leaf, slowly tumbling over itself in the descent. The eighty-foot drop ended when Cole’s fins struck a coral outcrop on the seafloor. It fell forward, facedown, expending its last bit of downward momentum.
A black rubber hose protruded from the left side of Cole’s buoyancy-control device; the end containing the controls to inflate and deflate the device dangled freely. The purpose of the BCD, essentially an inflatable vest, was to allow a diver to achieve balance in the water, neither floating nor sinking. As Cole’s body struck the coral, the BCD’s black rubber hose was pinned against the reef.
A hissing sound began to emanate from the BCD, slowly at first; then bladders of the floatation vest began to fill with air. As the BCD inflated, the body slowly lifted off the reef. When the weight of Cole’s body no longer pressed against the inflation control, the hissing stopped. Now buoyant in the seawater, Cole’s body began to drift with the current.
16
‘ Cerveza, senor?’ Ponce Sebastian asked, offering a cold beverage to the heavyset man in the fighting chair.
‘Sure, Ponce,’ the man replied, trading an empty bottle for a full one.
Ponce Sebastian was a short, wiry man and the captain of his own fishing boat. This boat, the Alazna, was also his home. Ponce chartered his boat out for day trips to tourists. Today, this overweight American from Alabama wanted to fish for sea bass. It was only nine in the morning and the man was already on his third beer. Ponce didn’t mind; the man had paid in advance.
The reel on the man’s rod jerked and began to spin. Then it stopped. The tourist wiped the sheen of perspiration off his brow and looked at the reel. As the boat bobbed with the next wave, it spun again, then stopped.
‘Hey, Ponce, I think we got something on the line.’
Ponce walked over just as the reel began to spin. It turned slowly, nothing like a large fish fighting for its life. Again, it stopped.
‘That’s the third time it’s done that.’
‘If that’s a fish, senor, it’s got no cojones. We must have snagged something. Let’s reel it in.’
The tourist put one hand on the rod while the other turned the reel. Judging by the way he tested the line as he drew it in, Ponce knew the man had some experience fishing. The man also wasn’t afraid to work. Some of the tourists he had carried barely lifted a finger while at sea, leaving him to land the fish and take their picture with it.
‘You’re right, Ponce. Whatever it is, it sure ain’t swimming.’
The tourist wiped his brow and resumed his task of reeling in the line. Ponce watched the thin wake that broke where the heavy nylon line sliced the water’s surface. Gradually, a dark form began to rise from the depths. The line started to slacken and the tourist was turning the reel as fast as he could. The black form emerged from the sea twenty feet behind the fishing boat. Both men stared, trying to divine what they’d brought up from the sea.
‘Ponce, I think it’s a body.’
‘I think you’re right. Help me pull it in.’
The tourist continued to work the reel, slowly now to ease the black form closer to the aft of the boat. Using a pole that resembled a long shepherd’s crook, Ponce hooked the body and pulled it against the hull.
‘Let me handle that hook, Ponce. You pull him up on the jump deck.’
Ponce opened the aft gate and stepped onto the jump deck while the tourist strained to keep the body in place.
‘On three, senor,’ Ponce instructed.
On the third count, both men heaved and the full weight of what they had caught became apparent. With a single burst of strength, they struggled the lifeless form through the gate and onto the deck.
‘Senor, I don’t think you should look. This person may have been in the water awhile.’
‘Don’t worry about me, Ponce, I’ve been to war. There’s not a lot I haven’t seen.’
Ponce carefully rolled the body onto its side. The body was rigid, like a mannequin. Both men looked at the diver’s face, which, though ashen, was still intact.
‘I don’t think this guy’s been dead too long, Ponce.’
‘Senor, I apologize, but we have to return to port. If you like, I will refund your money.’
‘No way, Ponce. You promised me a fishing trip I’d never forget and you delivered. Hell, no one back home is going to believe this.’
17
January 1
The unassuming working-class bar known simply as Mike’s was closed on the busiest drinking night of the year, as it was every New Year’s Eve. Closed to the public, that is. Inside, the bar that was best described as ‘a dive’ was standing room only with members of the nation’s elite Special Warfare fraternity. Mike was one of the first SEALs, having signed on after President Kennedy authorized the formation of the teams in 1962. Before that, he’d been a frogman with the navy’s Underwater Demolition Teams.
Mike’s bar was a reflection of his personality; at first glance, it was gruff, surly, and intimidating, but to those who got to know it, like those here tonight, it was an old friend. The beer was cold and the drinks straightforward and unpretentious. The jukebox by the back wall blared out a new song that combined hyperactive guitars with an amped-up drumbeat in a mixture that the music magazines described as ‘industrial jungle.’ This selection was made by one of the younger revelers in attendance.
The front half of the bar held small circular tables and chairs; four battered pool tables filled the back. At the end of the bar, Jack Dawson and Max Gates sat with Nolan Kilkenny.
‘Another round?’ Dawson asked rhetorically as he held up his empty beer bottle and three fingers for the bartender to see.
A moment later, three icy longnecks replaced the empties.
‘Thanks, Mike,’ Dawson said.
Mike nodded and returned to his post behind the bar, where he was holding court for some of the younger men who eagerly listened to his stories from the old days. Mike Roark was an old navy-enlisted man who topped out at five feet eleven and was shaped like an anvil. He was thickset, and the ten years since his retirement from the navy hadn’t softened his physique by much. Mike had never married, and the men in his bar tonight were his sons and brothers-in-arms.
‘I spoke with Hopwood’s widow a couple days ago, about the time when you guys got back. She got discreet word via the admiral-wives’ grapevine, that the score regarding her husband’s death has been settled. She sends her thanks.’
‘To the admiral,’ Kilkenny offered.
‘Here, here,’ Gates seconded before draining another inch from the longneck bottle.
‘So, Nolan,’Dawson asked,’did the Bureau of Personnel get all your paperwork taken care of?’
‘Yeah, and at midnight I became something I haven’t been since I was eighteen years old.’
‘What, a virgin?’ Gates asked jokingly, elbowing Kilkenny in the ribs.
‘No, scarier than that. A civilian.’
Dawson scratched at the paper label on his bottle. ‘Nolan, do you know what made you a good SEAL? It was your mind. You were able to cut through the bullshit and the chaos of battle and reach your objective. It was your mind that kept you alive. It’s also the one thing that will keep you from being a great SEAL.’
