Jeffery Deaver - The Stone Monkey

But Lincoln Rhyme's voice, as clear as if he'd been speaking through her headphones, sounded in her thoughts. "It's a crime scene, Sachs. That's all it is. And searching crime scenes is what we do, remember? You grid it, you search it, you observe it, you collect evidence."

Okay, Rhyme. But I could live without eels.

She let some air out of the BCD and dropped slowly into the room.

Two sights made her gasp.

In front of her a man floated in the black space, eyes closed, his jaw down as far as it could go, arms outstretched, his coat billowing out behind him. His face was white as paper.

The second thing she saw was less macabre but far stranger: what must have been a thousand hundred-dollar bills floated in the water, filling the room, like flakes in a plastic souvenir snow globe.

The bills explained the man's death. His pockets were filled with money and she deduced that as the ship started to go down he'd run to the cabin to get as much of the Ghost's cash as he could but he'd been trapped here.

She eased farther into the room, the bills swirling in her wake.

The money soon proved to be a major pain in the ass. It stuck to her, it obscured the scene like smoke. (Add this to your book, Rhyme: excessive money at the crime scene can make searches extremely difficult.) She couldn't see more than a few feet past the cloud of bills. She grabbed several handfuls of the money for evidence and put them in her collection bag. Kicking her way to what was now the top of the room – originally the side – she noticed an open attaché case floating in the thin air pocket. She found more currency inside – Chinese, it seemed. A handful of these bills went into the collection bag.

Clank, clank.

Jesus, this is spooky. Darkness around her, unseen things caressing the wetsuit. She could see only a few feet in front of her – the tunnel of dim illumination cast by the tiny spotlight on her head.

She then located two weapons: an Uzi machine pistol and a Beretta 9mm. She examined them closely and found that the Uzi's serial number had been etched out. She let this weapon drop to the bottom. There was a number on the Beretta, though, which meant it might yield some traceable connection to the Ghost. She slipped it into her evidence bag. A glance at her pressure gauge: 1800 pounds of air. God, she was going through it fast. Breathe slowly.

"Come on, Sachs, concentrate."

Right, sorry, Rhyme.

Clank, clank, clank.

I hate that fucking sound!

She searched the body of the corpse. No wallet or ID.

Another shiver. Why was this scene so horrible, so eerie? She'd processed dozens of bodies. But then she realized: the corpses at those scenes had always lain like broken toys on the ground, pulled, inanimate, to the concrete or grass or carpet by gravity. They weren't real. But this man wasn't still at all. As cold as the heartless water around him, white as snow, he moved like an elegant dancer in slow motion.

The stateroom was very small and the body would interfere with her search. So, with a respect that she wouldn't have felt anywhere outside of this horrible mausoleum, she eased the body upward into the corridor and pushed him away. Then she returned to the Ghost's cabin.

Clank, clank… clank.

Ignoring the spooky moans and the clanking, she looked around her. In a tiny room like this, where would one hide things?

All the furniture was attached to the walls and floors. And there was only one small dresser. Inside were Chinese-brand toiletries, nothing that yielded any obvious evidence.

She looked for anything hidden in the closet but found only clothes.

Clank, clank…

What do we think, Rhyme?

"I think you've got, let's see, about fourteen hundred pounds of air left. I'd say if you don't find something soon, get the hell out."

I'm not going anywhere yet, she thought. Hovering, she looked slowly around the room. Where would he hide things? He left his guns, he left the money… That means the explosion took him by surprise too. There has to be something here. She glanced again at the closet. The clothes? Maybe. She kicked toward it.

She began to go through them. Nothing in any of the pockets. But she kept searching and – in one of his Armani jackets – found a slit he'd made in the lining. She reached in and extracted an envelope containing a document. She trained the light on it. Don't know if it's helpful or not, Rhyme. They're in Chinese.

"That's for us to find out back home. You find it, Eddie'll translate it, I'll analyze it."

Into the bag.

Twelve hundred pounds of pressure. But don't ever, ever, ever hold your breath.

Why was that again?

Right. Your lungs'll explode.

Clank.

Okay, I'm outta here.

She made her way out of the small stateroom and into the corridor, the treasures of evidence stashed in the bag tied to her belt.

Clank clank clank… clank… clank… clank.

She turned back down the endless corridor – the route by which she could escape from this terrible place. The bridge seemed miles away down the black corridor.

The longest journey, the first step…

But then she stopped, gripping the doorway. Jesus, Lord, she thought.

Clank clank clank…

Amelia Sachs realized something about the eerie banging she'd been hearing since she'd entered the ship. Three fast bangs, three slow.

It was Morse code for S-O-S. And it was coming from somewhere deep within the ship.

S -O-S.

The universal distress call.

S-O…

Somebody was alive! The Coast Guard had missed a survivor. Should she go find the other divers? Sachs wondered.

But that would take too long; Sachs imagined from the uneven pounding that the trapped air the survivor was breathing was nearly gone. Besides, the sound seemed to be coming from nearby. It should take only minutes to find the person.

But where were they exactly?

Well, obviously it hadn't come from the direction of the bridge, through which she'd entered the ship. It wasn't coming from the cabins here either. It had to be one of the holds or the engine room – in the lower part of the ship. Now, with the Dragon on its side, those areas were level with her, on her left.

Yes, no?

For this she couldn't ask Lincoln Rhyme's advice.

There was no one to help her here.

Oh, Jesus, I'm really going to do this, aren't I?

Less than 1200 pounds of air left.

So you better get your butt going, girl.

Sachs glanced at the faint illumination where the bridge was, then she turned away from it toward the darkness – and the claustrophobia – and kicked hard. Following the clanking.

S-O-S.

But when she came to the end of the black corridor, from which she thought she heard the code, Sachs found no way to get into the interior of the ship. The corridor just ended. She pressed her head against the wood, though, and could distinctly hear the clanging.

O-S.

Training the light on the wall she discovered a small door. She opened it and gasped as a green eel swam leisurely past her. She let her heart calm and gazed inside, looking to her left, into the bowels of the ship. The shaft was a dumbwaiter, presumably to cart supplies up to the cabin deck and the bridge from the lower decks. It measured about two feet by two feet.

Confronting the thought of swimming into the narrow space, she now thought about going back for help. But she'd already wasted too much time finding the doorway.

Oh, man…

One thousand pounds of air.

Clank, clank …

She closed her eyes and shook her head.

Can't do it. No way.