Into the Deep

by Virginia Smith

  He let go, and the sudden weight dragged at her body. A moment to regain her balance, then she slowly made her way to the rear, shuffling her fin-clad feet across the deck to avoid tripping. She had almost reached the diving platform when Ben’s voice stopped her.

  “Hey, you forgot something.”

  He moved with ease, heedless of the fins that were so familiar to him they were almost an extension of his feet. An underwater light swung from a clip on one side of his BCD, his underwater camera on the other. In his hand he held her mask, the ribbed snorkel tube attached.

  “Oh. Yeah.” She gave a short, anxious laugh as she took it from him. “I, uh, think I’ll need that.”

  His eyes bore into hers. “You’re nervous.” It was not a question.

  A dozen excuses came to mind. An experts-only dive site. More than two years since her last dive. Less than a full tank of air. A little boy back in Portland who would be devastated if his mommy died in a tragic scuba accident and never came home.

  But she didn’t voice any of them, only nodded.

  “You don’t have to go.” He laid a hand on her arm and smiled. “Really. I’ll just drop down, grab it if it’s still there and be right back up in a few minutes. You can wait for me here.”

  Oh, what a tempting offer! Nikki hesitated while a battle raged inside. She’d really like to do just that, wait here in the warm Mexican sunshine and let Ben retrieve the flash drive by himself. This was his mess, after all, not hers. Let him fix it by himself.

  But the lessons he’d taught her years ago had been well learned. She could still hear the vehemence in his voice as he insisted, “Never leave your dive buddy. Trouble can happen in an instant, and your dive buddy might be the only thing standing between you and death.”

  Nikki gulped. “No, that’s okay. I—I want to.”

  He hesitated, then nodded. “Then whenever you’re ready.”

  “Okay.” Her voice shook with nerves. To distract him—or maybe to distract herself—she touched the camera clipped to his BCD. “So, are you planning on doing some sightseeing while we’re there?”

  He looked down, as though a little embarrassed. “Habit, I guess. You don’t want to miss a Kodak moment.”

  Nikki felt the same way, though not about fish. Joshua did so many adorable things, she carried a camera with her all the time.

  Thoughts of her son sent a wave of longing through her. “Let’s just get down there and back up. No photo shoots this time.”

  She stepped to the edge of the platform, adjusted her mask and hesitated. The water here was as crystal clear as she remembered. Shadowy images looked like they might be only a few feet below the surface, but she knew that was an illusion. One reason Cozumel was considered such a great place for diving was the terrific visibility. Those shadows might be a hundred feet or more below her.

  With the regulator mouthpiece between her clenched teeth, she placed a hand over her face so the force of impact didn’t jerk off her mask and took a giant step off the platform. Salty water engulfed her in a cool embrace. She sank a few feet below the surface, but the air she’d put into her BCD turned it into a flotation device, and she popped back up almost immediately. Out of habit, she tapped the top of her head with a fist, the signal to the dive master that her entrance into the water was okay. Ben was beside her in the water a moment later.

  He removed his mouthpiece and asked, “You ready?”

  Nerves fluttered in her stomach. If she hadn’t had a regulator in her mouth, she might have given in to the impulse to say No! I’ve changed my mind. Instead, she swallowed her fluttering nerves and nodded.

  They faced each other, and Ben grasped her upper arm with one hand so the current wouldn’t separate them as they descended. She held the release button on her BCD inflator at the same time he did. As the air deflated from her vest, Nikki slowly sank below the surface, the weights around her waist pulling her steadily downward. Her loud breath rasped through the regulator like Darth Vader. She could hear nothing else. She kept her gaze locked on Ben’s face, his eyes clearly visible inside his mask.

  The pressure squeezed inside her ears, and she pinched her nose shut and blew gently, as she’d been taught. The pressure equalized with a pop. She repeated the procedure every few seconds as they descended. After the first few times, she performed the task instinctively.

  The world around them was tinged with blue. Light shafted through the water in visible rays, tiny sea particles dancing in the beams. Nikki glanced down. The dark structure below them grew larger as they neared and extended into the distance farther than she could see. The reef. The ocean pressed in on her from all sides, with no visible landmarks, nothing to connote their progress. Her sense of depth became fuzzy. How deep were they now? Her movements slowed by the water, she felt for the depth gauge at the end of one of her regulator hoses and held it up in front of her mask so she could read it. Fifty feet. Fifty-five. She equalized. Sixty.

  This was as deep as she’d ever been, and they still hadn’t reached the reef. The skin along her arms prickled with apprehension. The deeper the dive, the higher the pressure, the more nitrogen would be absorbed into her blood. The possibility of something going wrong increased exponentially. She stared into Ben’s face. His lips formed a tight seal around the mouthpiece, but behind his mask, warm green-brown eyes peered into hers. His grip on her arm tightened, and the edges of his eyes crinkled in a smile.

  He’s done this lots of times. There’s no need to worry.

  The needle on the depth gauge continued to move. Sixty-five feet. Seventy.

  Seventy-five.

  Nikki’s breath came faster. She was aware of the fact only because she could hear it so well, a raucous panting that accompanied the thud of her heartbeat.

  Relax. The faster you breathe, the more air you’ll use.

  And still, the needle on the depth gauge glided forward, like the second hand on a clock. Eighty.

  Eighty-five.

  They finally reached the reef at ninety feet. Ben released her arm, held his two index fingers together, and pointed them in a direction parallel to the wall, a signal that they were to swim side by side. Nikki nodded, and kicked in that direction. Ben stayed right beside her. They were swimming against a strong current, and she knew without checking her gauge that they were still descending. The pressure continued to build in her ears, and she continued to equalize as she swam.

  A vertical shelf of living coral, the Maracaibo Wall was an intricate work of natural beauty. An infinite number of shapes and colors provided homes for hundreds of species of marine life. Sea anemone clung to the colorful coral, their flowerlike tentacles gyrating back and forth in the strong current. A school of yellow-striped fish floated by, and as Nikki admired the way they moved in unison, a flash of blue caught her eye. A queen angelfish swam regally past, just out of reach. So calm. So peaceful.

  And still they descended.

  One hundred.

  One hundred five.

  One hundred ten feet!

  The dive tables she’d learned to read years ago came back to her. How much nitrogen had accumulated in her blood already? Panic sent her pulse into overdrive.

  She grabbed at Ben’s arm and, when he turned to face her, tapped on the depth gauge. Talking may not be possible at depth, but she poured her thoughts into her expression. She shook her head violently, which sent wisps of hair into wild floating acrobatics around the edges of her mask.

  He responded by pointing. Right in front of them, recessed beneath an outcropping of coral, a dark opening yawned. A cave.

  So that’s where the flash drive is.

  But if he thought she was going into a dark, scary cave at a hundred and ten feet, he had lost his mind. Nasty sea animals lived in caves, like sharks and moray eels. Plus, divers died in caves, even experienced ones. She stopped swimming, and within a few seconds the current had swept her back twenty feet in the direction they’d come. It was even stronger than she realized. Would she be s
wept away, never to be heard from again? She angled her body to face the current and kicked her fins against the flow just enough to stay in one place.

  When Ben turned a questioning gaze her way, she shook her head again, even more violently.

  He merely pointed again, turned and swam in that direction.

  Indecision paralyzed her for an instant. But what else could she do? Surface on her own and swim back to the boat? Desert her dive buddy? She had no choice but to follow him.

  But I’m not going in there. He knows I don’t do caves.

  She kicked against the current and caught up with him at the cave’s entrance. Ben ran water-whitened fingers along the outcropping above the gaping black hole. Then he grabbed her hand and placed it on the ledge. His fingers folded hers around the coarse coral. When he held his flat palm in front of her face, relief washed through her.

  He wants me to wait here for him.

  She gripped the coral more tightly, anchoring herself against the strength of the current, and nodded.

  Okay, I can do that. With her free hand, she tapped a finger against her wrist, where her watch would normally be. Just don’t be too long, okay? I don’t want to have to come in there after you.

  A nod, and then he raised his own finger. He touched it to his mouthpiece, and then to hers. An underwater kiss. They had come up with the gesture during their very first dive together, a way to share an intimate underwater moment even in the midst of a dozen other divers.

  Nikki sucked a deep breath through her regulator. What did he mean by that? Ben’s eyes widened, and for a moment, he looked as startled as she felt.

  Then he turned gracefully upside down and kicked his fins. At the cave’s entrance, he unclipped the dive light from his BCD and flipped it on. With the light held in front of him, he swam into the cave headfirst and disappeared from view.

  Nikki clung to the coral and stared out into the blue depths on three sides. She raised her hand and rubbed her fingers across her regulator where Ben had brushed his kiss a moment before. Obviously, he hadn’t meant that as a real kiss. It was a gesture made without thought, something they used to do back when they were in love. A habit. It didn’t mean anything.

  A pair of grouper swam by and a school of fish that looked like Dory in Finding Nemo. Above her, a flash of silver drew her attention, and she looked up. A long, thin fish with a distinctive underbite came into view. A barracuda. Instinctively, she felt for the cross that normally hung at her neck, but then remembered she had left it on the boat. A good thing. Barracudas were attracted to shiny objects. Nothing she wore should attract his attention. The fish started to swim past, then, in a heart-stopping moment, turned in her direction.

  Before she had a chance to panic, Ben emerged from the cave. Startled, the barracuda veered away and disappeared into the limitless blue ocean in front of her. Nikki relaxed her death grip on the coral.

  Unaware that he’d just interrupted a potentially frightening encounter, Ben held his dive light out toward her. The light had gone out.

  Oh, no. The battery died or something, so he can’t see to get the flash drive.

  Wait a minute. He held a second light in his other hand, the bulb still illuminated. Two dive lights, when he’d only taken one into the cave.

  He must have hidden the flash drive inside the other light.

  A great idea, actually. A dive light was waterproof and designed to withstand pressure. He must have tucked the drive inside, and then wedged it somewhere in that cave. The perfect hiding place.

  She released her coral handhold and clapped her hands. Well done, Ben.

  Smile creases appeared at the corners of his eyes. When he had clipped both lights to his BCD, he gave her a thumbs-up, the signal to ascend.

  And boy, was she ready!

  Their return trip required little effort. All they had to do was let the current sweep them along and make sure they didn’t ascend too quickly. Nikki was content to follow Ben’s lead. That was another thing she’d always admired when diving with Ben—he was always oriented and knew the exact location of the boat, while she frequently became disoriented underwater.

  At fifty feet, Ben placed three fingers of one hand beneath the palm of the other, the diver’s signal that it was time for a safety stop. They hovered in the water, holding on to each other’s BCDs to stay together, while Nikki tried not to imagine the nitrogen dissipating from her blood. After three minutes, Ben nodded, and they continued their ascent.

  At fifteen feet, they stopped again for their second and final safety stop. The surface looked close enough to reach up through the crystal clear water and plunge a hand into the sun-warmed air. The hull of the Alexandra was a dark, oblong shape overhead. Nikki saw that the sun had dropped closer to the horizon. What time was it? She took hold of Ben’s wrist and twisted it so she could see his watch. Almost five o’clock. They’d only been in the water fifteen minutes, though it had seemed like hours.

  A sound interrupted her raspy breathing. A low hum, distant but growing louder. She turned a silent question toward Ben and saw that he had heard it, too. His head tilted back as he scanned the surface above them. Then he pointed.

  Another dark oblong approached. A boat. Only two-thirds the size of the Alexandra, which meant it was probably a private vessel.

  Nikki’s heartbeat pounded in her ears.

  It could be anyone, she reasoned. Scuba divers getting ready for a night dive, maybe. This is a public dive site, after all.

  She searched Ben’s eyes for reassurance but found none. Instead, his forehead above the mask held deep creases. He’s worried.

  And that realization made her worried. The hum of the boat’s motor grew softer as the dark shadow slowed, and then came to a stop above them.

  Right beside the Alexandra.

  TEN

  Aware that Nikki was watching him, Ben forced himself to remain calm. He had no doubts at all that the arrival of the second boat meant trouble. Their scuba flag indicated to everyone that there were divers in this area, and the speed of the approach displayed a sloppy lack of concern for the safety of anyone in the water. Plus, that boat didn’t simply stop near the Alexandra, it came directly alongside her. The two hulls were side by side, nearly touching. Which probably meant the Alexandra was being boarded right now.

  He considered their options. They could go back down, leave the area, then surface and swim toward the island. No, bad idea. The island was several miles away, and Nikki wasn’t a strong surface swimmer. They’d never make it, certainly not before sunset. And of course they wouldn’t be able to signal for help—the flares were onboard.

  They could…

  He grappled for another idea and came up empty.

  A watery figure appeared above them. A man stepped onto the dive platform of the Alexandra, his image unfocused but unmistakable through the clear water. He leaned over and peered down, toward them.

  If Ben could see him, no question about whether he could see them. Nikki looked up, and then locked a wide, blue-eyed gaze onto Ben.

  He lifted both hands, palms up. What choice do we have?

  With a thumbs-up, he gave the signal to surface.

  A few kicks of their fins took them into the air. Ben spat out the regulator and ripped the mask off his face so he could see their situation clearly. Nikki hung close to his side, clutching his arm just below the water’s surface.

  The Mexican man on the dive platform stood with his feet spaced apart, his body moving easily with the motion of the rocking boat. Waves had wet the cuffs of his dark trousers, and the setting sun reflected off his white, short-sleeved shirt. Jet-black hair slicked back from a high forehead, caught in a tight ponytail at the base of his skull. He looked familiar, and in a flash Ben realized why. This was the man who had been watching them in the Mexico City airport. He lifted a cigarette to his lips, and the wind wisped the smoke away the moment it left his mouth.

  If Ben swam over to the platform, he could reach up, grab one of hi
s ankles and have the guy in the water before he knew what had happened to him. Once in the water, Ben thought he could take him.

  Except for what he saw in the second boat.

  It had been tied off to the Alexandra, and three men stood on the open deck. Young, muscular, not a single smile between them. All three seemed to tower over them and stared with menacing glares into the water at him and Nikki. All three clutched assault rifles in their hands.

  Nikki’s fingers bit into Ben’s arm.

  The first man, obviously the boss, drew again on the cigarette, then spoke in heavily accented English. “We have come to retrieve the information.”

  A dangerous glint in the leader’s dark eyes, evident even from this distance, told Ben this was not a man to be toyed with. And yet, the flash drive was their only bargaining chip. He needed to play his advantage for everything it was worth.

  He forced a laugh. “Yeah, us too. But it’s gone.”

  The man’s expression did not change. “Gone?” His tone clearly announced that he didn’t buy the story for a minute.

  Still, Ben had to try. “When I stashed it in that cave, I tried to wedge it tight, but—” He shrugged. “The current here’s really strong, you know?”

  Dark eyes studied him for a long moment and then glanced toward one of the men in the other boat. Not a word of command was spoken, but the second man lowered his weapon. In the next instant, a series of loud reports cracked in the air. The water a foot away from them erupted with bullets.

  Nikki threw her arms around Ben, clearly terrified, and a short shriek escaped her lips.

  “Hey! What was that for?” Ben shouted. “I can’t give you something I don’t have.”

  The man on the Alexandra took another calm draw on his cigarette. “I don’t believe you.”

  “Well, I can’t help that, can I?” A note of belligerence crept into Ben’s voice.

  Nikki’s grip on him tightened. She whispered, her voice low enough that only he could hear, “Give it to them.”

  He whispered back, “I thought you wanted to give it to the feds?”