Calm down, she thought. You've done worse. Remember Hawaii. You've done twenty feet.
The small voice responded-the voice that always scolded her, always spoke Mandarin, the language in which she could not lie to herself. Never in the dark. Never alone.
She tugged at straps, Velcro that wouldn't go through the rings. It was an eternity before she had her equipment in place, and still she heard no sirens-only the wounded cursing of Armand in the corner. Matthew Pena had stopped making noise a long time ago.
She stood, feeling as if she'd just offered a piggyback ride to a tengallon jug of Evian.
Lake water from the BC trickled out the purge valve, leaking into her clothes. She limped toward the railing, trying to keep the weight off the wad of napkins that passed for her left foot.
She heard a gunshot far up the hill toward the dam, and she thought, Tres. Was Dwight armed? Shit.
Momentarily she thought about trying to get to the truck, maybe finding a road up there, but she knew that was just her cowardice talking.
You never get away once you back down. The fear is always there, waiting for a rematch.
She managed to get her bad foot over the railing, then the other.
Only then did she remember to check the air gauge.
The tank registered just above the red-perhaps six minutes of air, perhaps less.
Thank you, Dwight Hayes.
She found the regulator, slipped it in her mouth. The mask was too tight, but she didn't take time to loosen it. She breathed in that cold oxygen mixture, like dry ice vapour, scooted as close as she could to the exact location Vic Lopez had jumped, and she went over the side.
The cold stopped her breath. She'd never thought she would miss wearing a wet suit.
Her wounded foot was the only part of her that felt warm, and that hurt like hell.
She kicked uselessly. Her head was still above water, and she realized she had no weights to compensate for the BC. She'd have to let all the air out of her vest, hope the steel of the tank was enough to sink her.
She groped for the inflator hose, pushed the button, let the air hiss out. The BC got looser, impossibly big on her. As she tugged at the straps, trying to correct the problem, she started to sink.
Underwater, there was a brief layer of dark brown light, like beef bouillon, and then complete black.
She felt herself starting to hyperventilate, her breathing turning to gasps. She tried to remember what to do. Exhale fully-get the air out, let the carbon dioxide kick in, make her body realize she needed a deeper inhale.
She counted, tried to do chi kung breathing. She told herself this was no different than abovewater meditation, an idea that had almost worked for her in Hawaii. Almost. It was like standing up on a galloping horse- telling yourself it was no different than on steady ground.
She couldn't tell if she was still sinking.
She used her arms, swept them up. Finally, her right leg crumpled against something hard, pain flared, and her knee stopped her descent on what must've been a shelf of rock. She felt it with her hands-a mossy surface, furry and cold.
All right, she thought. I'm at the bottom. Now what?
She felt along the rock, completely blind. Nothing.
She moved down, toward a lower place-mud. She put her hands into the stuff and felt a soda can, a slimy branch, rocks.
What the hell was she doing? Which way was the shore?
She half crawled, half swam along the bottom.
Something brushed against her face? she flinched. Something nipped the top of her ear.
Fish, she told herself. Just fish.
She swept one hand in front of her in an arc, used the other to pull herself along.
And then she brushed neoprene-a gloved human hand. She lurched backward, almost lost the regulator out of her mouth. She clamped down hard with her teeth, forced herself back toward Lopez.
She felt his fingers again, his wrist, and pulled herself toward him.
She felt along his face for the regulator manifold, panicked for a moment until she felt the weak trickle of bubbles that marked his exhale. How could anyone breathe that slowly?
Now what? The weights. She'd never get him to the surface unless those came off.
She started groping around his chest-feeling the cold squares of lead, looking for a catch. There seemed to be a million damn weights, and none of them seemed connected. Just when she'd found the first buckle, Lopez began to put his hands on her, feeling her as if she were a rock or a sculpture for the blind.
Men, Maia thought. You'd better be drugged out of your mind, Detective.
She loosened the first belt, got it off his chest, heard the underwater plink plink as it hit rock at the bottom. She started looking for the second catch when Lopez's hands groped up her shoulders and found her neck. He started to squeeze.
Maia pushed herself away, fought to control her panic.
She breathed several times very slowly, listening to the exhales explode around her.
All right. So now he's trying to kill me. He's weak. Ignore it.
She got next to him again, and again he started working his hands up her body toward her neck.
She founded the second catch, lost it, found it again. It was stuck on something-the strap of the air tank maybe. She tugged.
Lopez's fingers found her throat, started to choke her. His grip was light, palsied, but his thumbs still found her trachea, made her want to gag. She pushed his hands away, went back to work.
The second belt was off his chest. Now just the ones around his waist. These are supposed to be easy latches, she remembered, for quick removal. Yeah, right.
Lopez kept strangling her. She wrestled the third belt off, groped for the final one, tried not to gag.
She imagined her grandmother in China, learning the news of Maia's death-strangled underwater by a drugged man who was feeling her body. Drowned in the beercanpolluted muck under an American restaurant. Maia tried to think how she could translate that into Mandarin and make it sound dignified-something that would save face for the family. She couldn't think of a way.
The last belt came loose.
She tugged at Lopez, trying to get him to move.
Then she realized it was no use. She would have to let the BC do the work.
Could she ascend straight up? She didn't know. Had no clue how deep she was. But then she felt her own air starting to thin- the first sign that she had a few breaths left at most. She had no choice. She wrapped one arm around Lopez's waist, used her other hand to hit the BC inflator and let it inflate all the way.
Suddenly she felt as if her whole chest was in one big blood pressure tester. The vest tightened, expanded with a rush of sound, and she and Lopez were rising, too slowly.
Lopez's hand touched her regulator, yanked it out of her mouth.
She clenched her teeth-tried to find the backup onehanded. No luck.
She inhaled a mouthful of water just as she broke the surface, coughing up half the lake.
Her entire body was shaking. She kicked and paddled with her one free hand, cursing at Lopez.
Sirens everywhere. She was at the corner of the restaurant. There were smeary lights on the shore-blinking red and blue.
She yelled for help.
Then two men in uniforms were coming for her-paramedics, splashing into the water, wading out to meet her.
And when she collapsed on the shore, staring up at the stars, more men moved around her, pulling at her straps, trying to loosen her equipment, and she tried not to tremble.
She pushed back the sensations of the water-the cold brown light, the mossy shelves of rock, the hiss of her own breath through the regulator.
As the lump formed in her throat, she spoke to herself silently, thinking the words in Mandarin so that she might believe them: They will not see me cry. They will not see me cry.
