Джон Сэндфорд - Ocean Prey [calibre]

The bald man said, “We don’t take American Express.”

Regio said, “We’re paying cash. Up front.”

The bald man, quickly: “Let me welcome you to Sunrise Scuba.”

Regio put a thin stack of fifty-dollar bills on the counter and said to Virgil, “We’ve got rooms across the highway. Got one for you and Ally, since you’ll be out after dark. No point in going back tonight.”

Neither Regio nor Lange wanted to go on a boat ride. Rae inquired about things to do on Key Largo. After a few suggestions from Andrews, she decided that if the local Publix market was a high point, she might as well get some sun.

Sunrise Scuba ran a 36-foot dive boat good for twelve divers; they powered out of the marina at two o’clock, headed to the reefs that paralleled the Key Largo coastline. The water was smooth and warm, crossed by a dozen other boats leaving long, streaming white wakes behind.

“Picked the perfect day for this,” Andrews said. The bald man, who was driving the boat, and whose name was Rolf, said, “We got a cold front coming, two days out. Looks like a rough one. That would have made things interesting.”

“I’m happy with smooth,” Rae said. “Catch a few rays . . . You guys brought some beer and sandwiches, right?”

“Do I look like a teetotaler?” Rolf asked.

Virgil would dive his twinset all day, while Andrews dove smaller aluminum eighties.

“I’m here to work you out, not lift weights,” she said to Virgil. “I gotta say, I got my doubts about you.”

Rae: “So—how many college courses you took in customer service skills?”

Rae watched as Virgil suited up. “Like the Speedo, sweetheart,” Rae said.

“So do I, actually,” Virgil said, as he pulled the dive skins up his legs. “I almost bought one of the slingshots, but, you know, I’m kinda body-shy.”

“Right,” Rae said. To Andrews: “Willy’s the least body-shy man you ever met. Not that he necessarily has anything to brag about.”

Virgil: “Hey!”

“I didn’t need to know any of that,” Andrews said. She watched as Virgil set up his equipment. He’d drilled with equipment setup every morning for a month and could do it with his eyes closed, with his toes.

When he was ready, she asked, “Well, at least you checked your pressures first thing. I look for that. When do you start getting narced?”

Virgil said, “At about a hundred and ten, I’m aware it’s in the background. At a hundred and thirty I’m there, but not a problem. I can do a hundred and fifty or a hundred and sixty and get the work done, but I’m narcing. Much deeper than that, I definitely need Trimix if I’m going to get anything done. I’ve been to two hundred and ten on air, but I was goofier than a shithouse mouse.”

“As long as you know.”

When they were both ready to go, Andrews said, “You lead,” and Virgil slapped one hand over his mask and mouthpiece and stepped over the side into the warm green water.

“What was all that about?” Rae asked Rolf, after Virgil and Andrews had gone under. “The narc thing.”

“Nitrogen narcosis. You soak up too much nitrogen, you start getting high. If you don’t know how to handle it, you can die. You ever had nitrous oxide at the dentist’s? To relax you?”

“No, but I done whippits at the grocery store.”

“Then you’ve been narced, or something close to it.”

The day was brilliantly, almost blindingly blue, with a mild breeze—almost nothing, but tasting of salt and smelling of seaweed—and some negligible current. As the boat swung gently on its hook, Rae got her sun and Rolf worked his iPad, complaining every once in a while about the weak-ass cell phone service. Virgil and Andrews surfaced after forty-five minutes, sat and talked in scuba code for a while, then they went down again.

When they came up the second time, they stopped for dinner and to watch the sun drop closer to the palms on Key Largo. After they’d shed their gear, Rae asked Andrews, “Well? What do you think?”

“He’s not terrible,” she said.

Rolf said to Virgil: “Jesus. You must be good. That’s her second highest rating after, ‘He’s okay.’”

Virgil asked, “Am I still in the running for ‘okay’?”

“We’ll see after the night navigation,” Andrews said.

With the sun on the horizon, Andrews put on a fresh tank and they went down a third time; when they resurfaced, in total darkness, Rae asked, “Well?”

“He’s okay,” Andrews said.

“Yes!”

“But maybe a little reckless. I’m going to have to say that when we talk to your . . . supervisors.”

“Why reckless?” Rolf asked.

“He cut his lights and did a blackout figure-eight around the tits. Stuck a light on his tanks so I could follow him.”

“Yeah, that’s . . . not totally recommended,” Rolf said. He asked Virgil, “You hit anything?”

“Not a thing,” Virgil said. “But I’m the tiniest bit tired. I haven’t done this for a while and I got some leg cramps. Hurt like hell. But the Genesis—I love the Genesis more than sex. I mean, except with sex with Ally, when she does that reverse cowgirl thing . . .”

“Shut up,” Rae said. “Let’s get back.”

Regio and Lange were waiting at the marina as Rolf eased the boat into its slip. Andrews gave her report: “He’s as good as they come. But reckless.”

She told them about the figure-eight navigation in the dark. “You won’t want to do that with Jerry,” Regio told Virgil. “He drowns, I’m out of a job.”

“There’s always room for a rent-a-goon in Vegas,” Virgil said.

“That’s really funny,” Regio said, with a snake-like stare.

Across the street at Morgan’s Inn, Lange patted Virgil on the back. “That was everything we needed to know, pal. Including the figure-eight. She seemed damn impressed.”

“Like I told you, I can dive,” Virgil said. “I don’t do overheads, but I’ll do anything else you got.”

“So when are we doing it?” Rae asked.

“We’re thinking tomorrow night, at least for a trial run,” Regio said. “It’s supposed to be quiet water out there. Like Rolf was saying, there’s a cold front coming, and it’ll get rougher when that goes through.”

“Bring the cash,” Virgil said. “Lots of cash.”

Regio smiled. “We will do that. And we’ve got a few things for you to look at.”

Inside their room, they had two oval-shaped lift bags of two hundred pounds lift capacity each, two black torpedo-shaped mesh bags to hold the drug containers, and two pen-sized waterproof LED flashlights with sliding hoods.

“You need to figure out how to hook all this up to your equipment,” Lange said. “When it’s time to pick you up, you’ll be right on the surface and you hit us with a hooded flashlight. It’s bright, but with the hood pushed out, nobody will see it but us. We’ll drift up to you, you hook the ladder, you get out of your plate and wing and we’ll pull it aboard with the tanks. You come up the ladder, we’ll help you if you need it. Then we’ll all be there for the lift bag, if it’s got anything in it.”

“That’s a lot of weight,” Virgil said. “The gear weighs close to a hundred pounds by itself, and that’s before the lift bags, and there’ll be drag from the boat.”

“We’ll have three guys on board to do the lifting.”

“Plus me,” Rae said.

“Plus Ally,” Lange said.

Virgil said, “Okay. That should work.”

Regio handed Virgil a thick gray watch and a thin white booklet: “This is your GPS watch. Good to three hundred feet, already been tested. You need to figure it out with the instruction book. We’ll give you the exact GPS coordinates for the pickup spot.”