What Lurks Beneath (10 page)

M
ack knelt in the shallow, tea-colored water at the edge of the pool, in full scuba gear. In the hole that had swallowed Breck.

He and his niece were rigged for caving, with European-style DIN first-stages that allowed them to tightly secure their regulators instead of loosely mounting them to their tanks. A bump to a more standard A-clamp inside a cave might knock it loose. They also were laden with extra everything—extra lights, two tanks, extra masks—all redundancies in case something failed in a cavern far from the surface. They would be breathing lower-nitrogen Trimix gas instead of regular compressed air. From the rutted roadside, they had lugged all the gear a few hundred yards down a rough forested trail, over jagged, lumpy ground, to the rock-rimmed hole.

He had grown irritable waiting for Eric to fire up his yellow ROV, kneeling awkwardly in the water at the mouth of the hole, his prosthetic leg removed. Valerie had already gone under, and he was struggling to keep the weight off his stump, which was planted on the rocky shelf at the edge of The Staircase.

Resting in the water next to Mack, like a dog on heel, was DORA. At just over four feet long, she was the smallest ROV he had ever seen. On her side was a rubberized rectangular keyboard, the keys touch-sensitive and flush with the exterior. Otherwise, the housing was smooth and nondescript. She lacked the external arms and other apparatus that most ROVs possessed, but on her stern low-profile thrusters and an umbilical—which provided power and data transfer capabilities—still jutted from the sleek body. They were the potential snag concerns.

DORA's simple design and small size apparently allowed for maneuverability in tight spots, but whether she would work here would largely depend on the skill of the operator.

“I just want to make sure you fully understand how DORA operates, and our protocols, before you go under,” Eric said. “Once you and Val are down there—”

“Valerie's already down there.”

“I know. Once you're both under, we won't have any way to communicate, other than texts on the keyboard.”

Wading knee-deep in the water, Eric bent down and carefully lifted the ROV off the bottom, her weight now supported by the water and a built-in buoyancy. He pointed inside the clear acrylic nose cone.

“DORA only has two ways of gathering information: the camera, which allows me to see where she's headed and gathers high-res video footage, and the sonar mapping device. Both are located in her nose, along with low-wattage LED lighting.”

“We've already gone over this.”

Eric ignored him. “The sonar device can create high-res imagery of every underwater feature, regardless of light levels, using multidirectional scanning to create 3-D point clouds. Which results in me later being able to recreate an underwater scene—”

“Blah blah blah.”

“. . . but we don't need much light, because the camera is designed to film in darker environments. The rest of the housing contains batteries for power and the motor to drive the prop. Any physical samples Val wants—water, biological specimens, sediments—will need to come from you two, and it will help if you can also note the actual depths of specific features—”

“Got it.”

Eric said, “Come on, man. It'll really help if you can record depth markers, like the entrance to any main tunnels. To help me calibrate the 3-D imagery.”

Mack looked at his watch. “Look, son, I got it. Time to shit or get off the pot.” He grabbed the top of the ROV and roughly spun it in the water.

Eric shouted, “Hey! What are you doing? That's a very sensitive piece of equipment!”

“It was pointed the wrong way.”

“Well, at least you're patient.”

“I don't need your sarcasm,” Mack said. “Is she ready or isn't she?”

“She's ready.”

Mack raised his hands toward the sky. “Halle-fucking-lujah!” He turned, pushed his regulator into his mouth, and started to dip underwater. He stopped and spit out his regulator, and looked at Eric one last time.

“Twenty bucks says you get DORA stuck,” he said.

“You're on. But not if it's because you forget to retract the cord—”

Mack didn't hear the rest as he ducked under.

 

 

As Mack submerged, the sound changed immediately, his breathing punctuated by the loud hiss of air coming in or bubbles going out.

He kicked past the shallow shelf of rock, and could see his niece through the slightly green murk, hovering in open water twenty feet below, looking up at him. Valerie had become one hell of a good scuba diver, after all her research in Mexico. Unlike him in only a three-mil neoprene shorty, she'd worn a full wet suit again, since she cooled faster than her uncle. Mack dumped the air from his BC and kicked down toward her. Halfway there, he looked back. Eric's legs were no longer visible, where he stood at the edge of the shelf above and fumbled with the ROV.

Mack and Val continued their descent toward the bottom of the hole. A few moments later, the yellow ROV followed. Eric had remained in place to operate her, like a child playing with an RC car. The kid was able to operate the ROV's propulsion and steering system using a waterproof remote control wired into the umbilical.

It was a relief to have only Valerie with him down here. She knew what the hell she was doing underwater, and she had wonderful buoyancy control. A must for cave diving. Eric clearly wasn't a cave diver, but his ROV had the lead role. The divers had been relegated to mere chaperones, charged with making sure DORA was directed to the right place.

As they sank farther from the surface into the pool, the water began to change. Around forty feet down, they encountered a cloudy, motionless layer of water. Hazy and whitish, tinged with yellow, it looked like the thin mats of cotton fibers Mack's mom had strung into Halloween spider webs around the house when he was a boy. But these webs indicated a poisonous cocktail of toxic hydrogen sulfide gas excreted by bacteria and decaying organic matter, trapped between the freshwater above and seawater below. It was impossible to see past the layer, but unlike the cotton webs he passed right through, not feeling them at all.

The motionless water in this hole, like in other inland blue holes in the Bahamas, was density-stratified into what Mack had earlier described to them as a layer cake, with little mixing due to the lack of a strong tidal influence. At the top of the cake, he had explained, nearest the surface, floated the least-dense layer of freshwater, fed by tropical rains and acting as a lens, at times allowing one to peer well into the depths of the hole. Somewhere around five to ten fathoms down, divers encountered the thin, cloudy layer of hydrogen sulfide-infused water with the smell of rotten eggs. This layer could be white in color, or take on hues of yellow or red or green, depending on the vegetation surrounding it. Below it was a broader stratum of semi-saline water that mixed with freshwater above, and finally, beneath that, only dense seawater of exceptional clarity that reached through dark tunnels out to the deep ocean.

As they hastened through the still, poisonous layer of water, Mack felt his skin begin to itch. He kicked through the haze into the clear water below, but the itching intensified on his exposed face and hands that his thin wet suit did not protect. He felt dizzy momentarily, similar to the sensation of standing up too fast and getting a head rush, but then the feeling passed.

He had expected this. The dizziness, caused by the effects of the toxin hitting his bloodstream, could cause nausea. He would not puke into his regulator, as he had on one of his first blue hole dives with Breck. He shook off the memory of his friend and looked over at Valerie, who was shaking her head and wincing. Mack tapped her on the shoulder and they made eye contact through their dive masks.

Mack made an
okay
symbol with his thumb and forefinger.
Are you okay?

She nodded, and then intentionally crossed her eyes. Mack laughed, sending a burst of bubbles into the layer of toxic water above them as they sank into deeper water. She had her asshole dad's sense of humor. But thank God she hadn't picked up his addiction.

The water quickly cleared, and eighty feet down the shaft, they came across the first tunnel, a black opening in the porous rock, marking a side passage. He could see the start of a nylon safety line tied off just inside the opening, but this wasn't the right passage.

They descended another twenty feet, and Mack saw a pile of bones on a ledge. Resting on them was part of a human skull. It was misshapen, with the forehead sloped steeply back above the eye sockets.

Like other skeletal remains he had seen but left untouched in Bahamas blue holes, these were probably the remains of ancient island natives. The Lucayans, who had inhabited these islands for many centuries before disappearing six hundred years ago, had tied boards to their children's foreheads to force the skull to change in shape during development.

He sank a few more body lengths and found another side passage. This was it. Valerie looked past his shoulder and squinted at the panel of LED lights on the ROV. A red light blinked steadily in the nose, indicating that the camera was running. They could type something into the keyboard to communicate with Eric, but apparently she didn't see the need. Not yet. Instead, facing the camera in DORA's nose, she made a grand gesture with her arm.

The ROV's propeller churned the water as it whirred past them, kicking up puffs of sediment into the mouth of the tunnel. Mack again worried about the reduced visibility they would face if the ROV stirred up too much sediment. They couldn't follow it very far in. Behind it trailed the sturdy transmission cable, sheathed in thick rubber. After a moment, the cable settled onto the rocks, but continued to slither forward.

Unlike the motionless, white safety line drawn tight beside it, leading into the darkness. Left by two divers who would never come back.

T
he sun was low in the sky as Ashley Campbell walked down the beach, away from the main grounds of the resort. It wouldn't allow any of the local vendors onto the property, but they tolerated their presence here. She could see her old friend on the sand, at the far end of the resort, near a woman packing up her own wares for the day. Ashley had met the woman before, a vendor who sold jewelry and handmade sarongs, but she wasn't very friendly.

She approached the pair, carrying a Styrofoam restaurant container. The woman nodded at her and turned to leave, but Clive was focused on his work—some huge piece of driftwood.

“Good evening, love,” Ashley said.

The old sculptor stopped working and smiled up at her. Clive was dressed in jeans and a well-worn T-shirt, his feet bare. On a handmade green blanket beside him were smaller finished pieces, most of them painted, depicting mainly tropical fauna—reef fish, parrots, lizards.

“My Lady Ashley. I am wonderful. How was your day?”

“Lucky to be alive.”

“As are we all.”

“Here. I brought you something to eat.” She handed Clive the Styrofoam box containing leftovers provided from a poolside restaurant. She knew the cook well.

He shook his head. “You don't have to do this, child. I'm fine.”

“Nonsense. You have a family. And so much food gets thrown away here.”

He opened the box. “Ahh . . . pizza. And even some vegetables. Bless you.”

She handed him a fork.

Out of the brush, from near a pile of rubble, a stray mutt emerged and trotted down the chain-link fence that encircled most of the property. The old girl, white and spotted, scarred up, was jumpy around everyone. Except Clive. The dog looked at Ashley warily, then approached him, tail wagging. He patted her head, then opened the box and handed her half the pizza. As she wolfed it down, Ashley shook her head.

“The food's supposed to be for you, Clive.”

He waved his hand. “I know. I know. I'll save da rest. But she got a family too.”

The bitch, with obvious rows of nipples on her belly, probably had a litter somewhere out of sight. Sometimes Clive was surrounded by a family of tabby cats that lived outside the resort, through the fence. One of them had a limp from a broken front leg. A mean-hearted guest had probably kicked that one.

The resort where she worked was supposed to be an eco-friendly paradise, merged with nature, which would draw in families who wanted to get up close with sea life and enjoy the island's beaches. But it also drew gamblers, wealthy high rollers who came here to take risks and indulge in selfish pleasures. Selfish people. But it was what it was. It was where she worked.

It was Oceanus.

“Y
ou owe me twenty bucks, son,” Mack said.

“You already said that,” Eric mumbled to the old curmudgeon, who stood in the setting sun by the water's edge, stripping out of his wet suit. It was the first thing Mack had said when he surfaced.

Eric sat beneath a large Bahamian pine, looking over DORA for damage. He knew this might happen. It had happened before. But Eric had prayed it wouldn't happen today, in front of this asshole.

DORA had gotten stuck.

After the ROV had gone back a couple hundred feet, and Eric was guiding her out on the return trip, he had somehow wrapped her umbilical around a stalagmite or some other cave feature—he wasn't sure, since DORA had kicked up so much silt that in no time he'd been unable to see anything on the monitor. After a while, as Eric sat alone on the surface wondering what to do, helplessly watching clouds of pale silt shifting across his laptop monitor, Val and Mack, still underwater, apparently had realized the ROV was stuck—probably because the umbilical had ceased to move. Mack had followed the cable back and freed DORA in the tunnel.

Eric knew when he arrived at the trapped submersible, because of the motion on the camera. The wave of a hand in front of the lens. Plus, he'd finally used the ROV's external keyboard at that point to type Eric a message. Two words:

 

 

At least DORA hadn't been
too
far back, or Eric wouldn't even have her now.

Val, her hair still wet, shivered in the cooling air as Eric watched her slide out of her tight neoprene wet suit. He realized he was staring at the faint line of cleavage between her breasts, where a gold chain dangled. He quickly looked up and met her eyes. She smiled faintly, then opened a cooler and brought out some sandwiches and a large Tupperware of fresh fruit.

“Take a break from that, Eric,” she said. “Let's eat some dinner.”

“That's all right. I don't have an appetite.”

“But I do. Being right makes a man hungry,” Mack said, grabbing a sandwich. He sat down, a towel draped over his thick shoulders, and bit into the food as he reattached his prosthesis. Eric grinned when he swore and swatted at a sand fly on his neck.

Val said, “I just texted a woman I met a few days ago. She works at Oceanus. I'm going to have her over for dinner so we can get a little more background on this area.”

Mack said, “Is she a diver?”

“No. But she might know more about the holes here. Maybe she can get us in touch with more of the locals. She said she's free on Saturday night. Valentine's Day.”

Mack finished tightening a strap above his knee. “Talking to her won't help Watson here pilot his toy any better.”

Eric said, “Really? Will you let up already? I've never actually piloted her in a cave like that. It's like a video game. I only have so much control.”

“Well, I'd think a guy like you would be better at video games. All you fuckin' Gen-Y-ers, all you do is play on your Ataris.”

“On our whats? What the hell are you talking about? My ROV would work fine if you'd just do your job and mind the damn cable.” Eric felt himself getting angry.

Mack glared at him. “What are you saying?”

“I'm saying if you had kept the slack pulled in on her return, like I told you to, I wouldn't have had a problem.”

“You listen to me, son—”

Val waved her hands in the air. “Enough! Mack, you can't expect him to master this in the first try,” she said. “DORA's never been in this environment.”

“Excuses are like assholes,” Mack said.

“What?”

“Everybody's got one.” Mack grabbed another sandwich off the cooler.

Eric said, “It will go faster once I get a little more experience. You've got to be patient.”

Val said, “Eric's right. Besides, this wasn't a total failure. DORA operated smoothly, and made it two hundred feet into the side passage.”

“And the video and sonar captures were good,” Eric said. He had gotten good visual, even recorded a blind fish with a translucent tail flitting through the darkness, and the sonar device would be able to produce a three-dimensional map of the tunnel on his laptop.

Still, DORA had gotten stuck.

Eric connected a cable to the ROV's output port, then to his laptop. Val sat down cross-legged in front of him, now wearing only a swimsuit, a towel draped over her shoulders. He tried not to stare. He removed his glasses and cleaned them with his shirt.

He cleared his throat and said, “Val, this morning you said something about a kid going missing. What do you think happened?”

Munching on fruit, she said, “I don't know. Mars said a teenager disappeared in another hole on the island. Last week.”

Mack said, “Was he diving?”

“No. He and his friends were swimming, at night. I guess a reporter from Nassau has been on the island asking questions.”

“Mars sounds like a better source of local information than any newspaper,” Eric said.

“He is.”

Val said, “You've been down in a lot of these holes, Uncle Mack. What do you think happened?”

Mack sat down against a pine. He rubbed his right forearm with a calloused hand. “When I was fifteen, diving for lobster down here with your grandpa—the locals call them ‘crawfish'—I got ahold a this big fella.” He paused, his eyes far away as he brought back the memory. “That bug was inside a sunken boat. Didn't wanna come out. And I was runnin' outta breath. Wouldn't let go, you know.”

“You?” Val smiled at her uncle. He grinned.

“See this?” He ran a finger down a long scar on his forearm. “My arm got stuck. Some piece of metal. Cut it real nice when I finally jerked it free. Lost the lobster.”

“You think that teen was diving for lobsters?” Eric asked.

“No. Lobsters don't live in these inland holes. Maybe he was after something else, got stuck. I don't know. There's also the tides, they create suction. He coulda gotten pulled down. It happens sometimes. Blue holes are dangerous.”

Eric pictured a boy's corpse floating in the darkness, wedged into some submarine passage. Limbs swaying in the current. He shuddered and looked down at his laptop. The download was nearly complete.

“But they didn't find his body either?” he asked.

Val shook her head.

“Check this out,” Eric said. The download was complete. He turned the laptop toward them.

On the screen was a colorful three-dimensional image of what looked like a tunnel.

“Is that where we just were?” Val asked.

“Yep. The different colors depict surface hardness, or density. Things like algae and silt appear lighter than solid rock.” The image changed as he zoomed out, reorienting the view so that they were looking at the entire image from the side. The tunnel now appeared as a long, jagged yellow line, running out of a much thicker yellowish column—a vertical stack of pancakes that had to be the main shaft of the hole—all on a field of black.

Mack said, “Huh. Pretty cool, actually. But you still really believe we can rely on that thing to do this job?”

Val said, “We have to, Mack. None of this is worth anyone else dying.”