I said, “Nothing’s going to change the fact that my friends are dead. When I get back, I’ll call the police. They’ll have to notify the property owner. Do you see where I’m headed with this?”
King rolled his eyes as Perry took a step closer to hear, but not too close.
I said, “Police divers are going to see what’s down there. They’ll see the wreck. They’re bound to see a few coins even after the rockslide. Or maybe a gold bar.”
Perry whispered, “I get it now. Jesus Christ.”
I said, “At least one of you has some brains.”
“And they’ll tell the property owner,” Perry finished.
“They’re required by law to inform the owner,” I said. I didn’t know if that was true, but it sounded plausible.
I had been busy rigging a tank and regulator. Now I looked from the lake to the Gulf horizon, where the sky was orchid streaked. I couldn’t remember ever being so eager for nightfall. “What’s a few hours matter?” I said. “It’s not going to bring my friends back.”
That was true, and I felt a dizzying vertigo as I spoke the words. I felt as if I was viewing the area from above, descending so fast into the reality of what had happened, my belly felt hollow, like falling through a trapdoor.
Perry believed me. He wanted King to believe, too. After all, King had to go in the water, not him.
“We got what’s called a window of opportunity,” Perry told him. “It’s the damn chance of a lifetime! But shit, dude, it’s gonna be too dark to see anything.” He had followed my gaze to the horizon, watching the sun inflate, molten orange, as it absorbed light from an invading darkness. “But the dude’s got underwater lights, right? See there, King”—Perry knelt by the canvas bag—“he’s got three . . . four flashlights. Plenty of lights, plus this thing.”
Perry stood. In one hand he held a broad-plated dive mask made of aluminum, black rubber and tempered glass. The front of the mask was fitted with a mounting rail. In the other hand Perry held a night vision monocular that was capped on both ends to protect the lenses.
It was an underwater night vision system made for me in Arizona by NAVISYS Inc., a manufacturer that specializes in tactical equipment.
Perry picked up the rifle, and gave me ten yards of clearance, as he carried the mask and monocular close enough for King to see.
King was in the middle of saying, “I’m not going into that goddamn water this late. You can forget about it!,” but he stopped talking when he got a look at Perry’s outstretched hand. The monocular was palm sized, tubular and precisely milled. The mask was as solid and well constructed as a copper diving helmet. It was a rare and expensive piece of equipage.
Instead of convincing King, though, the dive mask only made him more suspicious of me. I could read it in his expression. Maybe he had read about underwater night vision systems in some pseudomercenary magazine. Magazines like that would be popular in prison libraries.
Staring at me, King said, “Where the hell did you get something like this? If you wear this thing, you don’t even need a flashlight. Does it work?”
For the first time in a long while, I smiled. “It works.”
“You’re shitting me! How’d you get it? You’d need a special license to own something like this.
But he didn’t get a chance to press the issue. That’s when Arlis decided to start the truck. We all heard the roar of the revving diesel, then the sound of tires throwing mud as Arlis shifted the truck into reverse.
King and Perry stood frozen for a long second as we watched the truck lurch backward. The vehicle stopped, and there was the sound of Arlis shifting gears again. Because his feet were bound, though, he was having trouble using the clutch and the accelerator. The truck lurched forward, bucking like a horse. For a moment, I thought he was going to make it . . . But then the engine stalled.
By the time Arlis got the truck started again and into first gear, Perry had the Winchester up.
I was midstride, lunging toward the man, when he fired the first of three fast rounds.
FOURTEEN
WHEN THE TEENAGER, WILL CHASER, DROPPED HIS emergency air bottle, it was several seconds before Tomlinson noticed that the boy was in trouble.
Tomlinson was at the top of the chamber, using his flashlight to peer through a hole into a small room that reminded him of a snow globe—one of those little glass balls with a snowman inside or a Christmas tree next to a cake-icing chalet.
Instead of a miniature Swiss house, though, the room contained what even from a distance Tomlinson could see were man-made artifacts. There was pottery. Lots of broken shards, but a whole bowl, too. The pottery possessed an ancient Mayan curvature.
Was that a flint spear point?
Yes. There were several Indian points, plus what looked like carved fishhooks. And . . . he saw splinters of bone. There were bones scattered everywhere, and what might have been the carapace from a long-dead turtle.
That’s how clear the water was above them.
Into Tomlinson’s mind came an image. Shake the rock room and snow—or silt, in this case—would swirl in an enclosed universe that was as round and rough as a geode, forever insulated from the outside world. Added to the image were the flint artifacts. People had lived in this room, but then time had stopped when the earth had changed, causing the sea level to rise.
Tomlinson liked the thought of that. It redirected his attention from the horror of their predicament. The hole he was looking through was small, no wider than his own thigh. By wedging the flashlight close to his ear, though, he could fit his faceplate into the opening and see the far side of the room, where flint and bones and pottery were scattered and where small stalactites dripped from the ceiling.
That darkness would soon claim him, Tomlinson suspected. Probably within a very few minutes unless Ford pulled off a miracle. The man was capable of doing just that, although Ford would have been the last to believe it. But even if the darkness didn’t claim Tomlinson now, it soon would . . . So why did the timing matter?
As Tomlinson exhaled, he noted the sound and shape of his own exhaust bubbles. The bubbles expanded into silver oblong vessels, then burst into a star scape of smaller bubbles that scattered along the rock ceiling seeking corridors of ascent.
Watching the bubbles, Tomlinson felt a welling, peaceful euphoria. Transition . . . transformation . . . reformation. It was all right there, the whole human enchilada, inches from his own eyes.
It was kinda nice. Yeah, nice. No . . . it was
The feeling wasn’t anything like some of the more familiar sensations that Tomlinson treasured. For instance, the warming kick of a rum shooter after sex on a rainy summer night. Yet what he was now experiencing, this strange sense of perfection, was in its way more comforting. His end was near—this portion of the journey, anyway. Indeed, what did the timing matter?
Tomlinson reminded himself,
Which is when Tomlinson turned and shined the flashlight to check on Will and saw the kid fighting like a madman trying to swim toward the bottom of the chamber. Tomlinson noted that the kid was also trying to free the little Spare Air bottle from the D ring on his vest. Will’s regulator was flailing behind him as he battled toward the bottom, and Tomlinson thought,
Tomlinson pivoted to swim after the boy as Will finally got the Spare Air bottle loose. But the thing somehow went tumbling from his hand and spiraled toward the sand below, where, Tomlinson could see, the larger reserve canister lying eight feet beneath them.
How the hell had Will managed to drop them both? It was a pointless question, and Tomlinson swam harder
