Night Diver

by Elizabeth Lowell

  “I choose not to.”

  She blew out a breath. “Thank you.”

  “No need. On a number of issues, I don’t share AO’s opinions. They take apart events, number the pieces, and file them according to tick sheets made by other bureaucrats. Life is too messy to fit onto anyone’s tick sheet.”

  She opened the door to the cabin that Mingo and Luis shared.

  “Whew,” she said, waving a hand at the mess. “This could use an airing.”

  “Porthole is already open.”

  “I was thinking more like dynamite and bleach.”

  Holden’s lips quirked.

  A nearby speaker crackled and produced a tinny voice: “Would the person in charge please pick up? We’re getting fresh weather reports.”

  The message was relayed with a backbeat of Volkert’s electronic music, but the voice was Farnsworth’s.

  Holden looked at Kate.

  “Battlefield promotion,” he said. “Captain.”

  CHAPTER 17

  KATE REACHED FOR the green plastic handset on the wall near the door. The com system hadn’t been updated in her lifetime, and looked it, but it worked.

  “Kate Donnelly here,” she said. “Until Larry returns, I’m the captain. What do you need? And shut down that noise.”

  “Ah, right. I’m turning this over to Volkert,” Farnsworth said. “Looks like I have packing to do before we head to port.”

  The music faded.

  “Yah, okay,” Volkert said. “Our friends at BWS are advising us to move our wide ass. They project a seventy-five percent probability of Davida dumping crap right where we are.”

  “Do they have a good track or is this a general warning?” she asked.

  “Best estimates have the bitch hitting Venezuela and skimming along to us.”

  “How strong?”

  “That’s the good news. Only a tropical depression, but if the Brits are right, it might blow right past tropical storm and into Category One. We’ll get the wash.”

  Kate closed her eyes. “Joy. When is it due?”

  “Twelve to twenty-four hours before the center passes,” Volkert said crisply. “Speed has been irregular.”

  “Like everything else about this damn storm,” she said.

  “So are we going to port like Larry talked about before he went diving?”

  “When it’s time to leave, I’ll make a general announcement.” She disconnected.

  “You can take heart in the fact that the BWS is only right most of the time,” Holden said.

  “Not. Helping,” she said, but almost smiled anyway.

  Hands on hips, she surveyed the mess. There were two bunks along the left side. Clothes and bedcovers dangled everywhere, making the already small room look like an explosion in a closet.

  “Be grateful the crew’s head is across the hall, open to everyone. No need to start there.”

  “I’m just grateful I’m no longer the designated head cleaner,” she said, frowning at the mess. “Obviously Mingo missed the memo about keeping things shipshape. The first thing you learn living on a boat is that there really isn’t room to be a pig.”

  “In the navy, there would have been three men bunked into a space like this. I could hardly get dressed without barking my shins on the lowest bunk. Of course, the officer who searched our quarters didn’t leave everything on the floor.”

  “Searched?” she asked quickly.

  “For contraband.”

  “No. I meant do you think this place has been searched? That only makes sense if Mingo wasn’t working alone.”

  “Exactly.” And that was all Holden said.

  “You think he was stashing stolen salvage in his bunk?”

  “Somebody appears to have thought so. Divers might keep their land apartments like a pigsty, but I’ve never known one to be this slovenly aboard ship. Certainly not to the point of tripping over things on a calm day.”

  She put her head in her hands for a moment, then straightened. “You make looking for helium sound easy.”

  He did a double take. “I beg your pardon?”

  “If Mingo is a thief and if he brought the loot back to his quarters and if he disappeared without the loot and if someone knew and if that someone searched the place, is there anything iffy left behind for us to find?”

  Holden’s eyebrows shot up. “When you put it like that, it sounds like a joke.”

  “I wish it was. But Larry’s in the hospital and I’m . . .” Her voice trailed away.

  “I’ll take the laundry pile,” Holden said. “You take the crew lockers.”

  “Wonder what chewed on them,” she said absently.

  “What?”

  “The lockers.”

  Holden walked over and examined the handles of the two lockers. Where a personal padlock would have been placed to secure the door, there was nothing but a few deep gouges.

  “Bolt cutters can leave marks like that, especially if they slip,” he said. “Do you have any onboard?”

  “Probably. Grandpa has everything else. You know how it is with men in hardware stores and chandleries.”

  Holden smiled slightly and pulled something that looked like a hairpin from his pocket. He used the metal to probe around the door of the first locker.

  “What are you looking for?”

  “Anything with wires.”

  Her eyes widened. “A bomb? That’s impossible.”

  “Actually, it’s improbable but quite possible. Good job that I’ve been trained to deal with the possible. But at the moment, it looks like we only have to deal with the probable here. Good news, that.”

  He gave her a quick, almost fierce hug. “No matter what happens, I have your back.”

  For a moment she clung to his strength. Then she took a deep breath as he slowly opened the first locker, keeping a sharp eye out for nasty surprises.

  The narrow opening held three drawers, a small rod for hanging clothing, and space for shoes and a rolled-up duffel on top of the drawers. Nothing surprising, nasty or otherwise.

  And not a wire in sight.

  “Luis,” she said. “I recognize the purple shirt.”

  “It would be hard to forget,” Holden agreed as he patted down the hanging clothes and found nothing unexpected.

  He examined the face of the drawers, didn’t find anything, and let Kate nudge him aside to check the contents—shaving gear and briefs that gave new meaning to the word—while he made sure the second locker didn’t contain any wires.

  “I didn’t know men wore thongs,” she said, poking at the contents of the first drawer. “Didn’t want to know, either.”

  “Could be a souvenir.”

  Hastily she snatched her fingers back from the silky red strip of cloth and rubbed them over her shorts. “I need to wash my hands.”

  “Wait until we work over the mattresses. Don’t forget to feel all sides of the drawers,” he said as he went to work probing around the edges of the second locker.

  No wires. None on the drawers, either.

  He returned to helping Kate with Luis’s locker. She had the first drawer out without a problem, but the second was balking. Salt water and metal were a corrosive combination.

  “Check out Mingo’s locker,” Holden said. “I’ll work this free.”

  “Fine. I now know more than I ever wanted to about Luis,” she said. “On to Mingo, whose underwear hopefully went ashore with him.”

  Holden made a sound that could have been agreement or argument or anything in between as he felt along the top and sides of the drawer before pulling it out and doing the same to the exterior sides.

  “Sure you aren’t a cop?” she asked, watching him work.

  “In boarding schools there are a limited number of places to hide things,” was all he said. “The same is true in crew quarters.”

  She looked around the cabin with new eyes, but there was little to see. No hanging pictures to hide things behind, no floorboards or rugs to pull up, no baseboards to p
ull out, and all the recessed lighting revealed was the grime that always built up when diesel engines were at work.

  After eyeing the bunks and mattresses with a mental cringe, she started on the second locker, copying Holden’s method of searching. Mingo had about the same amount of clothing as his brother had, including underwear that should have made him a soprano.

  “Looks like most of his stuff is still here,” she said. “Except for a shaving kit.”

  Holden’s hands paused, then resumed searching.

  “He must have more clothes in his apartment, or in Raul’s,” she said. “Less to haul back and forth that way.”

  She dutifully felt around for anything concealed on the inside of the drawer. When she moved on to the outside, all she got for her trouble was a small cut from the razor-sharp rails. She grimaced and went on to the next drawer, which held nothing of interest inside, outside, or on the bottom.

  The third drawer was stuck. She nudged, tugged, yanked, silently cursed, but the drawer didn’t budge.

  “Need some help?” he asked. He had gone through all the drawers in the first locker and found the same thing in each—nothing useful.

  She stepped back. “It’s you or a crowbar.”

  “Or a foot,” he said. “Looks like someone kicked it in frustration.”

  Holden tugged, jiggled, tugged again, and said, “It’s either stuck or wedged in place. Fortunately, there’s more than one way get into a drawer.”

  He pulled out the two drawers above, lifted them off their tracks, and set them aside. The contents of the third drawer were some rolled up T-shirts—and a wedge along the rails that kept the drawer from opening.

  “Low-tech lock,” he said, removing the wedge. “But effective.”

  Ignoring the T-shirts, Holden pulled out the drawer and flipped it over to make sure nothing was concealed on the bottom. One of the rolled-up T-shirts hit the floor with an odd sound.

  Kate shook out the shirt and found a wad of money wrapped in a rubber band. With fingers accustomed to counting foreign money, she fanned the corners of the bills for a fast overview.

  “Pounds. Fifties. Probably a thousand or more,” she said. “Looks like Mingo doesn’t believe in banks, and it definitely indicates he is coming back after his binge.”

  If he can, Holden thought.

  But she didn’t want to go there and he didn’t want to force her to until there was no other choice.

  “Mingo must have been converting his pay into pounds at the bank. Less bulk for the same amount of money.”

  Holden glanced at the roll and then turned the drawer to examine the outside of the back, where there was a small space between the locker and the end of the drawer. All the drawers were shorter than the locker was deep, in order to clear any bolts that might be used to secure the locker itself to the wall and deck.

  “What do you have?” she asked, glancing up from the money.

  “Looks like the back of a dive computer.”

  A bit of fiddling and pulling freed the wedge-shaped object from its tape prison.

  “Nice piece of kit,” he said. “Thin, light. Expensive. Wireless relay to a wrist display. Don’t remember seeing Mingo wear this one.”

  “That’s worth a lot more than a wad of cash,” she said. “Now I’m really sure he’s coming back.”

  The fact that she kept returning to the subject told Holden that she was as disturbed by Mingo’s disappearance as he was.

  “Too bad he bugged out when we needed him most,” she added.

  “Wonder where he went wearing this?” Holden said, looking at the computer. And who else knew about it?

  “Why would he need a second dive computer setup?” she asked.

  “Backup. Plus, I’ll bet this one doesn’t automatically relay information back to the ship’s dive center.”

  She caught her lower lip between her teeth, realized that she was gnawing it raw, and let go.

  The dive computer was about eight inches long, made of stainless steel and featureless black plastic formed into a low wedge shape. Of itself, not unusual. Holden spun it between his hands. The front held a wide LCD screen. Atop it was a compass set at an odd angle, some twenty degrees off the main body.

  “Oceanic Pro,” he said, reading the maker’s logo. “This isn’t anything the ship supplies, is it?”

  “I haven’t seen it on an inventory list. He probably brought it on board himself.”

  “Not unusual. I brought my own dive computers and mask. A lot of divers prefer familiar kit.”

  “As long as the divers also wear the electronic gear that relays to the ship,” she said, “Larry wouldn’t care if they wore six personal computers and lit up like a Christmas tree.”

  “The navy was more exacting, but yes, some divers wear backup upon backup,” Holden said.

  He noted the purple ring that was painted around the bottom of the unit, where it would attach by hose to the diving rig. The computer would read and relay to a wrist unit the gas levels, temperature, location, estimated time in tank—all the information a diver would need to stay safe underwater, or at least able to make informed decisions. It also recorded where you went and how to return if you wanted to go back.

  Kate stuck her head in the empty locker. “There’s something on the floor of the locker. The drawer would have covered it. I can’t really see anything but a kind of reflection, about the size of a big watch face.”

  “Let me,” he said, pulling her back.

  “I can—”

  “Wires,” he cut in. “Did you see any wires?”

  Hastily she backed up.

  Holden knelt and peered inside, then delicately felt about with his fingertips. No wires, just dirt.

  And more tape.

  He probed, found an edge of tape, and pulled. With a slow, sucking sound, an oversized watch came free. It was nearly half an inch thick, made out of a gray metal, but not chromed or reflective. Its finish was pebbled, not smooth.

  “An Atlantis 530,” Holden said. “Thing weighs like a pistol and does everything but get you laid. Very fancy.”

  “Some divers equate the number of gadgets to the size of their, um, more personal equipment.”

  His smile flashed. “I’ve noticed that. Not standard Donnelly issue, either, I take it.”

  “Too pricey for Grandpa. As he has said more than once, he ‘doesn’t care about the pressure on the back side of the moon or the underside of God.’”

  Holden laughed. “Did he still plan his dives with analog decompression tables?”

  “Pretty much.” She looked at the expensive piece of dive gear. “Mingo will definitely be coming back for that.”

  Holden didn’t say anything.

  “Won’t he?” she insisted.

  “The evidence is mixed.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “You know as well as I do,” he said matter-of-factly. “You just don’t want to think about it.”

  There was a tight silence and then words rushed out of Kate like a dam had broken. “I’ve thought and thought and thought and nothing makes any sense! Mingo and a dive suit are gone and one of our tenders has vanished, but his personal dive electronics are hidden in his locker. No one has seen him in his usual haunts on the island. No one has found the boat he took. About all I can conclude is that he went overboard in the usual manner and drowned on the way back to St. Vincent.”

  “Precisely what is the ‘usual manner’?” Holden asked.

  “Peeing over the gunwale while drunk, losing balance, and going into the water. Alcohol isn’t a good swimming partner.”

  “Ah, that way. Yes, it happens. Usually the boat is found adrift, or the body, or both.”

  “Usually.”

  “Usually a diver who decides to run off for a binge at least takes his cash with him,” Holden said. “And why would he take a dive suit and canister that belong to the ship? The bloody things are unwieldy out of water and old gear isn’t worth much at pawn. That doesn�
�t even touch on the theft of a ship’s tender.”

  “Precisely,” she said.

  Black eyebrows lifted and he said carefully, “On what, precisely, are we in agreement?”

  “None of it makes sense!” she said, frustration in every syllable.

  “Right. Let’s have a go at the mattresses.”

  “Yuck.” But searching old bedding was better than chasing her thoughts—all questions, no answers, and the clammy fear that something was very, very wrong.

  It’s just the air coming from the porthole, she told herself. Clammy and ripe with the probability of a storm.

  All the upper bunk mattress revealed was a bunch of lumps that had nothing to do with contraband and everything to do with age. The mattress on the lower bunk had seams that were slit in a few places. Nothing huge, just enough to stick two fingers in. Poking around revealed stuffing and two small plastic bags.

  Empty.

  “He could have stored really small goods in there,” Holden said. “Unimaginative, given the clever wedge on the locker drawer, but possible.”

  “Hide in plain sight?”

  With a shrug, Holden continued. “It could have been drugs. It could have been that he scooped up the small stuff—gems and the like—and took them ashore when he left. It would explain the lack of a shaving kit.”

  “It would?”

  “No matter how horny, angry, or drunk, I doubt that Mingo would be foolish enough to cart off stolen goods in plain sight. A shaving bag is convenient and unremarkable.”

  “Male version of a purse. That makes sense. Finally. I like it.” She nodded. “Mingo is the rat gnawing at the Crown’s cheese.”

  Holden smiled and wished it was that simple.

  “So Mingo is finding stuff and yet not finding it,” she said. “As you pointed out, that part would be simple enough, especially as Volkert is stupefied by sound and spends more time opening snacks than watching the screens.”

  “Or he’s on the take. Even simpler.”

  “Whatever. So Mingo is maybe seeing things down below and leaving them there and making off-the-record dives to pick up the goodies,” she said.

  “You can do it for a while,” Holden agreed, “but using different dive computers—or turning off and restarting a single dive computer—bollixes up built-in algorithms, which assume eighteen hours between dives.”