P. Deutermann - The Last Man

David was blinded instantaneously by the sudden loss of his mask as he felt the man kick upward. Then he was gone. David caught just a blurry glimpse of a black swim fin disappearing over the top edge of the ashlar, some fifteen feet above him, pursued now by the expanding cloud of blood and bubbles streaming from the sagging, inert body in front of him.

David’s head began to pound, reminding him to suck in a deep breath from his mouthpiece, and then a couple more. He was still trying to comprehend what he’d just witnessed. He could breathe, although the saltwater was stinging his eyes. He knew what that stick was — it was called a bang-stick, used normally as a last line of defense against an attacking shark. Two to three feet long with a 12-gauge shotgun shell contained in a small, waterproof power head at one end. You made sure the head was in solid contact with the shark and then you fired it. Then you got the hell out of there before his buddies showed up for lunch.

He examined the woman’s body in front of him. It was hovering just above the bottom, arms and legs outstretched and relaxed, fingers trailing in the sand, and still leaking profusely. She was quite obviously dead. He immediately wondered if there were sharks in the remains of the harbor. No reason why not, he thought, and levitated himself smartly out of the ashlar canyon to go find Judith and the tour guide. He kicked hard to get over to the shipwreck where they were still kneeling down on the bottom, sifting the sandy bottom with their fingers, apparently looking for artifacts. He reached the guide and made the emergency/distress signal, then the follow-me signal. Once the guide saw the woman’s body down between the massive breakwater stones, she went right to the surface and popped a signaling device.

An hour later David and Judith were in a police van parked on the beach, talking to two detectives, while the crew of an Israeli navy launch retrieved the unfortunate woman’s body from the harbor. All the other excursions in the harbor had been canceled. While waiting for the cops to arrive, David had tried to make sense of what had happened down there. Had the killer been hunting him, specifically, or was he some kind of terrorist who just wanted to shoot a tourist? A bang-stick was a one-shot device — once he’d fired it, the killer could no longer do anything to David unless he wanted to get into an underwater knife fight. He’d done the next best thing — ripped David’s face mask off, which then gave him time to swim away. As the detectives approached, David thought fast. His whole plan to go back to Masada would be in jeopardy if he told the cops that it looked as if he had been the intended victim. He’d decided to leave that little bit of information out when he told the cops what he’d seen.

Man in a black wet suit, swimming above me. Waved like any other tourist. I waved back. I was down on the bottom, looking at the big breakwater stones, which form a sort of canyon down there. Next thing I know there’s a woman in front of me, and we bump into each other. Then she looks over my shoulder and — bang! It all happened in deep shadow between two enormous blocks of stone. The bang-stick was probably a 12-gauge, since it didn’t have a long pole on it, and then he ripped off my face mask. That’s what I saw.

You recognized this bang-stick, as you call it?

Sure; I’ve never used one, but I’ve seen the training videos. Used to protect yourself from an aggressive shark.

The two detectives asked him to go through it all again, then told him to remain in the area while they went to talk to the tour guide. David and Judith walked over to the seaside café nearby, where David ordered a brandy to steady his nerves. Judith hadn’t actually seen the woman’s body down between the giant stones, but she was still pretty upset at what had happened. They watched as the cops tried to get the attention of the recovery boat. They saw their tour guide in the back of the boat, and she looked just a little hysterical. A TV news-van crew was trying to talk its way through the entrance; they didn’t seem to be making much headway with the big cop at the gate.

“Well, didn’t this turn out to be a great date,” David said, shaking his head.

“Out of nowhere,” Judith said. “That’s a state park, the ancient harbor. How does an armed man just swim into a state park, with all those people around?”

“There were lots of people visiting the park. He could have been with the snorkel group, or he just came around the breakwater. That poor woman. Talk about wrong place, wrong time. God!”

He hadn’t told Judith that the man first threatened him with the bang-stick, and he wasn’t going to, either. He was beginning to think that it had been a threat, or otherwise he would never had the chance to turn around — the bang-stick was in contact before he even knew what was touching him. Judith was asking him something.

“You don’t think this was some kind of accident? An undersea hunter, shooting in the dark?”

“It wasn’t like a spear gun, where you shoot from a distance,” he said. “It was a bang-stick. First you have to press it against the predator’s skin— then you fire it. This was no accident. He meant to kill that woman.”

“Did the police say who she was?”

“A tourist is all they know right now,” he said, wanting another brandy but deciding not to have one. Their lovely outing had been ruined, and all he wanted to do was get the hell out of there. Like he’d told the cops, he’d never fired a bang-stick, but he’d seen a training video where a diver used one against a fifteen-foot tiger shark, giving it a shot to the gills. The huge creature had been killed instantly.

The detectives came back over to them from the beach and told David he could go back to his hotel. They cautioned him not to leave the country just yet as there might be more questions. Judith asked about the victim’s identity, but the cops just shrugged. A tourist, that’s all we know.

They got back to his hotel an hour and a half later, where David prepared to send Judith home in the hired car. She surprised him.

“You’ve had a bad shock,” she said. “You should not be alone just now. Let’s have Ari drive us around. We can go to the Carmel, where I grew up. It’s very pretty up there, and there are some interesting historical sites. The fortress of Acre is just beyond. You should definitely see that.”

The last thing David wanted to do was go sightseeing. He still wanted another brandy, and then he wanted to crawl into a hole somewhere. He couldn’t erase the way that guy had looked at him while pressing the bang-stick into his neck. The killing had been bad enough. That look had been even worse.

“Come on,” she insisted. “Ari, can you take us to Haifa?”

Ari gave David raised eyebrows, and he reluctantly nodded. Maybe she was right. Movement, activity, was probably better than being alone in the room, still seeing that horrible cloud.

They stopped for a late lunch up in Haifa, where he had a glass of wine and she actually ate lunch. Then she gave him a quick windshield tour of her hometown and the higher precincts of Mount Carmel. After that they went up the coast to the looming fortress of Acre. David had always thought that the fortified town right on the Mediterranean was a Crusader-era fortress, until he saw the plaque in the main entrance tunnel that listed the Conquerors of Acre, with one of the first ones being Ramses II. After a while, he got back into the groove and began paying attention to all the things she was showing him. They then spent a quiet trip back through late afternoon traffic on the coast highway, during which time she fell asleep on his shoulder.