Rick Riordan - The Devil went down to Austin

I rotated faceup. Sure enough, Pena was floating above me. His burnt eyes weren't gloating, weren't smiling. They were just observing, the way a fish observes-impartially looking for something smaller to devour.

My next inhale was a wall-nothing came into my lungs.

Matthew Pena tapped his fingers to his palm in a little byebye wave.

The first rule of diving: Don't panic. I knew that. But rules take on a new dimension when you're thirty feet under with no air. A more experienced diver might've gambled on getting to the valve of his tank without panicking, without getting tangled in his own equipment. I knew I needed a simpler alternative.

I kept exhaling-kept the little trail of bubbles coming out of my mouth, even though I knew there was nothing to replace them with.

Then I reached over, grabbed Matthew Pena's mask and ripped it off his face. The snorkel came with it.

Pena protested with an explosion of white bubbles, grabbed after the mask.

I left him blinking in the green, his vision reduced to smudges. Then I kicked for the surface, holding the BC hose up and keeping my other hand on the weight belt, one finger still hooked on Pena's mask and snorkel.

I tried to avoid kicking up too fast, even though my lungs told me I was dying. The pain was unbearable when the water turned silver and the top shimmered like sun on aluminium foil, but I still wasn't to the surface. A thousand decades later, I broke through and gasped, then found my head underwater again. I used my exhale to manually inflate the BC, kicked to the surface again, got another gasp, went under, repeated the inflation process until I was buoyant.

I floated on the surface, breathing hard.

No problem. Just a little thirtyfootunder chat with a suspect. A little neardeath experience.

Great plan, Navarre.

I put my snorkel in, went down headfirst, and started fumbling around behind me for the Kvalve. I soon realized I'd have to free up both hands to accomplish the task. I pitched Matthew Pena's mask and snorkel out toward the boating channel, then put my face back underwater, found the Kvalve, turned on the air.

I saw Pena below me, making a casual ascent, his eyes dark and open and completely blind. I put my head above water as he surfaced ten feet away.

He used the automatic inflate on his BC, rose a few more inches out of the water.

His eyes were bloodshot, his face crawling with irritation.

The paleness of his skin had not been a trick of the water. Now that the regulator was out of his mouth, I could see cruel thin lips, outlined by neatly trimmed, coarse black whiskers.

He said, "Where's my mask?"

I pointed toward the middle of the lake.

He started to say something, stopped himself. "That was $400 worth of equipment."

"And I'm charging $200 per breath of air, which makes us even."

He brought up his hand console, read the computer, let it float back under. "I'll get the mask later. Which way did you throw it?"

I showed him.

"That's about a hundred and twenty feet deep, the way the shore drops off into the river channel. Thanks a lot."

I smiled. "I'm Garrett Navarre's brother. It was no problem, really."

Pena's eyes got small. "I don't have time for this."

"You shouldn't have time to screw with people's lives, either. But you seem to manage."

Pena put his mouth and nose underwater, seemed to whisper something to the fish, then raised up again. "Maia warned me about you. She was quite irrational on the subject-claimed you could be an annoyance."

"I'm flattered."

"Annoy me, and you'll get hurt."

"I read about your girlfriend," I said. "She must've annoyed you pretty bad."

The scariest thing was the millisecond delay in his face, the processing time during which Matthew Pena seemed to make a conscious choice which emotions to show me. He decided on a combination of hurt and anger.

"You have no right to speak about Adrienne. You know nothing about it."

"I know this, Pena: Maia's not protecting you this time."

"And you're doing your best to jeopardize your brother's only chance at a buyout, aren't you?"

I hated that he made me hesitate.

"Techsan isn't my concern," I said.

Traces of a smile flickered across his mouth. "Really."

"I'm just here to tell you, Pena-if you had anything to do with Jimmy's murder, you will be nailed. If you decide to harass my brother with any more faxes, emails, or messwithyourmind presents, I'll become a regular at your scuba classes. I'll follow you to work every day. I will introduce myself to all your prospective clients. You will get to know me very well."

He looked toward the shore where Maia and Dwight were both now standing-little sixinch dolls from this distance.

"Maia Lee in the flesh," Pena said appreciatively. "A shame she couldn't take a friendly warning, stick with a winning team."

"You're the one who's been warned, Matthew."

"Yes," he agreed easily. "I was sorry to hear Doebler and your brother had a fallingout. Sorry your brother went off the deep end. But this is a highstakes business, Mr. Navarre. Those things happen. I'll attend the service tonight to pay my respects."

I started to kick back toward shore. "I can hardly wait."

"And Mr. Navarre? If I really was the sort of person you think I am, you realize I would now make it my personal hobby to destroy you."

"Be an expensive hobby, Matthew. Stick to scuba."

He put the regulator back in his mouth. He raised his BC hose and hissed out the air from his vest, sunk below the surface, still without a mask.

What he would do down there with limited vision, I had no idea, but something told me Matthew Pena was a lot more vicious than anything else he might encounter under Lake Travis. He'd find his way.

I got to the ladder.

At the top of the cliff, Maia Lee was waiting, looking furious. "What were you saying earlier, Tres, about not messing up?"

I dismantled my gear at the picnic table.

Dwight Hayes held the air tank while I detached it from my back.

"He didn't recognize the suit," Dwight asked anxiously, "did he?"

I stripped off the wet suit, left two twenties under the weight belt to pay for the rental, then put my Tshirt and jeans back on over damp jockey shorts.

"I'm not going back in there," Dwight decided. "I don't care what Matthew says."

Maia put her hand on his shoulder. "Dwight-think about what I said, okay?"

He shook his head. "I can't, Maia. He's already going to be mad enough. You don't blame me, do you?"

Maia gave me a cold stare, and I realized I really had screwed up. I'd completely misread Maia's reasons for coming out here.

"Of course I don't blame you," she told Dwight. "Take care of yourself. You have my number if you change your mind."

As we walked back up the gravel path, Maia muttered a few choice curses in Mandarin.

"You came out to work on Dwight Hayes," I said. "He's the weak link in Pena's armour.

You didn't want to pressure Pena at all."

"And by hardballing Pena, you just made Dwight more apprehensive about talking to me. Nice job, genius."

"You could've told me."

She muttered some more curses, then trudged ahead, apparently determined to get out of scuba country as fast as she could.

I took one last look back at Dwight Hayes, but he was paying us no attention. He was staring out over the edge of the cliff, watching the smooth scars on the water below, waiting for his boss to emerge.

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