The Scorpion's Tale

by Wayne Block

  “Time to go down,” Pablo said.

  Steven peed into his wetsuit, which warmed him. He watched Pablo submerge and then followed him. It was a strange sensation as he fought his natural instincts to hold his breath. Before he knew it, he opened his eyes a few feet below the surface. His adrenaline was pumping and he was breathing hard. He was beginning to panic as he dropped further into the unknown. He pinched his nose and gently blew through it, feeling his ears pop and the pressure release. Steven saw Pablo ahead of him, motioning for him to fill his BC with air as the air in his vest counterbalanced the extra weights he carried to help him submerge. Steven managed to inject a little air into the BC and his descent slowed dramatically. He fumbled around and retrieved his depth gauge, which indicated fifteen feet below the surface. Shit. Another 85 to go, he thought.

  Steven looked up and saw the hull of the Dolphin Princess. Rays of sunlight pierced through the water as he watched air bubbles escaping from his regulator and gently rising to the surface. The water was crystal clear. He released air from his BC and descended a little more. He looked at his depth gauge and was astounded to see he was fifty feet below the surface.

  Pablo approached and demonstrated how to swim. By the time they reached Miguel and Rafael, Steven was almost at the ocean floor, where he saw the huge steel fasteners that secured the rope moored to the boat. Steven had now descended ninety feet. He wondered why he had been frightened of the water for so many years.

  -------------------

  Giovanna awoke as the plane landed.

  As she reached Business Class, Nick and his men began gathering their bags. No one noticed the man who ducked into the lavatory to use his cell phone. He quickly called the Scorpion to let him know he was with Nick and his party. The plan was proceeding as scheduled. “We’re about to deplane. I’ll call you in an hour.”

  The man emerged, happy that the plane doors had not yet opened. Nick and his posse were still in their original positions, sandwiched between other passengers, impatient to deplane. The man slowly maneuvered himself closer to the group. As the doors opened and everyone started moving, he surreptitiously slipped a small global positioning unit into Giovanna’s half-opened purse.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  The divers swam as a group, hovering ten feet above the freighter’s deck. One hundred feet above, Pablo’s guards on the Dolphin Princess listened to music, drank beer, and occasionally scanned the waters for unwelcome visitors. A boat came into view and ambled slowly toward the reef. In no apparent hurry, it appeared to be looking for anchorage on the other side of the wreck. One of Pablo’s guards scanned the boat with high-powered binoculars as it moved slowly, trailing a small zodiac where three divers appeared to be suiting up. The guard recognized the captain.

  “No worries, it’s West End Jorge.”

  Both guards retrieved their beers. As one lifted the bottle to his lips, it shattered, along with his head. The second guard had no time to react as a bullet from a Long Range Sniper Rifle exploded his head, too. A minute later, the zodiac launched from the dive boat and headed toward the Dolphin Princess.

  Underwater, time was suspended as Steven melted into the surrounding wonderland. At a depth of one hundred feet, he couldn’t hear the small outboard engine of the zodiac, but with almost perfect visibility, Steven caught a glimpse of its underside moving slowly through the water. Steven could also make out a portion of the hull of another dive boat that had dropped anchor a few hundred feet from the Princess. Pablo and his men also noticed the intruding vessel and Pablo signaled Rafael and Miguel to surface. Suddenly, as Steven’s eyes were fixed on Pablo’s bodyguards swimming to the surface, a huge net loaded with heavy weights and unidentifiable contents plummeted down from the surface to the ocean floor directly beneath the divers. It looked like a giant meteor, rocketing toward the bottom, leaving a huge trail of brownish-red smoke in its wake. The divers had only seconds to evade the projectile. Mike and Pablo swam clear, but Steven’s right flipper became entangled in the net, dragging him down to the sandy bottom.

  As the mass hit the ocean floor, it exploded into a huge cloud, momentarily obscuring Steven’s view. Steven was disoriented as he tried to extract his fin from the net and pressurize his ears from the rapid drop. As the particles began to settle, the water cleared and Steven realized the mass was a giant ball of chum that exploded on impact, scattering bloody fish parts in every direction. He looked up at the terrified expressions of his companions, but because of his inexperience, he was unable to immediately grasp their concern.

  Pablo frantically withdrew his knife, indicating a cutting motion to Steven, while Mike pointed toward an object just beyond Steven. Steven unsheathed his knife, but still failed to understand their urgency until he turned toward his tangled flipper and saw a large, grey shadow passing a few inches over his head. It was at least seven feet long with a pointed snout; a Caribbean Reef Shark. Steven had no idea whether they posed a threat, but his instincts warned him that the fish blood would be like a red cape to a raging bull. Steven saw terror on Pablo’s face and anxiously reached for his flipper while more sharks passed on both sides of him.

  One shark came straight at Steven and only veered away at the last second, to tear into a huge piece of fish floating near Steven’s tangled foot. Steven felt the predator’s immense power as it thrashed its head and ripped apart the fish. As another shark swam for him, Steven managed to cut the trapped flipper off and spring from the sand, barely passing over the shark’s rows of razor sharp teeth. He kicked with one fin, following Mike and Pablo away from the chum and toward the protection of the wreck. Steven looked up and saw the water turning gray as it rapidly filled with more sharks. The fish chunks had attracted hundreds of small fish, creating an eating orgy for the sharks. With their snouts elevated, they thrashed as they charged into a feeding frenzy.

  Mike and Pablo readied their spear guns, knives in hand and their backs against the wreck, anxiously looking for any escape. A few sharks peeled away from the chum, becoming more interested in the divers instead. A Black Tip Shark slammed hard into Steven, dislodging his mouth-piece even though he had been biting down so hard he thought it would break.

  They needed decompression time and with their air running out, remaining stationary was certain death. Steven didn’t know which would be more gruesome; being eaten alive by a shark or having nitrogen bubbles burst his brain. He refused to accept either option; he was determined to survive, at least long enough to exact his revenge upon the Scorpion.

  Mike signaled for the group to ascend slowly, attempting to draw as little attention as possible. Steven thought his heart would explode as he watched his worst nightmare unfold; the possibility of an underwater death.

  As Mike rose by necessity off the ocean floor and away from the wreck’s protection, a large Black Tip rammed into him from behind, knocking his spear gun from his grasp. Mike reflexively put his arms out to protect his torso. The shark took the invitation to his right arm and began thrashing. Ten feet below, Steven grabbed at the lost spear gun plummeting by him as Pablo lunged to save Mike with his knife. At that moment, Pablo was blindsided by another shark that wrapped its jaws around his thigh. Overcoming terror, Steven swam to Pablo and jabbed the spear tip into the shark’s eye, causing it to release Pablo’s leg from certain amputation. Fearful of spearing Mike, Steven became a desperate animal, digging his fingers into the shark’s eye socket. The shark released Mike’s badly ravaged arm, which spewed blood in every direction as they ascended, attracting the terror immediately below.

  No longer the novice, Steven stood guard directly facing the danger beneath him, the only line of defense for his injured comrades. Mike swam toward the surface with his uninjured arm and Pablo kicked with his good leg, swimming ten feet above him. They were now in sixty feet of water and closing in on the sandy shoals that Mike had described. A huge Black Tip came barreling straight for Steven, who was now the predator. At the last possible second he pulled the trigg
er–hitting the shark in its gullet, causing it to veer away and slash and roll erratically, with blood streaming from its body. The harpooned shark’s blood covered their trail, causing the others to cannibalize their own.

  Pablo focused on the zodiac now that they could decompress in the shallower water. Steven checked his gauges to monitor his progress, all the while keeping an eye out below. Everyone had watched the zodiac approach and dock next to the Dolphin Princess, and now they were waiting for Miguel and Rafael to make their move.

  Steven shifted his gaze between the Dolphin Princess, Pablo and Mike, and the feeding frenzy below. Each breath he took made him slowly rise toward the surface as his lungs filled with air. Then he would slowly exhale and sink. He repeated these actions for the remainder of the decompression period. He felt a sense of worth amid the horror that raged below. He now knew he could face anything.

  Unbeknownst to the divers below, the Scorpion and his two lackeys were boarding the Dolphin Princess. The three men planted bombs and detonators on the deck before the Scorpion promptly executed his two expendables. The zodiac pushed away from the Dolphin Princess and made a hasty retreat towards its mother ship. He watched Miguel and Rafael remove their BCs, discard their air tanks to the ocean floor, and climb up the ladder, disappearing onto the deck.

  Seconds later Steven saw air tanks plummeting through the water like torpedoes, followed by Miguel and Rafael frantically swimming after them. The tanks’ attached regulators looked like a metallic octopus vaulting to the ocean floor. Miguel and Rafael reached the shoal and strapped on their BC’s, making frantic gestures toward their companions to swim away. Suddenly Steven’s ears were shattered by a sound that reverberated through the ocean as he watched the Dolphin Princess explode in an orange fireball. Huge, flaming pieces flew through the air and back into the ocean hundreds of feet away. Steven could see a burning oil slick quickly form where the Dolphin Princess once floated. The explosion caused an instant retreat of the swarm of sharks below.

  Steven glanced at his diving companions, their eyes wide with fear as they retrieved the full air tanks thrown overboard. Miguel helped Pablo switch his nearly empty air tank for a new one while Mike did the same for Steven. They watched the surface as the hull of the attacking boat returned to the remains of the Dolphin Princess. Rafael grabbed Steven’s octopus regulator and swam as fast as he could with Steven toward the rocky shoreline. Steven pumped his legs like pistons to keep up. The dive boat had closed in on the Dolphin Princess and was now scouring the waters for signs of the divers. They were being hunted.

  Steven’s heart was bursting, but he refused to look at any of his gauges, focused only on the shore. He expected bullets to pierce the water at any moment, but none came. The water rapidly shallowed as the bottom changed from sand to rock. Pablo signaled for all to stop and for Miguel to survey the surface. Miguel slowly rose, taking a final breath of air from Steven’s regulator. Moments later, Miguel submerged and signaled for everyone to surface. They watched from behind the protection of the rocks as the diving boat completed a final circle and moved farther out to sea, eventually disappearing from view.

  Miguel moved out past the rock and searched for the dive boat. Satisfied that it had disappeared, he swam back to Pablo. “We got onto the boat and saw Ferny and Naldo. Their bodies were hanging off the ladders. Their heads had been blown away.”

  “There were two more bodies on deck,” Rafael added. “They were in wetsuits but looked familiar. I only saw them for a second.”

  Pablo pretended to look stunned. He knew that the Scorpion’s “expendables” had been killed but he was irritated that his guards had also been added to the list.

  The group eventually made it to the highway after fashioning makeshift tourniquets to slow the bleeding. Mike and Pablo were beginning to show signs of shock from their blood loss. As luck would have it, one of Pablo’s men passed by with a stupefied expression, seeing his bloodied employer walking on the road in his bathing suit.

  When they returned to the compound, a guard at the gate ran to the car. “Señor Munoz, we were worried. We just received a radio communication that your boat exploded and that none of the divers had been located. We just sent out another boat to look for you.”

  Munoz nodded his head. “Call them back. I need answers. Get the doctor.”

  The guard looked at Miguel, then at Pablo. “We just heard from our friends in West End. Jorge Habana took a dive party out this morning and they found his boat a few minutes ago with West End Jorge and his cousin dead. Someone hired him and two other men yesterday. So far, nobody remembers much about the client other than he was European or American.”

  Pablo stroked his chin as he spoke to one of his guards. “The two other divers were killed on our boat. I want you to get everybody down to West End and out to the airport. If anyone remembers what the man looks like, contact the airport. If someone matches the description, he must not be allowed to leave. Notify me immediately.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Nick held Giovanna’s hand as they waited for the luggage. She couldn’t help noticing Nick’s perspiration and his eyes darting back and forth.

  Pete went outside the terminal to arrange for a limousine. A few minutes later, he entered the baggage claim area followed by a uniformed chauffeur pushing a luggage cart.

  “Louie, did you tell the driver we need to make a quick stop?” Nick asked, as he got into the limo with Giovanna.

  “Yeah. We’ll take a detour and Pete and I will get the goods. It should only take a few minutes.”

  “What are you talking about?” Giovanna asked. “Why are we stopping?”

  Nick squeezed her hand. “We’re just picking up some supplies that we couldn’t get through customs,” he replied, smiling politely.

  Giovanna caught the exchange between Louie, Nick, and Eddie. “Should I bother to ask about the specific nature of the supplies?” she said, a tinge of sarcasm in her voice.

  “No, don’t bother,” Nick answered.

  Giovanna sighed and shook her head disapprovingly. She looked out the window. “I’m not that dumb, gentlemen.”

  The limo pulled off the main road onto a suburban street and into a driveway with an electronic gate. The gate opened and Louie and Pete went inside. They returned a few minutes later, each carrying a black leather bag. Louie got into the limo and Pete handed him the two bags, before sitting back up front.

  Louie sat with his back against the window separating the driver from the passenger compartments. He unzipped one of the bags and looked inside, careful not to expose the contents.”

  “How does it look, Louie?” Nick asked.

  “We’re all set.”

  The limousine eventually pulled in front of the five-star Copacabana Palace Hotel, directly across from the world famous beach of the same name. Three bellmen enthusiastically greeted Nick’s party and began unloading their luggage.

  Nick got the keys for everyone’s rooms and handed a set to Eddie and Braulio. “You guys are slumming it. You’re on the fourth floor in a Deluxe Ocean View Suite.” He turned to Pete and Louie and handed them their room keys. “You guys are on the sixth floor with us. We’ve got connecting Penthouse Suites.”

  “Nick, you mind if the boys hit the bar?” Pete asked.

  “No, but first go through those bags and make sure we have what we need. Then join us in the restaurant.”

  Pete grinned. “We’ll take care of it now.”

  Nick turned to Giovanna. “Are you hungry?”

  “Very.”

  “Good, because I’m starved.”

  Nick found a round table by the window and they all sat down. The waiter approached the group and addressed Nick.

  “Sir, may I bring you some menus, or would you first like some wine?”

  “Do you have Feijoada today?”

  “It is our signature dish,” the waiter replied.

  “What is it?” Eddie asked.

  “It’s a stew of beans w
ith beef and pork. Trust me. You’ll love it. It’s native cuisine and best prepared here.” Nick addressed the waiter: “Bring us six orders of Feijoada and the best red wine you have.”

  -------------------

  Upstairs, Louie went directly into one of the bedrooms and opened the leather bags. Pete entered as Louie was removing different guns and extra clips.

  “Quality stuff.”

  “I’ll say,” Louie said, inspecting a gun he was holding.

  Pete whistled and moved closer. “Is that what I think it is?”

  Louie admiringly stroked the gun. “Yeah, this baby would be a Walther P22 with suppressor package. There are two more.”

  “I know what Nick’s gonna want,” Pete chuckled. “Put me down for the same.”

  Louie smiled. “That makes one for you, me, and Nick.”

  “What else we got?” Pete asked.

  Louie grinned. “You’re not going to believe this,” he said as he removed a larger weapon from the bag.

  “Holy shit!” Pete said. “How many UZI’s are there?”

  “Three. Plus, they’ve all got Gemtach Mossad silencers!”

  Pete beamed. “Man, this is going to be fun!”

  -------------------

  After eating, the group returned to their respective rooms to sleep off the four bottles of Boscato Reserva Cabernet Sauvignon they consumed. When Nick awoke, Giovanna was still asleep. Nick retreated to the terrace, cell phone in hand, beyond earshot of Giovanna. He dialed Giorgio for an update.