Thunder Point

behind him. Dillon unstrapped his jacket, slipped out of it and Carney reached down and pulled jacket and tank on board. Dillon joined him a moment later.

Carney busied himself clipping fresh tanks to the jackets and went and pulled in the anchor. Dillon put a towel over his shoulders and lit a cigarette. “The reef shark,” he said. “Does that happen often?”

“Not really,” Carney said.

“Enough to give some people a heart attack.”

“I’ve been diving for years,” Carney told him, “and I’ve never found sharks a problem.”

“Not even a great white?”

“How often would you see one of those? No, nurse sharks in the main and they’re no problem. Around here, reef sharks now and then or lemon sharks. Sure, they could be a problem, but hardly ever. We’re big and they’re big and they just want to keep out of the way. Having said that, did you enjoy the dive?”

“It was fine.” Dillon shrugged.

“Which means you’d like a little more excitement.” Carney started the engine. “Okay, let’s go for one of my big boy dives,” and he gunned the engine and took the Privateer out into open water.

They actually passed at some distance Maria Blanco still at anchor off Paradise Beach, and Guerra was in the deckhouse, scanning the area with binoculars. He recognized the boat and told Captain Serra, who examined the chart and then took a book on dive sites in the Virgin Islands from a drawer in the chart table.

“Keep watching,” he told Guerra and leafed through.

“They’ve anchored,” Guerra told him, “and run up the dive flag.”

“Carval Rock,” Serra said. “That’s where they’re diving.”

At that moment Algaro came in and held the door open for Santiago, who was wearing a blue blazer and a Captain’s cap, a gold rim to the peak. “What’s happening?”

“Carney and Dillon are diving out there, Senor.” Serra indicated the spot and gave Santiago the binoculars.

Santiago could just see the two men moving in the stern of Privateer. He said, “That couldn’t be the site, could it?”

“No way, Senor,” Serra told him. “It’s a difficult place to dive, but hundreds of dives are made there every year.”

“Never mind,” Santiago said. “Put the launch in the water. We’ll go and have a look. We’ll see what these two divers of yours, Noval and Pinto, can do.”

“Very well, Senor, I’ll get things moving,” and Serra went out followed by Guerra.

Algaro said, “You wish me to come too, Senor?”

“Why not?” Santiago said. “Even if Dillon sees you it doesn’t matter. He knows you exist.”

The rock was magnificent, rising up out of a very turbulent sea, birds of every kind perched up there on the ridge, gulls descending in slow motion in the heavy wind.

“Carval Rock,” Carney said. “This is rated an advanced dive. Descends to about eighty or so feet. There’s the wreck of a Cessna over on the other side that crashed a few years back. There are some nice ravines, fissures, one or two short tunnels and wonderful rock and coral cliffs. The problem is the current. Caused by tidal movement through the Pillsbury Sound.”

“How strong?” Dillon asked as he fastened his weight belt.

“One or two knots is fairly common. Above two knots is unswimmable.” He looked over and shook his head. “And I’d say it’s three knots today.”

Dillon lifted his jacket and tank on to the thwart and put it on himself. “Sounds as if it could be interesting.”

“Your funeral.”

Carney got his own gear on and Dillon turned to lean over and wash out his mask and saw a white launch approaching. “We’re going to have company.”

Carney turned to look. “I doubt it. No dive master I know would take his people down in this current today, he’d go somewhere easier.”

The swells were huge now, the Privateer bucking up and down on the anchor line. Dillon went over, paused to check his air supply and started down to what looked like a dense forest below. He paused on the bottom, waiting until Carney had reached him, beckoned and turned toward the rock. Dillon followed, amazed at the strength of the current pushing against him, was aware of a stream of white bubbles over to his left and saw an anchor descend.

On the launch, Santiago sat in the wheelhouse while Serra went to the prow and dropped the anchor. Algaro was helping Noval and Pinto into their diving equipment.

Serra said finally, “They are ready to go, Senor, what are your orders?”

“Tell them to just have a look around,” Santiago said. “No trouble. Leave Carney and Dillon alone.”

“As you say, Senor.”

The two divers were sitting together on the port side. Serra nodded and together they went over backwards into the water.

Dillon followed Carney with increasing difficulty because of the strength of the current up across rock and coral, following a deep channel that led through to the other side of the rocks. The force was quite tremendous and Carney was down on his belly pulling himself through with gloved hands, reaching for one handhold after another, and Dillon went after him, the other man’s fins just three or four feet in front of him.

There was a kind of threshold. Carney was motionless for a while and then passed through, and Dillon had the same problem, faced with a kind of wall of pressure. He clawed at the rocks with agonizing slowness, foot by foot, and suddenly was through and into another world.

The surface was fifty feet above him and as he surged forward, he found himself in the middle of a school of tarpon at least four feet in length. There were yellow tail snappers, horse-eyed jacks, bonita, king mackerel and barracuda, some of them five feet long.

Carney plunged down to the other side, the rock face falling below, and Dillon followed him. They closed together and Dillon was aware of the current as they turned and saw Noval and Pinto trying to come through the cut. Noval almost made it, then lost his grip and was pushed into Pinto and they disappeared back to the other side.

Carney moved on and Dillon followed, down to seventy-five feet, and the current took them now in a fierce three-knot riptide that bounced them along the front of the wall in an upright position. They were surrounded by clouds of silversides, flying through space, the ultimate dream, and Dillon had never felt so excited. It seemed to go on forever, and then the current slackened and Carney was using his fins now and climbing.

Dillon followed through a deep ravine that led into another, waterlike black glass, checked his computer and was surprised to find that they had been under for twenty-five minutes. They moved away from the rock itself now, only three or four feet above the forest of the seabed, and came to a line and anchor. Carney paused to examine it, then turned and shook his head, moving on toward the left, finally arriving at their own anchor. They went up slowly, leaving the line at fifteen feet and swimming to one side of the boat, surfacing at the keel.

Carney reached down to take Dillon’s tank and the Irishman got a foot in the tiny ladder and pulled himself up and over the stern. He felt totally exhilarated, unzipped his diving suit and pulled it off as Carney stowed their tanks.

“Bloody marvelous.”

Carney smiled. “It wasn’t bad, was it?”

He turned and looked across at the launch which was anchored over on the port side, swinging on its anchor chain in the heavy sea. Dillon said, “I wonder what happened to the two divers we saw trying to get through the cut?”

“They couldn’t make it, I guess, that was rough duty down there.” The launch swung round, exposing the stern. “That’s the Maria Blanco’s launch,” Carney added.