Swimming With the Dead (27 page)

I wasn’t surprised when Maynard jumped in.  He would have put on a fresh tank and have more air than I had.   

Maynard carried a spear gun, and he would also have a knife.  He definitely had the advantage.  He hadn’t been injured and he knew his way around down here.

I swam for the wreck, the only place that offered any protection at all on this otherwise sandy and barren bottom.  When I looked behind me, Maynard was just a few feet back, spear gun in one hand, knife in the other.  He was on top of me before I knew it.  He grabbed my ankle and yanked me into him, grasping me hard around the waist.  It felt as though a stake had been plunged into my damaged rib cage.  I fought to ignore it.  If I didn’t, I knew I’d end up bleeding in the sand.  Maynard was in the process of lifting the knife for the final deadly plunge into my chest.  Before he had the chance, I wrenched the regulator from his mouth.  He immediately released his grip, but recovered his regulator and was coming at me again before I had a chance to do anything but retreat.  I got the hell away, swimming hard.

When I glanced back, he was behind me, spear gun raised.  I turned and the instant he fired, I darted into the nearby refrigeration hold.

Big mistake.  I knew it the minute I got inside.  I thought about swimming back into the bowels of the ship, but quickly ruled it out.  No doubt Maynard knew his way around the wreck as well as Acuff had.  After all, he had spent hours inside over the past months, looking for the lost jewels.  He’d trap me back in the wreck and then all he’d need to do was wait until I ran out of air.  I was backed into a dead end.  He’d be coming in right behind me, and I’d be easy to find.  Even in the dim light, he’d be able to locate my bubbles.

I had to do something and do it fast.  One utterly reckless plan emerged.  I removed my gear, took one last gulp of air, and left the tank with the regulator gushing air in the dark corner of the hold.  Then I swam back to the opening, crouched against the wall, and waited, Acuff’s knife in hand.

Maynard came through the opening just seconds later.  He stopped, got his bearings, and cleared his mask.  Damn, was he coming in or not?  I figured I could hold my breath for another minute, minute and a half max.  Then I’d have to make a dash for the surface.  I knew I’d never make it past him.

Finally he saw the bubbles and swam past me toward them.  I moved quickly through the space between us, a prayer to the sea gods running through my brain—
Don’t let him turn around; don’t let him turn around.
  He didn’t.

By the time he realized what I’d done, I was on him.  I knew I had one chance.  Frantic, I grasped his regulator hose and sliced through it with one desperate stroke.  I figured that without air, he would head straight to the surface, but Maynard was enraged.  I could see murder in his eyes.  Killing me was his only objective.

He came at me like a maniac.  Right before he grabbed me, I managed to snatch air from one of the huge bubbles that were breaking right into my face from his cut hose.  It bought me some time.  Neither one of us could last much longer without our air supply.  But Maynard was relentless.  He held me down on the bottom, all his weight pressed into my chest.  It had been several minutes since I had abandoned my tank, and the brief gulp from the air bubbles was diminishing rapidly.  I felt smothered.  Terror was about to take over.  Christ, I was about to die in this steel tomb.

I still had the knife in my hand, but my arm was wedged beneath him.  I could see him smiling behind his mask, watching me weaken, the struggle ebbing from my body.  He knew it would be over soon.  Convinced that he had won the battle and air-starved himself, he made a mistake.  He shifted his weight.  In that instant, I managed to free my arm, and in a last-ditch effort to survive, I pushed the knife into his belly.  For a moment he hung on, confused.  Then he released his grip and sank to the bottom of the hold.

I somehow managed to grope my way back to my regulator and fumbled the mouthpiece between my lips.  I gasped into it, pulling hard.  Rasping, choking on the dry air, I couldn’t breathe fast enough.  Relief flooded every cell along with the precious oxygen.  I leaned back against the steel hull, exhausted, too drained, both physically and mentally, to move.

I could see Maynard lying a few feet away.  If he was still alive, he wouldn’t last long.  I took a few long, slow breaths and forced myself up.

I grabbed the handle on the back of Maynard’s vest and pulled him out of the hold.  In the open water, I released his weight belt, filled his vest with air, and sent him to the surface.  I figured that once Lorna saw him, she’d haul him into the boat. 

I would try to wait it out on the bottom, now the safest place to be.  Lorna was no diver.  She couldn’t come in after me herself, and with Maynard hurt or dead, I hoped she’d get her ass out of there.  Besides, she had what she’d come for—a sack full of diamonds and emeralds.

I settled on the sandy bottom, sitting Indian fashion, trying to conserve my air.  My gauge was in the red zone.  Maybe five minutes of air left.  Maybe less.  The sharks had disappeared into the deep, off digesting Acuff somewhere more private.  I heard Lorna start the boat, but before she could put it in gear, another boat came alongside.

Slowly I made my way back up the line to the mooring ball.  When I surfaced, I could see the chief, Rasta Robert, and O’Brien on the police boat anxiously scanning the water.  Lorna was in the back leaning over Maynard.

Robert saw me first.  He started jumping up and down, pointing and yelling.  Recognition, then relief, spread across their faces.  O’Brien leaned against the rail and smiled.  I waved, tried to smile back, but damned, I was tired.

Chapter 27

Dunn, O’Brien, and I sat at a table at the Treasure Chest watching the sun flame into the water.  We had just finished eating—Mahi-Mahi, accompanied by Heinekens.  Dunn’s treat.

He’d been a good loser.  But then, I hadn’t rubbed it in—much.  Dunn had been shocked at Lorna’s involvement and a little embarrassed that he hadn’t picked up on it.  Never questioned her background, her long lunches, or her sudden trip to the States.

But Lorna had been good.  She’d set herself up as the sweet motherly type, and made herself invaluable to Dunn.  There was no reason to suspect her.  She’d been rude when I’d first encountered her on the plane, but then she’d probably been a bit out of sorts.  After all, she’d just flown all the way to Denver, had to hang out on the street in the snow waiting for those boxes to arrive, killed someone, and been on her way back without the diagram.  No wonder she’d been cranky.

She’d be in jail for a long time, maybe the rest of her life.  She’d be convicted of at least one murder—Greta’s.  Her fingerprints matched the unidentified prints in Duvall’s office, the results of the DNA test indicated the hair found at the scene was hers, and her gun matched the bullet recovered from Greta’s body.  As far as the guy she had brought on to help her recover the jewels and then killed and dumped in the ocean, little proof existed to connect her, and there was no body.

Acuff had killed both Michael and Billy Reardon.  Lorna and Maynard would be tried as accessories in those deaths as well as for Acuff’s murder and the attempt on my life.  Maynard had managed to survive and was recuperating in the local hospital.  He’d be out in time to stand trial.

I’d helped with the cleanup out at the
Chikuzen
.  Edmund Carr, other members of the BVI Search and Rescue team, James Constantine, a couple of other concerned divers, and O’Brien had all teamed up to remove the poisonous waste that Stepanopolis had hidden in the ship.

Maynard had actually been right about the corroded batteries.  The cadmium that had leaked out had killed the fish swimming in the area, then dissolved quickly to become harmless.  There were about two hundred more on the verge of doing the same thing.  And that was the least of it.  Hundreds of cans and fifty-gallon barrels of hazardous waste were packed in the deepest compartments of the ship.  Their contents ranged from DDT to what was finally determined to be waste from a chemical plant.

Stepanopolis had found a way to provide a steady supply of cash, until he got more ambitious and robbed that store.  If Michael hadn’t noticed the dead fish, the pollutants would have gone undetected until it was too late, and Maynard and Lorna would have gotten away with millions in jewels.  I’d explained it all to George and Caroline Duvall.  I don’t think it was much comfort.  A high price to pay—their son’s life.

The toxic spill would have been minor compared to what occurs in the ocean every day, thousands of gallons of oil from freighters, DDT washed into rivers and out to sea from agriculture, human waste running from sewers untreated into the sea.

But I was glad to help.  Somewhere along the way, I had gotten hooked.  It had only taken a week of diving in this spectacular environment.  The cacophony of color, the richness of life was so overwhelming that it was difficult to comprehend.  I was only beginning to see it.  Worms that looked like soft, flowering feather dusters; sea slugs that resembled blue-, yellow-, and red-tinged pieces of leaf lettuce with antennae; moon jellies, their blue and pink domes fringed with delicate tentacles; crabs only an inch long that looked like tiny sticks perched on soft coral.  The fact that these creatures could be destroyed gave me just one more reason to be angry.  Not that I needed one.

Before I headed back to Denver, I went to see Lydia.  There was still something I didn’t understand.

“Why do you think that Michael dived the wreck alone that morning instead of waiting for Dunn?”  Lydia and I were on her patio, sipping ice tea.

“You had to know Michael,” she said.  “He’d have waited about ten minutes and then decided to go down into the
Chikuzen
, retrieve the jewels, and be lounging on the
Lucky Lady
when Dunn arrived.  I told you—Michael was driven with the need to solve difficult problems, to be the one to find answers.  And he was fearless.  He thought he’d live forever.”

I remembered feeling the same way once.  Even now, I take risks that I shouldn’t.  I could understand how Michael thought.  I left Lydia sitting on the veranda and headed to the airport.

I planned to be in Denver only long enough to get my dog and put in for an extended leave at the police department.  Then I’d return to the islands.  Dunn had actually offered me a job.  With the growth in tourism and the inevitable increase in crime, he needed someone with solid investigative and diving experience.  I was considering it.  Besides, I needed more time with O’Brien to figure out whether the relationship was going to go anywhere at all.

I called Mack from the airport to let him know when I’d be in and that I was going to come back down to the islands for a while.

“Jeez, Sampson, you mean to tell me you’ve started worrying about snails and sea slugs, for chrissake?”

“Well, come on, Mack.  It’s a paradise—no snow, unbelievable diving, hardly any concrete, and almost no TV reception.  People actually take the time to stop and talk when they meet you on the sidewalk, and almost nobody has a cell phone stuck to their ear.”  I didn’t mention O’Brien and great sex under moonlit sails.  Neither did I admit that it might be a place to reflect, maybe forgive myself and move on.

Author’s Note

To the best of my knowledge, the facts surrounding the sinking of the
Chikuzen
are accurate except for the date. The ship went down in 1981.

Coming soon!

Turn the page for a preview of
Dark Water Dive
,

the second book in the

Hannah Sampson Underwater Investigation series. . . .

Chapter 1

Last night I’d stood on a rickety chair in the Blue Note, one hand over my heart, the other lifting a shot glass filled with tequila. I had taken an oath over the golden liquid.  

     “I, Hannah Sampson, recently retired homicide detective and team leader of the police scuba team, Denver PD, will never, ever again pull on a goddamned dry suit and dive into icy black water with any of you guys.” 

     The scuba team had thrown the going-away party of all going-away parties in my honor.  I’d really rubbed it in, celebrating the fact that I would never again dive in water so thick with sediment and contamination that visibility was nonexistent.  Never have to swallow the terror of imaginary monsters coming at me out of the muck.  

     I was thrilled to be leaving it behind. I was headed for sunnier climes, where the only diving I’d do was in crystal-clear, azure salt water.  My flight was leaving at 3:12 p.m. 

     So why the hell, at nine o’clock that morning, did I find myself bouncing around in the back of the dive team van with White, my line tender, and Compton, my relief diver, pulling on the thermals, and getting into that watertight suit?  So much for oaths.  I was struggling into the right leg of the body-sized rubber glove when Crown, the van’s driver, took one sharp corner too many.  I landed on my ass, one leg still up on the bench and tangled in dive gear.  Not the first time.  Compton thought it was funny.

     “Remember, Compton, this is the last time I’m doing this.  Think about that the next time you’re the one suiting up in this damned van.”

     I finished pulling on the dry suit while sitting safely on the floor.  Once I was zipped in, not a drop of foreign water would contaminate my being, but that didn’t mean I’d stay dry.   By the time we got to the site, my entire body was clammy from the heat that had built up inside the suit.  I’d actually be relieved to step into icy water.