Storm Rising

by Steven Becker

  “That looks bad,” she said and moved away for a better look.

  “It’ll keep until New York. I just need to stop the bleeding.”

  “How did you do it?” she asked.

  Mako thought for a second about whether he should concoct a story, but decided on a different course. “Do you have a layover? It’s a bit of a long story.”

  She ignored the question, smiled and removed a paper-wrapped cylinder from her pocket. At first he wasn’t sure what she was doing, then he realized it was a tampon.

  “This’ll stop the bleeding,” she said and placed it in the gash.

  Her touch reached up to his groin and elicited a different response than she was looking for. She removed a roll of gauze and bound the tampon in place, then looked up at him and did what she could to put his world into alignment.

  Maybe the pilot was right, he thought as he climbed over the knitting lady and took his seat. Minutes later, a smile on his face, he fell asleep.

  ***

  “Call them back!” Alicia yelled to the bridge.

  Cody hit the underwater horn three time, the prearranged signal for the divers to return to the boat. “What’s up?” he called down to the deck.

  “Weather coming.” Several small anvil-shaped clouds had been on the horizon for an hour now. None big enough in itself to cause them any problem, but in the last half hour they had melded together into a massive single cell which was converging on the boat. With such a large storm threatening, bobbing around this close to the Gulfstream with divers in the water was not a safe situation.

  Cody looked down at the indistinct mass of bubbles in the water. A storm could easily kick up the seas and put the divers in danger.

  Alicia looked back at her screen after hearing the horn. Things were going from bad to worse—first the weather and now the news from Mako that the drive was lost. She quickly texted him back asking for more details, but figured it would be hours before she heard back from him. With her head in her hands, she sat on the bench the divers used to suit up. After a few deep breaths, she went back inside. It would take the divers at least five minutes to react and another three minutes to do the mandatory safety stop she had prescribed at fifteen feet. On her laptop, she opened a new window, where she logged into a private chat with her contact at the CIA. This was not going to be a conversation she wanted to have. Even though the coldness of the Internet connection would screen her from his wrath, she knew it would be there. But that was only part of it. She and Cody had invested most of their meager savings into this venture. The charter and dive business paid the bills, but it was more a lifestyle choice than a retirement plan.

  She started typing as soon as the connection opened, explaining the circumstances that had led to the drive being lost. She heard activity outside the cabin and the distinctive sound of a large man stepping from the ladder to the deck. The divers were coming up, but Cody could handle them. She turned her attention back to the screen as letters appeared one by one. The secure interface had the feel of a 1980s computer game, and she had to wait as each word formed. The reprisal was instantaneous and condemned their actions, despite the fact that they were working on contract and would not get paid unless they produced.

  The tirade over, she waited a few minutes and pasted in the reply that she had already composed. There had been no question how this conversation would go, and she’d wanted to be prepared with a well thought-out response. A favorable response appeared on the screen, but the last line shook her. “The Agency has decided that with another contractor involved, the chances for success are greater.” She cursed under her breath—their exclusive contract was now open. Competition among contractors was often fierce, and this time, knowing the man she expected they would involve, it would be bad.

  The bang of empty cylinders from the returning divers permeated the cabin. She shut down the chat screen and closed the cover on the computer. On her way out the cabin door to help Cody, she wondered if John Storm was just opening his computer now to find out the contract was open.

  ***

  Foggy Bottom was suffocating. The late-June heat wave that had settled over Washington, D.C., made the city miserable, but was even worse in the low-lying areas built on filled-in swampland. The view of the Potomac was distorted by a layer of haze that had settled over the city. The vibration of the cell phone interrupted his thoughts as it echoed through the metal cafe table that just fit the confines of the small balcony. John Storm set down the newspaper. He regretted the adoption of the device, much preferring to go old school, but the darned things were too useful to ignore. His world had been a better place before the instant connectivity of the Internet and Wi-Fi. There was a time when people used to think about what they did and said before they broadcast it to the world. With a pained look, he picked up the phone.

  The Facebook message looked innocuous on its own, but he knew different. John slid open the patio door and cringed at the blast of cool air that met him. Air-conditioning was a necessary evil here, and although he loathed it, everything he owned, especially his book collection, would be destroyed by the humid D.C. air without mechanical intervention. He sat at the desk and tapped the space button on his hardwired computer. He didn’t trust Wi-Fi after watching a group of teenage hackers demonstrate to the Agency how easy the signals were to steal from the air. The wire offered him some comfort, but face-to-face was his preferred means of communication.

  While the computer rebooted, he rose and went to the kitchen. Experience had also taught him that answering too quickly would only raise the price of the information. He pushed aside the espresso machine his daughter had bought him in another attempt at refinement, and pulled the old drip coffeemaker from the corner. Storm stood at the counter thinking about the message and watching the dark brew drip through the filter. He had grown restless between assignments, and he felt the familiar surge of adrenaline at the prospect of a challenge.

  Five minutes later, with a hot mug of Folgers in hand, he sat down at the desk, logged in and smiled when he saw the message. It looked like Alicia and Mako had failed. He had been furious when they had been awarded the contract instead of him. The Art of War had instructed him to know his enemy, advice which he took to heart, and he had used all his contacts at the Agency to find out who had been awarded the contract. Now, the information was about to pay off. The Iranian was an old adversary, one he knew well from the days when subterfuge was more of a gentleman’s game. But the playing field had changed, with technology supplanting tradecraft. The cubicle dwellers now had an advantage. Contracts were fewer and further between now, and he had to take whatever scraps were tossed his way.

  He logged off and took his coffee and a legal pad back outside and started to plan. The first step was to find the Iranian. He started writing down a list of all the places he had encountered him over the years. London would not be safe for him after the failed attempt by Mako. It was well known that the Iranian loved his toys, and Storm thought for a minute before deciding the yacht would be his likely escape route. The ostentatious yacht christened Shahansha, the Persian translation for King of Kings, the title taken by Cyrus the Great, was large enough to sail anywhere in the world. It was a simple matter to find the ship’s current location. He went back inside and opened the old version of Foxfire. The antiquated browser was slow and lacked bells and whistles, but it allowed him to disable all the tracking features hidden in the newer versions.

  In the search window at marinetraffic.com, he entered Shahansha and waited. A tiny purple icon appeared and he zoomed in to its location. This might be easier than he’d thought.

  ***

  Alicia removed the fill hose from the last tank and shut off the air compressor. The divers were asking questions about the next dive, which she answered abruptly. What had originally looked like a lifestyle job, running dive charters to exotic locations, was now interfering with her real work. She secured the fill hoses, closed the lid on the air station and climbed the ladder t
o the bridge, ignoring as many questions as she could.

  Cody held his phone in landscape mode. “Stop with the games,” she scolded him.

  “Just killing time. Let them get a nice surface interval in before the next dive.” He didn’t look up from the screen.

  She watched his hands work simultaneously and wondered how she could apply his gaming skills to the real world—to make some real money. “The contract’s open,” she said and laid out the details.

  “Storm? Really?” he asked, finally looking up at her. “That dude’s older than Pac-Man.”

  “He knows the target well. He’s the logical choice.”

  Cody was silent for a minute. “Doesn’t matter who it is. We have to save this deal or we lose the boat.”

  She placed a hand on his shoulder. “We’ll get it, but I need a land-based Internet connection. The cell connection out here is too slow.” She tried to reassure him, feeling guilty at the same time for placing him in this position. The dive shop he owned in Key Largo had provided an easy life and plenty of time for gaming, but that had all changed the moment Alan Trufante had introduced them. She had been an analyst with the Agency then, forced from her desk job into her first field work by a corrupt agent. She’d found herself in an unlikely alliance with Mac Travis and his troublesome sidekick. Now Cody was in danger of losing everything he had, and it was her fault.

  “We can see what this storm does. Use it as an excuse to pull the plug and head into West End,” he said.

  She thought for a minute, trying to balance their priorities. Whatever happened with the contract, they still needed to keep this a viable business, and with Internet reviews ranking on the first page of Google, they couldn’t afford any bad press. “Let’s drop them on the wall for a deep dive and then do a quickie on the reef.” She looked at the dark clouds on the horizon.

  Cody followed her eyes. “It’s moving to the west. If we head east, we should miss it entirely.” He started the engines. “You up for a dive? I’m not feeling good about dropping them on the wall without someone to keep an eye on the max depth. Give them a twenty-eight percent mix. That’ll get them to one hundred thirty feet and keep the bottom time short.”

  The wall he referred to was exactly that, a sheer face of coral dropping deep to the ocean floor. It took an experienced diver to maintain depth in the clear water, where depth perception was almost impossible. It would be her job to stay at the maximum depth, giving the divers a reference to stay above. “It’ll give me a chance to think,” she said and climbed down the ladder.

  CHAPTER 5

  Alicia was the last in the water. She strapped into her equipment and slid to the end of the bench, where she put on her fins and mask. Before she got up, she placed the regulator in her mouth and started breathing. The transom door was only two feet away, an option she insisted on. Typically installed for hauling large fish onto the boat, with the added swim platform, it made getting in and out of the water easier, not only for her, but for their clients. She stood, bracing herself as her body took the weight of the tank, and shuffled her fins through the door and onto the platform. With one hand on her mask and the other over the regulator, she took a giant stride and jumped.

  The water was brilliant, the shelf where the reef dropped off to the abyss clearly visible almost eighty feet below. This time of year, her shorty wetsuit was warm now, but she knew in forty minutes, when she planned to surface, it would be needed.

  She followed the divers down the anchor line, taking her time to clear her ears as she descended. The group met at the anchor, where she made eye contact and gave the OK signal to each diver, checking their expressions as they signaled back. She was looking for signs of fear and anxiety, something she would keep in mind along the way. Once everyone had acknowledged her, she finned off in the direction of the wall.

  The coral heads and soft sponges prevalent on top of the reef disappeared as she crossed over the void. Despite the hundred-foot-plus visibility, when she looked down, the water faded slowly to black, the bottom a thousand feet below. Slowly she led the group down to a hundred feet, watching them carefully for signs of nitrogen narcosis. She checked her stopwatch and dive computer. They were already almost ten minutes into the forty-minute dive profile. The computer was set for the custom Nitrox mix strapped to her back, and showed a longer no-decompression time than the profile she had assigned the other divers, but with a group they would need to stay together. When the watch hit twenty minutes, she would turn and start back.

  The hundred-and-thirty-foot depth, the limit for recreational divers, was like a magical number for intermediate divers. It was not a big difference, but diving walls was more dangerous than a reef. With the clear water and no references, it was hard to maintain a consistent depth. Personally, she didn’t get the allure of deep diving. There were some neat things not seen shallower, but the increased air consumption and decreased bottom time made shallower diving more appealing.

  With her LED light, she scanned the crevices in the coral, pointing out anything unique or interesting to the group. Several eels popped their heads out, but pulled back into their holes when the divers approached. She got excited when a large eagle ray appeared below them, gliding effortlessly with the current.

  She glanced at her watch, realizing that they were at the turnaround time, and with a tap of her finger on her outstretched palm asked them to signal how much air they had left. One of the women seemed distracted and disoriented. She motioned the group ahead and went to check on her. Alicia tapped the woman on the shoulder and immediately saw the fear in her eyes. Her tank valve bumped a coral head when she turned, and her eyes widened further. Alicia moved closer and reached for the diver’s air gauge. The needle was already in the red, showing only five hundred PSI remaining. Most divers were instructed to plan on being back at the boat with that much air. In her present condition, the woman would not make it back at all. Alicia automatically reached for the alternate air source clipped to the right side of her BC and released the clip.

  Before handing the regulator, known as an octopus, to the woman, she checked her own gauges. With over two thousand PSI, she had more than half a tank and decided it would be better to buddy-breathe back to the boat. That would leave the other woman with at least some air in her tank if something happened. She handed the yellow regulator to the woman, who gave her a questioning look, and Alicia realized how bad this could get.

  The woman pushed away the regulator and continued to stare at the wall. Alicia had to take matters into her own hands now and calculated how long their combined air supply would last. Math was difficult at this depth, and she was working through the numbers when a turtle floated below them. Suddenly, the woman tore away, finning frantically to catch it. Alicia followed in her bubble trail, very conscious that she was exceeding the maximum depth for the gas mix, but also knowing there was a safety factor that equated to about fifteen feet built in.

  She kicked down to the woman, who had lost the turtle and was looking around, flapping her hands. She might not leave a good review on the Internet, but a bad review was better than a dead client, Alicia thought as she grabbed her tank valve.

  This part was all theory. She had gone through the diver training quickly, easily satisfying her instructors, but had never performed a real-life rescue. The woman flailed, not understanding what was happening. Alicia inflated her BC, using the added buoyancy to bring them higher in the water column. When they reached the reef, she released the signal buoy clipped to her side. The idea was to mark their position, get to the surface and let Cody come to them.

  She opened the buoy, pulled the regulator from her mouth and pressed the purge valve. A burst of air shot from the regulator into the air chamber of the marker, causing the red tube to rise. She was about to follow behind it when she realized the woman was no longer by her side. She looked down and saw her stuck under an outcropping, her regulator hanging free in the water.

  ***

  John Storm waited
at the ticket counter, getting impatient with the family ahead of him. He checked his watch again—twenty minutes to board—and tried to catch the agent’s eye. The kids were playing with the stanchion marking the end of the line, taking the ribbon off and running in circles with it. His eyes bored into the back of the incompetent father’s head in frustration, and he was about to do something he would regret when the agent handed the man back his credit card. He breathed deeply, but instead of putting his wallet away, the man removed another card and handed it to her.

  The kids were screaming now, their parents ignoring them, when another agent finally appeared and motioned John to the counter. He gave her the flight information and asked for a one-way ticket, for which he would pay cash.

  If it were a bank teller, she would have pushed the alarm button. The perfect profile of a terrorist stood in front of her. He gave her a reassuring look, having been in this situation many times, choosing the ridicule and the extra attention he would receive at security for the anonymity of paying cash. He looked at his watch again when finally she handed him his change and boarding pass.

  Security was thorough, but with only a small carry-on, he suffered the scrutiny, laughing to himself at the inadequacy of their procedures. If he wanted to get something past them, and many times he had, it would be a simple matter. TSA agents checked what you packed—not what you packed it in. There were all manner of ways to disguise objects in the hardware of a travel case.

  He walked swiftly to the gate, where the agent gave him a hurried look as she took his pass and closed the door behind him. He entered the jetway and made his way to his seat. The last-minute booking resulted in a middle seat, and he settled in for the flight to San Juan, where he would catch a puddle jumper to Virgin Gorda.