Her hand struck a limb and before she could even know what body part it was she pulled down with all her might, hooking her leg around the door opening as an anchor. Julio plunged towards her in full panic, arms flying, free leg kicking, so before he could grab hold of her she took a big gulp of air and with a fistful of his hair in one hand she rammed the reg in his mouth with the other. Pulling violently on his hair she dragged him with her and shoved Sydney back out the doorway. Above them a looming mass blocked the light showing the long smooth silhouette of the hull as the boat continued its roll. AJ kicked liked crazy and could feel the other two doing the same. She angled them up but away from the bulk that was swinging above them, threatening to drag them once again towards the sea floor.
Her lungs were on fire. She’d burned through all the useful oxygen from the last gulp, her heart rate pegged with adrenaline and effort. But still she kicked. Her mind was fading, but still she kicked. The narcosis she’d staved off was crowding in again as her brain craved oxygen, but still she kicked. The hull was above them and felt like it was crushing them, chasing them, relentless in its desire to take them to the bottom. AJ barely hung on to consciousness; as much as her mind told her legs to kick there was nothing left, she was done. What felt like the weight of the world fell upon her legs and she knew it was the Explorador de la Reina. The old boat was taking hold of her, the other two and all evidence of the devastation about to befall miles of beautiful reef. Carlos would be left with no proof. He’d be deported for his theft of the plane and the explosives would be set and the coral blown to pieces along with millions of fish and sea creatures. The world would take another step forward on its own destruction, its seemingly determined path to destroy all that sustains life on the planet. AJ felt a searing pain along her legs like someone was shaving the backs of them with a handful of barnacles. Her arms were pulled tight, stretched painfully taught until finally the barnacles let go of her legs and everything went hazy, her last thought being that death was actually quite peaceful at the very end.
Weird shapes formed in front of AJ’s eyes and a strange sound of inhalation and release echoed around her. Her focus slowly formed and she made out two figures in a blurry landscape. She took another long smooth drag from the regulator and like a curtain being raised on a stage all was revealed. Julio and Sydney had an arm each and were pulling her upwards, straining against a pull from below. Her head dropped to reveal a large shadow fading below them as the trawler and the suction from its descent fell away and finally released them. Sydney gently pulled the regulator from AJ’s mouth and they began a rhythm of buddy breathing. She looked up and could see the surface still a long way above them. She fumbled around her chest and found her dive watch clipped to a D ring on her BCD. She looked at the screen. The human cornea has evolved to see clearly through air, not the density of water, so no matter how much she squinted she couldn’t get focused. The one thing she could see was the screen was flashing, which meant trouble. They were still in deep shit. She pointed her thumb urgently towards the surface and the other two seemed to get the idea. All three kicked harder and AJ hit the inflate button on her BCD to help them ascend. She hated to use the air to fill the BCD instead of breathing but every breath at this depth took massive amounts more air to fill their lungs against the increased water pressure. The sooner they reached shallower depths the longer the air would last. Another minute and they were all desperately tired from kicking and were sucking down air at an alarming rate, all breathing from the same tank. AJ could feel her BCD expanding as the surrounding water pressure lessened and instead of taking her turn on the regulator she released some air through the dump valve on the inflation line and let the escaping bubbles fill her mouth. She took in a little sea water along with it but it saved some of their precious air. She knew they should be making their first safety stop at sixty feet to dissipate some of the large excess of nitrogen they’d been absorbing from the compressed air, but with no way of knowing their exact depth or air left, they didn’t have that luxury.
When they reached what she approximated to be twenty feet she halted the group, to their surprise. Julio tugged on her arm to keep going but she pulled him back to her. Without masks none of them could see clearly and with no way to talk AJ was out of methods to communicate. All she could do was hope they’d trust her which by their compliance to hang at this depth they appeared to do. She started counted in her head, one, one thousand, two, one thousand… She looked at her dive watch again and the screen was still flashing. No surprise there, she thought; if she could focus her eyes it would show her the instructions of depth and time to follow to safely release the nitrogen from her system to avoid decompression sickness. Of course it would be wholly inaccurate as three of them had been sharing the tank but her computer didn’t know that. She realised she’d forgotten to count as her mind wandered. One, one thousand, two, one thousand, she started over. Holding at the same depth she could no longer take expanding air from her BCD so they went back to sharing the regs, taking turns amongst the three of them. Without knowing how much air was left in the tank and unable to see her computer screen she figured they’d hang here for at least five minutes and then ease up to the surface. She realised she’d stopped counting again, but then it didn’t matter. The diaphragm in both regulators clunked closed at the same time, the tank was empty. They all kicked like mad and looked up towards the surface that seemed a lot more than twenty feet away without an air supply.
They burst through the surface and gasped, spluttering and coughing as they swallowed some salt water along with the air. They could just make out the tops of the buildings on the island but they were miles away. The sun was setting and the light fading as they all scanned the water towards Cayman. The thought that they were now lost on the open ocean quickly dawned on them. The swell rolled and lifted them higher and they spotted two boats about half a mile towards shore. They yelled and waved but sensed how difficult they’d be to spot, and impossible to hear, over this distance.
“Need a ride,” a soft American voice made them all jump. They turned to face a man in a small boat silhouetted against the setting sun. A hundred yards behind him was a much larger boat. AJ splashed over and with the last strength she had lurched up into the waiting arms of Jackson.
Chapter 84
Pearl couldn’t let AJ go. She struggled to piece together any real sentences; she just muttered and mumbled and cried and hugged. Reg made sure the three survivors were breathing off the emergency oxygen cylinder carried on all dive boats and they passed a second cylinder over from the police boat. They hadn’t shown signs of the bends or nitrogen sickness but AJ’s dive computer reported a maximum depth of 205 feet, seventy-five below the recreational safe diving limit, so they weren’t taking any chances. Carlos endlessly fussed around Sydney, wrapping her in a towel, checking on her oxygen mask and getting her to drink water until she thought she would burst. Once he discovered Julio had been the one to save the girls he gave his Cuban compatriot the same treatment and thanked him repeatedly.
Whittaker had the police boat tied alongside with the two Russians handcuffed to the bench in the stern. They sat silently, refusing to say anything but “contact Russian embassy” with a smug expression. He kept Silvio separated from them, also handcuffed, but seated in the wheelhouse. He’d hung his head when Jackson motored over with the three and had remained that way since. Jackson helped Reg administer the oxygen and squeezed AJ’s hand each time he passed when she could free a limb from Pearl’s bear hug.
Roy stepped over to the Newton and sat next to Sydney. Letting out a sigh, he scratched his head and spoke quietly. “Would it bother you too much to come over and give me an ID on these fellows? I don’t want to put you through any more trauma than you’ve already been through, so it’s fine if you’d rather not, but it would help me expedite things if you’re up to it?”
Carlos waved his hand. “No sir, can she do this later?”
But Sydney cut him off, slippi
ng the mask away from her face. “I’m fine, I’d rather do it now.”
She stood up and looked over at the two Russians, who stared back disdainfully. “They’re handcuffed, right?” she asked.
“Absolutely,” Roy assured her, “and strapped to that bench. They’re not going anywhere.”
Sydney unwrapped herself from the towel, letting it fall, and stepped over to the police boat. “Let me make sure I get a proper look, Detective.”
Carlos reached out to stop her and Roy stammered, “Oh, you can just look from over here Miss Bodden.”
But she was already on the deck of the police marine unit boat and stood right in front of her assailants. Sydney pointed to Anatoly, “This one and another guy, his boss I believe, are the ones that took me and shoved me in the boot of their car. He also pointed a gun at me and AJ and locked us in the cabin when they scuttled the trawler. The other one,” she pointed to Pavlo, “I never saw him.”
“I did.” AJ escaped Pearl’s grasp and stood looking from the dive boat. “I saw him in the dining area of the trawler, he was there.”
“Okay,” Whittaker began but before he could say anything more Sydney swung a solid right hook and Pavlo’s head jolted back. For a second all hell broke loose as Roy jumped over to the other boat and the marine policemen came out of the wheelhouse. They gathered Sydney up before she could get off a another swing. When things settled Pavlo sat looking dazed with blood seeping from his lip and they hustled Sydney back to Reg’s boat.
“Well, a positive ID on both then,” Whittaker muttered, slightly out of breath. “I’ll send the police boat in if, Reg, you’re okay with taking everyone else back to the harbour?”
Reg nodded with a smile on his face. “No problem, probably safest for them two.”
“Apparently,” Roy chuckled and untied the ropes holding the two boats together.
AJ grinned at Sydney. “Nice punch sister, but why did you hit that one?”
Sydney picked her towel back up, “I’d already kicked the other one so I figured I’d work my way around them. It’s the other guy I really want, he’s the one that punched me.”
“I’ll remember to keep him away from you,” Roy chuckled.
Reg fired up the Newton, and after the police boat had left, they dragged Jackson’s dinghy over to the Sword of the Sentry. Jackson stayed on the dive boat and they started the run back to shore with Sea Sentrys’ boat following.
“So what happens now, Detective?” Carlos asked Roy politely with a hopeful expression.
“Good question.” Roy rubbed his temple and took his time replying. “Not much precedent for these circumstances, I have to say; I’ll need statements from everyone of course. You explained to me about your Cuban reef you’re trying to save. I suppose that’s why these chaps are here?” He pointed to Jackson and the large boat behind them.
Carlos hung his head. “Yes, but I have failed in all of this, the information and evidence I had went down with the trawler; the Russians took it when they grabbed Sydney, now it’s destroyed.” He looked at Jackson, “I’m so sorry, you came all this way for nothing.”
“Not for nothing,” AJ smiled and nudged Jackson while she looked over at Sydney.
Sydney grinned. “Nah, not for nothing. I made a flash drive copy you dope.”
Carlos’s face lit up, “You did? Where is it?”
The girls looked over at Pearl. “Where only one man would ever find it,” Pearl said with a laugh and reached into her bra and retrieved a flash drive from her cleavage.
Salvador Barrios stood on the pier out back of the Instituto de Estudios Geológicos and watched as the Cuban naval vessel backed out of the inlet. His mobile phone rang and he retrieved it from his pocket, answering sternly, “Barrios.”
“Mr. Barrios, I’m afraid we have a problem,” came the Russian voice, sounding less contentious than usual.
“No,” Barrios snarled back. “We already had a problem – you’re supposed to have a resolution.”
The line was quiet for a moment. “I’m afraid it’s a bigger problem than anticipated.”
Barrios shook his head. “I’m watching the ship leave for Jardines de la Reina now, everything is ready to begin work on Monday. You told me you would resolve this!”
“Tell your boat to come back. When you see the news tomorrow you’ll understand why.”
Epilogue
Sea Sentry, further inspired by Jackson witnessing the attempted murders and suppression of evidence, stayed true to their word and facilitated an impressive press conference, broadcast online to a worldwide audience of eager reporters and public. Carlos overcame his nerves and delivered an impassioned and clear synopsis of the Gardens of the Queen’s impending doom with speedily prepared maps and diagrams of his own creation. It was enough. The Republic of Cuba denied all knowledge of the plan and went to great lengths to show their future scheme to drill miles off the coast from deep-sea rigs. The Russians said nothing.
Detective Roy Whittaker had his work cut out sorting through the political hornet’s nest in the wake of the sinking of the Explorador de la Reina. The Russians demanded their men be handed over, the Cubans demanded their people, including Carlos, be handed over and the Cayman Islands government were in no hurry to do either. With Carlos not revealing any official Cuban documents and them denying they existed, his crime was stealing the plane. The Cayman Islands court refused the extradition request and granted him asylum and residency on the island, where he planned to marry a Caymanian citizen once she graduated from university in Miami. Silvio, they were happy to hand over. Julio was a harder case but after much campaigning from everyone, including Whittaker, he was also granted asylum with employment secured servicing Reg Moore’s dive boats.
All three Russians were sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment for attempted murder. The Russian government complained and the Cayman government told them it would be up for discussion in about eight years if the men behaved themselves.
Roy sentenced Reg’s wife to play at the RCIPS Christmas party for the next ten years as penance for her husband withholding information from the detective. An arrangement satisfactory to all.
AJ and Jackson enjoyed a few more weeks together before the Sword of the Sentry left port for America. He assured her he would not be a nomad forever and she assured him she’d be on Cayman forever, so he knew where to find her. They chat across the worldwide web whenever they can and he urges his captain to stop by the island whenever possible. Her heart skips when she sees his smile across the airwaves and he thinks he’s the luckiest guy in the world. They both feel complete.
Acknowledgements
This book would not exist without the unwavering support and encouragement from my amazing wife Cheryl and great friend James Guthrie. I’m never alone on this perilous journey. My wonderful Mum and Dad always encouraged my creative adventures and for that and much, much more I’m forever grateful and in their debt. My editor, Andrew Chapman of www.preparetopublish.com, has been a game changer and an absolute pleasure to work with, thank you so much.
Above all I thank you, the readers, it is your kind words that have opened the door to more adventures for AJ Bailey and myself.
Let’s Stay in Touch!
If you’d like to keep up with new releases and news please join my mailing list found at www.NicholasHarvey.org
If you enjoyed Gardens of the Queen I’d be incredibly grateful if you’d consider leaving a review on Amazon.com
If you enjoyed AJ and haven’t read the prequel novella, Cavern of the Lost Souls, it can be linked to through my webpage and book one in the series, Twelve Mile Bank, can be found here on Amazon.com
About the Author
Raised in England, working in America and heading for Grand Cayman. That encapsulates Nicholas Harvey's career, which has been dominated by motorsports from an early age as a driver, then race engineer, to senior manager at the top level of motor racing in the States. His first novel, Twelve Mile Bank, was published i
n 2017 and in 2019 Nick became a full-time author with the release of Gardens of the Queen and Cavern of the Lost Souls.
Nick and his wife Cheryl can be found touring the world in search of adventure on motorcycles, mountains and dive boats.
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