Tomlinson made an
Before the rock slide, he and the boy had gotten pretty good at verbal communication despite clinching regulators between their teeth. In Tomlinson’s experience as a diver, not many people could do it. Communication with a chunk of rubber in one’s mouth required mental skills that bordered on the telepathic. Ford refused to attempt it, but Will Chaser was a natural.
The boy spoke to Tomlinson now, saying, “Ooh . . . oou . . . UHHAYE?” Will might have been asking,
Tomlinson responded, “’Ucking . . . linded . . . meee!”
Will apologized, saying, “Aww-reee,” as the beam of light angled downward into blackness. Then Tomlinson heard the teen reprimand himself. “’Ucking id-ot! ’Uck-meee!”
The kid was mad at himself, no doubt, but Tomlinson was heartened by this reaffirmation of Will’s ability to translate vocal rhythms into words. The teen obviously possessed heightened powers of perception. From the moment of their first meeting, Tomlinson had sensed that boy was different—
Tomlinson found Will’s arm again, then squeezed the boy’s hand, communicating,
Tomlinson found his own flashlight and spoke three gurgled words—
Visibility was zero. All Tomlinson could see was a universe of swirling silt, the granules colliding against his face mask. Plus, his eyeballs were still throbbing from the recent light explosion.
He closed his eyes, giving himself time to recover, as he traced a hose to his console, then held the console close to his mask. Its two small instruments—a dive computer with depth gauge and a pressure gauge—were luminous green, but he still had trouble seeing the numbers because the silt was so thick.
Finally, though, he read:
Now he was sure of what had happened. The limestone floor had collapsed beneath them, but not far. The good news was, he had more than half a bottle of air remaining. For Tomlinson, that meant more than thirty minutes of bottom time. And only eighteen feet beneath the surface! He felt the irrational urge to launch his body upward, through the rock. He yearned for sunlight. The sky was so damn close!
Visibility seemed to be improving, but too slowly for his mood, so he switched off the light and used his hands to explore the rock chamber. His fingers touched plates of limestone and oversized oyster shells that he knew were fossilized—he’d seen a bunch of prehistoric oyster remnants earlier on the bottom of the lake.
A massive rock seemed to cover the chamber, which explained why they hadn’t been crushed by rubble. The walls were composed of rock and loose sand, which wasn’t a comforting thing to discover. The whole damn place could come crashing down at any moment. Overall, the space wasn’t much larger than a shipping crate, but it was an improvement over where they’d been.
Tomlinson squeezed the boy’s shoulder to reassure him, then sat back, resting one shoulder against the rocks. They weren’t free, but they were in a better position to dig themselves out—as long as they didn’t disturb some weight-bearing slab and get themselves killed when the ceiling collapsed.
Tomlinson calmed himself by reviewing the facts. He and Will both had miniature emergency canisters holstered next to their primary tanks. Redundancy air systems—or “bailout bottles,” as they were called. Tomlinson’s canister, which had SPARE AIR stenciled on the side, was good for only a couple of minutes. But Will’s pony bottle was twice as big—thirteen cubic feet of additional air. That was Ford’s idea, of course, the obsessive safety freak.
Tomlinson remembered rolling his eyes at the man as he had listened, impatiently, to the predive checklist. Later, if Ford gave him a ration of crap about the way he had behaved, no problem. Well-deserved—if they survived.
Tomlinson guessed that Will’s spare bottle was probably good for ten minutes of additional bottom time. Question was, how much air did Will have remaining in his primary tank?
Tomlinson reached until he found the boy’s shoulder. He felt around until he located the hoses, then the dual gauges on Will’s BC. He pulled the gauges close to his face. The numbers were encouraging.
Most novice divers were air gluttons. Not Will. The kid had steel woven into his heart—not surprising, after what he had survived only a few weeks before.
Tomlinson decided to try his flashlight again, so he turned it on, and shined it toward his feet.
Visibility had improved. He could see his own toes, long and thin, and he could discern the vague shape of Will’s legs next to him. A slow current was siphoning the silt downward, clearing the water.
An underground river, Tomlinson guessed, flowed beneath them. It was pulling water toward the sea.
It was still too murky to use his dive slate to communicate with the boy, but it would soon be an option. He patted Will’s arm, switched off his light and considered a few other reassuring facts as he rested.
Arlis Futch’s truck was loaded with gear. Some of it was safety backup stuff—Ford again—but Arlis had also packed equipment they would need to begin salvage work, if they actually found Batista’s plane.
There were three or four extra bottles of air and at least two spare regulators. There was an inflatable lift for muling heavy objects to the surface and there was a generator rigged with a compressor pump and hose, used to jet-wash through sand and rocks. It was a sort of reverse-suction dredge. Arlis had built it in his shop—useful for setting pilings at marinas or blasting sand away to expose gold coins.
That’s what they needed, the jet dredge. The hose was banded to a length of half-inch PVC pipe. It wouldn’t be easy for one man to use alone, but Ford could manage. Arlis would have to stay onshore to monitor the generator and the pump intake.
Would Ford think of the dredge?
Of course he would.
Tomlinson’s thoughts were interrupted by a distinctive sound.
Tomlinson held his breath, listening. He heard it again:
It was Ford, signaling them. He was using his knife to tap on something—a rock, possibly—Tomlinson could picture it. The sound seemed to come from beneath them.
Without prompting, Will began banging on his air tank in reply, using something metallic, and Tomlinson joined him, using his flashlight. So Ford would know they were both responding, Tomlinson added a signature rhythm—
It was the knock he sometimes used before entering the lab.
Ford responded, sounding closer.
Tomlinson was grinning. He decided to try some basic Morse code abbreviations before using code to remind Ford about the jet dredge. He also wanted to communicate that they had only about twenty minutes of air left.
Banging the flashlight against his tank, Tomlinson signaled several times, but Ford’s silence told him he didn’t understand, which was frustrating. He tried again. Same result.
Tomlinson thought,
Morse code wasn’t working, and the sound of Will’s breathing was as steady and insistent as a ticking clock. Tomlinson tried once again to communicate that they now had only nineteen minutes of air left and clanged much harder, aluminum flashlight against aluminum tank. He rang the bell notes in a methodical way, hoping Ford would
