"And I got lucky," he finished. "Got something you need to see."
"What?"
"Come on over. It can wait a few minutes."
His reluctance to deliver the news over the airwaves scared Teddy. Blood drained from her face, leaving it the faded gray-gold of winter grass. Anna knew they shared the same thought; you don't tell a woman you've found her husband's corpse over the radio.
Bob Shaw's body wasn't waiting for them. Not quite.
"Found this about sixty feet south and a bit east of the wreck," Cliff said as Teddy tied their boat to the Curious. He held up what first appeared to be a clump of seaweed-Anna's mind trying to make seaworthy sense of what her eyes saw.
"A duty belt," she said after a moment. "Bob's." Teddy made a small sound. a muffled squeak. Given there was nothing she could do for the woman who'd saved her life but find her husband-or his body-Anna chose not to notice.
She took the gun belt from Cliff's hands and lifted it over the gunwale to examine it. Bob's semiautomatic was snapped into the holster. Spare magazines were full, as was the magazine in the SIG Sauer; cuffs and pepper spray were in place. Because the belt Velcroed closed instead of buckling, it was impossible to tell if it had been removed intentionally or torn off with violence. What with one thing and another, Anna had allowed herself to believe Bob's disappearance and the sinking of the green go-fast boat were separate, unrelated incidents. Boats burned for many reasons, most having nothing to do with AWOL park rangers. Factoring Bob back in changed things. Now it was not just the death of a stranger but, perhaps, a man she liked.
"Anything else?"
Cliff shook his head then said: "I don't know. There might be. I figured you'd want to know soon as could be, so I marked the spot, brought the belt up and called."
Technically, he should have left it where it lay, but under the circumstances that seemed a moot point.
"You up for another dive?" Anna asked.
"Sure. It's less than thirty feet for the most part. I shouldn't have any trouble."
"We," Anna said. "I'm going with you."
"Do you think that's a good idea?" Diving experience, age, years of captaining boats, of commanding, made his soft-spoken question something to be seriously considered.
Anna did so. After a moment she said honestly: "Not a great idea, no. Maybe not even a good idea. But I'll be okay, if that's what you mean. All I intend to do is be a floating pair of eyes."
Satisfied, Cliff nodded. "We stay together," he said neutrally, aware Anna was the captain of this particular ship.
"We stay together," she agreed.
For just such emergencies Anna kept an old swimsuit in the storage bin in the compartment under the bridge. It stank of mildew and bagged in the seat but would suffice to keep her legal. Putting on BC vest and tank wasn't as bad as she'd feared. Though she was bruised from being batted about the ocean floor, the heavy nylon mesh of the vest and the metal air tank had protected those portions of her anatomy from the cutting edges of the coral.
Side by side, she and Cliff rolled backward off the gunwale. When she hit the water Anna would have screamed had her mouth not been full of rubber. Seawater bit into each and every cut and scrape, rubbing salt into her wounds. The shock made her feel faint and disoriented. Pain and the wooziness faded as skin and mind adapted to the new realities of life.
Cliff hung in the water nearby, as comfortable and perfectly balanced as Linda had been. At his "follow me" signal Anna kicked into motion. Once the initial sting had passed it felt wonderful to be underwater. The freedom and weightlessness of diving was the closest thing to flying unaided Anna would ever experience. It was good to stretch her bruised muscles; good to have the weight off her scraped buttocks. And it was good to be doing something other than gridding the ocean with a potential widow and finding nothing.
As they swam past the wreck, she was fascinated by the new configuration the second explosion left behind. The stern, still of a piece, had been shifted, and the floating life jacket, instead of straining for the surface, was half buried beneath. The bow section no longer existed: no structure, no cabin, just pieces blown out in a rough cone shape pointing in the direction from which Anna tad been swimming. It was easy to see how Linda, much closer to the bow of the boat, had fared no worse than she had. For all their might, explosives could be aimed and channeled by containers no more substantial than wax. What had aimed this, Anna couldn't begin to guess and doubted it mattered. She had not been the target. Nor had anyone else.
Further on Cliff stopped, hovering several feet above the bottom. They were about twenty-five feet down. The ocean floor was devoid of vegetation, though not of life. Without trying, Anna found two tiny fish.
One no bigger than her thumbnail vanished into a burrow in the sand at her approach. A red flag, like a surveyor's flag on an eighteen-inch wire, had been stuck in the sand. This, then, was where Bob Shaw's gun belt had been found. With a fingertip, Anna drew a spiral out around the flag, pointed to herself then Cliff. He made the okay sign with thumb and forefinger. Staying ten feet apart the two of them began swimming in an ever-widening circle with the red flag at its center.
The small desolate plain of sand and dead coral gave way to an underwater meadow of what looked to be grasses covered with fur. Soon, on the northern edge of their circle, they swam over the remnants of the sunken go-fast boat. Because of the boulders of coral, they were forced to swim nearer the surface.
On the fifth circuit, more coral intruding with its cacophony of color and confusion of life, they found Shaw's deck shoes. Twenty feet apart and tumbled into a forest of hot pink anemone, Anna was surprised they had spotted them. After the location of the second shoe was marked with another of Cliff's flags, Anna stopped. Hanging in the water, clear now that they'd moved away from the area of disturbance, she looked back across the imaginary circle till she found the red flag marking where the gun belt had been found. A compass reading from the line between shoes and flag read NNW Turning, Anna followed a SSE heading, continuing the line.
Approximately three hundred feet farther she came upon what she'd known must be there: the Bay Ranger. A jagged hole in her bow, she lay on her side in a patch of sand beneath twenty feet of clear, still water. Had the wreck of the go-fast boat not stopped them, Danny and Linda would have found her in the next couple of passes. Already, curious fishes had come and swam languidly around the control panel and its sunshade.
The little Sylvan runabout had no cabin, no belowdecks. Anna and Cliff could see at a glance that Bob was not onboard. Had Bob been on one of the other patrol boats-both Boston Whalers-like Molly Brown, he would have been unsinkable. A Whaler would float even when cut in half, and run if you happened to be on the half with the engine. She hoped Bob's love affair with stealth hadn't killed him.
Because she'd be a fool not to, Anna swam around the boat to be sure a corpse was not pinned beneath or thrown nearby. She knew she would find nothing. Bob Shaw had been alive and swimming at one point. Either he'd left the site of the Bay and dropped first shoes and then duty belt in an attempt to reach the boat that had exploded, or he had jumped from the green boat before it sank and was swimming toward the Bay, dropping first belt then shoes.
Anna guessed it was the former for a couple reasons. Though they couldn't be sure without further investigation, it was a good bet that a piece of debris, blasted from the green boat, was the missile that smashed a hole in Bob's hull. The other reason was, knowing Bob Shaw, if he needed to offload weight, his shoes would go before his firearm.
Catching Cliff's eye, Anna pointed up. Together they surfaced. The strain of a long night, a severe pummeling and a near-death experience were catching up to Anna. Removing her snorkel, she whistled high and piercing, two fingers under her tongue the way Carl Johnson taught her in third grade. When Daniel sighted them she waved and was comforted to see him loose the two boats so they could motor over. Anna didn't feel up to swimming back, but, she told herself-as she would tell t
hem-she remained where she was because she wanted them to see Shaw's boat.
Back onboard, scrapes again on fire from various abuses incurred boarding and stripping off gear, Anna shared what she was fairly sure was the good news.
"It looks like when the other boat exploded, a piece of it pierced Bob's hull and the Bay sank. Probably very quickly. It's a damn big hole. Bob was either thrown overboard or jumped. My bet is thrown. His radio is still on his duty belt. If he'd had time, he would have radioed for help before the water ruined it. From where we found the deck shoes and the belt, it looks as though, once in the water, Bob swam toward the other boat.
"There were survivors on it, is what I'm figuring," Anna finished.
"Bob died saving someone, or trying to?" Teddy asked. Her voice was vague, seeking her hero husband through darkness and fog, looking for an image to take to bed for a lifetime of lonely nights.
"I don't think he's dead," Anna said flatly. "He was swimming. We know he had a personal flotation device, and he was hale and hearty enough to think about saving someone's skin other than his own." She looked at East Key, a skinny ribbon of sand barely above waterline, a half-mile from the boats. "I think Bob and whoever he swam to save must be there; the closest landfall."
"Bob," Teddy said. It was half a question and half a call to the man she had come perilously close to giving up as dead.
"I think he could have tried for East Key." Anna tried to lower what could be false hopes, but it was too late. Teddy was firing up the Reef Ranger without waiting for anyone's by your leave. It was a wonder Anna and Cliff threw off the Reef's lines and saved the Curious from being bumped and towed alongside.
Anna stepped up to the bench and slid in beside Teddy. "Let me take over from here." Teddy had the boat up to ramming speed and, if the look on her face was any indication, had no intention of slowing down to beach the thing.
For a second Teddy glared at her, feral as any half-starved cat, but reason returned. She turned the boat over to Anna and moved to the bow to be that much closer to the place her husband might be.
Anna felt a pang of envy at the obvious love between the Shaws. So what if it was based on castles built in the sand of the Caribbean? And she dearly hoped she was right about Bob. After the first glad tidings and the departure of the Reef an unpleasant thought had darkened her mood. If Bob was on East Key and he was alive, why hadn't he been jumping, waving, signaling two NPS boats a mere half mile out to sea?
Cutting throttle, she let a wave catch and carry the Reef onto the sandy shoreline. East Key was concave along its western shore, creating a nice landing place. Teddy leapt ashore yelling, "Bob!" Anna stayed to give the Reef an extra pull above waterline. East Key was so small-measured not in acres and miles but yards and buckets-Teddy would either find her husband or know he wasn't there before Anna'd done.
"Bob! Bob?" Then, music to Anna's ears: "Oh, Bob."
Anna turned to follow the joyful noise. Teddy's head popped above a low dune with a prairie-dog quickness that nearly made Anna laugh.
"Bring the first-aid kit," Teddy ordered in a voice that had Anna hopping like one of Teddy's emergency-room orderlies.
The Reef's medical kit slung over one complaining shoulder, she scrambled up the dune behind which she'd seen Teddy Shaw's head. Sand ground into the abrasions on her bare legs and scorched the bottoms of her feet. As she topped the low dune, she forgot her petty concerns.
Ranger Shaw lay on the other side, his lower body sprawled across the legs of a dead man as if he'd lain atop the corpse before his wife turned him face up. Teddy cradled his head in her lap.
"He's not dead," she said fiercely as Anna took in the scene.
"Bleeding out?" Anna asked.
"No."
"Breathing?"
"Yes."
Shaw would live another couple minutes.
"Water," Anna said, dropped the first-aid kit where Teddy could reach it easily, and trotted back to the Reef. Shaw had suffered some kind of trauma, swum at least a half-mile if not more, either pursuing or towing another man, then lay in the sun for half a day. Dehydration would be a serious factor.
In the minutes Anna was gone Teddy completed the evolution from wife to head ER nurse. The dead man had been rolled on his side, facing away, to give him his dignity. The medical bag was set to shade Shaw's face, and Teddy had his trouser leg nearly cut off.
Anna joined her, unbuttoned Shaw's shirt, then ran both hands over his head, neck and torso to check for damage. "Back okay?" she asked as they worked.
"Clean," Teddy replied. "He was laying facedown half on the dead guy. I checked his back before I rolled him over.
"Head, neck and chest are okay," Anna said. "Oh, hey, got some eye movement."
"Not surprised. I hurt him. Look here." Below Bob's left knee the white of bone showed through the flesh. "Broken," Teddy said. "Compound. And lost a lot of blood.
"Bob, open your eyes," Teddy said commandingly.
Shaw opened his eyes; blinds going up in an empty room.
"You're okay, honey. We're here. You need to stay awake. We're going to sit you up so Anna can give you a drink."
Shaw came back into himself, his soul back in his eyes. "Water," he repeated. "Good..."
Cliff, Mack and Danny arrived. Bob was packaged and Danny and Mack carried him aboard the Reef. Mack argued for the Atlantic for some reason but was ignored. After the night's terrors and the day's adventures, Anna was going to carry her catch home.
She did give Mack the unidentified corpse. They didn't have a body bag and the remains, made festive by beach towels, were strapped to a backboard.
Teddy stayed at Bob's side murmuring endearments and giving him as many small sips of water as he would take. The bleeding around the fracture had stopped on its own hours before. Compound fractures were always bad, but where the exposed end of the bone had been drying in sun and jammed full of sand for five hours, complications proliferated. Other than rehydration, neither Anna nor Teddy would attempt treatment. Anna radioed Duncan, the fort's historian, to call the mainland for a helicopter. Before the Reef Ranger brought her cargo to the dock, he radioed back to let her know one had been dispatched.
Mack and Danny carried Bob to his wife's "hospital." The corpse was housed in the researcher's dorm with the air conditioning turned as cold as the thermostat had numbers for. The body would fly back to Key West with Bob and Teddy Shaw.
Everyone was anxious to hear Bob's story, but at Teddy's request, they left the infirmary. Mack, more tenacious or more curious, was inclined to ignore requests, and Anna had ordered him out. After that he remembered his manners and left with good grace. Nobody but the Shaws seemed to want to admit the adventure was over.
With water to drink, a saline IV drip to assist, and a cool dim place, Bob regained full consciousness. Anna asked to do the intravenous drip, needing the "sticks" to keep her IV status as an emergency medical technician current. After she failed twice, leaving small bloody prints behind, Teddy snatched the needle away and inserted it neatly.
"I'd have got it in another try," Anna said.
"Bob's suffered enough."
Anna knew that, but "sticks" were hard to come by.
After a shot of Demerol authorized over the phone by the medivac doctor and administered by his wife, Bob bordered on jocular. Sometimes being alive did that to a person.
When Bob was as comfortable as possible, Anna pulled up a stool and sat by the bedside facing him. Several times she breathed in and out, ridding her feverish brain of the strangeness and ghostly half-images that had plagued her since being awakened by Teddy in the middle of the night. Mind clean and open, she was ready to listen.
"So," she said. "Tell me what happened." She half expected to get a rebuke from Teddy. Though alert and oriented, Bob was in pretty bad shape. Teddy said nothing, and it occurred to Anna that heroes, regardless of personal injury, were expected to make it back through enemy lines to report, even if they had to do it with their las
t breath.
Bob began his tale with scattered thoughts and broken time lines, stopped, made adjustments inside his skull, and began again, this time at the beginning.
"Just before midnight I was heading in from checking the northwest boundary of the park. Three shrimpers, all outside our waters. Two family-owned. Been here before. Never been any trouble. The third looked like trouble. Details in my patrol log."
Bob's patrol log was providing reading for the fishes, but Anna didn't interrupt.
"As I came past Loggerhead, I caught a glint of something toward East Key. No lights, nothing like that, just a place on the water that didn't match up. I radioed in..."
His voice trailed off, and Anna watched his eyes grow dull as he searched his mind for verification of his words.
"You called in," Teddy said, taking the place of memory. "You told me you were onto something and needed radio silence."
Nevada Barr - Anna Pigeon 11 - Flashback Page 9