Night Diver: A Novel (35 page)

Then Larry moved, looking rather like a man signaling for a flying saucer to come take him home. His arms extended upward, net and lift bag in one hand. His other hand came across his body to touch a switch on the lift bag. A bright blue light came on, burning like a flare.

Holden had been expecting it and had closed his eyes. When he opened them seconds later, the bag was rising upward. Self-inflating and illuminated, the bundle gathered speed and shot toward the surface.

Kate’s distorted words had more rage than meaning as they buzzed over the com. The shadow to his right told him that she had joined him by the grotto. A hard light flashed above as the bag’s LEDs became a beacon to guide someone on top to pick up the package, or to help Larry find it alone.

She finned hard past Holden and swept her headlamp at the side of Larry’s vision in a demand for attention. He turned to look and stiffened in shock, almost falling over in slow motion. At any other time, it might have been funny.

Then he pointed at her angrily and waved her off.

She held up three fingers, indicating the com channel she and Holden had been using. He hovered in place, waving his arms slowly, his face mask locked in her direction. His body posture was as angry as a man could be in slow motion.

Kate held the beam of her searchlight down, though she was tempted to drill him in the eyes with it.

Switch channels, you lying—
Her thought was cut off as a voice shouted through the com system, voice driven high because of the trimix he was breathing.

“You shouldn’a come here!”

“Grandpa? What are you doing down? No, scratch that. You’re stealing. I get it. But is whatever you put in that lift net worth dying for?”

“You should have stayed out of it!”

“Really? Then why did you and Larry call me in the first place?”

“We didn’t want—”

“Shut it,” Holden said, his voice harsh despite the trimix distortion. “We can have this discussion up top. The longer we’re down here, the more chance that Grandpa will throw an embolism on the way up.”

“I have to send up one more thing,” Grandpa said.

“But—” she began.

“No buts. If I don’t get everything up top, Larry will die. Hell, we all will.”

“Explain,” Holden said curtly, afraid that he already knew the truth.

“The god-rotting, gut-eating vulture has a gun on Larry.”

K
ATE WAS TOO
shocked to say anything.

“Farnsworth?” Holden asked.

Grandpa signaled yes. Obviously his outburst had taken what extra energy he had. He turned away slowly, the pressure of the water giving everything a sort of regal leisure as he finned back to the cave.

“You start up,” Kate said. “I’ll help Grandpa with whatever is left.”

“I’ll help.”

“There’s no room. For once, being smaller is an advantage.” With that, she finned toward the grotto.

Holden wanted to argue, but she was correct. The less time he spent on the bottom, the less his leg would be weakened. He wanted to be as strong as possible before he faced a bureaucrat holding a gun.

Grandpa’s heavy breathing came over the com. Whatever he was trying to get was taxing his strength.

“Coming in on your left,” she said.

Grandpa moved over as far as was safe. Together they worked a small trunk free of the grotto. Most of the surface was covered in corrosion, turning what had once been silver or bronze to a blackish green, pitted and ugly. The trunk was perhaps three feet at its longest side, eighteen inches deep, and eighteen inches high.

The weight of it was surprising.

A chill went over her. “Is that what I think it is?”

“Won’t know until we open it. Hope it survives the trip up. No time to pressurize. I’m running low on air. Not as fast as I used to be.”

Grandpa and Kate wound a length of orange line around the chest, wrapping it like a package. As she tied it off, he secured the last of his lift bags to it and motioned her away.

“From what I’ve heard, it will be a right bastard to drag aboard,” Holden said as he hung at the first decompression station.

“Move back,” was all Grandpa said.

Kate pushed away.

He deployed the lift bag’s canister of propellant and swam away from it. The buoy opened up like an undersea mushroom and then slowly drifted up toward the surface.

The sound in their headsets shifted.

“Ah, there you are,” Farnsworth said cheerfully. “Took a bit to get the correct channel, but we’re all back together now.”

After hearing voices made high by trimix, Farnsworth’s sounded unnaturally deep.

Since Holden had nothing useful to say to Farnsworth, he didn’t speak, saving his energy for dealing with the pain his thigh was delivering.

“Where is Larry?” Kate demanded as she followed Grandpa on his slow ascent.

“With me. Say hello, Larry.”

The sound Larry made was close to a snarl.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

“Tied up like a pig, headache, and wishing I’d never set eyes on that Brit son of a bitch,” Larry said.

Farnsworth laughed. “Such a nancy. You walked out of the hospital without problem.”

“Because you were holding a gun under your wind jacket,” Grandpa said.

“How very American of you,” Holden finally said.

“Unfortunate, but we are all together now,” Farnsworth said. “Do make a sprightly ascent. I am low on patience.”

“Grandpa can’t push the decompression times,” Kate said. “He shouldn’t even be down here!”

“Don’t even think of stalling,” Farnsworth said. “I’ve heard that unpleasant things happen to divers who hang around the grotto too long. Ask Mingo. Oh, right. He’s gone. I would imagine that Benchley is still shitting neoprene.”

“The shark got Mingo?” Kate asked. “Are you sure?”

“Which would you rather believe, dearie? That I gutted Mingo and sank him with a cannonball or that Benchley had the midnight munchies?”

“You murderous bastard,” she said.

“Mingo earned worse. He was stealing from me and selling on the black market. Stupid bugger nearly ruined the whole operation.”

“Rot in hell,” Grandpa said.

“Paraguay, actually,” Farnsworth. “I have a pilot and plane standing by. But don’t fret. I find I have no taste for killing. If you solve the puzzle I have created, you will all survive nicely.”

The sound of Grandpa’s breathing became too loud.

“Turn off your com unit, old man,” Farnsworth said. “I can’t hear myself think.”

“Leave him alone,” Kate said. “You’re lucky you haven’t killed him.”

“Do stop whining,” Farnsworth said. “It is unattractive and irritating. I will give Holden credit for a stiff upper lip. From what I saw of his medical records, his thigh must be unbearably painful.”

Holden thought of the ways he knew to share his pain with Farnsworth. Every one of them required getting close, which wasn’t going to happen right away.

“It was quite a surprise that you would dive at all,” Farnsworth continued with his relentless cheer. “AO certainly wasn’t expecting it. You were chosen quite carefully, you know.”

For all the response Holden made, Farnsworth could have been talking to himself.

“Hurts that much, old chap?” He chuckled.

“Sod off,” Holden said. He had other things to think about than the cheery sadist—like how Kate was going to survive this mess.

“Chatham was rather unhappy that you suited up,” Farnsworth said. “In addition to slowing our productive sideline, work injuries are a blot on his records. Shagging the bint was a mistake, too. You have made quite of few of them, you know.”

Silence.

Farnsworth laughed. “Never mind, mate. I have enjoyed watching you bungle the job. Quite entertaining, actually. I will be waiting at the stern when your decompression time is up. Don’t disappoint me by being late or trying to come aboard before then.”

Farnsworth cut out of the circuit.

Or seemed to. There was no way to be certain.

Holden counted time and breathed through the pain until everyone reached the final decompression stop. The water was more active at this level, surging and falling and surging again with the energy of the storm swell, telling them that it would be a lot worse on top.

Before they were ready to ascend to the surface, Holden held up seven fingers and pointed to Kate. When Grandpa lifted his hand to switch along with them, Holden signaled a firm negative. After a few moments, Grandpa signaled agreement. Kate and Holden switched to channel seven.

“When we reach the surface, I’m going to act like I can barely walk,” he said quickly. He didn’t say that it wouldn’t be entirely a charade, because she didn’t need anything more to worry about. His thigh felt like it held a tiny, white-hot sun trying to burn through skin and bone. “Stay away from me so Farnsworth has to divide his attention. I’ll watch for a chance to take him out.”

“Larry,” she said.

Holden understood. “We’ll untie him as soon as we can, but our first job is to neutralize Farnsworth. Tell him that Grandpa and I both need help getting into the boat.”
Not likely that Farnsworth will fall for that, but better than nothing.

She signaled agreement and they both switched back to the channel Farnsworth expected them to be on.

Kate hung on to the line at the decompression station and tried to get herself under control. It wasn’t fear she fought against, but a kind of primal savagery she had never felt. She didn’t consider herself a violent person, yet the need to hurt Farnsworth was a fire in her blood.

She passed the decompression thinking about ways to separate Farnsworth from his life or his gun—she didn’t really care which. As she finned slowly toward the surface, yellow work lights and slices of silvery moonlight created a quicksilver-and-gold ceiling that warned of the wind chop and deep swells. When her head broke surface and she swam toward the stern, it was a roller-coaster ride over black swells scratched white at the top by the wind. Yellow light spilled off the port side of the ship, giving a clear beacon to swim to.

As the other two ahead of him broke surface, Holden considered switching off his headlamp and trying to get aboard without Farnsworth being aware of it, but he discarded the notion as soon as it came. All the bastard had to do was threaten Kate, and Holden would be helpless. Better to let Farnsworth think they were docile.

“First the old man, then the bint, then Cameron,” Farnsworth said through the com unit.

“Grandpa can’t get out of the water alone,” Kate said. “Neither can Holden.”

“Pity. I’ll have to shoot them where they are.”

“Wait!” she said. “Let me help them.”

Grimly Holden thought that being shot sounded almost good. His thigh felt like all of his tendons and muscles were slowly being burned to ash, yet the agony remained even after the flesh had been consumed.

In half an hour or so it will be better,
he reminded himself. All he had to do was to get from here to there.
I’ve done it before and survived. This time will be no different.

Kate helped Grandpa as much as she could, then threw her fins onto the stern and dragged herself aboard with Grandpa’s help. Both of them peeled back their masks and head coverings and took off their tanks.

The air was wet and cold and sweet and tasted of electricity. No surprise since lightning stabbed repeatedly through the storm.

“If I see anyone wearing a weight belt come on deck, he or she will be shot. Dump them in the water.”

Two weight belts clattered onto the stern and slid into the water.

Bugger,
Holden thought, releasing his belt.

He had been looking forward to swinging the lead belt at Farnsworth’s head.

There are other ways,
Holden thought.

His dive knife was one of them. He held on to the stern dive step as rain washed his face. One of the dive tanks washed over and sank in the water. No one made a move to recover it.

“You first, Grandpa,” Farnsworth ordered. “Come aboard and sit under the work light by the winch.”

Grandpa went aboard and sat where Farnsworth pointed. The older man’s face looked pale, almost skull-like in the light.

“You next,” he said to Kate. “Sit next to him and hug your knees.”

A single look told her that Farnsworth was dressed in a wetsuit, braced against the wind and waves, and his gun hand was steady enough that she wouldn’t risk Grandpa’s life.

“Holden needs help getting onto the dive step,” she said.

“Then he stays in the water. Move.”

By the time Kate was aboard, Holden had abandoned his dive tanks and heaved himself onto the stern. He hung on to whatever he could as the world spun from more than the motion of waves and wind. Now that he was free of the mask, he didn’t fight the nausea racking him. He threw up, letting the waves take the mess, and immediately felt better.