Undercurrents

by Pamela Beason

  A scratching sound caught her attention. Off to her left, off the trail. She heard a solid thump, as if someone dropped a bowling ball. Whatever was over there, it sounded big. There were no large terrestrial predators in the Galápagos. She bushwhacked toward the noise, brushing through a clump of stinging nettles that set her calves on fire. Moving more carefully after that, she skirted the worst plant offenders until she came to a series of shallow impressions dug into the dirt. Weird.

  A loud hiss came from the bushes behind her. Startled, she whirled. And there was one of the prehistoric beasts she was seeking. A galápago stood on its tiptoes, stretching its neck in her direction as it regarded her with hooded eyes. It wasn’t one of the true giants she had hoped for, but its head came up to her thigh, and it was easily twenty times the size of the biggest tortoise she’d ever encountered before. She focused her camera. The high, thick shell didn’t look much to her like the saddle for which it was named. Then again, she wasn’t that knowledgeable about ancient Spanish saddles.

  After a moment of mutual staring, the tortoise decided Sam wasn’t worth getting excited about. It turned its attention to cropping the grayish leaves from the bush it was burrowed halfway into. Near the claws of its right foot rested the sun-bleached skull of a long-nosed creature. In the United States, she would have guessed the skull belonged to a deer, but here, it was probably the remains of a feral goat. Before a government killing campaign, invading goats had numbered in the hundreds, eating everything in sight, threatening the native ecosystem and nearly starving the tortoises to death.

  She switched her camera to video mode and filmed the tortoise eating. She could see how these mellow giants were easy prey. In past centuries, sailors had simply carried them off to ships to store for later meals; eventually the practice made the giant tortoises nearly extinct. She knew that poachers still killed a few now and then. One blow from a machete to its outstretched neck and the placid reptile in front of her would be history. How old was this particular tortoise? How many times over a mother or grandmother or even great-grandmother? Or maybe it was a grandpa? Determining tortoise gender usually mean checking the lower shell or examining the tail area, and she wasn’t about to attempt either of those with this enormous beast.

  Near the top of the bush, a bee buzzed around a few yellow flowers, the only blooms Sam had seen in miles. Apparently the flowers looked pretty good to the galápago, too; because it pushed itself as high as it could, standing with one foot on the goat skull, and finally managed to reach one of the lower blooms, which quickly vanished into its jaws. Sam was sorry to see the flower disappear, but then, soft petals probably tasted pretty good after munching through a bale of leathery leaves.

  Communing with a creature whose relatives had been around since dinosaur times proved to be less interesting than she’d expected. The tortoise’s total concentration on chomping and swallowing soon became monotonous. She stood up. “Well, buddy, I’m glad we met, but I can’t say you’re the most scintillating company. I need to be getting back.”

  The tortoise belched, and then farted for good measure. Sam was reminded of flatulent cows in rural Kansas, where she grew up.

  “Same to you,” she told the tortoise. “Have a good life, my friend.”

  She hiked back down the mountain, taking photos of the distant water and islands as she descended. One hawk and one giant tortoise were pretty slim pickings for Wilderness Westin’s post today. There was no way these images would achieve the entertainment level that Wyatt wanted. Maybe she could combine them with archived photos of one of the Galápagos volcanoes erupting in recent years and write about the harsh environment of the islands. That felt more like the right track, though still seemed too dry. But maybe that was just because she personally felt dehydrated at the moment. Diving was hard work, but it was easier to write interesting posts as Zing. Dan said the dive this afternoon would be an easy one. She looked forward to that experience.

  As she neared the beach where she’d left her kayak, she spotted a dozen male marine iguanas, resplendent in their red-and-green mating colors, vying for position on the highest lump of lava. Two of the large lizards still glistened from a recent expedition into the surf. She put the camera on video mode and framed them in the viewfinder. Remarkably, instead of moving away, three iguanas waggled a few inches in her direction, their long curved toenails scratching against the rock. She dropped to her knees and leaned close. The central subject of her composition chose that moment to eject twin streams of salt water from his scaly nostrils.

  “Thanks.” She wiped the lens with the hem of her T-shirt. “I don’t mean personally; I really didn’t need a shower of snotty salt water, but it will make good video.”

  The iguanas regarded her with humorless black eyes. The nearest one bobbed its head, hissing loudly.

  “The rock is yours,” she assured him, retreating. “As a matter of fact, you can have the whole island.”

  If she didn’t hurry, she was going to be late for her dive with Dan. She would have the current with her on the way back, but several miles farther to go, because the boat had moved to a new location farther south in her absence. She hustled down the path between the white-painted rocks that marked the official park trail, taking care not to tread on the red-and-yellow Sally Lightfoot crabs that scuttled in and out of crevices in the lava.

  This time there were no sea lions on or in her kayak, but a small female had stretched out alongside, dozing in the narrow strip of shade the boat cast on its eastward side. Sam nudged her with a toe, and the sea lion reluctantly rose and lumbered out into the water.

  After stowing her camera and hiking boots in the rear hatch, Sam strapped on her sandals, and carried the kayak to the waterline. In the bay, more sea lions barked and splashed near a cluster of rocks. She paddled that way, hoping to catch at least a glimpse of a penguin—her guidebook said they were sometimes found in this area.

  Shadows moved beneath the water’s surface, but none were black-and-white birds. As she paddled closer to the lava outcropping, she counted at least a dozen juvenile sea lions. They surfaced with excited barks, then ducked back beneath the waves.

  The clarity of the water here was astounding. Beneath her, the pups rocketed in and out of underwater canyons like missiles whose guidance systems had run amok. What poor creature were they terrorizing now? Somewhere at the base of this rock formation was a long tube cave, Eduardo had told her—a common sleeping area for sharks and a favorite exploration sight for divers. To her surprise, between the cavorting sea lions, she saw a diver there now. Neoprene-covered calves and black swim fins extended from beneath a rock ledge. How odd. She looked back toward the shore. No boat anywhere. Did he swim out from the beach?

  Focusing on the water again, she watched the sea lion pups swirl around the figure, darting in to nip at the swim fins. The largest pup grabbed the diver’s right fin in its teeth and tugged. The fin popped off, and the sea lion streaked away with its treasure, its companions racing to catch up, like dogs competing for a bone.

  Sam’s breath stopped in her throat. Why hadn’t the diver kicked the sea lion away? She felt a sudden chill.

  No bubbles. There were no bubbles streaming up from the diver’s regulator.

  No. This couldn’t be happening. She jammed her paddle beneath the bungee web on the kayak deck, then jerked the coiled bowline from beneath the web and tied the nylon cord around her wrist. Face mask—had she brought it? Yes. She found it in the pouch behind her seat and jammed it onto her face. Where was her snorkel? Oh hell, she didn’t need it. She pushed herself out of the kayak, and then, after taking several quick breaths, she jackknifed beneath the surface, propelling herself downward with strong breaststrokes and straight-legged kicks.

  The scene swam into sharper focus. A crescent rip in the leg of the diver’s wetsuit revealed torn white flesh. There was a current flowing at this depth, and the diver’s legs fluttered as she moved closer. He was not in the tube cave but caught by one ar
m wedged into a crevice in the lava pillar.

  Her lungs ached. The kayak line yanked at her wrist. She yanked back and kicked and breaststroked hard to stay in place against the current. She maneuvered partway into the lee of the rock pillar and grasped the bare ankle with both hands. No response. She pulled. The diver floated backward, his tank scraping the rocks with a sound she felt more than heard. He rotated toward her. He rolled face up, revealing a deep gash that began at his neck and crossed over his jaw to run up the side of his face. He’d lost his regulator mouthpiece. Sweet Jesus.

  Her lungs were bursting. Her head felt like it might explode. The current was pushing her away from the rocks, and the kayak tether jerked her wrist upward. Even as she was pulled away, she forced herself to look at the diver’s face. Strands of dark hair floated above the puffy, bruised skin of his forehead. Blue-purple lips. His mask was filled with water, but through it she saw lifeless hazel eyes. No. No. This couldn’t be.

  She kicked her way to the surface and burst into the sunlight, gasping and floundering in the waves. Papagayo was anchored out of sight behind a rocky peninsula. Too far away; it would do no good to yell for help. Sharks, she reminded herself. Stop thrashing. The diver was beyond saving. She counted down from ten, sucking in air and willing her pulse to slow. After a moment, when she could breathe again, she reeled in her kayak and climbed aboard, bellyflopping onto the stern, then lying face down and straddling the boat and inching forward until she could swing her legs into the cockpit.

  All the way back to the yacht, her brain chanted, Oh God no, oh God no, oh God no in rhythm to her strokes.

  She had seen a corpse before. She’d prepared herself to find the diver was dead, at least as much as anyone could prepare herself to look into the eyes of death.

  But she hadn’t been prepared to see the face of Daniel Kazaki.

  9

  Sam slid her kayak alongside one of Papagayo’s pangas at the stern, climbed onto the landing platform, and tied off the bowline to a cleat. The world felt off-kilter; the sky and sea undulated in ripples around her. She pressed her back against the square stern and closed her eyes for a moment against the bright dizziness, relieved to feel the yacht’s solidity supporting her spine, its fiberglass smooth and substantial under her fingertips.

  Dan couldn’t be dead. Their dive wasn’t even scheduled to start until more than an hour from now. An easy dive. She could hear his voice in her head as he told her about it. Their next dive destination was nowhere near the path to Alcedo and those rocks.

  Maybe what she’d seen wasn’t real; maybe she was hallucinating from too much sun and exercise. The current and the bowline had pulled her away from the diver; she couldn’t have focused clearly on his face.

  Her intestines were doing gymnastics. Maybe she had food poisoning. Or this was a nightmare, and she was going to wake up any second.

  She climbed to the main deck and then headed down the interior stairs toward her cabin. Muffled voices and the sound of running water emanated from Cabins 5 and 6. The tour group had come back from their expedition. Maybe Dan was in his cabin, too, typing at his computer.

  She turned the knob and pushed open his door. Dan’s clothes were strewn across the lower bunk; his notebook computer sat closed on the tiny desk.

  This nightmare was real.

  Dan was dead.

  Oh God. Her heart dropped to the floor and felt as if it bounced off the hard cold steel and then lay there, bruised. She stepped into the room and closed the door behind her. A photo was taped to the wall above the desk. In the picture, Elizabeth held Sean’s hand up in a mutual wave to the camera. Sam pressed a hand over her mouth as her memory replayed Elizabeth’s words: Take care of my husband.

  “Oh, Dan.” She turned away from the photo and surveyed the room. “What the hell happened? Why did you go diving without me?”

  She pushed aside his clothes and sat down heavily on his bunk, resting her head in her hands, pressing her hands over her eyes. Think. What should she do now? There was no 911 service here, and even if there had been, Dan was beyond saving.

  Why had Dan been diving at all? There was no way he could drift from here to those rocks; the current was flowing in the opposite direction. He might have jumped off Papagayo this morning before the ship moved, but why would he do that? How did he lose his regulator mouthpiece? Was the hose cut, along with his neck and face? Burned into her memory, his body looked as if someone had swum up behind him and attacked him with a knife. Which implied that there were divers nearby who were willing to commit murder. Were the fishermen that violent?

  Dan had been sure they’d be safe on the tour boat. She thought of Ricardo, the boat pilot who first discovered they were working with NPF. Had he learned their new location? But why would Ricardo travel all the way to Isabela Island to murder Dan now? He could have killed them both by simply abandoning them while they were underwater.

  Someone in the Hotel Aurora had frightened Mrs. Vintner into throwing them out. Someone in the lobby; someone Ricardo had called?

  The dive shop had given Dan a tank full of carbon monoxide.

  Was there more going on here that Dan hadn’t told her? She took her hands away from her eyes, sat up, and looked at the room. Bunks, desk, computer. Would there be a clue in Dan’s data or email? In the United States, the police would seize his computer right away.

  She slid into his chair. Dan had left his notebook in sleep mode, and when she pulled the clamshell open, the screen lit up, displaying a portion of a photo she’d taken yesterday. Dan had zoomed in on the debris field, filled with chunks of dead sharks and pieces of metal. Without the feathery corals and colorful fish, the image was a hideous close-up of rotting garbage. Had he been trying to identify the species of the carcasses, or perhaps trying to determine how many shark corpses lay there?

  She closed the photo window and opened the file manager to display the computer’s contents. Inside the desk drawer beneath the computer, she found a few paper receipts, a thumb-sized flash drive, the oxygen analyzer Dan used to test their tanks, and Dan’s handheld computer—the one he used to keep counts and make notes while diving. Her brain filled with the image of him tapping its keys, looking up at her, his eyes crinkled in a smile behind his mask.

  Tears blurred her vision. Oh God, there had to be an explanation. She had to figure this out.

  She wiped the wetness away with the back of her hand, snapped the flash drive into the USB port, and quickly copied his email message folder, as well as every folder that looked like it had anything to do with marine biology or the Galápagos. Footsteps creaked across the floor overhead. After turning off the laptop and pocketing the tiny drive, she shoved the oxygen analyzer, Dan’s handheld computer, and the paper receipts into her shorts pocket. She checked the hallway to be sure it was empty, and then crossed over to her own room.

  If an enemy had come after Dan on Papagayo, she could be the next target. She slid the oxygen analyzer into her own desk drawer, but hesitated to leave the USB drive there. And it might not be safe to load that information on her computer. The tiny room didn’t hold many good hiding spots. Finally, she slit open the paper cover on a tampon in her travel container, and shoved the flash drive inside the cardboard tube. Next she opened one of her fish ID books, pulled the paper receipts out of her pockets, smoothed out the crinkles to make them lie down smoothly between the pages. One receipt was from the dive shop for the rentals of their four air cylinders. The other was written in Spanish, but she recognized Coqueta, the name of the boat they’d hired on the first day. The receipt was signed by Ricardo Diaz. She slapped the book closed around the receipts and then thrust it back between two other books she’d brought.

  If Dan had been killed because of his work with NPF, his handheld computer might hold the data the killer wanted to squelch. Where could she stash the handheld? She dumped the tiny bottles of shampoo and conditioner and sunscreen and bug spray from her kit bag, pushed in the handheld, covered it with a few
tissues, and then reloaded the travel bottles on top.

  In the bathroom mirror, she caught a glimpse of herself: a red-eyed, red-faced woman. Flyaway blond wisps of hair stuck out from her French braid like pieces of straw. She wore only one silver hoop earring. She fingered her bare earlobe, which was puffy and a little sore. Where had she ripped out her earring? She pulled off the remaining hoop, splashed water on her face, and smoothed down her hair. Grabbing her satellite phone, she exited the claustrophobic cabin.

  Could Dan have had another bad air fill or equipment failure? Returning to the ship’s stern, she opened the door to the engine room, where she and Dan stowed their scuba gear. She knew it was unreasonable, but still she expected to see his tank secured in the elastic loops against the wall, his BCD and regulator dangling from the hooks above. Instead, there was an empty space between her gear and Captain Quiroga’s. A lump formed in her throat as she touched the naked hook that should have held Dan’s buoyancy vest.

  She inspected the air compressor. The intake was mounted high on the exterior wall. She didn’t see how carbon monoxide could be sucked in off the ocean breeze.

  The engine itself occupied only a portion of the room, and the exhaust vented to a different wall than the compressor’s intake. Besides, surely Dan would have tested the air fill before going into the water.

  Could someone have tampered with Dan’s equipment in some way? The far wall held three doors, all closed. Crew quarters. And the naturalist guides—Eduardo and Maxim—must sleep down here as well. It would be easy for any of them to exit through this room to the stern platform of the yacht without being noticed by anyone on the upper decks.