Randy White - Ten thousand isles

I didn't have much choice. I had to try.

I hyperventilated until the car's air pocket was nearly spent, then I swam across the black abyss. Got a grip on the dead man's elbow. The first thing I did was grab the regulator hose and check the valve on his mouth piece. If the valve was open, the system was flooded and ruined for me or anyone else. I'd have to surface and take my chances.

The valve was closed.

Next, I found the standard scuba single-hose pressure gauge. The needle was on zero. He was either out of air, or his tanks were shut off. Attached to the rebreather pack were two spherical canisters slighdy smaller than volleyballs. The canister to his right should have been for oxygen, the canister to the left for a diluent gas, maybe helium.

I reached behind him, turned the valve on the oxygen tank and watched the needle jump to 700 psi. On a standard open-circuit system, that wasn't much air. On a rebreather, it would be good for a couple of hours.

I fitted the regulator into my mouth, opened the valve and snorted out through my nose; snorted again, hoping to hell not to taste caustic soda lime.

Nope, the air was good. Just to be certain, I pulled off the computer panel Velcroed to his wrist. Held the ON button down until the LCD screen activated. Saw that it was 4:09 p.m. October 5 and that I was at thirty-nine feet with 708 psi oxygen remaining and an onboard diluent gas supply that was fifty percent maximum.

This guy had been doing some serious deep diving.

I also saw the heads-up light was reading a cautionary yellow, so I hunted around until I found the bypass valve and dumped a little oxygen into the system. I watched a bead of green light replace the yellow, now indicating I was getting an approximate number of oxygen molecules in the mix of gas that the unit was computing.

I floated there for a moment, breathing easily. I didn't have to worry about them seeing bubbles on the surface because a rebreather exhausts almost none. My mask was still leaking badly, so I took the dead man's, cleared it with no problem.

What else did he have that I might be able to use?

The knife scabbard strapped to his leg was empty. They'd probably taken that before they killed him.

There was a small strobe light tied to one of the three pockets on his vest. I couldn't imagine why I'd need that. I opened the first two pockets and found nothing but a tiny bottle of Clear Mask. I opened the third, saw something gold and shiny…

I reached, felt a hard surface that was smooth, warmer than the water, and I pulled out a medallion made of gold, the cross and concentric circles similar to those on the totem. At the top, through the hole, was a broken clasp, one link open.

The diver had found it. But why hadn't he told them? Why hadn't he turned it over and got the bonus? I remembered Ted telling me that the reward his father had offered was way too small. Maybe the diver decided to try and sneak the thing out, make a lot more money by selling it on his own. Or maybe… just maybe the diver realized that they would never let him leave their property alive, and so he kept it as a bargaining chip… but had never been given the chance to bargain.

I floated there, admiring the medallion; its weight and color and density. It was a stunning piece of jewelry. There was something almost hypnotic about the way light clung to the designs. But while I was holding it between thumb and forefinger, inspecting it, my grip on the diver's elbow slipped… which caused my right hand to automatically scull for balance… and the medallion fell from my hands.

I watched it for a sickening moment as it fluttered toward the black hole below, glittering like a fishing lure.

Then I switched off the regulator's valve and was after it, swimming hard, hard, everything a blur but that golden flash. I caught the medallion just before it went over the rim into darkness.

Once I had the regulator in my mouth again, breathing easily, I put the medallion into the pocket of my fishing shorts. No more admiring it until I was safely on the surface.

Nora would get a kick out of seeing the thing. I would present it to her with flowers and a botde of champagne, perhaps.

If she was still alive…

It crossed my mind that Bauerstock or Parrish might be the extra-careful types. With all the bleeding my ear had done, they had to assume I was dead. But most bodies float. They might find another set of snorkel gear and take a look through the clear water, try to figure out why my body had yet to surface.

I decided I'd better hide.

I unstrapped the rebreather, mounted it on my own back, Velcroed the ruined BC across my chest, then released my breath so that I would sink. I descended down the wall, over the limestone rim into darkness. Felt the familiar sensation of stepping over an underwater wall-the sensation of falling, falling in slow motion.

I drifted downward until the computer panel told me I was at 60 feet. Hunted around until I found a comfortable rock outcrop where I could wedge myself and relax.

Negative buoyancy is an advantage of a closed-circuit re-breather. At this depth, zero decompression time was another benefit. Closed circuit meaning that nearly a hundred percent of the system's gas supply is used. Each time I exhaled, my air was exhausted through a soda lime filter that scrubbed out carbon dioxide, then recirculated wasted oxygen back into the system. Gases were added depending on my depth and when the volume dropped below a certain minimum value. As long as the batteries that ran the onboard computer were good, I could stay down for a couple of hours.

Hopefully, I wouldn't have to stay that long.

Water transmits sound more efficiently than air.

Ted and Ivan had an appointment in Naples, a pretty Gulf Coast city that was more than an hour away by water.

They would have to start their boat, and I would hear them.

An hour and eighteen minutes later, according to the computer board, they did.

I Surfaced cautiously, still wearing the rebreather. Came up beneath the dock, peering out. My teeth were chattering, my fingers puckered. Wind was in the trees, showing silver in the tops of palms, blowing sand across the lake.

There was someone in the pavilion, a lone figure.

The old brown Indio woman sitting there in her dark dress.

She cupped her hands around her mouth and called something, her words muffled by the wind. She tried again, louder. I realized she was calling out in Spanish: They are gone!

Who was she speaking to? No way she could know I was there.

Apparendy, she did, though, because she stood and began to find her way toward me, hands outstretched, feeling the air.

Heard her say: I have been waiting for you.

If a woman without eyes knew where I was, there was no fooling anyone else they'd left behind, so I dropped the scuba pack and scrambled up the bank. When a man climbs fully dressed out of a pool or lake, he frets about mundane things: sopping billfold, credit cards, treasured leather belt. I had something more pressing on my mind.

I touched my pockets.

The pendant was still there.

As she drew closer, I saw that she had something in her hand-my glasses. I'd lost them on the beach, but how had she found them? As I put them on, she said again, "I have been waiting for you."

I said, "Everyone's gone?"

"Yes. Everyone."

"Your name's Bella."

"Yes. And yours is Ford."

"How do you know that?"

"I know more than you realize, big man. I know they tried to kill you but couldn't. I know that you swam into the eye of the earth and stayed as long as a fish. If your power is so great, perhaps you can destroy them. You found the amulet? The golden god?"

"I didn't find anything. I don't know what you're talking about."