producing no bubbles. It's comfortable and very light.' He passed the straps under his crotch and then around his waist. 'Pure oxygen, no
mixture, makes it ideal for shallow work. And it's very small, as you can see.'
Al looked over the side once again. He said, 'How deep is it down there anyway?'
Dave was watching the sky. The sun was coming up now. They were running a little behind schedule but he was glad of that. He hadn't particularly cared for the idea of making this dive in the water of the Duke's floating harbor in darkness. He said, 'Bout twenty feet,' and tested the supply from the mouthpiece. He hoped twenty feet was right. Oxygen was toxic at anything below thirty-three feet.
'Well,' said Al, and took another drink. 'Rather you than me. That's all I can say.'
Dave spat into his face mask and rubbed the spittle around the glass. He laughed and said, 'Al, I'm gonna take a wild guess here. You can't swim, can you?'
'Lots of people can't swim.'
'Sure. And lots of people drown every year.'
Al grinned back. 'Not if they don't ever go swimming. You ask me, it's mostly people who can swim and who go swimming who get their asses drowned. Let me ask you a question. Which of the two of us is more likely to get himself drowned at this particular moment in time? You or me?'
'You've got a point.'
'Absolutamente. On account of you're the dumb motherfucker who knows how to swim and how to use a self-contained underwater breathing apparatus. Right?'
'Comforting thought,' admitted Dave, and collected up his searchlight and his knife.
'QED,' shrugged Al.
Dave grinned. 'QED?'
'Yeah, that's another of them acronomes. Means the kind of shit that speaks for itself.'
'I know what it means,' said Dave, retiring to the stern of the boat and climbing onto the ladder. 'I just wondered if you knew what the letters stood for?'
'Sure I do. I may not read books, but I ain't exactly ignorant. Stands for Quite Easily Done. Just like the way even motherfuckers who know what the fuck they're doin' in the water and think maybe they're James Bond or something, can get their land-dwelling selves as drowned as the lost city of Atlantis. You hear what I'm saying? Be careful down there. Your ass gets in a puddle of trouble, don't expect me to jump in and help you out. And don't expect no Pamela Anderson either. Only Baywatch round these parts is that fuckin' clam on your wrist.'
Dave looked at his watch. 'If I drown it's yours.'
'Yeah. Like I'm goin' to come and get it. That thing waterproof?'
'Of course. It's a real tachymeter.'
'You said it, guy. Tackiest lookin' timepiece I ever saw.' Al laughed. 'Naw, you keep it. I got enough shit already.'
Still smiling, Dave slipped into the water. It was a lot colder than he had expected and he was glad for the wet-suit. He paused for a moment, glancing up at the high walls of the ship and the crowd of vessels around him. It wasn't just the daylight he was glad of. It was the calmer sea too. Going into the Duke's floating dock during that storm would have been a lot more dangerous. He switched on the flashlight, adjusted the mask on his face, secured the mouthpiece between his teeth, and then dropped beneath the oily surface.
As Dave swam down underneath the barnacled hull of the boat, a feeling of being enclosed threatened momentarily to give way to panic. It was like being back in Homestead again. Back in his cell, soaked in the cold sweat of his worst nightmare, drowning in the unfathomable depths of his five-year prison sentence. Steeling himself, Dave kicked out toward the underwater support welded to the Duke's dock floor, to which the Britannia was securely lashed. He had only to cut through the ropes for the boat to float free from the plinth. But for Al's ignorance of navigation and the workings of a modern motor yacht, this was the stage in the plan when Dave would have been most nervous of being double-crossed by his partner. For once the underwater line was cut, Al had only to let go the port lines mooring the Britannia fast to the Duke's dock walls for the ship to float free. A quick burst of reverse engines and the boat would be out in the Atlantic on her own. Al's lack of maritime knowledge had never seemed so reassuring as it did now.
Because the stern of the Duke was open to the ocean, there were fish swimming in the dock water. These were mostly mullet and grunt and he paid them little or no attention as he swam strongly underneath the yacht's hull and caught hold of her screw. The rope itself was a thick one and he used his diving knife's serrated edge to cut it. Even so, it was several minutes before the rope was finally severed and he was able to untie the end attached to the screw so that it wouldn't foul the propeller when they were underway. Meanwhile the end tied to the floor support sank down in the water, startling a small school of mullet. Mistaking the rope for some kind of predator, an eel perhaps, the fish turned back on themselves and swam straight past Dave, missing his face by inches, almost as if they intended to use him as cover. He was still marvelling at their speed and beauty and congratulating himself on the ease with which he had completed his task when he saw the real reason for the sudden departure of the mullet. Not the rope at all, but the streamlined, silver-blue shape of a great barracuda. The fright of seeing it made him drop his flashlight.
Swift and powerful, with two well-separated dorsal fins, a jutting lower jaw and a large mouth with lots of sharp teeth, the six-foot barracuda was a fearsome fish and Dave knew its aggressive reputation well enough to be extremely wary of it. Barracudas were responsible for more attacks on Florida swimmers than sharks. And while they didn't ever eat people, they were quite capable of inflicting the severest injuries. Instinctively Dave started to swim gently away, toward the bow of the Britannia and, curious, the big fish followed. Barracudas were reportedly attracted to shiny objects and Dave could not decide if the blade in his hand was a source of help or the cause of his continuing danger. He swam on his back, not wanting to take his eyes off the creature in case it decided to attack. It wasn't that he thought the fish might kill him. But the razor-sharp teeth of some barracuda were impregnated with a toxic substance that could poison you. The last thing Dave needed in the middle of the Atlantic was a badly infected bite.
He swam deeper so as not to hit his head on the hulls or rudders of other boats. And the barracuda swam slowly after him, sometimes disappearing in the dark shadow of one boat, only to reappear in a brilliant flash of silver as it entered the sunlit water again. It was, Dave reflected as coolly as he was able, like being followed by a vicious and slightly cowardly dog that was only waiting the right opportunity, such as when his back was turned, to make an attack. And no matter how powerfully Dave kicked his way through the water, the barracuda maintained the same ten feet between them with an effortless flick of its stealth-shaped tail.
Dave risked a glance at his watch. Valuable minutes from an already tight schedule were ticking by. And finding that he had already swum the entire length of the Duke and was now right under the bows of the Jade at the front of the floating dock, he sensed that he would have to do something soon, or his small supply of oxygen would give out. Swimming into a pool of sunlight, Dave glanced up and saw the Jade's bow ladder touching the water about ten feet above his head. Paddling into a more vertical position he saw the sun catch his wristwatch and, at the same time, the barracuda turn fractionally toward the small burst of reflected light. There was only thing for it. Reluctantly, Dave unbuckled the watch and transferred it to the hand still holding the knife. For a second or two he let the sun play on the collection of shiny metal in his hand. Only when he was quite sure that the barracuda was watching the two bright objects did he let them go. As they sank toward the floor of the dock, the barracuda flicked its tail and cruised down after them. The creature's man-trap jaws opened and closed on the fish-scale silver of the watch's metal bracelet.
Dave hardly hesitated. He kicked hard for the undulating surface and the ladder above his head.
Even as he reached and then caught the ladder he felt the great barracuda come up after him. Adrenalin shot through his heart and shoulder muscles, launching him up the ladder with such speed that he almost thought it was someone else's arm hauling him out of the water. Inches under the bottom step of the ladder and the heel of Dave's bare foot, the barracuda arced through the oily surface then disappeared into the shallow blue water below.
Dave plucked the rebreather mouthpiece away and gulped a deep, unsteady breath of the open morning air.
'Holy shit,' he gasped. 'That was close.'
Now the fish was gone, so was the strength in his arms and it was a minute or two before he managed to climb up onto the Jade's deck. Standing there, he took another deep breath and tried to gather himself. The next
