Barracuda Page 12

  “I heard that they hired a local fisherman to take them back to the wreck,” Micko warned.

  “We’ll check that out tomorrow morning,” Steve promised.

  Micko went back to the hotel and decided to order room service while he checked his dive gear. Seven a.m. comes mighty early, he thought. He checked his dive computers, air hoses, and regulators while chewing on a sirloin cheeseburger. He turned in early, but instead of a restful sleep, he dreamed of murder and mayhem.

  The next morning at six thirty Micko entered the dive shop carrying his dive gear. Steve was already in the shop signing out the scuba tanks they would use. Micko was used to diving with 80 cu aluminum tanks, but this resort preferred the use 103 cu steel tanks. They held more air, so they were actually safer and gave better bottom time.

  “Mara is already in the boat. He’s our captain today. Grab your tank and let’s go,” Steve commanded.

  “Okey dokey,” Micko replied.

  Steve threw a scuba tank onto his right shoulder and grabbed his dive bag. Micko flinched as he did the same. These tanks were a hell of a lot heavier than the aluminum ones. But at least Steve was not giving him the VIP treatment, and Micko was pleased. He was not fond of special favors—except for the tremendous suite he’d been given.

  He placed his gear on board and immediately began to set up his regulator, tank, and BC vest. Steve was talking with Mara, but he discreetly watched Micko’s every move. All good dive masters did this to observe whether the divers know their gear and how to properly set it up. Steve was content that this cop appeared to know what he was doing.

  Captain Mara had a small mongrel dog that accompanied him on all his boating trips. One-Eyed Jack was as ugly as he was blind, and he actually did only have one eye. The poor animal had been severely injured when Mara took him in a few years earlier. No one really knew what had happened to him, but he hopped around on three legs, had a chewed up ear, and was missing an eye.

  One-Eyed Jack introduced himself to Micko by humping his leg.

  “Horny dog you’ve got there, Captain,” Micko teased.

  “He may be horny and ugly, but he’s got a great sense of smell,” the captain retorted. “That comes in real handy when a flash storm cuts visibility to zero. Jack here can smell land and steer me toward a safe harbor, so let him hump you a little.” Mara smiled, pleased as the cop playfully rubbed Jack’s muzzle.

  Steve set up his own gear and gave Micko the regular pre-dive speech, including their dive profile. He said, “After I give the diver down signal, follow me to the flight deck and then give me the okay sign. Then I want to drop over the port side and check the hatchway those stupid brothers were trying to remove. Just follow me and keep an eye on your air supply. If you run below fifteen hundred pounds, let me know. Otherwise, just follow me during the dive and to each decompression station.”

  “All right, Kemo Sabe,” Micko joked.

  “How much lead do you need?” Steve asked.

  “Four pounds should do it.”

  “Four pounds? Are you sure that’s all you need?” Steve asked, doubtful.

  “That’s all I need, Steve.”

  “I don’t want you floating to the surface because you can’t stay down. You’ll ruin your dive, not to mention mine.”

  “Listen, Steve, this is not my first rodeo. I dive with a dive skin that has zero floatation, and the tanks are made out of steel. I normally wear eight pounds with an 80 cu aluminum tank, so I think a four-pound adjustment is fair,” Micko returned.

  “We’ll see,” Steve proclaimed.

  Micko opened his dive bag and removed his weight belt. He preferred the kind that allowed him to unzip the pouch, add the lead, and then re-zip the belt. It was much faster than the traditional belt that forced him to slide the weights on either side of the belt and then wrestle to fasten them into place. It took thirty seconds to do. Micko already had his dive suit on, so he buckled the weight belt around his waist and cinched it. Next he took out his dive mask and attached it to his BC vest. Finally, he took out his fins.

  Micko loved his force fins. Traditional fins were long and quite clumsy, and most divers believed that bigger was better when it came to fins. Micko preferred the ease of application both putting on and taking off his much shorter fins. Also, walking was so much easier. Any diver who attempted to walk on the slippery deck of a cattle boat cluttered with dive gear and rolling on the high seas knew how clumsy long fins were.

  When Steve saw Micko unpack and arrange his gear and then remove his fins, he finally determined that this cop knew what he was doing. Steve had the same fins and the same low profile dive mask. Years of rough diving often led a diver to change gear from traditional to functional.

  Mara had only been driving the boat for ten minutes when Steve yelled, “Gear up! We’re almost there!”

  Micko slipped his arms into his BC vest, spit into his mask, and rubbed the spittle around the lens to prevent fogging before rinsing it with his water bottle. He placed the mask on his face and easily glided his feet into his fins. Steve observed this quick efficient movement with approval. Too often he had to help divers gear up in a laborious effort of tedious maneuvers, so it was a pleasure watching a diver who wasn’t helpless.

  Mara positioned the Lily II so that Steve could attach the boat to the mooring line. Once that was completed, Mara killed the engine, and they listed slowly and silently on a lagoon as flat as glass. The sunrise was gorgeous, and the three speechlessly watched nature’s silent movie.

  “Too bad we can’t just sit here all day watching the sunrise,” Steve joked.

  “Let’s get wet,” Micko cried.

  Steve pulled on his gear in an effortless manner and said, “Backward roll.”

  Micko placed his regulator into his mouth and rolled backward off the boat. The Lily II was a smaller boat that the Lily I, and it didn’t have a roll-down hammerhead gate. Divers rolled backward over the sides to enter the water and climbed up a pair of side ladders.

  Micko gave the diver okay signal and floated on the surface as Steve readied himself for a backward water entry. Soon the two divers were floating in the water face to face.

  Steve slipped under the warm water first and Micko followed. The pair swam to the mooring line and followed it down into the light blue water. Micko could see the outline of the huge aircraft carrier below as he slowly descended into the depths. The water remained warm and crystal clear as he neared the USS Saratoga’s bridge. The huge antennas resembled a massive elk horn suspended above the gigantic artificial reef. He noticed that a carpet of netting draped the bridge antennas like and old discarded rug.

  Numerous species of fish darted about the carpet canopy like children playing a game of tag. Suddenly, a large school of amber jacks passed the divers like a soundless freight train. Micko was silently counting the huge fish when they unexpectedly veered into the canopy protecting the smaller, playful fish. Micko and Steve were mere feet away from the explosion of this feeding frenzy. What made this massacre so eerie was the lack of noise. Big fish ate little fish in a heated rush, and then the silent freight train continued its voyage into the far ends of the lagoon.

  Both Steve and Micko were excitedly watching the slaughter, which lasted only a few minutes, as they simultaneously touched down on the carrier’s enormous eight-hundred-eighty-foot flight deck. Once the jacks had departed, the divers checked their gauges and gave each other the diver’s okay sign.

  Steve motioned for Micko to follow him over to the port side of the ship, but Micko waved him off, pointing in the direction behind Steve, who turned around to see what had concerned him. The flight deck fifty feet behind them was littered with the carcasses of gray reef sharks. The pair slowly swam over to the bodies to investigate. Each shark showed slight signs of decay with small fish and crabs savoring the free meal. Micko figured that larger fish were afraid of becoming prey as well, so they were keeping their distance.

  He was poking at one corpse when he hear
d Steve yelling through his regulator. Steve looked at Micko and then pointed to the dead shark’s missing pectoral fin. Micko swam over to take a closer look, noticing that the fin appeared to have been cut off clean with a sharp knife. He knew that Japanese fishermen used long lines and caught thousands of sharks. Then they cut off the fins and threw the sharks overboard. This conduct was illegal, but the shark fins brought in a huge profit to the Japanese fishermen.

  Still… Something’s wrong here, Micko thought. Every shark was only missing one or two random fins. The fishermen would have removed every fin if they were to blame. Micko and Steve worked their way through the shark battlefield, perplexed by the scene.

  Looking at Steve, Micko shrugged. What the hell happened here?

  Steve shrugged back. I don’t know. He pointed at his gauges and motioned for Micko to follow him to the lower level of the ship so they could check on the hatchway that the Aussie brothers had tried to remove.

  Swimming effortlessly to the port side of the deck, Steve glided over the transom and down, with Micko in close pursuit. As they dove further into the depths, the light faded and the colors disappeared with only dark hues of brown, gray, and black visible. Micko noticed how the ship’s massive hull had crushed itself, trapping the cargo in a watery grave. Now he knew why the brothers had wanted to create an entry, but he also knew of the dangers and why Steve was so concerned.

  They were both diving headfirst toward the lower level when Micko noticed the hatchway door lying in the sand far below. He grabbed Steve’s fin and pointed to the inanimate object lying near the keel. Seeing the hatch, Steve swam faster toward the opening where it belonged. Micko shone the beams of his powerful flashlight into the orifice, only to see a wall of dangerous tentacles. Steve tapped him on the shoulder and pointed his light beam at a white line tied off at one of the portholes, running deep into the dark room. Instantly, Micko knew what the brothers had done. They had penetrated the wreck with a wreck reel, but it was still attached. That meant the odds were that they had never exited.

  Steve motioned to Micko that he was going to enter the hole, follow the wreck line in, and use it as a guide to return. Micko shook his head emphatically no, but before he could do anything, Steve slipped through the hatch with his flashlight in his left hand and the wreck line in his right. Micko watched him go through and followed two body lengths behind. They both stayed close to the floor to avoid the dangling fingers of death from above.

  There was always something awe-inspiring about entering the bowels of a shipwreck. All fear and common sense dissolved into the water surrounding the diver. The excitement of penetrating such a famous graveyard was intoxicating. Micko felt the same adrenaline rush as when he was tracking a murder suspect. He suddenly felt a wave of self-confidence wash over him. Physically, he was still inadequate, but emotionally, he was slowly returning back to his bulldog status.

  He quickly gazed at his gauges and was satisfied that he could stay down at least another five minutes before beginning the tedious decompression to the surface. He let the beam of his flashlight play from side to side as he marveled at the huge room they had entered.

  Shortly thereafter, Micko looked behind him to see if the opening was still visible. Even though they had the wreck line as a lifeline out, he did not want to lose sight of their exit. He saw that the low, ambient light was enough to illuminate the exit doorway, and his anxiety level dropped a notch.

  Suddenly, Steve sprinted past him in a flurry of wild kicks that swirled sediment like a small, blinding tornado. Micko froze as he came close to panicking. The brown dust-like sediment covered the floor, the ceiling, and all the loose hanging cables. It was snowing sediment, and his visibility dropped to zero. Don’t panic! he kept saying to himself. You have time, so just relax. Find the line, turn around, and swim out of the maze.

  Micko stayed still for a few moments until the silt began to resettle on the floor. He shone his light into the muck until he located the white line. He was just about to carefully turn around and swim out of the cargo hold when he spotted a fin a few feet away. He thought it had to be Steve’s, so he swam over to retrieve it, figuring Steve had bolted out because he was either low on air or he was getting narced. That was the only reason an experienced diver like Steve would race out so fast and silt out the visibility.

  Micko swam over to the fin and grabbed it. Then he shone his light on his gauges. Still plenty of time if I exit now, he thought. His light beam illuminated the fin and he noticed that it was lime green. Steve had been wearing black force fins just like his. With an uneasy feeling, he wondered who belonged to the green fins. He played his light beam in wide circles before him and then straight up over his head.

  He stared for what seemed like hours, but it must have only been a few seconds. His brain was saturated with nitrogen and was working slowly. What is that thing suspended from the ceiling? He held his light beam on the object, but his brain couldn’t read what his eyes were telling it. Suddenly, his brain understood as Micko watched a small colorful wrasse swim out of Bill’s left eye socket and up into his nasal cavity. Like a bolt of lightning, Micko realized what he was seeing. Directly above him, Bill was restrained by overhanging debris. His body was grotesquely bloated, and his half-eaten tongue protruded from his purple lips. His right eye dangled out of its socket by a tendon, his right ear was completely eaten away, as were his fingers. Macabre fascination kept Micko’s eyes riveted to this ghastly scene until he snapped back to reality, and to his utter amazement, he calmly swam out of the room and joined Steve at the first decompression stop.

  Mara had the decompression gear in place, and it was a welcome sight. The Lily II was equipped with a three-stage underwater trapeze of aluminum bars that dangled at various depths and delivered a seventy-five percent oxygen mixture for quicker and more reliable decompression.

  When Micko paired up with Steve, he gave Steve the diver okay sign, and Steve returned it. Micko could see that Steve was a bit shaken, but he was all right.

  Micko had plenty of time to think while he did his decompression hangs. He figured that the two brothers had probably either gotten lost in the wreck or had gotten tangled and run out of air. The resort would have to launch a recovery effort to retrieve the bodies and ship them home to Australia, not very good publicity just as they were about to have their grand opening.

  ***

  It was hovering in the shadows close to the north wall of the passageway. This was where the gray sharks entered and exited the lagoon from the ocean. It knew It had delivered a devastating blow to the large family of sharks, and It was willing to send another message to them to never return to Its atoll. It became fanatically possessive of everything in Its new domain, waiting in the shadows until the band of sharks returned. It was disgusted by the bravado of the inferior creatures and launched another killer attack. Soon a dozen sharks were spiraling out of control with damaged or missing fins. The rest retreated in great haste as It lunched on the maimed sharks that littered the passage floor. Without their fins, the sharks were helpless to defend themselves. It ate until It was satiated and left the remaining sharks to twitch and swim in never-ending circles until they either drowned or became prey themselves. It had just changed the hierarchy of the food chain in Bikini Atoll.

  8

  Flacka was setting up the pool bar in anticipation of a busy day. The grand opening festivities had drawn a huge crowd, and she was checking her stock of liquors and looking at her favorite CDs, hoping they might keep the crowd cheerful. She held her Righteous Brothers CD and silently smiled. It was one of her favorites, and she knew that the New York cop would drop by again, so she placed it amongst the day’s picks.

  Flacka had just made an inventory of bottles that needed replacing from the hotel when Tanya appeared, walking with a graceful yet determined stride. Flacka did not like or trust Tanya.

  “Good morning, Flacka,” the Russian greeted her.

  “Mornin’,” Flacka returned.


  “How are things going?”

  “Fine,” Flacka answered, uninterested.

  “I hear you had an interesting customer yesterday. That detective seems pretty inquisitive. What did you two talk about?”

  Flacka didn’t like the tone of Tanya’s voice. The question was more of a demand than a curiosity.

  “We talked about music.”

  Flacka’s short answers infuriated Tanya, but she put on her happy face and asked, “Do you like working here, Flacka?”

  A shadow of fear crossed Flacka’s face as she carefully answered, “Yes.”

  “Then you had better cooperate with me or I will have you fired, and the management here can cause many problems for you and your family.”

  Flacka knew that Tanya’s threat was real. Many an islander had gone missing after crossing paths with the Russians and Japanese.

  “Please, I don’t want any trouble,” she stammered.

  “Then tell me everything that cop talked to you about and why he’s here,” Tanya growled.

  Tanya spent the next hour learning Micko’s likes and dislikes in women, beer, music, etc. Bartenders were always great sources of information, and Tanya pumped Flacka for all she was worth. She was devising a scheme to find out why that cop was really there on Shark Alley Island.

  ***

  Steve motioned to Micko that it was time to surface, but Micko shook his head and stuck up three fingers, indicating that he would hang for another three minutes. Steve nodded in acknowledgment and slowly ascended the final ten feet to the Lily II.

  Micko hung suspended in the warm, clear waters of the idyllic paradise, wondering what mayhem lay ahead. He had spent just one day on the island and he was aware of the scientists’ kidnapping and possibly murder, dead divers, strong-arm tactics by the resort managers, rebel dissidents, and a group of dead sharks killed by unknown means. He silently thanked the Goldberg sisters for pushing him into this trip that helped him regain his lost confidence. He was sure that he would need it in the coming days.