Night Diver

by Elizabeth Lowell

  “There’s a small craft warning out.”

  “The workboat is bigger than the minimum recommended,” she said impatiently. “I’ll have time to go out and back well before the really dirty weather comes.”

  “You’re mental.”

  “No. I’m fed up with being left adrift by my family.”

  “Kate,” he said gently, “you don’t even know where the ship is.”

  “Larry and Grandpa are going to the wreck of the Moon Rose,” she said with bitter certainty. “They’ll pull up the real treasure they’ve stashed and take off before the worst of the storm hits. As Grandpa told me, he’s ridden out storms before. Sometimes it’s safer at sea than tied up at the wrong port.”

  Holden thought about it a moment. “Quite shrewd, actually. He heads out into a storm and vanishes. The trail goes cold and he gets away with the treasure. Always assuming the captain doesn’t misjudge the storm and sink.”

  “I’d bet on Grandpa and the Golden Bough in anything less than a Cat 2.”

  “You won’t be on the Golden Bough, though. You will be on a much smaller craft.”

  “The workboat can take a lot of weather. I should know. I spent hours in the dark during a storm like this one. Alone.”

  “Kate, I can’t let you—”

  “I wasn’t asking permission,” she said, turning away. “You can stay here or drop me at Lee Harbor and go on to a hotel.”

  “The sun is setting,” he said with more patience than he felt, “and the storm could make landfall sooner than predicted.”

  “Or later. If it gets bad too quickly, I’ll stay aboard the ship until it’s safe to return.”

  “That’s—”

  “No,” she cut in. “I’m not staying here and wondering if they’re alive and being left behind again with too many questions, no answers, and a lifetime thinking I could have made a difference.”

  “The longer we argue, the stronger the storm will get.”

  “Then why are we doing it? It’s not like I’m asking you to go with me,” she pointed out.

  “Excellent, because I’m not going with you. You’re staying here. I’ll drive the workboat to the wreck.”

  “If you leave me behind, I’ll get a boat and follow you.”

  Holden looked at her and knew she would do exactly as she said.

  “Bugger,” he said savagely. “Let’s go.”

  CHAPTER 21

  THE SUN WAS below the horizon, yet an orange glow persisted beneath the wild sky. Clouds lit up like slow-motion napalm, gold at the lowest layers, purple and bruised above. For a moment the evening was held in thrall by an unearthly calm. Then the wind churned, blurring all boundaries, blending whitecaps with mist into a salty sideways rain.

  Both Holden and Kate were wearing flotation devices that sent a GPS signal when inflated. Underneath they wore lightweight jackets that repelled most of the rain. Not that it mattered. Between body heat and the extreme humidity, their skin was far from dry.

  The water was peppered by squall lines, and whitecaps turned over without any rhythm, carried by swells that increased in size with the strengthening wind. Holden held the wheel, his hands steady and his expression bleak in the dying light. The bow hammered into the rising swell, sending sheets of water into the air.

  Kate braced herself as best she could. “How is your leg?”

  “Chatty, but being the pilot helps.”

  She winced at his clipped words and reminded herself that he was the one who had insisted on coming along on this “mental” ride. All she could do was hang on and try to see anything small that the radar missed in all the chop.

  “Have you considered that instead of a chirpy family reunion, we may be headed into an armed and unhappy duo of thieves?” he asked.

  “Grandpa and Larry won’t hurt me.”

  “In my experience, humans are considerably less predictable than bombs. Survival is a hope, not a certainty.”

  “They won’t physically harm me,” she insisted. Psychic harm was another matter entirely, but she wasn’t going to talk about it.

  The running lights on a distant boat flickered in and out of view with each swell.

  “Delighted to know we aren’t the only idiots blundering about in the storm,” he said.

  She checked the radar and the lights. “Looks like they’re heading in to St. Vincent, but not from the direction of the wreck of the Moon Rose.”

  Holden didn’t say anything, concentrating on evening out the ride. It was rough, but not dangerous. That would come later, on the ride back, when the storm was stronger and the direction of wind and water would force the workboat to literally surf one breaking wave to another.

  The boat slammed down into a trough between unusually large swells.

  “I see the work lights where the Golden Bough was anchored,” she said, staring through the salt spray on the windscreen. “It must be lit up like Christmas.”

  Holden checked the radar screen and saw a faint blip right where the Golden Bough should be. His hand flicked out to the console and all the lights went off, including the required red and green running lights.

  “They can still pick us up on radar,” Kate said neutrally.

  “If they’re diving in this weather, they will be busier than a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest,” Holden said, his accent mirroring that of his American mother. “I doubt that anyone will be hanging about the radar display looking for visitors.”

  “That’s probably why the ship is lit up so well,” she agreed. “Wet decks and a lumpy ocean make for a slippery work surface.”

  Kate and Holden watched the glowing area that was the Golden Bough slowly grow in size until they could see enough detail to make out the deck as well as what looked like a speedboat tied off the stern. The work lights were concentrated on the port side, leaving the starboard in darkness.

  “That fancy runabout always did irritate Grandpa,” she said. “Looks like he decided to get his money’s worth by bringing it with him.”

  Holden hoped that was the case. “Why didn’t he put it in the second cradle instead of snubbing it off on the stern?”

  “The hull of a speedboat and a cradle made for a workboat would be a bad match.”

  The Golden Bough rose and fell as swells swept from bow to stern.

  “Will the anchor hold?” he asked.

  “No problem in these winds. Twenty, thirty miles an hour more and the anchor would likely begin dragging until it hit coral. But winds like that aren’t expected for twelve hours.”

  Unless the storm doesn’t follow the computer model’s carefully calculated, four-color charts.

  “Let me know if you see anybody,” Holden said as he made a circle around the Golden Bough. “The lower deck door on the starboard side is shut.”

  “And the diver down flag is up,” she said grimly. “Damn it all to hell. Go to the stern. I’ll go aboard from there, open the starboard gate, and help you tie off.”

  “You take the wheel. I’ll go aboard.”

  “But your leg—”

  “Has survived much worse,” he finished impatiently. “In some things, strength does matter. Take the wheel.”

  Kate shifted places with him and eased close enough to the stern dive step that Holden could scramble onto it with his duffel. He waited until his bad leg quit twitching before he climbed up to the lower deck.

  He saw no one and heard nothing but the rumble of the generator, a bass companion to the contralto wail of the wind. As quickly as possible on the shifting, wet deck, he went to the starboard side and latched a section of the gunwale into open position. Then he braced himself and watched while Kate brought the workboat alongside with a skill he silently applauded.

  “Watch it,” she called. “I tied a weight on the line.”

  A few moments later the weighted line flew over the gunwale in spite of the contrary wind and landed on the deck with a clang. If anyone else noticed, there was no sign as Holden swiftly tied off the wo
rkboat and helped Kate make the step up. An inexperienced person would have ended up in the water or under the boat, but she had the reflexes of someone who had known the sea better than the land for half her life.

  “Well, whoever’s here, no one seems to be on deck now,” he said.

  “Maybe that diver down flag isn’t just for show.”

  “Being stark mental isn’t required to night dive in a storm,” he said, “but it would be a great aid in explaining the amount of bloody idiocy that has occurred up to this point.”

  A gust of wind came out of the darkness, ripping spray off whitecaps and whistling around the bulkheads. It appeared as if nothing but the wind was aboard to greet them.

  “I guess they’re too busy to notice us,” she said.

  “Or have chosen not to shoot us at this moment.”

  “Not a glass-half-full sort of guy, are you?”

  He made a sound that could have been a laugh or a curse.

  “The only gun on Golden Bough is in the wheelhouse, locked away,” she said. “Grandpa is probably in the dive center with nothing more dangerous than a microphone in his hand.”

  Holden had his doubts, but he kept them to himself. The fact that Grandpa Donnelly was over seventy didn’t mean that he was harmless. Quite the opposite, in fact. The sea had little patience with the stupid or slow.

  “Dive center or wheelhouse?” Holden asked.

  “Dive center. If Grandpa or Larry isn’t there, we’ll try the crew quarters.”

  After ten minutes and a fast run through the ship, they found nothing alive but the wind and water.

  “They must be diving,” Kate said tightly. “They both know better! Grandpa was told by his doctor that diving could kill him and Larry is half dead from diving too much. I can’t believe that whatever is aboard the Moon Rose is worth dying for.”

  But what really frightened her was that her family was down below, she was above, they could be in terrible danger and she wouldn’t be able to save them . . . again, past and future swallowing each other in an endless circle of terror and futility and death and she could only stand in the storm and scream . . .

  From a distance she heard Holden saying her name, calling her back from nightmare and horror. She shuddered and stepped back from him.

  “I’m all right,” she said. “Just a—”

  “Flashback,” he said.

  “Yes. Stupid.”

  “No, simply human, love. Go to the dive center while I suit up.”

  She stared at him with eyes that were haunted in a pale face. “You can’t go down there alone.”

  “Apparently, I won’t be alone,” he said with faint humor. “I’ll be tripping over Donnellys.”

  The thought of Holden diving alone at night in a stormy sea went through her like a bolt of lightning, showing her things about herself that she hadn’t known until this moment.

  She could survive the loss of her brother and grandfather, but she would not survive Holden’s death.

  “I’ll be with you every inch of the way,” Kate said.

  “That’s asking too much of yourself.”

  “Standing up here while you dive alone is asking too much of me. No matter what, I’d rather be with you, Holden. I love you.”

  He kissed her gently. “I am completely in love with you. Hell of a time to discover it.”

  She hugged him, held on hard, and said, “Better now than never.”

  The ship lurched in a sudden blast of wind.

  As one, they turned and headed for the dive locker. Kate found that Holden had been correct; Larry had kept her suit well cared for. She was bigger in the bust and hips than she had been ten years ago, but the suit was still a better fit than any of the other available ones would be.

  Neither of them discussed the dive suits that were missing from the lockers. Holden was just grateful that the suit he’d used before was still aboard.

  “Do you have any glow sticks?” Holden asked. “They’re quite handy for being seen down below, especially since these suits lack reflective tape.”

  She went to a bin that held odds and ends of spare diving equipment and emerged with a bundle of glow sticks. She gave him half and put half in her own mesh diving bag.

  “Have you dived at night with only your own personal headlamp and glow sticks?” Holden asked as he suited up.

  “Yes, but I never went beyond sixty feet or so.”

  “How did you feel about it?”

  “Excited. Some nerves, but that went away after a few minutes. In the end, I really enjoyed night diving and did it whenever I could. Everything is different at night. Magic.”

  He smiled. “Excellent. Some people simply aren’t suited for night dives. They see only their own fears.”

  He didn’t mention anything about the years since she had last dived, or the way her parents had died. He couldn’t know how she would take night diving until she was underwater. Neither could she.

  Even as he wished she would stay aboard, he silently saluted her courage in attempting the dive.

  Kate checked the gas levels in the tanks. They weren’t planning on a long dive, but divers used more gas at night than they did in daylight. Some of that was anxiety. Most of it was simply a daylight creature’s need to see more than a single small cone of light. She didn’t want to be one of the divers who fell prey to his own imagination, or in her case, memories . . . the cough and shudder of her father as he came aboard, the slipperiness of the deck in the storm, the aching question of where her mother’s body actually lay.

  But none of that was as bad as the present, the feeling that she’d been set up and betrayed by her own family, brought in as a redheaded puppet show to divert attention from Donnelly crimes.

  “Our mystery square is SSE of our current position,” Holden said as he zipped up and flexed his leg, trying to ease the ache. “What do you think we should be looking for?”

  “I don’t know. It could be loose, but I doubt it. If I was going to run an operation like this, I’d bundle up the salvage with lift bags,” she said, referring to a sturdy balloon that was attached to a large metal hook, waiting to be secured to a net full of salvage, “and stash them beneath a shelf of coral or lava. Even a cave. That rock pile looked like it would be good for hiding things.”

  “Handy bit of kit, those lift bags,” Holden said, checking his tank and then hers. “But not for the inexperienced. Should we take extra canisters for anything we might find?”

  “Might as well. We have gas to spare.”

  They went out on the stern to finish suiting up. Rain was coming down in sheets. They ignored it. They would be underwater soon enough.

  “I’ve rarely used the lift balloons,” he said. “In my line of work, we’d bring up devices in nets and cables. Very slowly, mind you. We didn’t want the pressure change to cause the whole works to go off.”

  “Gold doesn’t have a problem,” she said. “It can go to the surface like a rocket.”

  “Check me, if you would,” he said, turning around so she would look over the connections and the tank setup.

  “Your backside is fine,” she said, a smile in her voice.

  And nerves. She was going to dive, but she wasn’t looking forward to it.

  Holden checked her out. “Don’t fight the water, love. It always wins.”

  She let out a sigh. “I know.”

  “If you can’t see me, light up a stick.”

  “Same goes for you.”

  Before Holden put on his dive mask, he asked, “Are you ready to do this?”

  “Ready as I ever will be. Not eager, though.”

  “You would be mental if you were.”

  They hugged awkwardly, feeling neoprene and plastic instead of heat and skin. Around them was darkness with only a hint of purple behind the layers and layers of clouds.

  “Eyes down, gentle descent, let your vision adjust.” His voice was slightly high and chopped on the communication system and air mix. He turned on his headlam
p. “And don’t look—”

  “Into the work lights,” she said, turning her head aside as she activated her own light.

  They shuffled off an edge of the stern that wasn’t occupied by the speedboat. As they finned out toward the dive buoy, the Golden Bough loomed above them like the silhouette of some great leviathan, haloed in storm and light.

  Kate concentrated on counting, only allowing herself to breathe on even numbers, not thinking about anything except maintaining a regular rhythm. It was a dive trick she had used many times on land, where it had helped her through some very bad moments.

  When Holden bent and went fins up to go below, she waited one breath before she followed. It took her a moment to find him within the cone of her headlamp. Energized by the storm, the water moved both of them about with the ease of infinite strength. They didn’t fight the push and pull of the swell. They just finned steadily down, pausing for compression stops. The grip of the storm on the water lessened with every downward kick.

  Later, the force of the wind might reach all the way to the bottom, churning it up and making visibility nil, ripping out coral chunks and rocks and scattering the fragile remains of the Moon Rose.

  But not yet. Though the water wasn’t as clear as it had been yesterday, it was transparent enough that Kate didn’t feel claustrophobic. She could catch glimpses of motion from Holden’s fins perhaps ten feet below her. His light was a nimbus of pale gold that dissipated a few yards ahead of him, scattered by particles suspended in the water. When she looked back up toward the surface, there was no silvery disk of light, only a gloaming kind of darkness where sky met water.

  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.”