The Sam Reilly Collection

by Christopher Cartwright

  Someone wanted him dead.

  The revelation struck him with painful slow clarity as he watched his life raft burst apart as the first round fired. There was a brief pause and he realized that the shooter changed the cartridge before he started firing again.

  This time the bullets were shredding what was left of his yacht.

  Sam was out of options, so he dived into the now almost completely water-filled hull of his sinking boat. Holding his breath, he swam down and towards the back of the ship. The water was surprisingly clear and he could just make out the location of the hole at the back end of his ship where his transom once was.

  He watched the blurred trails of a number of bullets as they whizzed by him through the water, only a couple of feet ahead of him and then ceased.

  The shooter must be reloading his weapon.

  Then the real reason occurred to him.

  Sam noticed that his ears were starting to hurt.

  Everything had turned black.

  Second Chance had reached its critical point, at which it was no longer able to displace the surface tension of the water, and now it was starting its journey to the seabed below.

  He felt as if he’d been plunged into a washing machine as he tumbled around inside the sinking boat.

  His instinct was to swim out of the hole where the transom used to be. It wasn’t far. Perhaps only another fifteen feet away – an easy swim.

  And then it struck him.

  Someone wants me dead? Like, really dead.

  He knew then that they were going to wait until Second Chance had sunk below the surface, and then they’d spray the surface with more bullets. He would never be able to hold his breath long enough to return to the surface. Instead, he would have to swim underwater, as far away from here as possible, without first dying from hypoxia.

  He tried to remember his ship’s last location and the current depth beneath her keel. They were two miles off Shoal Haven heads. There would be less than a hundred feet of water at the seabed.

  Sam couldn’t accept that he might die with the ship he loved. His mind fought for a solution and then it presented him with one – a very simple one.

  The diving equipment was kept at the back half of the yacht. He even had an air compressor built into the transom.

  But the transom’s gone, what else will be missing?

  Sam’s hands began to feel around him, searching for some of his equipment.

  To his relief, his left hand touched something solid – something cylindrical.

  Sam opened the bottle and then closed it again. A gush of air bubbles was released. The bubbles were large enough that he could take a deep breath of air. It was an immediate solution to his need, but without a regulator he was going to be using up his air supply within minutes.

  Using his hands to guide him through the hull, he reached for a drawer where he normally stored a number of regulators and dive masks. Sadly, what his hands found were a number of large pieces of splintered wood – the remnants of a broken drawer.

  Did the regulator fall toward the transom and then out of the yacht, or did it fall forward towards the bow?

  He had no choice, Sam had to assume that one of his regulators was somewhere at the fore of the ship. If he had a mask, he might have easily been able to spot it. As it was, he was nearly blind in the dark, turbulent water inside the sinking ship, which was now more than twenty feet below the surface.

  He ran his hand along the internal teak flooring. It was covered in worthless equipment. None of which was of any use to him unless he could find the regulator, and soon.

  Just as he was about to turn around and swim back to the tank for another bubble of air, his left hand grasped something that felt like a small hose. It was rubbery, and could have just as easily been part of the yacht’s plumbing, but luckily, it wasn’t.

  He pulled on it and felt for the end.

  The familiar emergency octopus valve, known as an Ochy, was in his hand.

  His head was spinning. It might be from hypoxia, or as a result of the sudden increase in pressure, while the atmospheric pressure doubled for every thirty-three feet of water above him.

  Sam flicked open the air tank four more times, releasing enough air bubbles so that he could catch his breath. He then attached the first stage to the air tank, and turned the tank valve so that it was completely opened.

  Depressing the blow-off valve on the primary regulator, Sam watched a huge gush of air bubble out from the valve opening, as water was cleared from the piping.

  He then placed his mouth on the primary and inhaled.

  It felt like coming home.

  This was his normal environment. He was safe. He’d done this a thousand times before.

  He scrambled to see the depth gauge at the end of the console. Its reading was 80 feet. Sam remembered that he’d been sitting in 110 feet of water.

  His next concern was what was going to happen when his ship struck the seabed?

  Sam didn’t plan on waiting to find out.

  He carried his tank, regulator and weight belt to the back of the now-open transom and swam outside.

  Immediately thereafter, he watched the seabed erupt as Second Chance collided into it.

  He waited a minute for the debris to settle. It would have been nice to have the luxury of giving it more time, but that wasn’t going to be possible. He was sitting at 100 feet below the surface. His air supply was going to run out pretty quick, and his maximum no-decompress time would be over even faster.

  Sam checked his dive watch. He always wore it on his left wrist, a trusty companion that was always with him. It read 100 feet. Then at the dive tank, which was at - 210 bar. His mind rapidly made the calculations, as only someone who has spent a life time diving could – somewhere in the vicinity of 15 minutes.

  Either way, he needed to return to a lesser depth if he was going to remain submerged long enough to escape his enemy.

  Whoever he is.

  The air was still hissing out of the end of the low pressure hose, which normally would be attached to a buoyancy control device, known as a BCD. He needed to get down to the wreckage and find one quickly, or his 15 minutes would drop to 5 minutes very soon.

  Fortunately, the ship landed the way she had sunk – keel down. Eerily, Sam noted that her sails were still up, and she was standing upright on the seabed, looking as though she had continued sailing on the bottom of the sea.

  He struggled through the wreckage to get to the center cockpit.

  His eyes stung as they tried to orient him in the dark, murky water. He couldn’t see much at all; but there, right in front of him, about twenty feet away, he could just make out the faint red glow of the navigational instruments behind the helm.

  He reached the helm and then felt around for a plastic compartment on his left – no, it’s not in there. Then he felt for the one to the right of him. It opened easily. The BCD began to float. Sam’s fast reflexes managed to catch it before it disappeared toward the surface.

  Next, he continued to feel his way along, until his hands finally grasped the glassy frame of his dive mask.

  He pulled it over his head, then placed his hand over the top half of the mask, as he leaned forward and exhaled to clear the mask of water, so that he could once again see.

  He checked his watch.

  The little symbol of a frog could be seen swimming on its face. Next to it was the number 07:28 indicating that he had now been underwater for almost seven and a half minutes, and was now at a depth of 91 feet. The NDT reading, short for No Decompress Time, was eight minutes.

  His eyes quickly glanced at the console.

  It now showed that only seventy bars worth of air remained in the tank. Where had he miscalculated the rate of air usage? Then the answer came to him. Without the BCD attached, the low pressure hose had been constantly hissing out air. However, recognizing the cause of miscalculation provided him with little in the way of solutions to his problem.

  Now wh
at?

  He could now see a little more clearly, and felt as though he’d gained just a little control over his rising panic, now that he had regained the use of one more of his five senses.

  Sam resisted the urge to instantly begin the process of resurfacing, which would be a death sentence. Only in James Bond films did the bad guys ever leave immediately after thinking they’d killed the good guy.

  Then the answer to his predicament suddenly came to him – he was going to test his new Sea Scooter!

  Sam made his way to the back of the center cockpit, where a large storage compartment rested. Undoing the hooks, he found his Sea Scooter 120 - an experimental version, capable of traveling at a speed of 20 miles per hour.

  After mounting the sleek scooter, he pressed the red start button.

  For a moment, Sam worried that seawater may have gotten into its electronics, but of course, it was designed for diving and it started right up.

  The Sea Scooter’s little electric engine started to whirl within the confines of its protective mesh, which was there to prevent a diver from accidentally losing any limbs or digits.

  He then opened the two air cylinders already attached to its frame.

  A soft, red light illuminated the computer screen, located between the handlebars, just the same as those that would be on the dashboard of a motorcycle.

  On the top of the dashboard there was a sonar image of the seabed, reaching up to 500 feet ahead. Below, were three instruments. The one on the left was a simple compass. The middle one displayed the current battery power, and like the markings on a fuel tank, it showed a number of boxes up and down. Right now, it showed all the boxes as filled in green, indicating that the tank was full. The last gauge showed the air supply in BARs, at 920.

  That was another huge relief.

  Sam had already exceeded his maximum no-decompress time, but with that much air in his tanks, he could take his time to resurface ensuring that he would be able to incorporate enough decompression stops along the way to release the nitrogen build up in his bloodstream, a necessary step in order to prevent getting the bends.

  Pointing the Sea Scooter so that the compass arrow indicated due west, Sam turned the throttle in his right hand, and the little electric motor started the propeller whirling beneath him. He planned to head straight for the shoreline.

  This one is going to be hard to explain to the insurance company.

  The trip took less than twenty minutes to reach the shoreline, and another thirty minutes for him to eliminate his risk of decompression illness.

  Sam then powered the Sea Scooter all the way up onto the sandy beach.

  Taking off his dive mask, he noticed that he’d reached an almost-secluded beach. To the south, the point was creating a beautiful break, one that today had been forming into barrel waves, which then broke about fifty feet from the beach.

  It looked like a nice place to surf.

  A tanned blonde girl in a purple bikini flashed her sparkling blue eyes and with a friendly smile, asked, “Hey, where did you come from?”

  Sam’s mind returned to the present.

  “I’ve been diving a wreck,” Sam replied, looking back at the waves breaking on the beach. “It’s pretty choppy out there today. How’s the surf?”

  “Really? Where did you put in at? I’ve been surfing here for the past couple of hours and I thought I had the break all to myself.” She sounded rather suspicious for a girl who’d just spent her morning surfing in what could only be described as a surfer’s paradise.

  “There’s a wreck dive out there and a beautiful sunken ship.” He then glanced over at the malicious dark blue structure, which was still visible at more than two miles out to sea. It looked like it hadn’t even moved. They were taking no chances, that’s for sure. “It’s a long way out, I wouldn’t recommend it.”

  Chapter Seven

  Aliana looked at her Cartier wrist watch.

  The elegance of its solid sapphire bezel on its stem seemed oddly out of place on the wrist of a woman who’d arisen early to see if she could catch a wave.

  It was already 9:30 a.m.

  She would probably make it back to her hotel in time if she left now. Besides, the winds had started to pick up and were ruining the surf.

  It had been a nice morning so far. Cyclone Charlotte, to the north, had now dissipated. However, more than two thousand miles to the south, the result of its passing was an enormous, continuous swell.

  It had turned an otherwise average surf beach into one bordering on perfection. But, now that the wind had picked up, the surf had become much choppier.

  She tossed her short board onto the back seat of her Jeep, where it nestled along her roll bar, climbed into the driver’s seat, and then made her way back into town.

  It had been a nice morning for surfing.

  Her phone, which she’d left carelessly inside the glove compartment, showed a new message from her dad.

  I’ve completed my work in Australia and will be leaving today. Will you be flying home with me, or are you planning on staying longer?

  She thought about it for a moment.

  She’d enjoyed the Australian coast and was happy to stay for another few days. Then, she responded with, Think I’ll stay until the end of the week. Will try to see you again before returning to college. I’ve had fun. Thanks. Aliana.

  When she turned the car key, the powerful, limited edition 6.2 liter engine kicked into life, and she started making her way back into town.

  She still couldn’t shake the image of the man she’d seen coming in from a dive earlier that morning. There were many good dive sites in the area, but she’d never heard of or seen one out near the point. Not that she knew the area all that well, having stayed there for barely a week. Still, there was something about him that seemed wrong – she just couldn’t figure out what it was.

  She shook the thought from her mind as irrelevant and continued driving.

  Her father had said that his work in Australia would take about three weeks. It was rare these days for her to follow him on these expeditions, but since she was on vacation from her studies, she’d decided to join him.

  Aliana and her father had never quite seen eye to eye, but she knew that he loved her. He was driven by the power that accompanied the fortune he’d amassed, and consequently, he worked hard to maintain it. For Aliana, it was different. She became a microbiologist for two simple reasons, first, the science was fascinating, and second, it was a way to genuinely help people. At times, she wondered if her father even liked the fact that his discoveries had improved the lives of millions of people around the world.

  Driving on, her thoughts returned to the man on the beach. She recalled his blue eyes, his kind face, and his disarming smile.

  There was something about him that intrigued her. He certainly wasn’t there for the reason he had given her – of that much she was certain. A part of her felt ashamed to automatically discredit his story. The man had appeared to be friendly enough. He certainly hadn’t meant her any harm. The two of them had been the only two people on the beach. Upon reflection, she thought that she probably should have been at least a little frightened by him.

  It might have been the scientist in her, but if she was going to be honest with her self-analysis, it was quite possible that her own father had fostered such distrust in her. Not just because of the way he’d treated her mother while she was alive, but because her father had raised her to try to understand people. And people, she knew, were the most self-serving creatures on the planet.

  Despite her mistrust, Aliana thought that she would have liked to get to know the man on the beach a little better.

  She again wondered what it was about his story that just didn’t ring true.

  Then it struck her – the man hadn’t been wearing a wetsuit.

  *

  At the age of sixty-seven, John Wolfgang showed little sign of aging. He had always been healthy. Despite growing up in socialist East Germany, his fat
her had often told him that he came from good German stock.

  John was finally back in his office, and wearing a $15,000 tailored suit – one of more than a dozen made specifically for him. He felt comfortable in it. He was much happier to be returning to his lavish lifestyle rather than being out on some ship investigating a new microbe one of his scientists had recently discovered in an iceberg that had broken off from the Antarctic shelf. He was even happier to have returned from his other project, which Cyclone Charlotte had delivered.

  When he had boarded the long-haul return flight to Massachusetts, where his company, Neo Tech, was based, John had a number of important business calls to make, and one important call to receive. Although he was the sole passenger aboard his private jet, he was still dressed as if he were at sea, and he felt it impolite to do business in anything other than business attire. Now, after having a hot shower, he was comfortable in his familiar office, and in his perfectly-fitted suit; after a week out at sea, it was nice to feel clean again.

  John felt that he was now ready to receive those important calls, while sitting at his desk in the largest room of his luxurious Lear Jet G6. Its accoutrements looked far more as though they graced the office of a Wall Street billionaire than the inside of a luxurious Lear jet.

  The room was simple but performed its purpose well. State of the art sound proofing allowed him to forget that he was on a plane. An imperial oak desk, a secure satellite phone, and two separate computer monitors were all that made up his office.

  A single painting graced the wall – an original Monet, depicting water lilies on a lake. It was the master’s first attempt, which he’d thrown out, having been displeased with it for an obvious technical mistake in the method he’d used to depict the water lilies. Having been retrieved by a neighbor and given to a cousin in Germany, it had adorned the Wolfgang family room for three generations, under the assumption that it was an imitation. Two years ago, the real origins of the painting had become known, and it became the most valuable Monet still in existence. Before reaching auction, it had been stolen.