Jeffery Deaver - The Stone Monkey

It had never occurred to her when she'd requested the helicopter ride out to the ship that the only way to get onto the ship would be by winching down to a bobbing deck.

Well, what did she expect, she now reflected, an escalator?

The chopper pitched in the fierce wind and beneath them, through the mist, she could see the gray water breaking around the cutter in ragged white ridges.

Encased in an orange vest and battered helmet, Sachs gripped the handhold near the open doorway and thought again, Okay, I can do this.

The crewman shouted something she didn't hear and she shouted back for him to repeat it – a request he apparently didn't hear, for he took her words to be an acknowledgment. Then a hook was attached to the harness and the rig double-checked. The crewman shouted something else. Sachs pointed to herself, then out the door and received a thumbs-up.

Okay…

I can do this.

Her essential fear was claustrophobia, not heights, but still…

Then out she went, holding the cable, even though she thought she'd been told not to. She swung wildly from the momentum of stepping out the door. In a moment the motion slowed and she started down, buffeted by the wind and the powerful downdraft from the rotor blades.

Down, down…

A shroud of fog suddenly enveloped her and she was disoriented. She found herself hanging in space, not able to see either the chopper above or the ship below. Rain spattered her face and she was blinded. Vertigo consumed her and she couldn't tell if she was swinging like an out-of-control pendulum or dropping toward the ship at a hundred miles an hour.

Oh, Rhyme…

But then the cutter grew visible beneath her.

The Evan Brigant bobbed up and down and rocked but whoever was at the helm held the vessel perfectly in position despite waves that were so huge that they seemed fake – something created by a special-effects team for a movie. Her feet touched the deck but just as she hit the quick-release button on the harness the ship dropped to the bottom of a wave and she fell four feet to the deck, hitting hard, her arthritic legs screaming in pain. As two seamen ran to help her up she reflected that this was probably what the crewman on the chopper had been warning her about.

Boating is not a sport for arthritics, Sachs recalled; she had to flex her knees continually for stability as she made her way to the bridge. She had an imaginary conversation with Dr. John Sung, reporting to him that Chinese medicine had yet to score serious points over Percoset and anti-inflammatories.

On the bridge the improbably young-looking captain, Fred Ransom, greeted her with a smile and a handshake. He welcomed her to the ship and led her to the chart table. "Now, here's a picture of the vessel and where she's lying."

Sachs concentrated on the image of the ship. Ransom told her where the bridge was and where the cabins were located – on the same deck but down a lengthy corridor toward the stern.

"Now, one thing, Officer, just to warn you," he said delicately. "We understand there are about fifteen bodies inside and there'll be some sea-life activity regarding them. It could be pretty grim. Some of my crew have sort of a tough time…"

But his voice faded as he looked into her eyes.

Sachs said, "Appreciate the warning, Captain. But I do run crime scenes for a living."

"Sure, Officer, understood. All right, let's get you into your gear."

Another trek outside into the rain and wind. They made their way to the stern of the ship. In a small shed, open to the rear, she was introduced to two other officers, a man and a woman, both wearing yellow and black wet suits and boots. They were the chief dive officer on board the ship and his second in command.

"Understand you did PADI?" the man asked. "How many dives?"

"I'd guess twenty-five or so."

This relieved them somewhat.

"And the last time was?"

"Make it a few years."

This response had the opposite effect.

"Well, we're going to walk you through all the steps again," the male officer said, "like you're a novice."

"I was hoping you would."

"Your deepest?" the woman dive officer asked.

"Eighty feet."

"That's about the same as here. The only difference is that it'll be murkier. The currents're stirring up the bottom."

The water wasn't that cold, they explained, still retaining much of the summer's heat, but to be under for any length of time would deplete her body heat quickly and so she needed to wear a wetsuit, which insulated her not only with the rubber but, as the name suggested, a thin layer of water between her skin and the shell of the suit.

Behind a screen she stripped and then struggled to put the suit on.

"Are you sure this isn't a child's size?" she called, gasping from the effort of pulling the tight rubber over her hips and shoulders.

"We hear that a lot," the woman dive officer responded.

Then they suited her up with the rest of the equipment: weights, mask and the air tank attached to the BCD – buoyancy control device, a vest that you inflated or deflated with a control near your left hand, which made you rise or sink in the water.

Also attached to the air tank was a primary regulator – the one that she'd breathe through – and then a secondary one, nicknamed the octopus, that could be used by a fellow diver to breathe off her tank if the buddy's air supply was cut off. They also fitted a head-mounted spotlight to her hood.

They ran through the basic hand signals for communicating with dive partners.

A lot of information, important information, and she struggled to keep it in her mind.

"How 'bout a knife?" she asked.

"You've got one," the dive chief said, pointing to her BCD. She drew the weapon only to find that it didn't have a point.

"You're not going to be stabbing anything," the woman said, seeing Sachs's concern. "Only cutting. You know, wire or something that entangles you."

"Thinking more about sharks, actually," she said.

"Rarely see sharks in these waters."

"Hardly ever," the other officer echoed. "Not big ones anyway."

"I'll take your word for it," Sachs said, replacing the knife. Wasn't the movie Jaws set here?

The dive chief handed Sachs a large mesh bag for stowing any evidence she found. Into these she placed what she'd brought for evidence collection – plastic bags. Then he and his assistant donned their equipment and, carrying their flippers, all three walked unsteadily to the very stern of the heaving ship.

Shouting over the noise of the wind the dive chief said, "Too choppy to go off the deck. We'll get into the raft, put our flippers on and then fall backward into the water. Hold your mask and regulator to your face. Other hand on your weight-belt release."

She tapped the top of her head – the hand signal for okay.

He did the same.

They climbed into the yellow raft, which was already in the water and reared up and down like a bucking horse. They sat on the side and checked their equipment.

Twenty feet away was an orange buoy. The dive chief pointed to it and said, "There's a line from there that goes straight down to the vessel. We'll swim over to that and follow the line down. What's your plan for the search?"

She called back, "I want to get samples of the explosion residue from the hull and then search the bridge and cabins."

The other divers nodded.

"I do the inside alone."

This was a breach of the fundamental scuba rule that you be able to swim to your buddy on one breath. The dive chief frowned.

"You're sure?"

"Have to."

"Okay," he said uneasily. Then he continued, "Now, sounds don't work well underwater – hard to tell where they're coming from – but if you're in trouble bang on your tank with the knife and we'll search for you." He held up her SPG – submersible pressure gauge – which showed how much air was in her tank. "You've got three thousand pounds of air. You'll burn it fast because you're going to be pumped up on adrenaline. We leave the bottom with five hundred. No less than that. That's an iron-clad rule. No exceptions. We come up slow – no faster than the bubbles from our regulator and we pause for three minutes fifteen feet down."