“Get that boat over the side, we need to go!” Anatoly yelled, looking over the railing in the direction of the oncoming police boat that was now less than a mile away.
“The battery is dying,” Silvio remarked, as he switched levers having lifted the boat high enough to clear the railing. The davit started swinging out over the water painfully slowly.
Anatoly removed the control box from the rucksack he carried and attached the wires he’d been playing out. Behind them off the bow the sun was approaching the horizon in a vibrant display of bright orange and yellow but none of them noticed. The skiff finally hung over the sea and Silvio returned to the first lever and lowered the boat to the water, gravity doing the work instead of the electric motor. Pavlo immediately scrambled down the ladder and positioned himself in the bow. Silvio looked around at the ex-trawler he’d become attached to, trying not to think about what was about to happen to her and the two people left on board. Without warning or ceremony Anatoly pushed two buttons simultaneously and a low boom shuddered through the boat which rocked violently. Anatoly staggered to the railing as the boat settled and stepped down the ladder into the skiff taking position at the tiller. Silvio and Julio looked down at the two Russians and both hesitated. Anatoly pulled the starter rope and the little outboard came to life on the back of the skiff as Pavlo unhooked the davit lines.
Anatoly looked up at the two Cubans. “If you want to live, get in the boat.” He reached for the pistol holstered under his arm.
Chapter 81
Sydney shook the door handle, but it was futile: the door might be old but it was heavy steel with a sturdy lock mechanism to match. AJ tried to take the cot apart to salvage something to smash the porthole with, but it was bolted together as well as to the floor. Sydney banged loudly on the door and yelled, but they hadn’t heard anyone outside since the explosion. The blast had felt like it was just outside their cabin and had rocked them both off their feet. They couldn’t be sure what caused it but the unmistakable sound of gushing water confirmed the result was a hole in the vessel. Without any tools AJ was having no luck with the cot so she sat down to clear her head and think things through. The old trawler had listed a little to the starboard side although she couldn’t tell if it had lowered in the water yet. But that was only a matter of time. She also knew these waters well enough to realise they were well clear of the wall and the sea floor was almost certainly thousands of feet below them. Not that it mattered. They were locked in a cabin in the middle of the boat so if it sunk in thirty feet of water they were still going to drown.
AJ scanned the tiny room, looking for anything they might use as a tool to pry open the door or smash the glass in the porthole. The cot was bolted to the floor and the light cover was screwed to the ceiling. There wasn’t anything else in the teeny cabin.
“AJ!” Sydney was still by the door and looking down at her feet.
Water was washing into the cabin under the door. AJ jumped up and looked out the porthole. “Shit, it’s going down, the window’s only three feet above the water now!”
Sydney’s face was streaked with terror, her eyes wide and she violently shook the door handle again. The reality hit AJ like a freight train. This was actually happening. They were helplessly trapped inside the cabin and the boat was going down. There was nothing they could do to prevent their inevitable death which would take several minutes to unfold, and end in a throat full of sea water instead of air. She’d been close to drowning before but the certainty of her current predicament made this far worse in her mind. Here she sat, in good health with plenty of air to breath, knowing that in a few moments she would die. Her legs felt weak and nausea swept through her stomach. Sydney stopped banging on the door and sat down on the cot next to her and they wrapped their arms around each other. Water gushed under the door and several inches up the sides indicating the rising level in the hallway.
“This is awful,” Sydney whispered with tears running down her face. Water slapped against the porthole and startled them both.
“It’ll be quick once we go under,” was all AJ could manage to say. She was a take-action girl who was never one to stand by while life happened around her but she was out of ideas, she couldn’t see any way out and if this was the end she was determined to go as gracefully as she could. She’d give anything to be able to write a note to her family, just tell them how much she loved them and how thankful she was. Let Reg and Pearl know how much she cared and appreciated all they’d done for her. Wouldn’t get to them of course, the note would end up lost to the world forever at the bottom of the Caribbean Sea, same as the two of them.
Jackson. Her head dropped as she felt his arms around her, his soothing voice and beautiful smile. Every wonderful thing they could possibly be together, the laughter, the tears, the love and passion were about to be snuffed out. The hope and belief that this man truly was her soulmate, her one true and final love was about to drown with her in a few minutes.
The water was up to their ankles in the cabin and rising quickly. Outside, the splashes against the porthole were replaced with the sea itself covering the lower third of the glass. The sound of water gushing and streaming throughout the ship echoed around inside the small steel room. AJ knew once the deck swamped the boat would rapidly drop below the surface and any remaining air pockets would be quickly crushed from the vessel by the increasing water pressure as they plummeted to the depths. The idea that the glass porthole would blow apart in flying shards slashing through the cabin made her shudder.
The cabin door moved. The water poured in around the edge now almost knee high. AJ stared at the door in disbelief: had the water broken the lock? It opened a crack further and she stood up, pulling Sydney with her.
“The door! It’s opening!”
AJ reached over and grabbed the handle and pulled with all her might. The door slowly dragged open wider, resisted by the water in the cabin until a face appeared around the edge.
“Date prisa, debemos irnos ahora,” the man gasped, still pushing the door. “El barco se está hundiendo!”
AJ squeezed into the narrow gap they’d opened between the steel door and the jamb while the man she recognised from pulling up the anchor kept pushing it open. She reached back and clutched Sydney’s hand to pull her through after. “What did he say?” she asked, barely slipping through the gap.
Sydney pushed herself through behind. “He said the boat is sinking.”
AJ laughed as she helped tug Sydney into the hallway. “So he noticed then!”
The man made sure they were both clear then smiled nervously. “Hola, soy Julio,” he said, tapping his chest.
“AJ. I can’t tell you how good it is to meet you, Julio!” AJ replied and pointed to the stairs.
Julio nodded, turned and started wading towards the stairwell. AJ quickly assessed their situation. The hall was getting darker as the ocean covered the portholes and the water was thigh deep and rising visually. Ahead at the stairwell she couldn’t see any water running down the steps, which meant the decks hadn’t swamped yet, but it couldn’t be long. They needed to get up the stairs as fast as they could. She let Sydney go ahead and they shuffled through the water that had already risen to waist height. Julio stumbled as he started up the steps but recovered his footing and by the third step he was clear of the water. AJ watched Sydney trip at the same spot at the base of the stairs and reached down in the water to clear whatever had washed up there. She immediately recognised the smooth curvature of a Scuba tank and, feeling the buckle along its length, realised it was probably her gear.
The boat shuddered and rolled slightly; something had definitely shifted or given way and AJ abandoned her rig and followed the other two up the steps. Julio was pushing against the deck door with all his might to no avail, it wasn’t budging. AJ looked out the window next to the door and was shocked to see nothing but the Caribbean Sea and the davit poking through the surface. The decks were swamped, the boat was going down in a hurry and the door, that
opened outward, was pinned shut by the water outside. She grabbed Julio by the arm and pointed out the window. He looked just as the water level rose to window level and continued rising at an alarming rate, to their horror. Julio turned to the stairs up to the wheelhouse above and scrambled for them as the water began pouring in through any hole it could find, flowing like a river from the front through the galley and dining area.
“Stay here and hang on!” AJ yelled to Sydney and shot back down the stairs to the lower deck. She met the water at the turn in the stairs and had to plunge underwater to reach the lower deck. Her head careened off something hard and metallic as she swept her arms around trying to locate her gear. Her hand dragged across her BCD and she scratched and scrambled to pull it upright and find her regulator. Tracing the tank up to the first stage on top she followed a hose until it ended and plunged the reg in her mouth, hitting the purge button to clear the water. She sucked down a couple of sweet gulps of dry air and on the third breath the diaphragm went clunk and the air stopped. Damn it, she thought, sometimes I’m too efficient! She fumbled for the first stage and cranked on the shut-off knob until air streamed to her lungs again. She’d turned the valve off by habit when she’d left her gear in the skiff.
The water was moving with force now but she struggled into the BCD and managed to clasp the waistband. She couldn’t see a thing submerged but even if her eyes could focus underwater it was too dark now. She fumbled for the steps and half climbed, half swam to the main deck level and stood up. Her head barely broke the surface and it was almost completely dark.
“Sydney?!” she yelled taking the reg from her mouth and trying not to suck in water.
“AJ!” Sydney screamed from close by. They both waved their arms in the direction of each other’s voices and grabbed a hold when they touched.
“I’ve got you!” AJ shouted. “I have a reg you can breathe off, hang on to me, we have to let this level flood above the door before we can open it!”
They both bounced on their tiptoes to be able to keep talking and AJ handed Sydney her spare regulator. “Where’s Julio?” AJ spluttered, trying not to gulp the water that was splashing and swirling as the room rapidly filled up. Something bowled Sydney over into AJ and they were both thrown underwater, unable to take a breath before going under. AJ stuffed the reg she had in her hand in her mouth and fumbled to find her octopus, the spare regulator on the end of a long hose used in emergencies. Someone was on top of her as she hit the deck and she fumbled to locate body parts and orientate herself. She found the person’s face and collecting her spare reg in her other hand she jammed it unceremoniously in their mouth and purged the reg. By the hair she could feel swirling about she presumed it was Sydney, who stopped flailing and AJ heard her sucking in a big lungful of air. Other hands clawed through the water and swiped at the hose to AJ’s reg, wrenching it from her mouth. She grabbed hold of the flailing arm and pulled them towards her, sweeping an arc with her other arm to recover the reg. She found Julio’s face and stuffed the reg into his mouth, which stopped him windmilling around and the three lay holding each other on the deck floor as the boat continued down.
AJ needed air and then they needed to get out before they were too deep to survive. She gently held Sydney’s head and tugged lightly on the regulator. Sydney instinctively grabbed the hand trying to steal her air but after feeling AJ’s hand seemed to get the idea and relaxed, letting AJ take the reg and draw a few breaths. The air felt so good it was hard to give it back but taking a lungful AJ returned the reg and tried to gather the three of them to their feet on the deck. She had to find the door but they’d been knocked away from the rear of the structure and she touched nothing but water.
In the complete blackout she was totally disorientated and the sinking boat had a strange floating feeling as it rocked around; the boat could be inverted for all she knew.
Chapter 82
Pearl kept the throttle pulled back and the Newton bounced and bucked as fast as she could go. They all hung on to anything they could but no one asked her to slow down. From over a mile away they’d seen the skiff with three people aboard push away from the trawler and start motoring towards shore. Shortly after, the big old boat had begun to lower in the water and list slightly. Half a mile out and it was clear the trawler was sinking and the police marine unit had altered its course to intercept the slow moving skiff. Pearl finally eased back the throttles and the dive boat slowed and glided to where the trawler had recently disappeared below the surface leaving a strange swirling and welling of water at the surface. Debris and flotsam popped to the surface, bobbing around and occasional bursts of bubbles frothed the surface.
Carlos dropped his head in his hands. “No, no, no.”
Pearl put her arm around his shoulder, squeezing him tightly but she had tears rolling down her cheeks, “Our girl was on there too, wasn’t she?” Pearl looked at Reg but all he could do was stare at the water in disbelief.
“We don’t know if either of them were still on board, let’s not jump to conclusions,” Roy tried to offer some hope.
“Sydney was on there, I know she was,” Carlos moaned, his eyes filled with tears.
Roy opened the microphone on the marine radio, “Marine Unit Three this is Whittaker, they talking? Over.”
After a beat the radio crackled to life, “Detective Whittaker this is Three, two of them swear they were the only ones on board, the third won’t say a word, I believe he’s a Cuban national sir, but he won’t respond to English or Spanish, over.”
Roy thought for moment before responding, “Three this is Whittaker, separate the Cuban from the other two and see if he’ll talk then.”
“There should be two Cubans sir, not just one,” Carlos raised his head and spoke, “Silvio and Julio are the two.”
Roy looked at the young man. “You could tell us which one we have, you know them?”
“Of course, we all work together,” Carlos replied.
“Pearl, can you take us over to them, let’s see who we have, maybe they’ll talk to Carlos,” Roy requested but Carlos wouldn’t hear of it. “We cannot leave, please, we have to stay here. They could still be alive, they could appear, there’s stuff surfacing still!”
Roy rested a hand on Carlos’s shoulder, “Son, if they were in that boat I’m afraid they’re gone. Best we can do is hope they weren’t and there’s three men over there who can answer that for us.”
Carlos looked completely defeated but Reg spoke up from behind them. “Give it a minute or two longer. Won’t change anything they have to say.”
Roy nodded. “Fair enough, we can give it a minute.”
Chapter 83
Total darkness consumed the inside of the trawler and the boat groaned and creaked ominously. AJ could feel a wall to her left, but it could be the ceiling or the floor for all she knew. She moved the entangled group of three forward and felt Julio bump into something. Reaching behind him she felt a horizontal surface. Julio pushed back and she could tell he was guiding them now. He must have recognised his surroundings, which she guessed had to have been the dining area table. Manoeuvring three people, unable to communicate, submerged in water in complete darkness was no easy task. They stumbled and stepped on each other but the two girls could sense Julio thought he’d found his bearings and were happy for him to steer them. AJ really needed another lungful of air so while tripping and fumbling their way across the floor she repeated the exercise with Sydney, who didn’t resist the reg exchange. AJ banged into another wall but this time something jabbed her in the hip as the scuba tank made a muffled metallic clang against the steel structure. She took a full inhale of air and returned the reg to Sydney so she could use her hand to feel around. A door handle! She rotated down and the wall felt like it slowly swung outward. Realising it was the door that was opening she pulled the other two into the opening and kept pushing on the door against the resistance of the water. An eerie dim light bathed the stern deck of the trawler and glancing up AJ could ma
ke out the faint glow of the surface, which seemed to be falling away from her. She felt dizzy and reached out to stop herself from falling over but as she looked down to catch her fall she could just make out the deck was still below her under her bare feet. Her head spun and she blinked to try and clear her vision before looking up to see the surface light was now gone. It was over her right shoulder. The boat was rolling over, Julio was still inside and her spare regulator was floating in the water on the end of its hose. Sydney stepped clear of the doorway as the door rotated above them shielding the surface light as the boat passed ninety degrees in its roll. AJ grabbed the spare regulator and drew in some clean, dry air while reaching for the door jamb and pulling herself back into the opening. She felt a tug from her first stage which she presumed was Sydney’s reg line being pulled tight; she could only hope that Sydney would figure out what was going on. She swept her hand around inside the cabin as far as she could reach but touched nothing.
She knew by the faint light from above they were already far too deep but she couldn’t leave Julio inside. The man had come back to save them so despite all instincts screaming at her to ascend she pulled herself back inside the darkened, sinking boat. Still attached to Sydney, who she could feel close behind her, she knew they only had a few seconds to find him before the boat completed its roll and the hull would be between them and the surface. They’d never make it around the structure. She guessed he’d made the wall but missed the door so he had to be either up or down as the boat was now on its side and still turning. Going by nothing more than an instinctive hunch she reached up and swirled her hand around in empty water until she slapped the wall. She could feel the rotation of the boat now with her legs still in the doorway; the door frame was spinning her with it. Her mind was getting hazy and dim from the nitrogen narcosis at depth and she could sense a cloud of paranoia and tension descending upon her. She’d chosen the wrong side, he must be the other way, she’d dragged herself and Sydney back into the sinking wreck and guaranteed their fate. Every regret, mistake and demon her mind could conjure fell upon her in an avalanche of self-doubt and inadequacy. AJ gritted her teeth and lurched one more time into the space above her, fighting back the narcosis, determined to find the man who had come back for them. If they were going to die down here, they’d damn well die together.
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