After a second their eyes adjusted and they followed the contours of the cave. They disturbed a huge grouper, who brushed past. Becca flinched, but a moment later gave him the okay sign. They continued to follow the cave to its depths, dumping air from their BCs to descend.
And a moment later reached the bottom. Wes checked his dive computer. Eighty-two feet. He gave Becca two okay signs to let her know there was no problem with their dive, but then gave the “something’s wrong” signal and pointed to his dive computer. She checked her own.
Eighty-two feet was too shallow for nitrogen narcosis. That would have taken a hundred feet, minimum. Probably more like a hundred-thirty, given that Uncle Davis was an experienced diver.
So what had happened down here? Equipment failure? Shark?
None of that made sense. Aunt Charlotte had told him nitrogen narcosis. Was Ernesto Solorio lying about where his uncle had died? Was his Aunt Charlotte lying about how?
He gestured for Becca to follow him up; it was dark down here with fewer fish and deep enough that every minute would increase the time needed to flush nitrogen from their body. He added air to his BC to increase his buoyancy, and turned around as he climbed to make sure his ascent was clear.
Halfway up the cave, they met another diver coming in the opposite direction. They hadn’t seen anyone else since they’d left the boat, but Isla del Caño was a popular dive site.
What was surprising was that the other diver appeared to be alone. It was foolhardy to go into a cave without a dive buddy. Somewhat annoyed, in the same way he got irritated with helmetless skiers who shot by on the trail without announcing their presence, Wes gave the danger signal, a clenched fist, followed by the sign, “get with your buddy.”
The diver ignored Wes and continued to swim toward them. Becca grabbed Wes’s arm and made her own danger signal.
Wes looked toward the diver again, now just a few feet away and closing fast and felt a jolt of alarm. The man held a dive knife in his right hand. His left grabbed for Wes’s mask.
#
The rain started early in the day. The tourism people preferred the term “green season” to “rainy season,” and most of the time it held. It would rain in the morning or the evening and the rest of the day would be clear and pleasant, sometimes as much as ten to fifteen degrees cooler than the dry season. Yesterday, the weather had been perfect and the whole group had gone diving in the Golfo Dulce.
But the day started with sprinkles and turned into a downpour by mid-morning. Rain pounded on the roof and ran off in sheets.
It was Chad’s wife’s birthday. She was only twenty-nine, which made him feel old. He’d got up early to serve her banana macadamia nut pancakes in bed. The others came down while he was still in the kitchen, made hungry noises and joked they’d eat the pancakes and his wife would never know.
The others were up and out of the house early because they’d heard over the radio that a heavy rain was coming and they wanted to make it to Puerto Jiménez before the rivers flooded the road. Chad’s nephew was headed back to the States. The other two would come back later in the day or tomorrow, depending on what happened with the weather.
Chad’s wife would take a separate flight to Boston tomorrow to attend a charitable fundraiser. He’d miss her, but it would be fun to spend more time with just his brother and sister. In the meanwhile, he had a whole day alone with his wife. A rare occurrence at the Costa Rica house.
“So we’re sure?” he asked. They lay together in a hammock on the veranda, listening to the rain.
“I’m sure,” his wife said. “I know it’s only been a year since the wedding, but if we’re both sure…I mean, why wait?”
He tried to imagine what it would be like to have a baby. Hell, he was still trying to get used to being married. He’d spent so many years working for his father, building the company, and then running it after Dad died. That had been a steep learning curve.
But god, did he love this woman. She was smart, sexy, and gentle. Oh, and very patient. He could be stubborn and self-centered.
They’d talked about a baby. She’d gone off the pill a couple of months ago and they’d used condoms since, but had yet to take that final step.
“Of course we can’t stop at one,” he told her. “That baby’s going to want a sister or brother.”
She kissed him, then pulled back slightly. “That’s what it means to be a family. You, me, our children. Years and years from now, when we’re gone, everyone who looks at their faces will see us, still together. A little bit of me and a little bit of you, bound together, forever. But we’ve got to be sure.”
“I’m sure,” he said after a long moment, knowing he was taking a step into an unknown land. You could read about a place or talk to others who had been there, but until you smelled its markets and talked to its people, that country didn’t yet exist. Not for you. Having a baby would be like that.
She wrapped her arms around him and plunged her fingers into his hair. Their mouths found each other, their hands pulled at each other’s clothing. It was awkward getting undressed in the hammock, but at last they were together and it swayed gently with their motion. The smell of rain and jungle mingled with her smell to fill his senses. He felt light, almost floating, as if riding a wave. The wave built and built and finally whitecapped and crashed into shore.
They lay together, spent. She put her head against his shoulder and traced her fingers along his chest. The rain drummed against the roof. He could almost feel the forest growing around them, deep and green and endless.
“You’re diving again on Thursday?” she asked a long moment later.
“That’s the plan.” He was still on a high from seeing all those sharks yesterday. He’d gone straight to an internet café in Puerto Jimenez to order prints of the best pictures, and couldn’t wait to give his new camera another spin.
“Don’t go too deep, okay?” Three of the last week’s dives had been deep water. Even with properly timed ascension, you could get in trouble with too many deep water dives in too short a period of time.
“It’s off Isla de Caño. Bill said most of it is fifty to eighty feet.”
“Okay, but I always get nervous when you dive without me. You’ll be careful, won’t you?”
“Of course.”
She lifted slightly and gave him a mischievous smile. “Because our children will need their daddy.” And then, serious again, as she lay back against his shoulder. “I love you, Davis.”
And back in Vermont, at Riverwood Care Center, the broken man, the prisoner, emerged from his trance. The air held the faint odor of carpet cleaner, but the scent of rain and his wife still filled his nostrils. On the television, people screamed at each other, words punctuated by a continual stream of bleeps to censor their words, rendering it incomprehensible. And yet, for a second, his wife’s voice lingered in his ear. Her touch against his chest. Davis.
My god, he thought. I’d forgotten my own name.
Chapter Seventeen:
The Abbé Faria spoke from the other side of the wall. “You’re no longer Prisoner Number 34. You have become Edmund Dantes once again.”
Or, in this case, Davis Carter.
“Can you go farther?” Faria asked.
What do you mean, farther? Don’t you mean closer? Closer to the accident?
“Yes and no. The injury wiped clean everything on the surface, but little bits broke up and drifted down into your memory. They’ve got to be down there, somewhere.”
It’s like the depths of the ocean down there, he said. Only I don’t know if there’s a bottom. I keep diving and diving, but I can’t find it.
“You’re almost there, my friend.”
But what if I can’t come back? He wasn’t sure what he meant by that. Lose himself? Find the answer, but be destroyed by same?
“I’ll bring you back. I swear it.”
Again, he dropped into those depths. His memories, as he found them, were a confused jumble. Chewing a banan
a in the darkness, with a hollow voice asking him if he wanted an ice tea. Walking along the tide with horseshoe crabs brushing his toes only then his feet became the crabs and he looked to see his arms had become flippers and his hair palm fronds. He was on a bamboo roof with an electric screwdriver. He was flipping through photos of sharks.
And then, like falling overboard, he found himself diving. It was black at first, then sparkles of light, and finally he found himself suspended in the water. Only his dive buddy wasn’t his nephew. Wes had flown home to Vermont.
It was his brother.
They’d rented a boat out of Agujitas, come out to Bajo del Diablo.
“Just the two of us,” Bill had said the day before, when the clearing weather had opened the possibility for another dive. Ellen had eaten something funny and would stay at the house. “We ought to do something adventurous. I’m thinking mahi mahi. Yellowfin. Maybe even some kind of bill fish. Something big.”
They picked up spear guns at a dive shop in Puerto Jiménez, then swung north and then west to cross the peninsula. A couple of river crossings were white-knuckle, with the water still high from the rain.
It had all been perfect, except for the argument with his brother. Same old thing.
“So, you’re going to break up the company,” Bill said.
“You know that’s not what this is about. We’re changing directions is all. And gradually.”
“What’s the difference? We stop building roads, you set off on this other scheme. Maybe it works, maybe not. But the gist is that you’re using Dad’s company—built carefully over nearly three quarters of a century—as seed money for a start-up. You can’t see why that alarms me?”
Bill was driving, and he shifted aggressively, hit rivers instead of approaching with caution.
“The world’s changing,” Davis said. “What happens when people don’t need new roads? When the oil runs out and something takes its place? Isn’t it better to adapt with the times?”
“The world will always need roads. I don’t care if we go back to ox-carts. Someone is going to build them and someone is going to maintain them.”
“Maybe, but the way you talk, you expect that someday the whole world will be pavement and parking lot. Strip malls and subdivisions as far as the eye can see.”
“You’re either building or you’re collapsing,” Bill said. “Building is civilization.”
“Energy is civilization, too. And think how many billions of dollars will be spent on wind and solar over the next twenty years. We can be a part of that. We can make a difference. Alt energy isn’t just good for the environment, it’s good business.”
“But energy isn’t our business. You’ve read a few books, you’ve taken a few classes. You’ve put up a couple of windmills in Vermont and you’ve come up with a crazy scheme to put solar panels on every roof on the Osa Peninsula. That doesn’t make you an expert. What if you’re wrong? What if they build more nuclear plants? What if they build these clean coal plants everyone is talking about? And we’ve got all our money in wind and solar. What happens then? And meanwhile, we’ve forgotten how to move earth and build roads. We’ve retrained our crews and sold off our scrapers and dozers. That’s the end of Northrock, or NorthPower, or whatever clever name you’ve given Dad’s company.”
Davis knew it was a risk. And he’d always known that Bill would fight him. His own father would have dismissed the idea. But it didn’t matter. He knew what he wanted. He knew what was right.
“I’ve told you what I’m going to do,” Davis said. “I’ve listened to you and I’ve taken your concerns under consideration.”
“Right. Sure.”
“But Dad left me in control. I’ve shown I can run Northrock. I’ve shown I can build on what he left us. And now I’m going to show you the possibilities of a new direction.” He hardened his voice. “You can either come along, or you can sell me your shares and retire from the company.”
“I sure as hell am not selling out.”
“Good.”
They continued in silence, and Davis considered the matter settled. His brother would continue to resist behind the scenes, of course, but a year from now Northrock would be a totally different entity. There would be no turning back. If Bill Carter wanted to devote his life to building roads, fine. He wouldn’t do it with the Northrock capital, personnel, or name.
Bill seemed strangely serene as they continued toward Agujitas. Rosa Solorio met them at the docks. She was an attractive young woman, maybe twenty-one or twenty-two, and explained in passable English that her father and brother had taken the boat to Drake that morning to work out some problem with the motor, but would be back in about twenty minutes. No problem, they said. Bill flirted with Rosa in Spanish.
Davis stood to the side, ostensibly checking his gear. Truth was, he felt out of place. He spoke very little Spanish, had never felt the need to learn. Bill had learned the language, Davis thought, primarily to flirt with girls. So far, his brother had shown no interest in settling down with one, be she American or a Tica.
Kind of like Dad, Davis thought. Elwin Carter had married late and even then never been truly faithful, assuming you thought of Northrock as the man’s lover. A demanding, needy lover who accepted no rival.
Rosa laughed at something Bill said. His Spanish was fluid and confident. The way he stood, his jaw forward, his body straight and tall, reminded Davis of their father. At work, standing astride a job site like some great industrialist of years past, the resemblance was even more uncanny. Bill Carter had been born to run Northrock. It was in his genes, in his blood. He would build on the legacy of his father, even exceed him. Ah, except for the minor inconvenience that his older brother held the reins of the company.
Ernesto arrived a few minutes later with Rosa’s younger brother, a boy named Tomás. Boat working fine, Ernesto assured him. They paid Rosa, took a receipt, then the four men loaded dive gear. Rosa stayed in Agujitas.
“Smart girl,” Bill said, as they pulled away. The brothers sat at the back, separated from the two Costa Ricans by the sound of the boat motor.
“Pretty young.”
Bill gave a dismissive wave of the hand. “Oh, god, yes. Don’t worry, I’m not going to make an ass of myself.”
Davis looked at his brother, surprised by his expansive mood after their argument of the morning. He wondered, then, if his brother had made a decision. Sell his shares to Davis, take his millions and start his own company. A rival and successor to Northrock. Beholden to no one. Perhaps it was for the best.
“What I meant,” Bill said, “is that Rosa’s too smart for the Osa Peninsula. Seriously, look at this place.” He gestured toward the shore and the charming, but ramshackle collection of buildings snugged between the forest and the ocean. “You know Rosa wants to be a doctor? How’s she going to do that in a place like this?”
Davis shrugged. “Go to San Jose, I guess. Assuming her family can come up with the money.” He gave his brother a sideways glance. “Or some generous American could fund her education.”
“She wants to go to the U.S. No different than half the people in this country. Point is, what’s a girl like that doing in a place like this? A waste. If she’d been born in, say, Massachusetts, she’d be in medical school already. There’s always a scholarship for someone bright and driven.”
Seemed a lot to extrapolate from a ten minute conversation. Anyone could say they wanted to be a doctor. There were plenty of obstacles besides poverty to overcome.
“Wish I’d eaten something,” Davis said. He sometimes got motion sick on a longer boat ride like this one and hadn’t wanted to be leaning over the edge of the boat, tasting his breakfast a second time as it came up. But the ocean was smooth today and he felt fine. Well, hungry, as it turned out.
“I’ve got some energy bars. You want one now?”
“Nah, I’ll wait until after the dive.”
Bill looked out over the waters, not toward the dive site, but toward the recedin
g mainland. “Funny, really,” he said a few minutes later, almost to himself. He was apparently still thinking about Rosa. “It all comes down to an accident of birth.”
They came to the island. A few minutes to suit up, review their dive plan and drink a bottle of water each, then they were under, sinking, sinking. Spear guns in hand. Bajo del Diablo was a riot of fish and color. They’d dived here before, and seen all kinds of amazing sights. But their purpose today was more lethal.
Bill led. They followed a series of fissures deeper and deeper, looking for that big quarry. A black marlin or maybe a yellowfin. A marlin could top four hundred pounds, a yellowfin two hundred. Either one put up a hell of a fight.
The trick with these big fish was to use their curiosity against them. Find the fish, stop, float as close to motionless as possible and let the fish come up to investigate. Get a good shot, then inflate the buoys and go along for the ride. Eventually, the fish would rise, exhausted from the wound, the weight, and the buoys.
They were at seventy feet, according to the dive computer, when Davis started feeling light headed. He checked his computer, his air. Everything looked okay. He’d suffered nitrogen narcosis before, but never above 120 feet. And he hadn’t even been down that long. Should take a lot longer to dissolve enough nitrogen in the blood to make him this lightheaded. Weird and frustrating.
Davis signaled for his brother to stop, then floated for a few minutes, breathing slowly and evenly, trying to clear his head. But it grew worse, like he’d had a couple of beers on an empty stomach. Disgusted with himself, knowing it meant the end of the dive, he opened his hand, palm facing inward and swiveled it back and forth. Something’s wrong, the signal told Bill. And then, with reluctance, thumb up. Going up.
Even through the mask, he could tell that Bill wasn’t happy about the development. They’d just started. Hadn’t even seen their prey. But there was nothing Bill could do but follow.
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