Night Diver: A Novel

by Elizabeth Lowell

  She went back to counting and keeping her breath steady, tasting the dryness of the gas as it went from pressurized containment to breathable inside her mask. The weight of the water grew with each downward stroke of her fins. When she felt her anxiety increase because her beam was almost immediately scattered by suspended particles stirred up by the storm, she put her fingertips at the edge of the beam to give herself something to focus on besides the particles streaming by. Immediately her sense of vertigo faded.

  “Are you all right?” Holden asked.

  “Yes. Just trying to stay centered despite the haze of stuff suspended in the water.”

  Their voices were disembodied, even her own lungs sounding otherworldly to her. She kept counting and realized that her body already knew what to do—legs slightly apart, fins out and flat to slow her descent to a manageable rate.

  Light gleamed off Holden’s faceplate as he turned his head to look back at her. She put her thumb up to reassure him. The gesture glowing brightly in the dive light’s beam. He did the same in return.

  The next time Kate looked down, she saw another light below. Its location was fixed, but the amount of light ebbed and flowed in a slow, reliable rhythm.

  Marker beacon, she thought. Divers swim to it, then up to the mother ship. Very useful if someone doesn’t want to be given away by a dive buoy.

  Her family didn’t generally use such beacons, but nothing about this dive was ordinary.

  “Is that one of yours?” Holden asked, indicating the light.

  “I guess so. Normally we use tethers or follow the dredge or siphon line.”

  “We departed from normal when we met,” he said.

  She smiled behind her mask. “Look away from the beacon. Don’t burn out your night vision.”

  Holden already had glanced elsewhere, but he didn’t say anything. He would rather have redundant advice than forget something critical.

  At the second compression stop, the seafloor appeared to be rising to meet them. Though it was mostly dark above, some bit of light was still making it through, as well as illumination from the beacon. Traces of motion flickered around them, schools of tiny fish attracted by the light, which then reflected back from silver or colored scales.

  It’s like being in a swirl of gems, Kate thought in wonder.

  To her, the beauty was both unearthly and relaxing, slowing the racing of her mind until it was more in sync with the easy, deliberate motions that were required underwater.

  After the compression stop, the seafloor grew up toward them, appearing as a flat, limited horizon that stretched off in uneven shapes as far as their lights would reach. The bones of Moon Rose were black and misshapen.

  Her breath rushed in as she looked at the wreck, stabbed by a feeling she hadn’t experienced in years. It was the moment when she had gone from looking at pictures of things that her parents and grandfather had been exploring to actually being there. That feeling never went away, even if she’d made herself try to forget it in her years on dry land.

  But it came back now, and she was shocked by the strength of it.

  Here was history in three dimensions. There had been men and women on the Moon Rose. Each of them had a life and memories of other pasts, and then it had all ended in storm and wreckage. All that was left of it now was scattered timbers that could only be reassembled with imagination and wonder.

  The spars and ribs jutted out of the sandy and rocky bottom like a fantastic garden of coral. Fish swam around the wreck lazily, some glowing in the near darkness. It was like being in a dream, with a disconnect between thought and action, constant pressure, and the weight of past and present.

  I can choose what to emphasize, what to accept, what to forget, Kate told herself. I can choose what I want to be mine.

  Holden.

  The future.

  I can have both after the dive. All I have to do is to get from this moment to the moment we are both aboard the Golden Bough again.

  At the corner of her vision she saw Holden. She checked her dive watch, which now glowed with a green-yellow light. He was heading off to the southeast.

  “It shouldn’t be too far to the edge of the grid where everything drops down,” he said.

  “As the crow flies,” she said. “Too bad we’re swimming in slow motion.”

  “Impatience is the enemy.”

  She smiled behind her mask.

  They were close enough to get an idea of the scale of the ship now. It felt like swimming through a whale’s skeleton. The whole wreck swarmed with life. Coral growth covered what had once been exposed wood, blooming like flowers on a battlefield commemorating the dead.

  “No one is working the wreck,” she said.

  “There’s light in the distance at ten o’clock,” he said.

  “I see. Look’s like the hip light Larry prefers.”

  “He’s right about where we thought. Almost off the grid at the rock pile, very close to the drop-off to the deep.”

  Even considering the distortion of the communications system, something in his voice made her pause.

  “How is your leg?”

  “Still taking orders, which is all that matters.”

  He didn’t mention the pain radiating through his thigh with each heartbeat. He had known that diving would hurt, and it did. Talking about it made it harder to focus on what had to be done.

  Following his dive compass and the blurry cone of his headlamp, he headed for a rock rise that was almost buried by fan corals and random hunks of lava sporting smaller coral decorations. The light that had once been distant grew more distinct. When Kate started for it, he caught her arm.

  “Wait,” he said. “Do you see any other light?”

  Both of them checked above, below, and at all sides.

  “No,” she said. “You?”

  “Nothing. Go back up to the top and mind your decompression times. I’ll be up shortly.”

  “You go. I’ll deal with Larry.”

  Holden barely held back what he thought of that idea. “We’ll stay together.”

  He finned toward a figure that held position in the mouth of a small grotto. The opening was barely tall enough for someone to work upright in. From what Holden could see with the other man’s work light, the grotto would be a right bastard to move around in without banging tanks, limbs, and dive bag against coral and stone.

  “Be extremely careful,” Holden said to Kate. “Things that look solid underwater often aren’t, and if they are, mashing a valve or a hose or a hand against them could be very bad.”

  Is that what happened to my mother?

  Kate put the thought out of her mind. It was the present that mattered, the living, this moment when Holden was approaching the grotto at a shallow side angle with deliberate stokes of his fins.

  He stopped well short of the dangerous grotto and touched his right calf to make certain his dive knife was secure. If it came down to a physical argument, he wanted to have a sharp blade at hand.

  Inside the grotto, Larry’s hip light flapped in slow motion as he worked a netted bag onto a hook that he was holding with one hand. When the hook grabbed solidly, he swam away from the cave, dragging net and hook well into the clear. He checked the hook again, hanging in the water several meters from the outcropping, surrounded by large flat fans of coral.

  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.”

  CHAPTER 22

  KATE 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.”