all brung up! So that's what they're after? Well, the joke's on them. What a couple a idiots!"

But
Ketch knew it wasn't that simple. Mario apparently believed a story that Mick had probably fed him to gain the use of his boat, which Mick had done because Kari had apparently tipped him off; and she knew there was no treasure, so that wasn't really what they were here for. But if Mick and Kari were in this together, then why were they arguing?

The two
collaborators climbed down from the flying bridge and joined Mario on the aft deck, Kari doing her best to avoid Ketch's penetrating stare. Yes, she was definitely involved. He should have known better, he thought; and though he was sad about losing the best thing he'd had in his life in a long time, his predominant emotion was anger. Why hadn't he trusted his instincts and followed up on
all
of his suspicions? Why had he allowed it to come to this? Well, he knew why - he'd let himself degenerate into a besotted poon hound, that was why, and he'd gotten bamboozled because of it. She was to blame, for sure; but so was he.

"
So, Mario told y'all what's happenin' here? Good. Okay now, I want you and you," Mick said, pointing to Ketch and the Captain, "to stay in the cabin and set down there at that table. And make sure that dog stays tied up so I don't have to hurt him, hear?" The dog was snarling now, and in a very convincing manner.

"Oh, so you think we're gonna
just set back and let you-all do whatever you want?" the Captain retorted, taking down a gaffing hook he happened to be standing near. "Who do you think you are, the ree-tard pirates a the Caribbean? Kari, Ketch, get on over here, I got more stuff we can use. It's three against two, we can take 'em!"

A smirk grew on Mick's face. "Wrong, old man, she's on our side," he spat. "And it don't matter how many sticks you got," he declared, extracting a small
handgun from a pocket of his cargo shorts. "This here is the only thing that matters."

"Hey, what the hell
, man?" Mario said. "What'd you bring that for? We don't need that!" Ketch noticed that Kari looked like she might upchuck at any moment.

"Shut up and start haulin'," Mick snapped. "Kari, you give him a hand if he needs one, and watch out he don't drop the damn thing.
Go on, get on over there. Don't make me tell you twice, bitch, you know what happens then!" When she complied, Mick turned and trained the gun on the Captain, who silently re-mounted the gaff and retreated into the cabin.

"What in hell does she have to do with all this?" the Captain asked Ketch when they were both seated at the table. "
I never figured her for a floozy. Oh, hey, I'm sorry buddy, I really am. I know you were sweet on her." Ketch got up and stood in the doorway of the cabin, and watched his femme fatale and her hooligans raise the drum and stand it upright on the deck.

"This just looks like one of those drums we been dumpin'," Mario remarked, disappointment evident in his voice. "Is there somethin' we can use inside? I don't get it."

"This ole coot," Mick said, motioning toward Ketch, "reported us to the feds for dumpin' them drums, so we gotta move this one to deeper water."

"Ketch did that? Why'd you go and do that, man?" Mario said.
Incredibly to Ketch, given that he'd been ready to steal from him, Mario actually sounded hurt.

Oddly,
Kari tried to cover for Ketch. "He just found the drums and reported them, he didn't give any names, he didn't know it was you," she started to explain.

"Shut up
," Mick said. "I don't care about all that, he still went and done it."

"But why do we have to move this one?" Mario asked. "Why not all of 'em?"

"Because there's something special in that one," Ketch answered from the doorway. "Something that could put people away for the rest of their lives." But who, exactly? Was one of them, or both of them, working for Ingram? Did Kari have some kind of connection with Ingram? Was Mick just a flunky, or was he the killer?

"Get out!" Mario said. "What, is there, like, a
body
in there or somethin'?"

"You can ask
her about that while the two of you get them other drums off your boat and onto this one," Mick said. "She can tell you all about it. You, get back in there and set down!" he commanded, waving the gun at Ketch. The dog's snarling increased in volume. "And shut that damn dog up or I'll shoot him, I swear!"

"Huh? I thought we were just gonna dump
those other drums out here like usual. I thought we were just dumpin' garbage. What's in those other two drums, more bodies?" Mario persisted.

"No
, not yet, but there will be soon," Ketch said.

"Shut up!" Mick said. "I told you to get back in there!" He
aimed the gun above Ketch's head and fired a shot into the air. Ketch sat down, the dog howled, and Kari cringed.

"Hey man, I didn't sign up for this!"
Mario protested. "Look, why don't you gimme that gun, we can find a better way to work things out here."

"
No way! Look, you're in it now, like it or not, so just... What the -"

Mick
ducked and dodged, and the fish knife the Captain had just thrown at him sailed through the air over his shoulder, missing it by at least a good foot - or as the Captain might put it later if he lived to tell the tale, by a hair. A split-second later, the dog, who'd slipped his collar, skidded out onto the deck through the cabin doorway, leapt onto Mick, and sunk his teeth deeply enough into Mick's free arm to draw blood. Mick screamed and, staggering backward, tried to bring the gun to bear on the dog, who refused to let go; but Mario grabbed that arm with both hands and managed to divert it, and the shot went wild.

"Jack!" Ketch yelled
as he ran out onto the deck. He lowered his shoulders and dived at Mick's legs, meaning to tackle him; however, his momentum made Mick topple over backward, with Mario on one arm, the dog on the other, and Ketch's arms wrapped around his feet. The gun went off one more time, the dog yelped, and they all fell off the stern platform into the water.

The Captain hustled to the stern. "Ketch, you okay?" he called as Kari
jumped into the water beside him. Ketch was conscious but appeared groggy, and there was blood on his forehead. Fortunately, they were both still wearing their wetsuits, so they were positively buoyant. Kari turned him onto his back and dragged him to the stern, and the Captain helped her get him up onto the platform.

"I'm okay, I think," Ketch said. "I think I hit my head, that's all. Where's Jack?" A bark from
the port side answered that question. The dog paddled to the platform and Kari dropped back into the water to boost him up onto it. He had a bloody snout, but the blood wasn't his. He let out a joyous yelp and started licking Ketch's head.

"Holy
Mary mother a God!" the Captain exclaimed, leaning on the gunwale and holding a hand over his heart. "You sure you guys are okay?" He watched as Kari turned and swam out farther, toward where Mick was floating away half-submerged face-down in a pool of bloody water, then helped Ketch up and sat him on a portside bench on deck. Surveying the scene again, he noticed that Kari hadn't bothered to turn Mick face-up as she had with Ketch - while over on the starboard side of the
Minnow
, a sodden Mario was busy wrangling one of the drums from his boat over both gunwales of the conjoined boats. He succeeded, and immediately started working on the second one.

"Well, I guess you're okay too," the Captain called to
him, "not that anybody cares. What the hell you doin' with them drums?"

"Hey, this ain't my fault, man. Like I said, I didn't sign up for any of this, and I want nothin' to do with these things." When he
'd gotten the second one onto the
Minnow
, he started hastily undoing his ends of the lines that tied the boats together. "I'm sorry, but I'm outta here. I can't be involved in all this. Nice knowin' y'all." When he'd gotten his lines freed from the
Minnow
, he quickly started his engine, throttled up, and took off.

The Captain saw that Kari had made it back to the stern with Mick's body, so he helped her pull it up onto the platform. "Well, I'm sorry this had to happen," he said, "but if somebody had to bite the bullet, so to speak, it's only fair it was him. Rest in peace, you worthless bastard. Where's the gun?"

"I don't know, probably on the bottom by now," she said.

"Okay then. There's one more thing we gotta do." He
spun one of Mario's drums over to the platform. "Like Ketch said, I bet there's nothin' in here yet but some chain for ballast," he said as he unclamped the lid. "There, just like I thought. Help me stuff him in here."

"What? Are you serious? You want to put him in there?"

"Why the hell not? He's beyond carin'. We can't go sailin' in to port with a dead guy hangin' off our ass end, and I don't want him on deck or in the cabin and stinkin' up the joint on the way back. Come on now, before he stiffens up." She reluctantly acquiesced and assisted him with his gruesome task, and helped him move the drum out of the way after it had been re-sealed. Then she hurried to the starboard side, bent over the gunwale, and threw up into the water.

W
ith an unsympathetic nod in her direction, the captain declared, "That reminds me, I'm starvin'." He dragged Ketch's cooler into the cabin, popped the lid, and set the food and some soft drinks out on the table. "I'm gonna drain the lizard and go get myself a beer or three. Get on in here in the meantime, you two. We got some talkin' to do."

Ketch
still felt shaky, largely because he was cold, he realized. The water that gets inside a wetsuit during a dive helps insulate and warm the diver beneath the surface, but has the opposite effect topside after. He removed his, toweled himself off, and put his shirt back on. His bathing suit was still damp, but the hot sun was already starting to do its job and he felt a little better. He didn't speak to Kari, who was still hanging over the starboard gunwale, but he did toss a dry towel toward her. He made his way into the cabin with the dog in tow and again leashed the dog to a table leg, then removed the dog's life jacket so that both he and it could dry out. He poured some fresh water into the dog's dish and opened a can of pop for himself.

"Well, that's better," the Captain said, returning with a can and a half of beer, the other half-can having already been consumed. He sat down at the table and unwrapped a sandwich. Kari shuffled in
soon after, minus her wetsuit as well, with the towel wrapped around her bathing suit. She took a seat with her head down, and didn't speak or make a move to eat or drink anything.

"Come on, you
got to at least drink somethin'," the Captain admonished her. "A little pop'll do you good, settle your stomach. Here, drink up," he said, sliding a can over to her. She wordlessly opened it and took a sip.