Tomlinson didn’t carry a knife—it was irrational, but he never did—so he must have been using a flashlight or a D ring from his vest.
The clanging was steady, not frantic, which I found reassuring. My partners were trapped somewhere under the crater floor, beneath a plateau of rock and sand, but obviously they had room enough to move their arms. It suggested that they were in a crevice or in an underground chamber that had been covered by rubble
I unsheathed my knife and began to dig methodically, pulling away rock, digging at the bottom. It was mostly sand. Frustrating. Digging a hole underwater is an exercise in futility. If I scooped out two handfuls of sand, twice that amount sieved downward and filled the temporary hole. Thinking it might be more efficient, I grabbed a pan-sized oyster shell and used it like a shovel.
It wasn’t much better. Until I returned with the jet dredge, though, a shovel was my best option. I continued digging, burning my dwindling air supply, until the clanging signal from beneath the crater changed. It caused me to pause.
I heard an articulate TAP. Tap-tap-tap . . . TAP . . . tappa-tap. Over and over, with the same careful spacing. Some sounds were intentionally louder, it seemed.
I banged the oyster shell against my own tank, parroting the signal . . . then received a different signal in reply.
Tap . . .TAP . . . tap.
It was Tomlinson. Had to be. Tomlinson, the blue-water sailor, the maritime minimalist. He was attempting Morse code. The man had been studying code for nearly a year, inspired by a late, great friend who had railed against our growing dependence on technology.
I’ve been a devoted user of shortwave radios since childhood, but I’m not a student of Morse code. I know a few basic shorthand signals, but now was not the time to test my skills. We had less than twenty minutes of air left. Subtleties of communication would have to wait.
I returned to my digging, bulling chunks of limestone to the side, then using the oyster shovel to scoop a dent in the sand. I kept at it until a sound within the wall caused me to pause once again.
It was an alarm sound, the rapid clang-clang-clang of a fire bell. Tomlinson was telling me to stop digging.
Why?
I could think of only one possibility: My digging was somehow threatening the stability of the space that was providing them refuge.
Maddening! If I couldn’t dig, how did Tomlinson expect me to free them? After several seconds of silence, he tried Morse code again.
Tap . . .TAP . . . tap.
I forced myself to concentrate. The louder clanks, I decided, were dahs in Morse. The faster, lighter raps were dits.
Tap . . .TAP . . . tap.
Was it the letter R? Yes, an R. R is the most common Morse abbreviation. Even I recognized it. R stands for “roger”—“signal understood.”
It was Tomlinson’s way of beginning a dialogue.
I attempted a dit-dah-dit reply, then waited.
Once again, he tried to signal, but the letters wouldn’t take shape in my head. Because I didn’t understand, I let silence communicate my confusion.
Tomlinson tried a different pattern. I heard: Dit-dit . . . DAH . . . dit. DAH . . . dit-dit-dit.
Three times, he sent it, before I recognized another common Morse abbreviation. F-B. It was short for “fine business”—the equivalent of “everything’s okay.”
Everything was certainly not okay. He was telling me they weren’t hurt—not seriously, anyway. So why had he sounded an alarm?
I tapped out the letter R in reply—“understood”—then listened to a string of louder, methodical bell notes. Instead of attempting to translate, I counted . . . counted four distinctive clangs, but the fifth—if there was to have been a fifth—was interrupted by a cascading clatter of rock and then a thunderous thud.
Another section of lake bottom, or possibly the interior wall of the crater, had collapsed—loosened by our clanging sound waves, more than likely.
I was blinded by another silt explosion, but this time I held my ground. I hung tight to a wedge of rock as the murk enveloped me. For a full minute, I waited for the unstable limestone to settle before I attempted to signal Tomlinson again.
This time, when he replied, the sound was much fainter. Either more sand and rock separated us or his location had changed.
I didn’t want to risk another exchange in Morse code. Sound waves are corrosive, and the lake bottom was too unstable. I needed the jet dredge.
A dredge is the underwater equivalent of a pressure washer. The one we had brought consisted of a generator, a heavy coil of hose that floated on a tractor-sized inner tube and a brass nozzle fitted into a three-foot length of PVC pipe. The thing shot a laser stream of water that would cut through rock and sand and was commonly used for setting pilings—or for treasure hunting. That’s why we’d brought it.
I had to get the generator going, prime the pump and return with the hose. I needed Arlis Futch’s help.
On the chance that Tomlinson and Will had, in fact, found refuge in an underground chamber, I located a crevice below the crater. It took a while to find one that looked to be about the right size. Without removing my BC, I popped a latch on the backpack, freed my air bottle and pulled it over my head. After I had inhaled a couple of deep breaths, I closed the valve, then purged my regulator before removing the pressure gauge and regulator hoses.
Full air bottles sink. Empty tanks float. Mine was half full, so it was easy to maneuver. I wedged the bottle into the crevice, valve up, and braced it with a chunk of rock. When I was convinced the tank was secure, I opened the valve a quarter turn.
A silver chain of air bubbles ascended from the tank. They began to disperse along the underside of the crater. The bubbles became as animated as ants as they probed the rock face, seeking vents and passages to continue their ascent. If there was a chamber above, the bubbles would find the open space and burst free.
I am not a cave diver, although I had explored a couple of caves years ago beneath an island off Borneo. But I’ve spoken with, and read about, Florida’s cave divers—an exacting, dedicated group that has lost more than one comrade to their collective passion for mapping subterranean labyrinths.
From these people, I had acquired a sense, at least, of the complex geology that defines the underwater karst catacombs that exist beneath the flatlands of central Florida. A small rock vent can lead to an ever-narrowing dead end, but it might also open up into a cavern. Caverns have been discovered beneath Florida’s flatlands that are the size of airplane hangars, vaulted cathedrals of limestone. Some were formed during the Pleistocene and had once been home to wandering families, human and animal, before the rising sea level flooded them.
I had heard that such caves might contain air bells—pockets of air—although I doubted the truth of it. Not in Florida, anyway. An airtight vault in rock as porous as limestone? It was unlikely.
Even so, wedging a bottle beneath the collapsed ledge was worth a try. Maybe, just maybe, Will and Tomlinson had been lucky enough to find an air pocket. Maybe, just maybe, I had provided my friends with additional air.
I started up with a few kicks of my old Rocket Fins. When I broke through the surface, I was already yelling for Arlis Futch.
This time, Arlis was waiting. He was standing at the edge of the lake, next to his truck, but his posture was oddly stiff. He was standing as if he were at attention. There were two men with him.
Where the hell had they come from? We hadn’t told anyone about the lake—Arlis had demanded secrecy—and the nearest road was miles away.
I had to clear my prescription mask and square it on my face again before I could be sure of details. Only then did I understand why Arlis was standing oddly. One of the men was holding a pistol to the back of his head.
The second man was also armed. He had a rifle pointed at me.
With his trigger hand, the man was waving me out of the water, calling, “Come up out of there, Jock-a-mo, and meet your new playmates. We got lots to talk abou
t.”
SIX
TOMLINSON’S FIRST LUCID THOUGHT, WHEN HE REALIZED he was pinned under a pile of rock and sand, was an automatic attempt at humor, a comforting cliché: Looks like I picked a bad week to quit smoking.
Not cigarettes, marijuana.
He had promised Ford that he would quit because Will Chaser was on Sanibel for a week, and the biologist was worried the kid would sniff out Tomlinson’s love for the bud.
Apparently, Will had an interest in the subject that went beyond that of a hobbyist. He didn’t need any more bad influences in his life.
Ford didn’t particularly like the teenager, that was obvious. But the man still felt some responsibility because Will was traveling with Ford’s on-again, off-again squeeze, the high-powered Iron Maiden, Barbara Hayes.
Barbara was not always iron, as Tomlinson had discovered only three nights before, and she was certainly no unschooled maiden.
I’m a sinner, God knows it, so let the games begin!
More than a tad ripped on rum, Tomlinson had said exactly that to Barbara an hour after she’d left Doc Ford’s lab, where they’d eaten dinner. Really excellent snapper, with peanut gravy, but the lady was pissed off about something, no telling what. Tomlinson had said the words just before unsnapping the Iron Maiden’s bra free, the first ceremonial, no-going-back gesture in the betrayal of his best friend.
Later that evening, the betrayal had caused Tomlinson much angst. He was a sensitive man with morals—although Tomlinson seldom allowed morality to interfere with his personal life. But the betrayal had at least one positive result. It had steeled his determination to honor his promise to Ford that he wouldn’t smoke the entire week, for the sake of the kid.
Tobacco was never mentioned in the agreement, however, so at midnight on Sunday Tomlinson had ridden his bike to the 7-Eleven, where he’d bought a pack of Spirits, organic cigarettes in a yellow pack. He hoped the smokes would mitigate the withdrawal symptoms he had suffered during the previous few days. He had been having weird dreams, he couldn’t eat and a restless gray depression had descended upon him with a weight that—although more subtle—was no less distressing than the weight of the mound of limestone and sand that now covered him.
That night, pedaling home to Dinkin’s Bay, Tomlinson had lit the first cigarette he had smoked in . . . how long?
Ninth grade? No . . . the last cigarette he had smoked was in tenth. He’d had a brief fling with tobacco during that period, smoking Camels, in an effort to add to his James Dean mystique. Another reason he’d chosen Camels was that unfiltered cigarettes made his hands look bigger, and Tomlinson’s primary obsession had from earliest memory been women, and women were perceptive and impressed by such things.
Tomlinson had been weaned by a wet nurse—his family was wealthy. She was a Scandinavian dream with translucent melon breasts, so alluringly traced with veins that even as a child Tomlinson had loved maps, with their blue rivers that tracked true to the sea.
The Spirit cigarette, though, tasted like crap and had left his breath smelling worse than bong water. Adding to his displeasure was the awareness that smoking an organic cigarette was the way trendy tobacco slaves rationalized their addiction while also feeding it.
Tomlinson had an aversion to endorsing trendy behavior via his own behavior. He felt he was above such silliness. It struck him as common.
As he lay beneath the rocks, he thought, One last joint. If I’d smoked a number last night, this bullshit would be easier to deal with now.
He’d almost done it. After leaving Barbara’s beach rental for the second time in three nights, he’d come this close to breaking his promise about getting high on weed. Tomlinson had hidden aboard No Más a baggie full of jays, beautifully rolled, all sprinkled with resin crystals from his kef box. The jays had glittered like éclairs when he held them near the candle he had lighted before sitting in meditation, as he did every day twice a day.
Meditation stilled the chaos of stars inside Tomlinson’s head. That’s why he did it. Smoking, though, sometimes added colors to the stillness. After a few ghost hits from really good shit, meditating also brightened the swirling stars and warmed the black chill of inner space.
Tomlinson hadn’t broken his promise, though. There was a reason. Just as he was about to light up, the kid had paddled past No Más in a canoe.
Damn kid. I should’ve ignored him. I could’ve pretended like I’d passed out or something, how would he know?
Talk about divine intervention! God had a wicked sense of humor for someone who had carved out so many prissy rules about behavior, but a reminder of the promise to stop smoking weed was exactly what he deserved after two-timing a close pal.
Tomlinson thought, I’ve got to deepen up here. I’ve got to take stock.
Yes, he did.
The regulator had been knocked from Tomlinson’s mouth when the first rocks fell, but he had managed to fit it in place before the second wave of limestone covered him. It was a pounding weight that had compressed him, in a fetal position, in darkness against the lake’s rocky bottom.
That was the way he lay now, as he tested the weight of the rocks that covered him. He moved his elbows, his feet, his fingers, relieved that his nervous system seemed to be okay and also that the rock and sand that covered him seemed to be malleable.
Will Chaser was beside him, still alive and conscious. Tomlinson knew because the boy’s fins were in his face. Every time the kid tried to struggle free, he came close to knocking off Tomlinson’s mask or kicking the regulator from his mouth.
But where was Ford? Had he been caught in the landslide, too?
Tomlinson let his mind settle, and then he pinged the area around him for information. As he did, his memory reviewed the moments prior to the wall’s collapse. He recalled Ford turning away from the mammoth tusk and then looking downward. In his peripheral vision, Tomlinson had seen Ford jettison air from his BC, before jackknifing toward the bottom. The man had one arm extended as if to pluck something from the sand.
And then . . . what had happened? Rocks had begun raining down, and Tomlinson couldn’t remember anything else but trying to fend off the crushing weight.
Now, beside him, Will Chaser rallied and tried to battle his way free once again. One of his fins knocked Tomlinson’s mask askew before the boy stopped struggling.
Tomlinson thought, First time in my life I’ve been kicked in the face, and I’m happy about it.
He felt good, but only for a moment. The feeling was soon replaced by the memory of what he had said to Ford: “I’ll assume full responsibility for the kid’s safety.”
Gad! What a ridiculous thing to say.
Why did he make such stupid promises? There was no controlling destiny—few people knew that better than Tomlinson. Guaranteeing some future reality was as futile as attempting to change the past. But he had done exactly that—flipped God and destiny the finger, in effect—and now here they were.
Ford’s gonna kill me for this one! I don’t blame him, either.
That was almost funny, thinking about how pissed off Ford would be, but not for long, because the shock of what had happened was beginning to solidify in Tomlinson’s brain. His was a big brain, with banks of active synapses few other people possessed, but it was not an orderly brain. The cerebral segments were complexly wired, but they were also interrupted by filaments of scar tissue—not unlike the trunk rings of a tree that had been struck by lightning many times.
Tomlinson had, in fact, suffered several electrical shocks in his life, most as medical therapy, but some not. Plus there were also scars related to his experimentation with drugs, which, as Tomlinson viewed it, was part of his job description.
As a social scientist, it was one’s duty to explore the inner universe.
Ford had once told him, “The way your brain works, the shortest distance between two points is a circle.” The man had been frustrated by some debate they were having, something to do with philosophy or possibly baseba
ll, which were pretty much the same thing in Tomlinson’s estimation.
Baseball? Why the hell had his brain leaped to that?
Maybe he had suffered a concussion when the rocks fell. It was possible, so Tomlinson’s focus turned inward. He inspected the inner workings of his skull, but there was no pain, and his memory was definitely in the pink.
You don’t have time for this, dumb-ass. Hunker down and concentrate—or the boy’s going to die.
Tomlinson knew it was true.
The fact that he, too, would die was a secondary consideration. Tomlinson believed—believed to the core—that he had already died, and not just once. He had died at least three times, he felt sure, and possibly more. He was a walking ghost and he was comfortable with that fact. But Will Chaser’s life mattered. The kid was only sixteen. He had never driven a car, as far as Tomlinson knew, and had probably never been with a woman—or possibly even kissed a girl.
Tomlinson thought, I’ve got to save this kid. I’ve got to save him or go down trying.
That thought came into his mind with a force that was as violent as anything he had ever experienced in his existence, dead or alive. It was then that Tomlinson asked himself, How would Ford deal with the situation?
It came into his mind formulated like a weird chemical equation. It was another semihumorous cliché that would have irritated the hell out of the ever-pragmatic Dr. Ford: W2D2.
What would Doc do?
Marion Ford was, in Tomlinson’s experience, the most competent man he had ever met. Ford had a dark side, true. The man danced with demons, but at least Doc kept the contents of his dance card to himself.
Ford had a first-rate intellect, but it was not a dazzling intellect. He possessed no stellar gifts, mental or physical—something Tomlinson wouldn’t have said to the man’s face, but it was also true.
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