P. Deutermann - The Last Man

He steadied himself and his breathing, took a careful bearing on the compass, and set out again, watching the glow of the light below. From every position, it looked like it was right beneath him. He swam all the way across again and found nothing. Dammit! Had the line broken? Was the light sitting down there on the bottom? Then he had an idea. He swam back out into what he guessed was the middle of the sphere and then followed his bubble trail to the top. At the ceiling, he watched in chagrin as the bubbles turned behind his shoulder, marching in a silvery trail, bouncing across the ceiling. He followed the trail and popped up in the opening thirty seconds later, feeling like even more of an idiot. The line to the light was, of course, still there. He spat out the regulator and then hoisted himself up onto the edge using the steel pipes.

Checking his watch, he found he had been down there for twenty-five minutes, well over the calculated bottom time. On the plus side was the fact that he had not been at depth for all of that. He should be okay from the point of view of getting the dreaded bends, with “should” being the operative word. It was almost one o’clock. He would rest on the surface for two full hours just to make sure, and then he’d go back down to explore that cave. He would take a fresh tank this time, although there was still air left in the first tank — and this time, he would light up the damned entrance hole! He turned around, fished his reference light back out of the cavern, and began stripping off his gear.

Judith was going through the motions of working midafternoon Friday when Professor Ellerstein called. He wanted to know how she was doing and how her first week back among the living had gone.

“Not too badly,” she said, suppressing an image of the previous evening. Not too badly, indeed. “It is an effort, though.”

“I understand, but it is a worthy effort. I will tell you that Strauss has noticed a difference. He is very pleased with your decision.”

“Well, good,” she said. “The meetings are still pretty boring.”

“Have you ever been to an exciting meeting, Yehudit?” he asked.

“Not here, Yossi,” she said with a smile,

“How’s the American doing, do you know?”

“Ah, yes, the American. Actually—”

“Yes?”

“Well, I’ve been seeing the American. He insisted on taking me to dinner to make amends for his indiscretion at Metsadá. I even went on a diving expedition with him, to Caesarea Maritima, which ended very badly.”

“The murder there? That German tourist? You were there?”

She told him the whole story, and that she’d spent the rest of the day trying to settle the American’s badly rattled nerves.

“Well, good for you, Judith. Good for you. Besides, he seemed like a nice man.”

“Yes, well, he is a nice man,” she said evasively. She’d told him about their day, but not their evening. “Although right now I’m not sure what he’s up to. We were supposed to get together yesterday, but he left a message that he was still upset over what had happened. That he’d canceled his final diving tours, which I totally understand. Then today, when I called to check on him, the hotel people say he’s not there. I’m thinking the police have come back, maybe he got sick, you know.”

There was an embarrassed silence at the other end.

“So,” she said, bridling a little. “You think it’s a brush-off, yes?”

“Um, well, I have no idea. It may just mean that he is walking around rubber-legged trying to get some fresh air. Like you say, after a night of hugging his toilet bowl.”

“I suppose,” she said, trying not to sound petulant, although Yossi’s tone of voice sounded a lot like that damned concierge.

“Perhaps I should check on him,” Ellerstein said. “Technically, I am his interlocutor here.”

“I suppose,” she said again.

“I’ll do that. Then I’ll call you back, at home, tonight.”

“You don’t have to do this, Yossi.”

“I want to, Yehudit. What do the Americans say — just to close the loop? I don’t know what is this loop, but I’ll let you know something as soon as I know something. Shalom.”

She hung up, a little relieved that Ellerstein was going to check on Mr. David Hall. It was something he could do that she could not, not without awkwardness. Then she remembered the dive shop. Maybe he had shown up today after all? She looked up the number and called the shop again. No, he had not shown up, and they had no messages. He did have four of their tanks, by the way, and they were just a tiny bit concerned about that.

“Four?” she asked.

“Yah, four.”

That threw her for a minute. They had taken four single tanks to their dive at Caesarea, but she was pretty sure they had all ended up back in the lovely instructor’s van. Why on earth would he have four of their tanks? That indicated either several dives or a couple of deep dives. She thanked the manager and hung up.

Something not quite right here, she thought. Unless he was going to make more dives at other sites along the coast. The manager hadn’t seemed upset, just wondering where his tanks were. Perhaps that was it: David had gone diving somewhere else, just to get his nerve back after the awful thing he’d witnessed.

She would wait for Yossi’s call tonight.

Ellerstein called the hotel in Tel Aviv and asked for Mr. David Hall’s room. He got hotel voice mail. He called the assistant manager, explained who he was and why he was calling, and asked the man to go check the room. The manager was not exactly enthusiastic, and Ellerstein proceeded to lay a little ministry authority on him. The manager said he would call him back. Ellerstein, on his government phone, said he would hold, thank you very much. As in, do it now, please. The man was back in six minutes. “The room is made up; his things are there. Housekeeping reports no signs of illness, and they should know. The bed has not been slept in since Wednesday.”

“Ah, so? Since Wednesday?”

“That’s what the floor supervisor reports. Perhaps Mr. Hall has found better circumstances, yes?”

“That’s always possible,” Ellerstein mused. He thanked the man for his efforts and hung up. He leaned back in his chair. No signs of illness, and the maids would know. So where was the elusive Mr. David Hall? He was rich enough to have booked into another hotel somewhere while out on tour. He was supposed to be scuba diving, wasn’t he? For some reason, an image of the mysterious Colonel Lazarus crossed his mind.

He had called Gulder after Skuratov’s visit, but Gulder hadn’t seemed very impressed. “He wants you to keep an eye on Ressner; so do we. What’s the problem?”

“What’s the problem? The problem is—”

“No, no, not on this phone, Yossi,” Gulder had interrupted. “Look: If your scary colonel is watching the American, he’s not watching other things. Then perhaps we can make him move in an unplanned direction. Keep doing what you’re doing, Yossi.”

He’s not my scary colonel, Ellerstein thought. Still, maybe he should call Skuratov and tell him that Yehudit couldn’t find Mr. Hall. See what Skuratov knew — he supposedly had the man under surveillance. Maybe the old Russian could tell him something, so he could then put Yehudit out of her misery. He fished out the card the colonel had given him and called the number.

“International Planning.”

Right, Ellerstein thought. Spooks. He identified himself and asked for Colonel Skuratov. The colonel was not available. Could the man take a message?

“Tell him that Dr. Ressner has not heard from the American, Hall, for a couple of days. Ask him if he knows where the American is.”